Better Than Chocolate

Panic began to simmer inside her. She set the file on the cabinet and checked the house file, thinking maybe Waldo had mixed things up. No life insurance policy. She moved to the desk, pawing through the scattered papers piled on top. A past-due notice for Waldo’s Beemer payment made her swallow hard but didn’t distract her from her search. It had to be here somewhere.

Three hours and two more cups of coffee later, she found a letter from the insurance company. She picked it up and began to read.

Words jumped out and slapped her. Due to nonpayment…policy…canceled.

There had to be some mistake. She’d call the insurance company first thing in the morning and straighten this all out.

Oh, Lord, please let there be some mistake.

But there wasn’t. No matter how many superiors Muriel spoke to the following morning, no matter how much she pleaded, the answer was always the same: “We’re sorry, but we can’t help you.”

And now she had to call the office and say the same words to her daughter. She stared at the phone and wished she could just go back to bed.

Chapter Five

If you can’t depend on your family in your time of need, who can you depend on?

—Muriel Sterling, When Family Matters

Samantha sat at her desk, gnawing her fingernails while staring out the office window at the Wenatchee River. The sun was out today and the river was a sparkling sapphire-blue, but she could barely see it. Her view was eclipsed by the vision of the end of life as she knew it. Sweet Dreams was going to be history. The possibility of using Waldo’s life insurance money had been her last hope. What was going to happen to her employees? What was going to happen to Mom without that extra income? How could she fix this mess?

Maybe another bank would lend her money. Then she could use that to pay off Cascade Mutual. She made a couple of calls to test the water. The water was frigid. Another fingernail went bye-bye.

Her cell phone started playing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Bailey.

She forced herself to answer even though she didn’t want to. She’d already talked to Cecily, who’d at least had the decency to let her be depressed. Bailey, the family cheerleader, would be calling to pump her up. And she didn’t want to be pumped up, damn it all, she wanted to be pissed. Pissed, pissed, pissed!

“I’m here,” she snarled.

“Well, of course. Where else would you be?” Bailey replied reasonably. “You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t in the office busy saving the company.”

“I’m not busy saving the company. I’m busy…” What was she busy doing? Oh, yeah, feeling sorry for herself and doing a darned good job of it, too.

“Cecily told me about the bank. Are you okay?”

“No.”

There was silence on the other end and she could just see her baby sister biting her lip, considering what to say next. “I’m sorry, Sammy,” she finally said. “I feel like we’re leaving you holding a big, stinky mess up there.”

Samantha rubbed her aching forehead. “At the rate we’re going I won’t be holding it much longer.” And then what would she do? Worse, what would Mom do? She wasn’t exactly making a fortune as a writer. Cecily would have to find millionaires for both of them.

“But you can’t let Sweet Dreams go out of the family,” Bailey said. “That would just be wrong, Sammy.”

Sometimes Samantha felt it was wrong that she was the only one of the sisters who’d stayed in Icicle Falls to keep Willy Wonka Land going. Here she was, like Davy Crockett at the Alamo. Or the Last of the Mohicans. Or…something.

“Do you have any ideas for how to save the company?”

Offer to sleep with Blake Preston in exchange for making an exception to bank policy. Oh, cute. Where had that come from? No place good. “No,” Samantha said. But there had to be something they could do. Why couldn’t she think of anything? She’d never lacked for ideas in the past, so where was all that brilliant inspiration now? Obviously, her idea factory had been shut down.

“We need a family brainstorming session,” Bailey said firmly.

If she couldn’t think of anything, what did Bailey suppose the rest of them were going to come up with? “Listen,” she began.

Bailey cut her off. “I know you think nobody can run the company like you, but we’re all pretty creative.”

There was no denying that. Samantha looked at the shredded nails on her left hand and decided manicures were overrated.

“I’m calling Cec,” Bailey said decisively. “I’ll go over to her place tonight and we’ll Skype you at Mom’s at seven.”

By seven all Samantha wanted was to be in her condo, escaping into a computer game or a movie on TV with Nibs curled up in her lap. “I don’t think—” she began.

“Come on now, don’t balk. Let’s at least give it a try.”

Her baby sister would stay on the phone and harass her until she caved. Might as well cave now and be done with it, she told herself. “All right. Seven tonight.”

“Good,” Bailey said in a tone of voice that sounded as though they’d already accomplished something.

* * *

Cecily stared in surprise at the buxom blonde in the low-cut top and overdone jewelry sitting on the other side of her desk, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Liza and Brad should have been a perfect match. He wanted a woman with boobs the size of life rafts and she wanted a man with a deep well of money to support her Rodeo Drive spending habit. Brad not only had money, he was good-looking to boot, another requirement of Liza’s, and now Liza was saying she didn’t want to see him again? Seriously?

“So you didn’t hit it off?” Cecily asked.

“We should have. He took me to Melisse, and the food was to die for. We both love great food.”

“Common interests are important,” Cecily said. They could have happily eaten their way through life while Liza ate her way through Brad’s bank account.

“Then he said he liked my hair.”

“Compliments, that’s good.”

Liza made a face. “Oh, yeah? Not when he says it’s the same color as his mother’s hair and then he starts talking about her.”

“Maybe he thought you’d like his mother?”

“Not by the time he was done. I swear it was like there were three of us on that date. And she lives with him. He’s forty and he lives with his mother? Sheesh. I can’t believe you don’t screen your guys better.”

“Well…” Cecily stumbled to a halt. She wasn’t even sure what to say to that. She didn’t have a place on her forms to check off mama’s boy. “I’m sorry, Liza. I thought he’d be perfect.”

“Well, he wasn’t. You’ve got to do better.”

That might not be so easy, considering the fact that Liza had tried to sucker the last two guys she’d gone out with into taking her shopping on the second date. “I’ll try,” Cecily said. “But you have to remember not to ask these guys to buy clothes for you when you’ve barely started dating them. It makes them think that’s all you want out of the relationship.”

Liza scowled at her. “Of course that’s not all I want. What do I look like, a hooker?”

Actually, yes, and not a very high-class one. “No, no,” Cecily said quickly. “Don’t worry. We’ll find your perfect match.”

“I hope so. I mean, I could go to someone else, you know.”