Better Than Chocolate

“Actually, I can come up right away,” Cecily said.

“You’ve got a business to run,” Samantha protested.

“Things are quiet right now. I’ve got the time.”

Quiet? What did that mean? Wasn’t her dating service doing well?

Cecily tended to keep things to herself. When she had a crisis they never heard about it until it was long over.

Still, this worried Samantha. “Not that I don’t want you,” she said, “but you can’t just up and leave your business for several weeks.”

Cecily put on what Samantha thought of as her poker face; her expression gave nothing away. “I’m closing the business. It’s a long story,” she added before Samantha could press her for details. “Anyway, I’ve had all the sun I can take. I need seasons. I can rent out my condo, and I bet Charley would let me have a job waiting tables at Zelda’s a couple of nights a week. That would leave me free during the day to work on the festival with you guys. Mom, can I stay with you?”

“Of course,” Mom said. “But I think you girls need to figure out a few more things first, like where we’d hold this festival.”

“All over town.” Bailey almost whacked Cecily in the nose with her sweeping hand gesture.

“I bet we could get all the B and Bs to participate and offer some special rates,” Samantha said thoughtfully. “No one has full occupancy these days, so maybe some of them would offer a special discount for that weekend.”

“Oh, and the restaurants can feature special chocolate desserts,” Bailey said.

“We could award a plaque to the one that comes up with the most creative dessert, using our candy, of course,” Cecily suggested. “Bragging rights for them, profit for us.”

“I love it,” Samantha said. This scheme was looking better by the minute.

Bailey nodded eagerly. “Our local artists can set up booths in the park along Center Street. Heck, we can all have food booths over on Alpine like we do on the Fourth of July.”

“Girls, this all sounds lovely, but you have to have time to get people on board,” Mom said.

“Since when isn’t the Icicle Falls Chamber of Commerce on board with anything that brings in tourist business?” Samantha argued. “I could work that angle.”

“Me, too,” said Bailey. “I can phone people from here. Oh, this could be really big. We can hand out samples, give tours of the factory, all kinds of cool stuff.”

“But there’s the matter of permits,” Samantha said, coming down to earth with a thud. “We can’t just decide to have a festival without getting permits for the sale of food and alcohol. And we need a special-event permit that all the departments sign off on. It takes time for all that to make the rounds in city hall.”

“But if it’s good for Icicle Falls I bet you can find someone to move the process along,” Cecily said.

Hmm. Her sister had a point there.

“Let’s try it, anyway,” Bailey urged. “Think of all the chocolate-lovers we can lure up here. Oooh, and we could have a chocolate ball,” she added dreamily. “I can see it now, an old-fashioned masked ball where everyone dresses up.”

“And have that chocolate dinner before,” Cecily put in.

“We can sponsor the dinner and the ball and sell hot chocolate and truffles in a booth.” Bailey was beaming now, on fire with a million ideas.

If they could manage to pull off even some of them…Samantha felt the fire catching in her, too. “We’d need to advertise in the Seattle papers, set up a website.” She grabbed a piece of paper from Waldo’s desk and began scribbling notes to herself.

“That will cost money,” Mom pointed out. “Girls, I just don’t think we can raise what we need by sponsoring something like this. Sponsoring, by its very nature, involves cost.”

Now that they were going down the tubes she was deciding to grow a head for business? “Everything involves cost,” Samantha argued.

But Mom had a point. This whole thing was a huge gamble and it could bomb big-time.

What did it matter, though, if the bank was going to take the business, anyway? Chances were slim that they’d even come close to making enough money to get the bank off their backs—but if they did nothing their chances went from slim to none. And maybe they could at least raise enough to allow her to renegotiate with the bank. If she came in with a check…

“I’ve got a good feeling about this,” Cecily said.

Samantha put a lot of stock in her sister’s instincts. “Then let’s do it. What have we got to lose?”

Their business, of course. And maybe their sanity.

Oh, wait, trying to pull off something this big in such a short time—they’d already lost their sanity. So what the heck. Sweet Dreams Chocolates was about to sponsor a chocolate festival.

Chapter Six

The man of your dreams is the one who shares your dreams.

—Muriel Sterling, Mixing Business with Pleasure: How to Successfully Balance Business and Love

After their family conference call, Samantha’s mother loaded her up with chicken casserole, tuna surprise and brownies, gave her an encouraging hug and then sent her home feeling slightly ill. She hoped the queasiness was due to all the sugar she’d been consuming lately and not fear of failure.

She went to bed half hoping she could save the day by dreaming up a fabulous chocolate candy recipe just like Great-grandma Rose had done all those years ago.

Could she, though? No-o-o. Instead of dreaming up a new recipe that would put them on the map, she spent her REM sleep hours running from King Kong–size candy-bar monsters that chased her all over town, trying to squash her with their big, flat feet. Finally three of them cornered her right in front of the bank.

“Get her,” growled one, and raised a giant foot.

“No,” she cried. “I’ll do anything. Anything!”

So far in her dream she’d appeared to be the last living soul in Icicle Falls but suddenly the bank door opened and Blake Preston stood in the doorway dressed in leopard-print boxers. “Did you say you’d do anything?” he asked.

“Anything,” she panted. He took her by the arm and pulled her inside the bank.

There she saw that all the desks had been replaced with round beds draped in pink satin bedspreads and the ceiling was one gigantic mirror. In another corner sat a hot tub, bubbling with chocolate.

Blake slipped an arm around her waist. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he whispered. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and nibbled her earlobe, turning her insides gooey. “Why don’t you lose that dress and join me in the hot tub?”

“Will you save me from the monsters?” she asked him.

“Of course. That’s what men are for, isn’t it? Look how Waldo saved your mother.”

“Aack.” She covered her face with her hands.

Blake started chuckling and she glanced up to see that he’d put on some sort of Dracula cape and sprouted fangs. And they were dripping chocolate.

She let out a shriek and ran for the door. But then she caught sight of a big, brown monster eye peering in at her and dashed blindly in the other direction with Blake in hot pursuit, his cape flying out behind him.

“Bwa-ha-ha. You know you want me,” he cackled.