by Kaye George
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup marshmallow crème
Blend all until smooth. Spread 1 to 2 tablespoons of filling on the flat side of a cookie piece and cover with another cookie piece.
Enjoy!
adapted from Allrecipes.com by Jody Crout
If you enjoyed DEADLY SWEET TOOTH,
by
Kaye George
Be sure not to miss the next book in the
Vintage Sweets Mysteries
Turn the page for a quick peek at
INTO THE SWEET HEREAFTER
Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Tally Holt opened her eyes to the startlingly close orbs of her big black and white Maine Coon cat, Nigel. He stared earnestly, communicating his desire for breakfast with his sheer willpower. She smiled and rubbed the top of his head to start his purring motor. She loved the volume he put out.
“Move, silly, so I can get the sheet off me.” She shoved him gently so she could peel back the sheet and sit up. It was too warm to use covers, really, but she always felt better when she was covered with something.
Nigel padded after her into the kitchen of her small Fredericksburg house. Sun poured in through the windows, filtered by the old live oaks in the front yard. Later, when the relentless Texas sun rose higher, the trees would shade the whole house. After she scooped the cat food into his dish and refilled his water bowl, she cleaned the litter.
Cats are so easy, she thought. That took less than five minutes and he’s set until tonight.
She hadn’t grown up with any pets, but knew, from observation, that dogs required a lot more maintenance. It had been a long time since she got mad at her brother, Cole, for dumping Nigel on her. He had broken up with one of his many girlfriends and she didn’t take Nigel with her.
She had to admit, she liked to come home to a warm, living being at night after she closed up her shop. But before that, she would need to get dressed and actually open it.
Soon she was blowing an ignored kiss to Nigel and heading out the front door.
* * * *
Tally and her best friend Yolanda Bella beamed, delighted with the window display Yolanda had just finished putting together. Lily Vale, Tally’s young employee, and Raul Fuentes, Yolanda’s trusted assistant in the basket shop were behind them, grinning. They stood on the warm sidewalk outside Bella’s Baskets in Fredericksburg, Texas, where tourist season was moving into high gear.
Tally turned to her favorite employee. “Lily, the plastic candies look exactly like the real thing. They’re wonderful.”
The plastic replicas of the vintage sweets that Tally sold next door at Tally’s Olde Tyme Sweets nestled in various gift baskets, some handmade locally, some bought and reconditioned by Yolanda herself. Lily had come up with the idea to use the replicas last year. The ones they’d been using had gotten faded and old looking, so Lily looked for another place to buy the replicas. She had searched sources and decided on this one. The fake candies were made in Southeast Asia from custom molds modeled after sketches Lily had sent them. They were not only much cheaper, but were environmentally friendly, according to the ads.
“I’m glad they got here so soon,” Lily said. “This is kind of a celebration of your one-year mark.”
Tally hadn’t thought of that. It was a year ago, mid-June, when she had opened her shop with high hopes, which had mostly panned out. Her shop and Yolanda’s were both thriving after some early struggles. She swelled with pride, looking over the colorful display that married her vintage candy products and Yolanda’s gift baskets.
The colorful baskets held items to go with the themes people usually wanted: birthdays (candles, party hats, small gifts wrapped in birthday paper), anniversaries (photo albums, silk roses, tin stars in a ten-year basket and silver stars in a twenty-five year one), and new house celebrations (small houses from a toy store, bags of grass seed for the new lawns, Monopoly dollar bills).
Strewn among the baskets were boughs from dogwood trees with silk blossoms, and a few silk crepe myrtles, since it was spring in Texas Hill Country.
People strolled past, perusing the displays of the touristy shops of Fredericksburg and enjoying a soft, warm day before summer descended upon the town in earnest. Of course, in Texas, a merely warm day meant it was in the high eighties rather than the nineties. Not that full summer heat would deter the tourists and local shoppers. The small German-founded town was a popular shopping, dining, and wine-tasting destination for much of the year.
Tally’s landlady, Mrs. Gerg, shuffled up to the group.
“My, doesn’t that look nice.” Mrs. Gerg stuck her head forward to peer at the display. “Aren’t you afraid the chocolate will melt on those Moon Pies? They look like real ones, not those plastic ones you were using.” She gave Tally a worried look. “It’s warm, and the sun is hitting the window this morning.” It was shining full onto the baskets, the better for everyone to see them.
Tally smiled and waved a hand toward Lily. “We can thank Lily for those. This has been all her idea and she found a very reasonable place to get new ones. They’re all biodegradable plastic.”
“Compostable, really,” Lily added.
Mrs. Gerg took another look at the goodies, glistening through the glass. “So they are. Very good, Lily. How clever of you.”
Lily beamed. Tally noticed the way Raul was looking at the young woman. His eyes looked a bit…lovestruck. Was this new? She had never noticed the attraction between the two of them before. Lily returned a similar moon-struck gaze to the dark, handsome young man.
Some of the passersby paused to admire the wares also, creating a bit of a blockage in the flow of foot traffic. One man, hobbling past on a pair of crutches, stopped, too, staring at the window intently. Tally followed his gaze and took a harder look at the replicas. Some of them looked lopsided. Were they melting? The spring sun that shone on Fredericksburg could be as hot as a summer sun in a lot of other places. They were only slightly misshapen. Should they take them out of the window? Maybe they would last through the week, then they would decide what to do. Put them somewhere else? Get a refund for faulty replicas?
The man on crutches noticed Tally paying attention to him and quickly turned to stump a few steps away.
Yolanda sneezed three times in a row, whipping a tissue out of her pocket. Tally knew she kept them ever-present in the spring for her allergies.
“How’s the crime watch going, Mrs. Gerg?” Yolanda asked, tucking her tissue pack into her pocket. Mrs. Gerg was a member of the newly founded neighborhood group calling themselves Crime Fritzers, after a popular nickname for Fredericksburg, Fritztown.
“It’s getting off the ground.” Mrs. Gerg grinned at all four of them. “We’re determined to keep crime down in our beautiful city.”
Tally didn’t think the crime rate was very high, but fighting it gave Mrs. Gerg something constructive to do and kept her from a hobby of hers—collecting things to give to Tally from garage and yard sales around town. Tally was running out of room to store the cheap treasures Mrs. Gerg delighted in bringing her. She hadn’t received any in three weeks, since the Crime Fritzers started their organized patrols, so Tally was in favor of the group.
Mrs. Gerg walked away in her ancient shoes with rundown heels. She had walked miles in them during the time Tally knew her, so Tally had quit worrying about her feet.
Lily lurched forward, shoved from behind by a careless pedestrian. The offender hurried off without saying “excuse me” and Tally caught Lily so she wouldn’t fall into the glass window.
“Are you all right?”
Lily straightened up. “I’m fine.” She winced.
“Is your back hurt?” Tally held her arm lightly, to make sure she stayed upright.
“I think I took an elbow, but it’ll be o
kay.”
“You’re sure? I can get you some ice.”
Lily waved Tally off. “No, no, I’m fine. Really.”
“I think that guy hit you with his crutch,” said Raul, touching Lily’s back, where she’d been pushed. Lily turned to face Raul and gave him a radiant smile.
Tally saw the concern on Raul’s face as they gazed at each other. Yes, there was something there, something sizzling between them.
* * * *
Yolanda and Raul went back inside Bella’s Baskets and Tally and Lily returned to Tally’s Olde Tyme Sweets to finish up their work day. Molly Kelly was holding down the fort, that is, the sweet shop, waiting on a group of Red Hat ladies who wanted treats for their next meeting. The local Red Hat Society had a large chapter and Tally was glad when they’d decided to use her as their official meeting treat supplier a few months back.
Tally retired to the kitchen, behind the sales room, to whip up a batch of Mallomars since the glass display case was low on them. In the sales room, Lily tied on her pink smock, designed to match the muted, swirling pinks and lilacs on the walls, and greeted the next group to come through the front door and sound the soft chime, three teenaged boys who looked hungry.
At a few minutes past seven, Tally closed up and walked the few blocks to the house she rented from Mrs. Gerg, on East Schubert Street. Nigel greeted her at the door. If he were a dog, his tail would be wagging. As it was, he started talking to her in his cheerful chirps, no doubt inquiring about din-din time.
“Soon,” Tally reassured him. “I just need to get my slippers on and pour a glass of iced tea. Then you’ll get yours.”
Now, in mid-June, the temperature was still in the high sixties this time of night. She’d gotten warm walking home. After they had both eaten, she took him into the back yard in his harness.
“Look, Nige.” She pointed through the small leaves of the live oak. “Full moon tonight. Isn’t it beautiful?”
For just a moment, she felt sorry for herself, sitting outside, under a romantic full moon, the smell of jasmine wafting on the slight breeze, with a cat as her only companion. But the thought of Raul and Lily and the looks they’d given each other brought a smile to her lips. The perfect evening seemed to call for thoughts of romance, even if it weren’t her romance.
* * * *
The next morning, Yolanda arrived at her shop, Bella’s Baskets, in a good mood. In the last few years, she’d had differences with her overbearing father, who didn’t think she had what it took to make her business succeed. But last night she’d taken a check over to the ranch her parents owned on the outskirts of town.
When he opened the front door, she stuck the check out. “This will repay one fourth of what I’ve borrowed from you,” she said.
She got a kick out of his blank stare. He took the check and looked at the amount, then frowned. “Can you afford this?”
She twisted a strand of her hair, trying to act nonchalant. This was a big moment for her, but she didn’t want him to know that. “I said I’d repay you, and I am.”
“I don’t want you to run out of cash,” he said.
That was her problem. He always thought she needed rescuing, needed taken care of. What she needed was to be treated as an adult.
“I’ll let you know when I have the next payment.” She had driven away, pleased with herself. She hadn’t taken any of his bait, had remained calm. And the truth was, she could afford the amount she had given him. Business was very good.
In the morning, if she’d known how to whistle, she would have been whistling as she came through the back door, greeted by the heady smell of lilies. The whiff she took tickled her nose and brought out a couple of big sneezes.
Her employee must have laid the bunch of lilies on the counter earlier. He was now at the front of the shop.
“Miss Yolanda!” Raul looked stricken. “Look what happened.”
Bright sunlight streamed through her display window. Then she noticed the rays glinting off the shards. The window was broken.
* * * *
Heading down the sidewalk to open her store, Tally Holt saw a commotion ahead.
“Tally, look!” Yolanda shouted and waved her forward. She sounded distraught.
When Tally approached, she could see why. The sidewalk before Bella’s Baskets sparkled with broken glass. The window had been smashed.
“What happened?” Tally asked. There hadn’t been a storm. Someone must have broken it, but why?
“Somebody threw a rock through my window,” Yolanda wailed.
Tally took a good look, well, as good as she could, through the police personnel photographing and measuring.
“They’re gone!” Yolanda pointed at the window.
Tally looked more closely. The new plastic replicas were gone.
Who would steal cheap plastic pieces of candy?
And why did the window smell so lovely? Tally peered inside the store and saw Raul arranging some stargazer lilies on the work counter. That’s what she smelled, the lilies.
Detective Jackson Rogers emerged from the knot of police personnel. “Tally, you and Yolanda come over here. I need to let you know what happened.”
They joined him a few feet away from the growing crowd. “It looks like someone stole the plastic candies,” Tally said. “Is that right?”
“Yes, to begin with.” Detective Rogers glanced at the notepad he was holding. “At four a.m. a member of the local crime watchers group observed a brick being thrown through the window and one party scooping up the plastic pieces.”
“Oh, so you caught the thief?”
“Tally, stop interrupting me.” Jackson’s words were stern, but he smiled when he said them. He grew serious as he continued. “The crime watcher was beaten and the thief escaped with the goods. We got a description and think we should be able to apprehend him soon.”
“Someone got beat up?” Yolanda put a hand to her mouth. “Was it bad?”
“He’s in the hospital.” The detective looked at his notes. “A member of the neighborhood watch group.”
“A ‘he’ and not a ‘she?’ For sure?” Tally asked. “Not Mrs. Gerg? She’s a member of that group. They go on patrol in the downtown at night.”
Detective Jackson gave his head a slight shake. “We’ve asked them to stay in their vehicles. They’re not supposed to apprehend anyone. Unfortunately, this is what can happen. But no, not Mrs. Gerg. It’s a member of her group, though. It’s the…” he consulted his notes again “…Crime Fritzers. They’re not supposed to be alone. They are always supposed to patrol in pairs.”
“Yes, that’s her group. And the injured man was in the group? In the Crime Fritzers?”
The detective smiled. “Crime Fritzers. Yeah.” He chuckled. “Sorry. Funny name.”
Tally had to smile too.
“But you don’t have the thieves,” Yolanda said. “Does anyone have any idea why they were stealing those? They’re not expensive.”
“They’re a little too cheap, in fact,” Tally said. “Lily ordered them because they were economical and environmentally friendly. But it turns out that means they dissolve.”
“Really?” Yolanda turned to her. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Did you notice they were starting to melt yesterday in the sun?” Tally said. “I asked Lily about them last night before we closed and she told me. She noticed they were melting, too, but didn’t want to say anything. She hoped they would hold up. I thought they would, too. I was going to leave them a few more days.”
Yolanda threw her head back. Tally thought she might be asking for strength from above.
“I know, Yo. We should have just taken them out.”
“Are you finished?” Jackson asked. “I need to get back to work.”
“Wait,” Tally said. “Is there any reason he wanted to steal th
em?”
“We’re working on that,” he said, and walked off, leaving Tally and Yolanda looking at each other, perplexed.
“I wonder when we can clean up this mess,” Yolanda said.
The crime scene tape came down at about noon and Yolanda called Tally, whose shop had opened nearly on time and was doing a booming business. Probably, she thought, because the crime team with their bright yellow tape was a draw for curiosity seekers. Once they had checked out the basket shop activity, they naturally walked next door and were lured into the sweet shop.
“Can you spare a minute, or one of your workers, to help me get my window cleaned up?” Yolanda asked Tally when she answered her cell phone. “I have someone coming later today to put in a new window.”
“You got same-day service. Great. I can come myself. I think everyone in town has been here today already, so it’s slowing down now.”
Tally called to her employees that she was going out to help Yolanda. Three young women currently worked for her. Molly Kelly and Lily Vale worked every day but Monday, the day the shop was closed. Her third employee, Dorella Diggs, came in Wednesday and Friday. On those days, Tally could afford to take time away from the shop.
“I might as well do some shopping for the store if there’s time after I help Yolanda.”
“Will you be back by closing?” Lily asked from behind the counter, where she was ringing up a sale on a bag of Mallomars.
“I’m not sure. It’s a mess, with all the broken glass. Can you just close up if I’m not back by seven?”
“Sure. Don’t worry about it.”
Tally wouldn’t. She, finally, had three dependable, trustworthy women working for her. It made her life easy.
As she walked up to the window where Yolanda was leaning into the opening, carefully picking glass shards off the floor of the display space, a white pickup parked at the curb. A magnetic sign on the side of it advertised “Ozzy’s Odd Jobs” with a local phone number in bright red lettering.
A small man jumped out. “Which one is Mizz Bella?” He looked at Tally first and she pointed to Yolanda.
