Sugar Rush

by Rachel Astor

  His father would have to remain silent.

  …

  Dulcie watched as Nick emerged through a door off the conference room.

  She tried to move toward him but was stopped by a blogger, “just for a few questions.” Soon she was surrounded by people shooting questions at her faster than she could answer.

  Nick hung around the back of the crowd for a minute, then disappeared.

  Ten minutes later, she could only hope her answers had been coherent and her exit more graceful than she thought, praying she hadn’t actually spit out that she “really just had to get to a bathroom.”

  She fled the room as if heading in that direction but stopped just outside the door, looking each way, searching for Nick.

  He was pacing across the hall.

  “Hey,” she said, suddenly shy.

  “Hey,” he said back nervously. “Listen, I just need you to know how sorry I am about everything. You don’t have to belive me, but I swear, I knew nothing about what was going on with the Salted Caramel recipe.”

  “I realize that now,” she said, clearing her throat. “That was quite the creation you had there.” She laughed a bit, motioning to the judges’ table. “But aren’t you worried about your store? The embarrassment was nearly the end of me last time.”

  Nick shrugged. “You’re more important than the store or my embarrassment. Besides, I have no ties to How Sweet It Is anymore.”

  Dulcie’s eyes darted to his. “What do you mean?”

  “I quit.”

  “But you can’t quit your store; it’s your family,” she said. “It’s all you’ve ever done.”

  “Then it’s high time to try something else, don’t you think? And no, I won’t quit my family, but that store is not my family. It stopped being about family a long time ago when everything became about money.”

  Dulcie’s heart raced. “I’m sorry, too. About everything, I mean. I was so awful to accuse you, and then I didn’t think you’d want to see me. God, I was so mean,” she finished, her mouth open, needing to say more.

  “So…you don’t hate me?”

  Her eyes widened. “God, no. Of course I don’t hate you.”

  The hallway had cleared out, everyone off to catch a few rays of sun or a nervous smoke or two before the judges called the contestants back. They were the only two people left.

  The silence engulfed them like a candy getting coated.

  Dulcie’s mind went blank.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. A million thoughts flew through, but none of them could find her vocal chords.

  How he was standing right in front of her. How he’d saved her store. How in a roundabout way, because of him, she had been forced to finally suck it up and create something new, something all her own.

  How she’d remembered the rose he had given her. How he had been the inspiration for the Crystal Rose Truffle.

  Thankfully, in the desperation of that silence, Nick found something other than words.

  He leaned down and kissed her passionately, like he was vowing never to let some stupid feud or competition ever get in the way of their future again.

  “Woooo!” a scream came from the lobby a moment later.

  Dulcie turned to catch Grams peeking around the hall. Nick glanced over and Grams shot them a wink before disappearing again, leaving them with the silence.

  It was Dulcie’s chance to return the favor and pulled him in for a kiss that would last almost as long as it took for the judges to come back with their final decision.

  “Pssst…,” someone whispered.

  Dulcie looked up.

  “It’s time,” Grams said, motioning for them to come back in.

  “Before we go,” Nick said, “I just need you to know…I want to be with you, Dulcie. Like, really with you; no more sneaking around or hiding out at the market. I mean, this feels real, doesn’t it?”

  Dulcie nodded, her eyes watering. “I want you to come with me,” she said.

  “Come where?” Nick asked. “You have to go up for the judging. We can’t go anywhere.”

  “No, I mean come up for the judging. I don’t want to go alone.”

  “I don’t think they want me there,” he said, pulling his arms away slightly. “Take your grandmother up with you.”

  Dulcie shook her head. “Grams won’t come. Besides, I want you with me. You were, after all, the inspiration for my recipe.”

  “I was?”

  “Remember the pink rose you gave me that night when you came to the shop?”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking a little embarrassed.

  “Well, Grams told me the secret to great candy making.”

  “Oh, there’s a secret, is there?” he asked, smirking.

  “Yes, there is,” Dulcie said matter-of-factly. “Grams told me, ‘a good candy is like a good memory. Take people away, make them think of the best times in their lives. If you can turn your creation into a feeling like that, you’ve got a winner.’”

  Nick raised his eyebrows. “Your grandmother is a smart, smart lady.”

  “Yes, she is,” Dulcie said, smiling. “So I remembered that day, and how the rose was so beautiful…but how everything sort of went downhill.”

  Nick cringed, remembering.

  Dulcie took a deep breath. “When I went to clean up that night, the rose still sat there on the counter, as perfect as ever, but there was something sad about it. Lonely. It made me think of how things could be so delicate, so fleeting.” She cleared her throat, her eyes stinging ever so slightly. “And that was the first time I began to think of the Crystal Rose Truffle. Something so beautiful, yet so fragile it had to be nestled in something else, almost like a vase…but later you might find out the flower itself had been a lot stronger than that fragile vase.”

  Nick stared at her so intently she shifted on her feet. “Sorry, I guess that sounds a little silly.”

  “No,” he said, taking her hand. “It sounds perfect. I would be honored to stand up there with you.”

  She took his hand, leading him in to the finalist table.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Edmund Layton, the president of the Assembly, began.

  Dulcie’s legs took on the wobble of Turkish jelly.

  “We at the Assembly of Chocolatiers are pleased to present this year’s annual prize for Taste of the Year. The contestants have all outdone themselves as usual, but this year we found one entry to be especially up to the task of representing the Assembly with a particularly innovative design.” He cleared his throat. “This year’s Master Chocolatier is…”

  The room fell silent.

  “Candy Land Confections, represented by Master Chocolatier, Dulcie Carter!”

  Dulcie watched the lights gleam off Mr. Layton’s shinier than possible teeth, not sure she’d heard him correctly. A shrill whistle rang from the crowd. Grams. Nick squeezed her hand so tightly she thought it might pop off, but she didn’t mind. The crowd clapped loudly and Mr. Layton had to yell into the microphone to be heard.

  “Thank you so much for your immense creativity, Miss Carter. You have made this Assembly proud. Such delicate, beautiful work.”

  Tears pooled in Dulcie’s eyes as she accepted the trophy. As soon as she had, Grams ran up, grabbing both her and Nick in a huge, and somewhat painful, bear hug. “When are you ever going to start listening to your Grams? Didn’t I say you had it in you? Lord, why didn’t I think to give you an impossible deadline years ago? Just look what you can do with a week.”

  She pulled out of the hug. “You won, Dulcie. You’d probably somehow make it work with the store anyway, but with this money, none of us need to worry for a long time.” She kissed Dulcie quickly on the cheek, leaving her alone with Nick again, pretending she had to fix her makeup.

  Dulcie turned to Nick. “Thank you.”

  “You did this all yourself.”

  Dulcie let out a long, slow breath. She had actually done it; she’d made her very own chocolate design and it wasn’t a
total flop. It was the furthest thing from a total flop. It had won Taste of the Year.

  She felt light, like floating on air.

  And even lighter when Nick pulled her close. “Congratulations,” he said, as the rest of the room fell away. “You deserve it.”

  And then he kissed her, and it was as sweet as the Crystal Rose Truffle itself.

  Epilogue

  The weeks that followed were a whirlwind. After a short run of press interviews with the food bloggers in the area, and even an on-air appearance on a Food Network show, Dulcie had some business to take care of.

  First, a trip to check the codes on the Candy Land Confections building uncovered the unused apartment space above the store was indeed intended for residential use. The space was a bachelor suite—much too small for her and Grams—so they’d only ever used it for storage from time to time. But Dulcie decided to spend part of her winnings fixing it up, cleaning out the cobwebs, and bringing it back to its once cheery self. The additional income from rent would help ensure the store stayed afloat.

  The first order of “business” was subletting it out to her brand new marketing manager, Jess.

  “You’ve helped so much around here over the past couple weeks, I can’t think of a better way to use the space.”

  Jess’s eyes widened as Dulcie dangled the key in front of her. “Oh my God, Dulce. Are you serious?”

  “Of course. I mean, you probably won’t want to stay working here forever or anything, but I thought it might be a fresh start to get you going again.”

  “I don’t know what I ever would have done without Candy Land,” Jess said. “Even before I came to work here.”

  Dulcie showed her the new place and helped haul Jess’s stuff from the alley. Then they made a bit of an illegal bonfire right in the alley, watching all that damned cardboard Jess had been lying on for so long burn into nothing but ash. Dulcie kept glancing over her shoulder the whole time, but Jess cackled gleefully.

  Later that night, Nick helped Dulcie around the store. Things could not be going better. School stress was no longer an issue, Dulcie and Nick were getting closer every day, and the store was busier than ever.

  And thankfully, Nick’s father had come around to accepting Nick’s wish to leave How Sweet It Is, finally admitting that all he had really wanted was for Nick to be happy. He just hadn’t realized Nick’s happiness wasn’t the same as his own.

  There was still, of course, the pesky little issue of Nick’s unemployment.

  “You know,” Dulcie said one night, when they were closing up Candy Land together, “one of the problems with keeping this place afloat is the rent in this area.”

  “You’ve got such a great foot traffic location, though.”

  “Yeah, but if only I could find some way to subsidize the rent…,” she said, raising one eyebrow.

  Nick did not take the hint.

  She cleared her throat and tried again. “I mean, having a co-business in this space would make things a lot easier.”

  Nick furrowed his brow. “But what kind of business? I mean, you already serve coffee, but I guess you could hire a Barista to make specialty coffees or something,” he said, shrugging.

  Dulcie sighed. She would have to spell it out for him. “I was thinking of something a little different.”

  “Like what?” Nick asked, straightening a chair.

  “I thought, with all our wedding customers and everything, maybe something like a cupcake business.” She tilted her head, hands on her hips, waiting for his reaction.

  “That might be cool,” he said distractedly. Then his head snapped up and his face morphed into surprise. “Oh you mean…?”

  Dulcie smiled. “Yes, I mean.” She nodded.

  Nick shifted his weight from side to side, his face going pale. “I don’t know if I’m ready to put my stuff out in public like that.”

  “Hmm…sounds like me a few short weeks ago,” Dulcie said.

  “But I…what if…”

  “Your cupcakes are amazing. You are amazing,” she said, putting her arms around him. “Say you’ll sell your cupcakes in the shop.” She batted her eyelashes. “Please?”

  Nick’s face went from terrified to considering and finally to excited. “I could really put my own stuff out there,” he said, more of a statement than a question.

  Dulcie nodded. “You really could.”

  A few weeks later, Dulcie and Nick stood outside the shop admiring the new sign. The same old Candy Land Confections logo still proudly announced the shop, but a new sign was added below it. Artisan Cupcakes by The Sugar Man.

  They stood for a long time, just staring up at the sign, being jostled every now and again by the steady stream of customers seeking out Dulcie’s new creations and the brand new cupcake line, which people were dying to try after Jess invited a few of her favorite bloggers for a taste test. Constance and Ava were both busy inside, steadily selling.

  “I guess we should get back into the kitchen,” Dulcie said, leading him by the hand. “We wouldn’t want to make our customers wait.”

  “It seems like we’ve been cooking and baking around the clock,” Nick said, yawning.

  Dulcie nodded. “With the contest win and Jess getting the website running, online orders are pouring in. I hope we can keep up. We might need even more staff. It would be nice if Grams were around a bit more.”

  “Where has your Grams been lately? After she finally came back, at first it was like she didn’t want to ever leave.”

  “Yeah,” Dulcie said, as they pushed though the doors into the kitchen. “I think she’s been busy with some new man she’s seeing. It’s all very secretive.”

  “Really?” Nick said. “That’s weird. Dad’s been seeing someone new lately, too. I wonder…” He stopped short, shaking his head. “No.”

  Dulcie’s eyes widened. “I think we might be in for a bumpy ride.”

  The Spell Book of Sweets Toasted Coconut Brittle

  Yields: about 1 pound

  1 cup white sugar

  1/2 cup light corn syrup

  1/4 teaspoon salt

  1/4 cup water

  1 cup toasted coconut shavings

  2 teaspoons coconut essence (or coconut milk)

  2 tablespoons butter, softened

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  Directions

  1. Grease a large cookie sheet and set aside.

  2. Fill a 2 quart saucepan with sugar, corn syrup, salt, and water. Over medium heat, bring to a boil. Stir in 3/4 cup of toasted coconut shavings. Set candy thermometer and continue cooking. Stir frequently until temperature reaches 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Alternatively, test temperature by dropping a small amount of the mixture into cold water until it separates into hard, brittle pieces.

  3. Remove from heat; immediately stir in butter and baking soda; then immediately pour onto cookie sheet. Sprinkle remaining coconut shavings on top. With two forks, lift and pull mixture into a rectangle approximately 14 x 12 inches. Let mixture cool. Snap candy into pieces and enjoy!

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to thank my incredible readers; you are the reason this is all possible.

  Much gratitude and love goes to my family, whose unwavering support is everything.

  Thanks also to the entire team at Entangled Publishing, especially to Stacy Cantor Abrams and Alycia Tornetta, whose editorial suggestions made this book so much stronger.

  And to the writers and contributors of all the books I’ve ever read, thank you for allowing me to learn each time I pick up something to read.

  About the Author

  Rachel Astor grew up on a little farm outside a tiny town in the middle of Saskatchwan, Canada, where there wasn’t much to do but daydream. She’s had a lot of jobs, but none quite as interesting as when she waitressed at a bar named after a dog. You can find Rachel on the web at rachelastor.net or on Twitter at @rachelastor.

  Other books by Rachel Astor:

  Payback’s a Witch


  The bestselling McMaster the Disaster series:

  Bridesmaid Lotto

  Gamble on Engagement

  The Wedding Wager

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