Ganache with Panache: Book 2 in The Chocolate Cafe Series

by Valley Sams

  “He’s got a summer home up here. How can you not know him? Remember Duchess Emily’s wedding gown this year?” Vanessa pushed her dark hair out of her eyes, trying to subdue her inner fangirl.

  “The man is brilliant,” she told Mac, “That dress was on the front cover of like, every magazine. I’ve admired his work for years.”

  Mac was embarrassed. The depth of her involvement with her ailing grandfather and his passing had a habit of sneaking up and biting her lately. It was like she had been trapped in a bomb shelter of her own making and was only now blinking into the sunlight at the surprising world around her.

  “I can’t believe he’d do a private wedding! These people must be loaded.” Vanessa breathed. Her cheeks had actually turned a slight pink with excitement.

  “Recently loaded and more than willing to sample the good life.” Sabrina said, obviously proud of herself. “I know we’re super busy, but Miss Amelia, the princess of new money, will be coming in tomorrow to chat. I promise you, I’ll make this as painless as possible.”

  Mac found herself snaking her hand back into the basket for another chocolate.

  “I’m just…going to have one more...”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The shop, first thing in the morning, was always Mac’s favorite time and place of the day.

  Brie, being her hyperactive self, was usually already up in her ‘laboratory’ above and the smells that rolled down the stairs like the richest, lushest carpet boggled the mind. Despite her inherent flakiness and absent-minded nature, Sabrina was a world-class chocolatier.

  Which would explain both the constant busyness of the shop since summer had begun and the fact that she had trouble saying ‘no’ to every sad sack sally with a wedding to plan.

  This morning, the summer sun was already streaming through the tall windows that faced the main street. Thankfully, Brie hadn’t been so scattered that she’d forgotten to turn on the air conditioner, and the shop was verging on chilly. “Can’t have my art melting!” she had bellowed a few weeks earlier as Mac had written an enormous check for the state-of-the-art air conditioning system.

  It was a lot of money going out but, in all honesty, there was even more coming back in.

  Mac took a sip of the Mexican hot chocolate Brie had left for her on the counter and watched the tourist shop owners across the street pull their racks onto the sidewalk. She could see the beads of sweat on their foreheads already. She took another drink, rolling the smooth, spicy chocolate around in her mouth. Sometimes it was nice to allow herself just a few minutes of snobbery. Just a few.

  “Hey!” Brie swung herself around the doorway that lead to the stairs . “I didn’t hear you come in. She’s here already, upstairs.”

  Mac couldn’t help but sigh. Something about the whole bridal world gave her a vague feeling of nausea. It wasn’t the brides so much as it was the idea of commitment. She’d been struggling with that a lot lately.

  “Great. I hope you hauled out your balloon arches.”

  Brie scowled at her friend. How could anyone so obviously in love be so bitter at the same time? Of course Mac barely talked about her beloved Detective Louis, but she could see it in the way her pupils widened every time her phone buzzed in her pocket. He had even brought her a rescue dog for heaven’s sake. Not because he was trying to win her over, but because he felt she needed a little extra protection on her morning runs. How was that any sappier than a balloon arch?

  “I know I didn’t ask you before I agreed. My bad. I’ll be the first to admit it. But really? This girl isn’t what you think she is. Just… come upstairs and say hi.”

  Mac groaned. “Do I have to?”

  Brie stood aside and gestured to the stairs. “Yes, boss lady. You have to. C’mon, shake a tail feather.”

  Scowling at her friend, Mac put her mug on the counter and followed Brie up the stairs to her studio.

  As usual, Sabrina was right—the bride was nothing like what she expected. When the two girls walked into the room the ‘bridezilla’ was sitting on the antique sofa with a young man, who was deeply absorbed in a game he was playing on his iPad.

  Amelia had the most incredible copper hair Mac had ever seen. Long and perfectly straight, she held it back from her eyes as she bent over the screen. The young man was large and without a doubt a relation of some sort. He had the same red hair and delightfully round face.

  Brie practically dragged her over to the couch, maneuvering Mac through the many tables and crates scattered through the attic. This whole ‘meeting new people’ was getting tiring.

  “Amelia, this is Mac. The woman without whom none of this would be possible.”

  Amelia looked up at Mac and smiled. She immediately stood up and offered her hand. She was tall and model thin, her limbs snow white and at least three times as long as anything attached to Mac’s body.

  “Hello!” she said. “Thanks so much for taking me on. Sabrina was just telling me you don’t do weddings.” Mac blushed slightly.

  “No, we’ve never done one. I’m happy you’re the first though.” Amelia laughed and turned to the boy on the couch, still absorbed in his game.

  “This is my brother Jax. Can you say hi, Jax?” Without looking up from the iPad, Jax raised one hand in a swift but clumsy hello. Amelia looked back at Mac, the same relaxed smile on her face. “You probably can’t tell, he’s a little busy, but we’re twins.”

  “The hair was my first clue,” Mac said.

  Brie wheeled one of the many old teacarts she had been collecting from behind a table. On it was a fantastic array of chocolates. No swans. No chocolate baskets. No dipped fruit. Mac was amazed at the beauty and simplicity that Brie had created. Every one of them was hand painted, some with gold filigree and some dusted with silver until they glistened in the morning glow like precious jewels. Any kind of polite conversation came to an abrupt halt. Sabrina stood back, obviously enjoying the moment of reverence.

  “Oh my goodness. Were you up all night?” Mac breathed, doing her best to stop herself from grabbing a chocolate.

  “Jax look at these,” Amelia said. “Come see. They’re perfect.” Jax stood up to examine the chocolates. And examine he did. Holding his hands stiffly by his face, he rubbed his fingers and stared at the confections with a fierce intensity. When one of his constantly fidgeting hands reached out to touch one, Amelia took it in hers without missing a beat. “Aren’t they amazing? Just look with your eyes, Hon.”

  Jax addressed Sabrina without looking at her. His voice was mellow like his sister’s but low and uniquely monotone.

  “There are approximately twenty to fifty beans in each cocoa pod, did you know that? It probably took you close to eight hundred beans to make all of these chocolates.”

  For once, Sabrina was speechless. She looked from Mac to Amelia, shocked at the sudden burst of knowledge from the quiet, eccentric young man.

  “That’s true,” she said. “Completely right. That’s amazing! How did you know that?”

  Still not looking up, his eyes seemingly focused inward, he smiled the same lovely smile as his sister.

  “I have Asperger’s syndrome. Not ASS-BURGERS,” his smile grew. “People think its Ass-BURGERS but it’s not. It’s AsPERger’s.” He pronounced the words correctly but in the same monotone as before.

  Amelia put her arm around her brother and pulled him in for a hug. His hands still fluttering like butterflies around his face, he leaned into her awkwardly.

  “Jax was our inspiration.” She said, “My fiancé and I are opening a private school for kids with autism here in Mackenzie Bay. Do you know the Dunleavy house?” she asked.

  Mac and Brie exchanged glances. Oh boy, did they ever.

  Mac cleared her throat, “Yes. It’s a beautiful place.”

  “We managed to buy it for a really low price. My fiancé is a behavioral psychologist. He’s worked with kids with autism for his entire career. That’s how we met.”

  “Doctor Zimmerman!” Jax said
, suddenly loud with excitement.

  Amelia carried on, calm as ever. “And it’s always been his dream to open a place right by the ocean. We’ve already got a full roster of students for this September.”

  “Are you a teacher?” Mac asked.

  “No. Oh, no.” Amelia laughed, more to herself than any one else. “I was something way less interesting. I used to model back in the day.”

  Of course. Of course this long-legged, hazel-eyed creature was a model. The more time Mac spent with her, the more she forgave Brie for taking on the extra workload of catering her marriage. “Our parents, they…” she hugged her brother a little harder. “They had a hard time with Jax so I gave up that nonsense to help out.”

  Brie was starring at Mac. Mac could feel her friend’s eyes boring holes in the side of her head. Yes, you were right Yes, she is amazing. Yes, doing her wedding is a great idea. In fact, Mac was almost ready to do it for free.

  Brie picked up the plate of silver bonbons and offered it to Jax. “These are champagne and sweet pear,” she said, still looking smugly at Mac. “Give it a shot, Jax, tell us what you think.”

  Jax plucked one off the plate and the girls watched as he popped it in his mouth. For the first time since he’d arrived with his sister, he looked at Brie directly. His gaze, shockingly intelligent suddenly focused on her with great clarity. “That. Is. So. Good.” he decided.

  Amelia clapped her hands together.

  “That’s all I need,” she said, more radiant than ever, “Let’s do this.”

  “Absolutely.” Mac smiled.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Almost three years of Ivy League education in criminology and all Mac had walked away with was an obsessive curiosity and pretty low expectations of mankind in general.

  Thoroughly embarrassed by her own (hard-earned and expensive) suspicious behavior, Mac had made some lame excuse to leave the shop shortly after Amelia departed. Not that it mattered to Sabrina, who was riding a gloating familiar high of her own brilliance to care. Throw in a heavy dose of ‘I told you so’ and Mac could probably disappear for an entire week without Brie noticing.

  “I should be more like you.” Mac said, leaning down to give her newly acquired dog a kiss on his forehead. The dog, a sloppy English Mastiff almost twice her size, looked up at her gratefully. His big tongue lolled out of his mouth to give her a kiss back. Mac accepted it begrudgingly, his dog breath puffing noisily in her face. “Come on, you monster,” she said, attaching the leash to his wide collar.

  When Louis had first arrived at her door with the beast in tow, Mac had almost slammed it in his face. Thankfully before she did, she had seen something in the animal’s eyes that was oddly familiar. Kindness, intelligence, and just the faintest hint of pain. They were Louis’s eyes and if she really looked at herself in the mirror, her own as well.

  “His name is Toby,” Louis had announced, that lovely accent of his making it sound like a royal title rather than the name of an aging dog retired early from the police force. “He’s put in his time on the beat and—in his own words mind you—would rather spend his twilight years taking beach runs with beautiful girls.”

  Louis had handed the leash over to her and that was it—Toby the Giant had become hers.

  Avoiding the crowded tourist spots, Mac walked Toby at a pensive pace. She was ashamed at her rush to judgment of Vanessa and Amelia. She admitted that she hadn’t wanted to like Vanessa because of jealousy. And she had been ready to hate Amelia before they’d even met just because she was in love and getting married. But why? She was in love, wasn’t she? Mac felt her stomach clench.

  Love. It never worked out. The closer you got to someone, the more it hurt when they eventually went off on their way. And they always went away. Parents divorced. She could attest to that. Parents died too. She knew that little gem as well. Love between a man and a woman was the fire that burned down houses, tore through towns and singed the toes of the naïve.

  Love was safer between best friends.

  “And dogs, right?” she asked. Toby looked up at her again from where he had been diligently padding along beside her for the last mile or so. He opened his mouth, causing his impossibly wide head to almost split in half with a goofy dog grin.

  Mac had been lost in thought for what seemed like another hour or so when her arm was yanked by Toby suddenly lunging forward. She struggled to keep her footing as the enormous dog broke into a run. The extra skin around his face and chest flapped back in the wind as he tore toward a very familiar building.

  Good heavens, had she known that was the direction she was taking?

  She had been so preoccupied musing on her misanthropy that she hadn’t noticed that they were headed straight toward the squat brick building that housed the Mackenzie Bay Police Department.

  “No no no no no! Stop, Toby!” Mac did her best to pull the dog back to her, to gain some sort of control, but it was useless. The animal outweighed her by at least sixty pounds. She hadn’t planned on seeing Louis today and was not only beaded with sweat from the walk but she was still wearing the ratty fan tee shirt from her favorite sci-fi show and too-short jean shorts. Brie had dubbed them ‘janties’ due to the fact that they really were no bigger than a pair of denim boy briefs.

  She pulled harder on Toby’s leash, knowing that her boyfriend was about to see the unimproved Mac. She shouldn’t have left the house in this outfit, let alone wandered downtown to her boyfriend’s office.

  “Toby, stop! Heel!” she shouted uselessly. Now even closer to the squat mid-century building, the dog took another excited leap and tore the leash straight from her hand.

  Mac cursed and watched helplessly as the horse-like animal galloped up the stairs and through the open doors. For a second she contemplated leaving him there, racing back home and changing into a charming little sundress before fetching him back. Or at least taking her hair out of its Brie-esque rat’s nest on top of her head.

  But no. If she had learned anything today, it was to expect the opposite of what her bitter little mind told her to.

  Gathering more courage than she’d had to gather in a while, she pulled her shorts down as far as they would go and walked to the station.

  She was halfway up the outside stairs when she could hear Louis’s voice, barely audible above Toby’s excited yelping.

  “Where’s mummy? Is mummy with you? Let’s go find her.” Mac made some futile adjustments of her hair, her stomach fluttering and convulsing with nerves. Don’t believe in love, eh?

  Louis emerged from the humid shadows of the office and Mac’s heart began to imitate her stomach.

  She was happy to see that he was just as sweaty as she was. He had removed his tie and his white shirt was rolled up at the sleeves and open at the collar. His eyes, a rich brown she only ever saw in Brie’s most succulent chocolate mixes, lit up from behind his thick framed glasses. Then he scanned her embarrassing outfit, pausing both on her impossibly short shorts and faded, nearly transparent tee shirt.

  “I think you left your pants back in your interdimensional time machine, Doctor,” he said, smiling boyishly.

  Mac’s face ached with embarrassment. She felt like scuffing the ground with her sneakers and punching him in the arm like an awkward school kid.

  “It’s a guilty pleasure, okay?” she said. Her voice came out much whinier than she had planned. “I wasn’t expecting to see anyone. Toby saw your office and pulled himself right out of my hands.”

  Louis was apparently still too deeply amused at her exposure as a closeted geek to listen.

  “I wouldn’t have guessed you were a fan. Love the show. We’ve got a great deal of binge watching to do, I see.”

  If her face got any hotter, Mac was sure it would begin to blister. Before she knew it, she had reached out and chucked him on the shoulder lamely.

  “Shut up!” she said. Louis broke into laughter, holding his shoulder where she had tagged him. Mac poked the same shoulder with a warning finger, “Don�
�t. Even. Mention. The shorts.”

  Louis held up his hands in submission. “Not the shorts, absolutely not. If I mock those, there’s a good chance you’ll change into something else. I haven’t a single complaint. The hair however…”

  Before she could stop him, Louis bravely pushed his long fingers into her tangled mess and ruffled it. Despite the sweat, despite the embarrassment, Mac fought the immediate urge to kiss him.

  It was getting harder and harder lately to keep her cool around him. She had always prided her ability to do so, but something about this gangly Brit and his five o’clock shadow made all those years of polishing her edges seem pretty pointless.

  “You binge watch with me and I’ll pull off a whole roller set for you.” She spoke without thinking, her impulse control demolished by his touch.

  Toby, as if sensing the energy between them, suddenly leaped onto Louis’s shoulders, almost knocking him down the stone steps.

  “Oi! Down!” Louis said sharply. Toby immediately obeyed, his wet eyes watching his detective with admiration. “Perhaps I should’ve looked for a smaller guard dog for you. A poodle perhaps? Nah. You don’t seem like the poodle type. “

  “What type am I?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The type that tries to catch murderers on her own, breaks into people’s houses, and goes jogging at all hours of the night?”

  Mac was about to defend herself when her cellphone suddenly began buzzing in her back pocket. She excused herself and reached back to pull it out.

  Louis’s eyebrows raised, impressed. “You can fit an entire cell phone in those things?”

  Mac shushed him, confused at the unfamiliar number on the call display.

  “Hello?” she asked warily. The day had been so strange,, that she half expected some collection agency to be on the other end, looking to scrounge for one of her grandfather’s medical bills that had fallen through the cracks or an old university textbook she’d never returned.