Page 31 of Meet Me at the Fudge Shop

“Ha! You’re assuming a lot there, buster.”

“Come on, Lily.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. This woman. Seriously. “Can we please pretend to get along? This is exhausting.”

“Pretend? Sure, I can pretend to not despise you for trying to steal my family’s company. Let’s get this stuff moved.” Lily heaved a large box from the trailer.

“You’re going to hurt yourself. Let me take that one.”

“Nope.” And there she went, carrying it through the door she’d propped open and into the kitchen, bypassing the counter where he’d stacked his boxes, and headed straight for the walk-in refrigerator.

He jogged ahead of her and opened the fridge door. Blinked at what he saw inside. “Is that tape?” Blue painter’s tape had been placed down the wall and across the floor of the cooler, splitting the space in half.

She dropped her load on the line. “It is. That’s Kelley-land.” She pointed to the far side. “You keep all your cold ingredients over there. Don’t touch mine.”

“Drawing the literal battle lines, are we?”

She shrugged. “Gotta protect my stuff.”

Did she really think he would mess with her ingredients? Sure, he wanted to beat her, but he wasn’t a cheater. “Let me guess—the dry goods storage is similarly delineated?”

She folded her arms. “Of course.”

“Fine. If that’s how you want to play it. Maybe we should divide the front of shop too.”

“That’s my plan. I just ran out of tape.”

“That’s going to look really professional. Nice.” Shaking his head, Declan followed her out of the cooler, back to the street, where they continued hauling in their order of butter, sugar, cream, chocolate, nuts, and the rest of their raw materials, placing cold things into the fridge and everything else on the open counters surrounding the edges of the kitchen.

By the time he carried in the last box, waved to Luke as he pulled away, and closed the door, Lily had grabbed a utility knife and was already opening up the boxes. “I’m going to start sorting the order.”

“I’ll help. We should start with those bags of sugar, though.” They had a stack of fifty-pound bags. He grabbed his clipboard while she sliced open the various boxes. “Just tag them with an H or K and I’ll move them later.”

“I can carry them too.”

“I know you can. I just don’t want you using the excuse that you injured yourself as the reason you lost.”

“Not gonna happen, because I’m not going to lose.”

“Can we just get this done? Preferably in silence? I’m starting to get a headache.”

She pursed her lips. “Fine by me.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

And now they were back to the arctic freeze, and maybe he deserved that. In silence, Lily worked through all the boxes and bags, dividing, labeling, and moving them.

After an hour or two, he glanced over at Lily as she yawned. Flexed her hand before lifting the knife to the tape on the box that was poised on the edge of the counter. Her fingers trembled a bit.

And he shouldn’t have taken pity on her, he knew. But still. Declan stood and stretched, holding out a hand. “Here. I’ll take a turn with the knife.”

“So you can stab me in the back?” Lily stayed focused on the box, not even bothering to look his way. “No thanks.”

“Don’t be so stubborn.”

“Not being stubborn. I’m fine.” She sliced through the box just like she’d done several times already.

Except this time, the knife skidded down the cardboard and kept going, cutting right across the top of her knee. Lily yelped and dropped the box cutter. Bright crimson pooled and dripped from her leg onto the floor.

---