Page 1 of The Deal Maker

ONE

MAGGIE

Running a candy shop has to be the greatest thing to happen in my life. Owning it with my favorite cousin is even better.

“Did we order some more of the chocolate chip ice cream?” I ask Hope as she walks in, tying an apron around her waist.

She nods and says, “That got here on yesterday’s truck. I also ordered bubblegum and chocolate. I can’t believe we’ve gone through that much of it in the last two weeks.”

“It helps that there’s been a heat wave.”

“At least there’s been some variety to let you test out your ice cream theory.”

I roll my eyes at her before I begin a circuit around the store, checking the bins of bulk candy to see what needs to be refilled.

My ice cream theory is something I came up with as a bored teenager working in an ice cream shop. It rates people’s personalities with the kind of ice cream they choose. Hope is the only person I’ve ever told, and ever since we started The Candy Jar, she likes to bring it up at least once a week.

This business started as a fun game from our childhood, dreaming of recreating the house from Hansel and Gretel, sans the crazy witch. Hope and I practically grew up together in the summers when my parents sent me down to Willow Cove for a couple of weeks.

Did I think we’d be here fifteen years later? Nope. I’d been on the fast track to becoming my father’s protégé up in Virginia. I’d even been engaged to a guy who worked in my father’s accounting firm a year ago. It was too bad invisible red flags covered him. Well, they were only invisible to me.

When I showed up the morning of my wedding to find out that my fiancé scammed me and then ran off with the company receptionist, something in me kind of broke. Okay, everything broke. Time is a healer, but it seems like I got the turtle-slow version.

I write apple balls and chocolate-covered almonds in my notebook. I never would’ve guessed that some candies we sell would be gone so quickly. I’ll take the almonds by the cupful but nearly gag from the smell of the apple balls.

Thirty minutes until we open. That will be enough time to get everything ready. I hate it when things aren’t ready for the customers. We took out a business loan to start this place and I’m the one in charge of the books. Every sale is one step closer to less debt and more profit.

Hope is setting up the register for the day, and I walk into the back room in search of the refill bags.

There’s one bag with a pink foil covering that stops me in my tracks for a few seconds. The only thing that had actually arrived for my wedding had been the personalized chocolates I’d ordered from my favorite store. They had our names and the date printed on them and were to be a parting gift for people who came to support us during our nuptials.

I didn’t expect to be stopped by the sight of them this morning, but all the memories rush back.

A dam holding back tears that took weeks to dry up. My heart from knowing all I’d envisioned for my future wouldn’t happen. My sanity as I quit my father’s firm and high-tailed it down to Willow Cove, South Carolina.

It’s my haven, the perfect little beach town to lick my wounds. Hope and Aunt Daphne had been instrumental in keeping me away from the not-showering-for-days stage.

That all happened around eight months ago, and in my grief-stricken state, I swore off anything to do with weddings and dating. Sure, there have been a few romance novels that start out with a woman who’s sworn off love and then totally changes by the end of that, but I’m stubborn. Don’t add me to those statistics.

I’m now in a better place mentally, though.

Hope and I have our own little townhome we rent and, for the first time in my life, I’m in complete control of what happens to me. Some might appreciate the helicopter parents I had growing up, swooping in to fix every little thing. But there’s a freedom to knowing that it’s all on me.

Am I still terrified? Absolutely. What twenty-six-year-old woman living on her own merits wouldn’t be?

But after running all the reports and doing a ton of research, Hope and I knew that this would be a great business to start. My parents still aren’t thrilled that I “haven’t grown up,” but I can’t live in their shadow forever.

The Candy Jar opened nearly five months ago. That’s what happens when Aunt Daphne is a real estate agent and can get the ball rolling quickly. We’re in an outdoor mall along the coast, and I'm pretty sure this is heaven. Chocolate, sugar, and everything that goes with it. No one leaves the store with a scowl, and that's how I like it.

"Maggie Dean, did you refill the sour watermelons?" Hope asks me, when I walk back into the main area. She tends to call me by my first and last name, which most people think is my first and middle name. She always claims that it just rolls off the tongue better.

I nod, "Yep. I filled those last night. And the licorice and the gummy sharks. I'm surprised at how fast we've gone through those. Now I’ve got just a couple to refill and we’ll be ready to open."

Hope nods and smiles. “We’re off to a great start. How are the books?"

We’re conscious of the loan we took out, just like any up-and-coming business. But with how much traffic we get daily, I think we’ll be okay. Was I an accounting minor in college? Yep. And do I calculate the numbers nearly every day? Absolutely.

It goes a long way for my anxiety to settle when I do that.

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