Page 22 of Treated to a Mountain Man
"We'll figure it out."
"How? The festival starts tomorrow morning. Judging is tomorrow afternoon." Her voice cracked. "Even if I could scrape together money for new ingredients, the specialty items would take days to order."
I surveyed the wreckage again, my jaw tightening. This wasn't random vandalism. This was targeted. Personal. Someone wanted her out of the running. The cash register sat untouched. The front display cases still held regular candy. Only the competition materials had been hit.
"First things first," I said, grabbing the broom from the closet. "We can't work in this mess."
For the next hour, we cleaned in grim silence—sweeping up glass, mopping the sticky floors, sanitizing every surface. Only when the kitchen was safe to work in did we take stock.
"What survived?" I asked, starting to search through cabinets. Then I noticed her favoring one side. "Hey, how's your back holding up? Let me handle the heavy stuff."
She started to bend for a lower cabinet, caught herself with a wince. "I'm fine—"
"No arguments. You direct, I'll lift."
She gave me a look but relented. "Some cocoa powder up high. Sugar in the canisters. A few chocolate bars I kept in the drawer for personal stash." She laughed, but it came out wrong, hollow. "Not exactly competition-grade ingredients."
"What about your apartment?" I asked. "You must have something up there."
"Let's check." Cinn led me up the back stairs. Her apartment kitchen was tiny but neat, with barely room for one person to work. She opened cabinets, taking inventory. "Half a bag of flour, some cocoa powder, couple chocolate bars I keep for emergencies. Butter in the fridge."
"Better than nothing. What about working up here?"
She shook her head. "The stove's temperamental—can't hold steady heat for tempering chocolate. And the fridge is already packed. That's why I always work downstairs, the commercial equipment is more reliable."
We made three trips, bringing down what we could from her apartment—sugar, vanilla extract she'd forgotten she had, even some cream that was still good. Every bit would help.
"Still not nearly what we need for six dozen," she said, looking at our pile back downstairs.
"But maybe we can make two dozen if we're smart about it," I said.
I went through every cabinet, every shelf in the shop. Most of what we found was ruined—containers opened and dumped, bottles smashed. But tucked behind bags on a high shelf, I spotted an intact jar of maple syrup.
"Look—this one survived." I held it up. "Hidden behind the flour."
"That's barely enough for two dozen."
"Then we'll make two dozen that'll blow their minds." Her chin lifted, that stubborn streak I'd come to love returned. "Ida closes at six. If we hurry—"
We ransacked Ida's store like people preparing for a blizzard. More butter, cream, the best chocolate she had. Ida disappeared into the back room and came out with a small container of gold luster dust.
"Ordered this for the bakery but they never picked up," she said, pressing it into Cinn's hands. "About time someone used it."
She didn't ask questions, just tallied our purchases and threw in some extra vanilla "on the house." She also gave us a roll of parchment paper from her baking supplies. As we loaded the truck, she caught my arm.
"You tell her the whole town isn't against her," Ida said quietly. "Some of us know what it's like to start over."
Back at the shop, we MacGyvered solutions. No Belgian chocolate? We'd blend what we had from her apartment with Ida's stock and pray the maple flavor carried it. The damaged fridge couldn't hold temperature? We'd use coolers with ice from the gas station. The stove's temperature control was wrecked from where they'd slammed pots on it, so we had to watch it constantly, adjusting the flame every few minutes.
"Temperature's critical," Cinn muttered, hovering over the double boiler with her candy thermometer. Her hand shook—fatigue or nerves, maybe both. "Two degrees too hot and the chocolate seizes."
"You've got this," I said, supporting her hand with mine. "Just breathe."
She did, leaning back against me for just a moment as the room filled with the scent of melting chocolate. "What if they taste like desperation?"
"They'll taste like grit." I kissed the top of her head. "And maple. Really fucking good maple."
The first batch seized. The chocolate turned grainy, useless. Cinn stared at it for a long moment, then dumped it and started over. The second batch was better, but the temper was off—the chocolate was dull instead of glossy. Into the trash it went.
