Page 23 of Treated to a Mountain Man
"We don't have materials for many more attempts," she said, but her hands were already measuring cocoa for the third try.
We worked through the day and into the night. My back screamed from hunching over the counter. Cinn's hands cramped from piping filling, and she had to stop every few minutes to shake them out, flexing her fingers to get feeling back. The chocolate had to be tempered three times when the temperature spiked—that busted stove couldn't maintain heat.
By midnight, we had twelve that met her standards. Twelve out of the twenty-four we needed.
"Take a break," I said when I saw her eyes weren't focusing right anymore.
"Can't. Not enough time."
"Five minutes. You're going to fall over."
She sat on a milk crate in the corner while I kept stirring the chocolate. Her head drooped forward, and for a second I thought she'd fallen asleep sitting up. Then she straightened, drank some water, splashed more on her face.
"Okay. Let's go again."
My eyes burned from the concentrated focus, the fluorescent lights harsh after so many hours. My shoulders felt like someone had beaten them with a bat. When the damaged refrigerator started making grinding noises that meant imminent death, we transferred our work to coolers packed with fresh ice. Anothertrip to the gas station. Another twenty bucks spent. The kid at the register looked at me funny—covered in chocolate, buying a fourth bag of ice at one in the morning.
"Long night?" he asked.
"You could say that," I said.
Around two in the morning, fatigue hit like a sledgehammer. Cinn swayed on her feet, and I caught her before she could fall into the ganache.
"Break time," I ordered, pulling her onto the one clean patch of floor.
We sat against the wall. Her head dropped against my shoulder, her words running together when she spoke.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked quietly.
"Doing what?"
"This. Staying. Helping. You could've just said sorry about your syrup and walked away."
"Sometimes you just work with what you've got," I said, tracing a pattern in the spilled cocoa powder. "Besides, this is about more than syrup now."
"What's it about?"
"Us. Whatever that means. Whatever we're building here."
She was quiet for a moment, her breathing slow and deep. "I haven't had a real partner in... maybe ever.”
"Well, you've got one now."
"Yeah," she said softly. "I do."
The kitchen clock ticked loudly in the silence. Outside, Woodbridge Falls slept peacefully, unaware of our small war against time. Part of me worried we wouldn't pull this off, that whoever did this had already won. But looking at Cinn—cocoa powder in her hair, ingredients under her fingernails, still fighting—I pushed that fear aside.
"Come on," I said, pulling her to her feet. She stumbled, and I kept her upright. "Let's finish these and show them what we're made of."
The last few hours blurred together. Melt, temper, pipe, cool, repeat. Cinn's movements got slower but more careful, like she was pouring her last reserves into each piece.
We completed the final piece at four in the morning. Twenty-four chocolates, proof we weren't giving up. We packed them carefully in the coolers with fresh ice, each one snug in layers of parchment paper.
"They need to stay cold," Cinn said, gripping the counter to remain standing. "The shop fridge is shot."
"My cabin. I've got the commercial unit running for syrup storage." I put an arm around her waist. "We can catch a couple hours of sleep before we need to be back."
"Lucy's meeting me at seven-thirty to set up the booth," she mumbled against my shoulder.
