Peppermint Fudge and Fears Read online

  She kissed Eli goodbye before getting out of the car. The snow in the parking lot was covering a layer of slush, thanks to the salt the plows had put down that morning, and she splashed her way up to the library with only a small tingle of nerves. She was pretty certain she would do well enough to not embarrass herself — she made candy for a living, for goodness sakes — but any sort of contest had always made her jittery.

  “Hi,” the volunteer said with a cheerful smile when she drew near. “Are you here to compete or to spectate?”

  “I’m a competitor,” Candice said. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone, and unlocked the screen to show the other woman the confirmation email she had gotten the night before. “My husband’s going to come and watch once we start, though. Does he need a pass or anything?”

  “Nope, just the five dollar entry fee. You’re all set, just go in and follow the signs. We’re set up in the children’s activity room in the back.”

  “Thanks.” She flashed the woman a quick smile of her own, then pushed through the library doors into the warm interior.

  Even if she hadn’t been familiar with the library, the activities room would have been easy to find. A variety of hand-drawn signs and paper arrows pointed the way, and she smiled as she followed the path to the back. There were a few patrons in the library, including one grumpy older man named Mr. Smith. He frowned at her as she passed by and she smiled. Lake Marion sure did have character.

  The room itself was about as big as her living room, with a large round table laden with supplies set up in the center and folding chairs arranged in a semi-circle around it. Suri was already there, and Candice waved to her employee as she made her way over to the sign-in table. Suri waved back. She looked more nervous than Candice felt, and she found herself rooting for the other woman. Suri was close-lipped about her home life, but Candice got the feeling that money was tight for her. If anyone deserved to win, she did.

  Not that Candice would throw the contest, of course. She had a healthy competitive streak that would have prevented that even if she thought it was ethical.

  She signed in and picked up the paper that outlined the rules and what their constructions would be judged on. There was half an hour left until the contest began, so she took a seat in one of the folding chairs and read through the list a couple of times until she was sure she knew all of the important parts by heart.

  By the time she was done, the room was a bit fuller, and there was a sense of excitement rising in the air. Her own sense of excitement dimmed when her eyes landed on another familiar face. Brad. He spotted her at the same time and made a beeline for her.

  “Hey,” he said. “I just wanted to come wish you luck. You’re going to win, I know it.”

  “Thanks.” She gave him a tight smile. “It looks like my friend’s looking for me,” she lied. “I should go.” She got up to join Suri at her spot near the table, where the other woman was talking to someone she didn’t recognize. Brad, she saw with relief when she checked, was on his way out of the room.

  “Hi, Candice,” Suri said when she walked up. “Are you ready?”

  “Definitely,” she replied with a grin. “I can’t wait to get started.”

  “Me either,” the stranger said. She shot a smile at Candice. “I’m Leila Townsend. This will be my third year competing.”

  “She won the other two years,” Suri said. “She was just telling me about her past designs.”

  “So you’re the one we’ll have to watch out for,” Candice said good-naturedly. “It sounds like you know what you’re doing.”

  “My mom owns a bakery; I used to help out there before I moved. I know my way around desserts. It’s all in good fun, though. Suri told me the two of you work at a candy shop, so you’ve both probably got some experience that will help you as well.”

  “Hopefully. I’m decent at putting nice looking treats together, but Suri’s a design genius. You should stop into the shop sometime and look at our artisan chocolates. That’s all her.”

  “I just might have to. She gave me a sample of your candies a few minutes ago, and the one I tried was absolutely delightful.”

  A volunteer called the contestants to sit down before Candice could respond to that, but she shot Suri an approving look. Her newest employee was really making herself invaluable. She would have to think about giving the woman a raise, even though she hadn’t even been working there for half a year yet.

  “Before we begin, does anyone have any questions?” the volunteer asked. “Are all the rules clear?”

  The gathered contestants all made various affirmative noises. The volunteer looked around the table for anyone who might seem confused or unsure. She seemed satisfied and raised a timer. “You’ll have an hour to complete your masterpieces, and then we’ll be taking a vote for the winner. Remember, the top three contestants get prizes. Begin on go. One… two… three… and go!”

  As soon as the word left the other woman’s mouth, Candice reached forward for a piece of gingerbread and a bag of icing. The knowledge that people were watching her — she had seen Eli out of the corner of her eye as she was sitting down, and she knew her parents were planning on stopping by even though they couldn’t come for the whole thing — seemed to vanish and her world narrowed down to what was right in front of her.

  She used the icing to glue pieces of gingerbread together on top of the plate that was serving as the base of her house. The house itself was a simple two-story home, similar to her mother’s house, with a chimney and a small front porch. Making the house itself was easy enough. Thankfully she had steady hands, and lots of experience with fine movement from her time making candy and chocolates. What would really make this piece shine was the decorating, and that was where Candice knew she would have to work extra hard. She had so many plans for the little house, and so little time, and she still wasn’t sure how she was going to make a snowman since they hadn’t supplied any full-sized marshmallows.

  “Are you okay?”

  Candice looked up at Suri’s words, thinking that her employee was talking to her, but the other woman’s eyes were on Leila. Her own focus on winning the contest faded away when she saw Leila’s pale face. One of her hands was clutching at her stomach, and the other was still holding a candy cane. She could see tremor’s in the other woman’s fingers.

  “Leila?” Candice asked.

  “I don’t feel good,” the other woman said faintly. Before she could say anything else, she toppled from her seat.

  Chapter 4

  Candice jumped up, but she wasn’t the only one. Suri and the volunteer who had counted down the start of the contest joined her. The other contestants looked on in concern. She heard a voice that she thought was Eli’s saying that he was going to call 911.

  “Everyone, stay back,” the volunteer said, rushing over to Leila’s side.

  “I have first-aid training,” Candice said. “I might be able to help.”

  At the volunteer’s nod, she dropped to her knees beside Leila, feeling for a pulse. There was one, but it was uneven and faint. Leila groaned again and tried to curl up, her breath coming short and fast. Even with her training, Candice didn’t know what to do. She looked at the other woman’s wrists to see if she had a medical alert bracelet, but they were bare. The other woman was pale and clammy, and was obviously in pain.

  “Move aside, I’m a registered nurse.”

  At the young man’s voice, Candice felt a wave of relief and moved away from the ailing woman. She had wanted to help, but she felt frozen and unsure. Nothing that they had learned in the first aid course she had taken to renew her certification the summer before covered this.

  She felt a warm hand on her shoulder and blinked, realizing Eli was standing over her, his other hand extended to help her up. She took it and scrambled to her feet. Everyone in the room had gathered in a loose circle around Leila, the volunteer, and the man who had said he was a nurse. The half-finished gingerbread houses lay forgotten on the table.


  It wasn’t long before Candice heard sirens. For once she was grateful that Lake Marion was such a small town. Even though it shared its emergency services with Maple Creek, it didn’t take long for the ambulances to reach anywhere in town.

  “Everyone, get back,” the man who was tending to the woman said. “Clear a path for the paramedics.”

  There was a shuffle in the room as everyone moved to the edges, Candice and Eli found themselves squished into a corner. She took his hand and squeezed. The woman on the floor seemed mostly incoherent now.

  The paramedics rushed in a moment later, and immediately began taking Leila’s vitals as the man who had been tending her told them what happened. They lowered the stretcher to the floor and carefully moved her onto it before raising it and wheeling it out with a sense of urgency that frightened Candice.

  The room was cast into silence once Leila and the paramedics were gone. No one seemed to know what to say or where to look. At last, the volunteer who had been the first to Leila’s side when she collapsed spoke up.

  “All right, everyone, the contest is cancelled. You’ll receive an email in a couple days to notify you of whether we’re going to reschedule or if you’ll be receiving refunds for your entries. Please pack up your things. If anyone wants to stay behind and help us clean up, you’re welcome to do so.”

  The woman’s words seemed to break the blanket of silence, and people immediately began talking and milling about. Most of them left the activity room after a moment or two, but Candice squeezed Eli’s hand and cocked her head toward the folding chairs, indicating that she wanted to stay behind and help. He nodded, and they moved over to the chairs together.

  Suri joined them and between the three of them they got the chairs folded up and leaning against the wall in only a couple of minutes. A couple of other volunteers were busy by the table, sweeping pieces of gingerbread into a garbage can.

  “We’d better grab our coats,” Candice said to her employee. The only chairs left to take care of were the ones around the table. Three of them still had coats draped across their backs.

  “It looks like Leila’s got left behind,” Suri said.

  “Should we leave it with the library’s lost and found, do you think?”

  “Probably.” Her employee hesitated, then spoke again, lowering her voice. “Do you… do you think she’ll be okay? I’ve never seen anyone collapse like that. It was like I was frozen. I don’t think I could have moved even if I had to.”

  “I froze up too, Suri,” Candice said. “I think most people don’t react in the way they would expect in a situation like this. And I don’t know. I hope she’ll be fine, but I have no idea what could have happened to her in the first place. At least she’s in good hands now.”

  She grabbed her coat and shrugged it on, then picked up Leila’s coat. She turned to find a library employee to hand it off to, and immediately found herself drawn into a pair of familiar arms.

  “Mom,” she mumbled into the tight hug. “Let go. What are you doing?”

  “We got here just as the ambulance was pulling away,” her mother said, pulling back so she was at arm’s length. “We were so worried. What happened?”

  Candice looked at her mother. Moira Darling had aged well, with only a couple strands of grey in her brown hair. The few wrinkles she had were laugh lines; the sign of a life well lived. Right now, however, her brow was pinched in concern, and David — Candice’s stepfather — was looking around the room for signs of what had caused a need for an ambulance.

  “One of the contestants collapsed,” Candice said. “I don’t know why. The contest is cancelled. We were just about to go home; we only stayed to help clean up a bit.”

  “That’s terrible,” her mother said. “Will she be okay?”

  “I don’t know. It looked pretty bad.”

  “Hi, Moira. Hey, David,” Eli said, coming up behind her. “Everything all right?”

  “Candice was just telling us about the woman who collapsed,” David said. “I’m glad you’re both all right. We were worried.”

  “Sorry,” Candice said. “I kind of forgot you were coming in all the excitement. I’m glad you got here before we left. Do you want to go out for lunch? I just want to help Suri finish putting away the chairs, then I’ll be ready to go.”

  “We’d love to,” her mother said. “We were going to invite you out after the contest anyway. You should see if Suri would like to come. I feel like I hardly know her.”

  “You don’t need to know all of my employees as well as you know Allison and Logan, Mom,” Candice said, her tone exasperated. Hiring her half-sister and one of the deli’s previous employees had led to her mother getting used to knowing everyone at the candy shop as well as she knew her own employees. Candice, on the other hand, failed to see the need for her mother to be on Christmas card terms with everyone who worked at Candice’s Candies. “But I’ll ask her, don’t worry.”

  Leaving Eli with her parents, Candice turned back to the table to find that Suri had folded up the last of the chairs and was already zipping her coat.

  “I’m about to leave, unless you need anything else,” she said.

  “Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to go out to lunch with us,” Candice said, gesturing at the small group that was waiting only a few feet away.

  “I just got a call from — I mean, something came up. I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you Monday, though.” Suri gave her a brief smile, then hurried out the door. Candice stared after her for a moment, puzzled, then turned back to her family.

  “I guess it’s just us for lunch.”

  She made it out to the car before she realized that she was still carrying Leila’s coat. With a shrug, she set it in the back. She could return it to the library later — or maybe she could give it to Leila in person, if the other woman would be allowed visitors once she was in recovery at the hospital.

  Chapter 5

  The four of them ended up going to a new restaurant on the outskirts of Lake Marion for lunch. Named Buck and Gobbler’s, it served venison, elk, and other game depending on the season. Most of the meat was processed in the neighboring building, and what wasn’t processed there was still sourced locally.

  Candice wasn’t big on hunting herself, and tended to prefer a good old-fashioned hamburger to the gamier meats, but she couldn’t deny that the restaurant had a cozy, welcoming feel to it. There was a real wood fire roaring away at the far end of the lodge-like dining area, and an offering of various types of jerky up near the register.

  They were seated quickly — the restaurant had only just opened for lunch — and wasted no time in looking over the menus. Candice decided to play it safe with a bison burger. She shut the menu and sipped her water, glancing over at the large Christmas tree near the fire. Unlike the ones in her candy shop, this one was real, and it was probably the largest Christmas tree she had ever seen.

  “So, Suri had something come up?” her mother asked, drawing Candice’s attention away from the tree and back to her dining companions.

  “So she said.” Candice frowned. “She didn’t say what. I hope it’s not anything bad, though. She had planned to spend the afternoon at the contest.”

  “She seems nice,” her mother said. “It’s a shame she couldn’t make it today. How is Allison doing?”

  “She’s doing well. She’s at the candy shop right now. She doesn’t usually work weekends, but she agreed to cover for me today since I wanted to do the contest.”

  “Are the four of you really enough to keep the place running?” her mother asked. “You’ve increased the shop’s hours since the reopening. I worry about you, Candice. Don’t stretch yourself too thin.”

  “I don’t mind,” she replied. “I’m there a lot, but I like it. It’s hard to explain to anyone else, but I think you’ll understand. The candy shop is mine… it’s something I built, something that took on a life of its own and is flourishing every day. I don’t mind working long hours
there at all. I’m just happy it’s doing well.”

  “Besides, now that Suri’s trained up, Candice doesn’t have to be there for open and close unless she wants to,” Eli added. “And she usually comes home for lunch. Except for on the days someone hand delivers her soup and a sandwich.”

  Moira chuckled. “Okay, okay. I’ll admit it. I miss my daughter. And my son-in-law. David and I used to see the two of you all the time. I’m so glad that the candy shop reopened successfully, but I also miss having the two of you around more. And you know, Eli, you’re always welcome back at the deli if you’re looking for work.”