Sugar Rush (15 page)

Nick nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard.”

“But when Evelyn and I created, you would have sworn she was the real genius.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Ode to Love was one of our greatest creations.” He glanced up at Nick. “And she stole it. We had this ridiculous fight, and the next thing I know, she’s telling me she’s entering it in the competition.” He paused. “By herself!”

“You’re telling me you created the Ode to Love with Dulcie’s grandmother?”

His father nodded, wringing his hands like he was ready to strangle someone over the whole thing.

“So she helped.”

Mr. Sugarman crinkled his brow. “Of course.”

“So then she really only stole her own recipe.”

He stood, facing Nick dead on. “It was at least half mine,” he said. “We made it together. It was supposed to belong to both of us and she just went and entered it.”

“Without you knowing,” Nick said.

“Well, she told me the day before the contest. I had no time to come up with something else on my own.”

Nick was confused. “What do you mean something else? You were going to co-enter the competition?”

Mr. Sugarman was a little sheepish now. “Not…exactly.”

“Oh. My. God. You wanted to enter the Ode to Love on your own, too, didn’t you? She just beat you to it.”

“No,” his dad said, but Nick knew he was lying.

“Regardless, at least she told you. You didn’t have to sit in that room with the judges and all those people staring at you while some other store unveiled your own chocolate right before you were about to. Can you even imagine what that must be like?”

His father was silent, not looking him in the eye.

“You honestly don’t understand the difference between entering something that’s half yours and blatantly stealing a recipe? How in the hell did you get it, anyway? Dulcie kept it so under wraps, even I didn’t have a clue what she entered.”

All of a sudden, he remembered his father handing him that container of chocolates to “break down,” and he realized the part he’d played. Nick thought he might be sick. Then last night, when Dulcie fixed that last chocolate from the ruined batch…why hadn’t he paid more attention to what it was? He could have warned her…

“Oh, don’t worry so much. It’s just a ridiculous contest,” his father said. “It doesn’t even mean anything. Evelyn and I used to fight like this all the time. It only stopped because…well, because her daughter died and I suppose her priorities changed. But then those chocolates were sitting there on the counter the day I went to talk to Evelyn. I took it as a sign.” He smiled wistfully.

“This ‘ridiculous contest’ meant everything to Dulcie. The prize money could keep her shop running for a long time. Keep her mom’s dream alive.”

“Exactly!” his father yelled, as if it were some big a-ha moment. “Her
mother’s
dream. Her
mother’s
legacy. And if you must know, it was her mother’s
recipe
, too. Has her signature all over it. She’s not around anymore, so it’s not like she patented the idea or anything.”

Nick grabbed his hair with both hands, pacing like a madman. “I’m going to talk to the judges,” he said, turning to walk out.

“Wait, you can’t. It’ll put a black mark on How Sweet It Is
.
The blogs will have a field day.”

“Oh, so it’s fine for you to ruin Candy Land’s reputation, but you can’t take the heat when you get caught? Maybe you should have thought about that before you stole from Dulcie. Haven’t you ever heard of karma, for Pete’s sake?”

“Nick, you’ll be hurting the store if you do this. Our future.”

And that was about the only thing his father could have said to give him pause. Could he live without everything his father’s legacy had paid for? The apartment, the car…the job?

Chapter Fifteen

When they got home, all Dulcie wanted to do was sleep. Just curl up into a ball on the floor of her mother’s room and sleep forever, begging for her forgiveness.

This time she hadn’t just screwed up on behalf of her mother’s memory—she’d messed with her mother’s actual recipe, the last shred of her legacy.

How could she have been so stupid? Sure, Grams skewed a little to the quirky side, but she’d never steered Dulcie wrong. When she said stay away from Nick, Dulcie should have stayed the hell away. Who had she become? Sneaking around and lying? She had been raised better than that. Grams and Mom never snuck around and lied to her.

They deserved better.

Dulcie’s stomach rolled with regret. Humiliation. Disappointment in how her life had turned out. But she deserved it all. If she was going to be so stupid, she didn’t deserve the store. Didn’t deserve her mother’s legacy.

But Nick or his awful father certainly didn’t deserve to get credit for her mother’s recipe, either.

And that’s what motivated her to get up.

“What do we do, Grams?” she asked.

“We’re going to take that bastard down,” she replied.

“But how?”

“I’m still working on that,” she said.

“Grams, we had the whole ride home to work on it and we’re no further ahead than we were back at the hotel.”

“I know,” she said, pacing.

Dulcie got up and paced opposite her.

“Wait,” she said, spinning to face Grams. “Jess!”

“Who the heck is Jess?”

“You know the homeless woman I’ve been telling you about?”

Grams stopped dead in her tracks. “You want to put our future in the hands of a homeless person?”

Dulcie rolled her eyes. “Well, if you would ever come down to the shop and meet her, you’d realize she’s extremely smart. She just got the shitty end of the stick in this recession, and if we don’t hurry up and do some damage control, we’re about to follow in her footsteps.”

“I can’t,” Grams said, more to herself than to Dulcie, shaking her head. “I…I just can’t.”

“Grams, we won’t be able to do this alone. We need the help of our friends at the shop. They’re almost as invested as we are in this. I mean, how long has it been since you saw Constance? And you haven’t even met Ava. She’s been working for us for two years.”

Grams kept pacing, her head shaking even harder now.

It was time for Dulcie to play dirty. “It could mean taking Mr. Sugarman down.” She raised one eyebrow.

Grams stopped.

“Well,” she said with a humph. “I guess I’ve always known I would have to go back someday…”

It wasn’t a definite yes, but at that point, Dulcie was willing to take it.

An hour later they stood in front of Candy Land Confections, Grams pacing in her heels. Her hands were red from wringing them.

“Come on,” Dulcie said after about ten minutes.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, but the next time she turned to pace back toward the store, Dulcie saw a tear streak down her cheek.

“It’s okay,” she said, grabbing her grandmother by the shoulders, standing in front of her. “We can do it together.”

“It’s just…” Grams wiped another tear. “She was my one true love, you know?”

Dulcie nodded. She did know. So often true love was thought of as romantic love, but her mother and Grams were soul mates, destined to live their lives together. Sure, most mothers and daughters were close, but they had been best friends all their lives.

“It’s just…the smell of this place,” Grams said. “It reminds me so much of her.”

“I know. I smell it every day. And I remember her every day. It helps me stay close to her memory.”

Grams looked her in the eye. “Really?”

“Well, have you been able to think about one thing besides Mom since you got here?”

Grams shook her head. “But it hurts to remember.”

“Yeah,” Dulcie said. “But I try to think of the good stuff. Not the bad news we got.”

Grams took a deep breath, composing herself. “You’re a smarty for someone so young, you know that?”

Dulcie shrugged. “I did have you and Mom in my corner.”

Grams took Dulcie’s hand, squeezing it more tightly than was comfortable. For the first time, Dulcie cursed all the working out Grams did. Her hand was like a vise.

Dulcie opened the door and the familiar jingle of the bells sang.

Grams stopped.

But Dulcie tugged, and a few minutes later they were inside. Grams had her eyes closed, taking in the sounds and smells of the place that used to be like home to her. Dulcie tugged her a little farther into the store; they were in the way of customers wanting to come in.

“Come on, you’re doing great.”

Grams opened her eyes and gazed around. “It’s busy,” she said.

“You should have been here a week ago,” Dulcie said.

Things had tapered off even more. It was kind of good Dulcie had to sneak away for a couple days for the contest; it gave Ava a chance to log a few more hours, and more importantly, gave Jess a couple more days out of that alley.

“Ms. Carter!” Constance yelled from behind the counter. “Is it good to see
you
!”

Her smile was contagious. It finally struck Dulcie how big of a deal this was, and she barely contained her beaming. Even Grams snuck behind the counter to give Constance a much overdue hug.

The customers standing in line didn’t even seem to mind waiting another minute or two for what even they must have realized was a long-awaited reunion.

Grams let go and glanced around again. “It feels good to be back. I didn’t think it would.”

Constance gave her a look—sort of half scolding and half filled with pride.

“What brings you in after all this time?” Constance asked. Worry crossed her face. “Dulce? How did the competition go?”

“You’ve still got your good sense,” Grams said, patting Constance on the hand. “You’re right. We’ve got some issues to take care of, to say the least.” She glanced at the customers and Constance seemed to understand she couldn’t say more.

“We’ll be in the back if you need us. When Ava gets here, can you come to the kitchen for a few minutes? We’ve got some things to discuss,” Dulcie said.

“Of course,” Constance replied, though the little worry lines on her forehead deepened. But Constance was nothing if not professional, and quickly went back to her usual customer service friendly self.

Grams remained a little dazed as they made their way to the kitchen. “It’s exactly the same,” she said, her voice shaky.

“Yeah, haven’t changed much of anything,” Dulcie said. “Well, except for Jess here.” She motioned to the girl, who stirred something in one of the giant pots.

“Oh, you’re Jess?” Grams said, startled.

Dulcie’s face turned a little red, since it was obvious she had explained Jess’s
situation
to Grams. But Jess was as gracious as ever, wiping her hand on her apron and holding it out to Grams.

“Nice to finally meet you, Ms. Carter,” she said. “Dulcie’s told me a lot about you.”

“Don’t you believe any of it,” Grams said, winking, almost back to her usual self.

Jess laughed.

“So um…,” Dulcie said, “we ran into a bit of a snag at the competition that we hoped you could help us with.”

Grams snorted. “A bit of a snag? I’d call it a giant pile of dung hitting the fan.”

Jess’s eyes widened, obviously not sure how to react to a statement like that coming from a delicate-looking older lady.

She managed a fairly blank expression.

Dulcie relayed the entire story, Jess’s eyes growing wider, then filling with anger as it went on.

“The contest is bound to hold some sort of meeting or inquiry over what happened, but it will end up being our word against the word of How Sweet It Is,” Dulcie finished.

“Well, you’ve got the original recipe, right?”

Dulcie nodded.

“So why not use it as proof?”

“I thought of that,” Dulcie said. “But it’s only a handwritten piece of paper. Anyone could have written it. There’s nothing to prove it was Mom’s.”

Jess nodded, and the wheels looked like they were turning in her head. “There must be some old documents…something your mother wrote that could prove her handwriting.” She glanced at Dulcie. “So, you just left the competition?”

Dulcie nodded. “I couldn’t stay with everyone talking about me. I’ve been through that kind of humiliation before and was not keen to go through it again.”

Jess nodded, chewing her lip. “Well, from a damage control stance, it doesn’t look too good that you left.”

“Damn,” Grams said, pacing. She wasn’t even looking around the kitchen anymore. All those months of staying away and apparently, she already felt at home again.

“And I suppose Nick and his father stayed?” Jess asked.

Dulcie nodded. “I assume so.”

Jess started to pace, too, rubbing her bottom lip in thought. “Well, they seem to have the upper hand at the moment,” she said. “But you’ve got the truth on your side, which, in my experience, almost always comes out on top.”

Dulcie didn’t let herself become too hopeful. “Maybe we should forget about the contest and concentrate on damage control with our customers.” It almost killed her to say it, knowing how much had been riding on the prize money.

Jess shook her head. “You need to file a formal statement with the contest, though. Otherwise How Sweet It Is can run with the lie that it’s their recipe. That would be the worst thing that could happen, since then you won’t even be able to sell the Salted Caramel Apple Enchantment here in the store.”

Dulcie’s heart sank. She hadn’t even thought of that.

“The second you put it up on your shelf, at best How Sweet It Is will be calling you out all over the local blogs.”

Dulcie was afraid to ask. “And at worst?”

“He could sue,” Jess answered. “Especially if he moves forward in the contest. The longer he goes with everyone thinking it’s his recipe, the worse it is for you.”

“So what do I do?” Dulcie asked.

“First things first. Send over a formal complaint to the contest with your side of the story. Don’t go into anything too personal, just that you thought you and Nick were friends, and he’s been over to your shop on several occasions. Mention how it’s your late mom’s recipe. A little sympathy never hurt anyone.”

“Okay, I can do that.”

“Then we’ll start finding ways to prove it’s your mom’s.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Dulcie said.

“Once we have all that, we’ll go to the press.”

Dulcie tilted her head. “I’m not really sure if this is newsworthy.”

Jess raised her eyebrows. “I bet the food blogs who helped out sales over the past few weeks would be interested in a story like this.”

“I suppose.”

“Good, I’ll keep brainstorming. Don’t worry, Dulcie, we’ll figure this out,” Jess said.

“You go do your e-mail,” Grams said, “and I’ll get to work making some more candy for all those customers you got out there.”

“We have Jess to thank for that, too,” Dulcie said.

Grams turned to Jess. “You are one multi-talented girl, I must say.”

Jess shrugged. “I’ve heard the same about you,” she said, smiling.

Lila came through the swinging door, munching on a Lemon Squeeze
.
“These things are so good,” she said between chews. She glanced around and gasped, causing some of the Lemon Squeeze to go down the wrong pipe. She coughed for a good three minutes while everyone stood there watching. “Jesus, Grams, you’ve got to warn a person before you just show up and shock the shit out of everybody!” she finally spit out, coughing some more.

“I’m sorry I didn’t send you a memo, dear,” Grams said, rolling her eyes and grinning.

Jess stood quiet like her usual self, enjoying the show.

“I’m so happy you’re here!” Lila said, her whole face lighting up as she smothered Grams in a giant bear hug. “Things were not the same without you.”

Glad that Lila and Grams were busy with their reunion, Dulcie snuck out of the kitchen to compose her e-mail.

…

Nick had to get to Dulcie. She wouldn’t return any of the million phone calls he’d made. In fact, he was pretty sure she’d blocked his number.

He couldn’t believe his father’s “all’s fair in love and war” attitude, like the whole sabotage was nothing but a big joke. But it was Dulcie’s life he’d played with. He didn’t even get that it barely had anything to do with Ms. Carter at all, even though she was the one he’d wanted to hurt.

Right now he needed to find Dulcie. She had to understand it had nothing to do with him. He was a little ticked she didn’t realize it already, but if her grandmother was anything like his father, no doubt she filled Dulcie’s head full of suspicion and reminders about the feud. God, he’d been so stupid just standing there when the How Sweet It Is chocolate was revealed. He’d still hated that he hadn’t come up with the chocolate himself, but he couldn’t believe the sense of pride he’d had for his father, thinking it was his best work yet.