Where Dreams Continue

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Raquel sat on her park bench and bit into the caramel. The chocolate slid over her tongue. It didn’t simply melt in her mouth as usual. Instead, it hesitated to play there a while, thick with teasing flavors she’d never noticed before. She tilted her head to one side, watching a sailboat skim along the lake while appreciating. The cocoa taste built and lasted, like a sweet, pure chord from a harp.

Perhaps she was extra sensitive today because she was launching Stage Three of her Personal Life Plan tonight. In two hours she’d be having dinner with Steven Tu. He was one of the partners of the law firm that Perrin used when her friend Jo was too busy. He was hugely successful and quite handsome. They’d met at business functions a few times. His sense of humor was a little weak, but his intelligence and taste more than compensated.

Raquel had always worked hard, unlike either of her parents. They came from money and were well on their way to losing it all through benign neglect. She was going the opposite direction and had been since she was seven. Her net worth had always been known to the penny and ruthlessly budgeted. She had started with hand sewing doll dresses for sale at Saturday markets; even working by flashlight under the covers until her fingers were poked to bleeding. Making clothes for junior high and high school friends, at least the ones who cared more about looks than designer labels, had given her a good training. She’d also learned that while she’d never be a designer, she could copy a name brand and knew how to reshape it to a body. She’d put herself through college working three jobs and still had been doing that when she’d joined Perrin’s shop.

Now after two decades, she was twenty-seven and all of that work was paying off. Raquel Wells was about to collect her rewards. Not that achieving her goals had ever slowed her down; she’d just set new ones and continue charging upward. Financially stable at twenty-seven. Next on the list was happily married by thirty. She’d allotted three years to make sure it was the right man for her, though she only expected to use six months of that time. True financial success and solid personal stability by thirty-two, plenty of time for a child at thirty-five.

When Raquel began considering which man she might choose to build that future with, Steven Tu’s gentle manners and impeccable taste came easily to mind.

She had come up with a list of three initial candidates and hoped that one of them would be the answer she was looking for.

Another rustle of the bag, and the second caramel was gone before she managed to slow herself down enough to assess what was actually occurring.

The chocolate was different.

She didn’t like that. Vic Bosco’s chocolate was comfortable, familiar, it fit into her life. For the last year, since she first felt she could afford the splurge, it had been both exceptional and completely consistent. You could plan on exactly what you were going to get there.

This must be the doing of the one playing games at the counter, the one fishing for her name with “Madonna Lady.”

She should go back and tell Vic to change it back, or get rid of the new man. But then Raquel realized that she was still tasting other aspects of the chocolate, though the treat was long gone. The flavors were different, but they were also lusher and richer. They continued to open and unfold despite how greedily she’d eaten both candies.

Maybe she wouldn’t be complaining to Vic. Somehow it felt disloyal to Vic to even think that. But it was…better.

Rising from her bench, she smoothed the chocolatier’s bag, folded it in half, and slipped it into her skirt pocket. Time to go change for Steven.