Where Dreams Continue

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Tony was losing his mind.

Three more weeks. No joy.

She’d refused a Habañero Mango Crème. She’d scoffed at his Pear Brandy Truffle. And now she’d even turned down his taste of Christmas in Summertime Strawberry Eggnog with just a hint of nutmeg.

He’d tried slipping the treat into the bag with her invariant ginger caramels, but she’d caught him the first time.

The second time, he had placed it into the bag before she came in. She had actually brought that bag back after she was done eating her two caramels.

Placing the bag on the top of the glass display case, she’d simply said, “I didn’t pay for this.” And then shot him a wicked smile. With a swirl of red hair and a jingle of the door’s bell, she was back out of the store. The shop was far too busy with a Seattle Chocolate Tour for him to respond. Vic had one thing right, the woman apparently never slowed down.

After that last failure to entice her, he didn’t even try to put a third candy in the bag.

Today the Madonna Lady didn’t even open it to check. Instead she raised the bag a few times as if weighing it, smiled at him, then paid and departed. He’d been left to watch the effect of designer slacks on mile-long legs and a well-toned behind. A fine view, but not what he was really hankering for.

Clearly she had a plan: to make him totally insane.

Just as clearly, he needed a plan. The problem with a plan was that it required thinking ahead. Even without his cousin’s constant ribbing, he knew that wasn’t his strongest suit. Vic had always been the thinker and Tony had always gone with the flow. He was only ever serious about one thing: chocolate.

Like it was yesterday, he still remembered the first time that he’d watched, really watched, his grandfather forming a chilled ganache into a perfect ball, swirling it in melted chocolate to coat it, then giving it a quick roll in cocoa powder and coconut. Granddad had popped it into Tony’s mouth, still cold in the center, the chocolate coating still warm beneath the cocoa and coconut. In that moment he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to awe someone the way Granddad had awed him that long-ago day.

And there was the problem.

The beautiful redhead wasn’t even giving him a chance to impress her. So why was this one woman so important that she was making him doubt his skills as a chocolatier?

Answer that one, boy, and you could conquer the world. Granddad’s standard reply to so many of Tony’s questions wasn’t comforting, but at least it was familiar.

“Vic, I gotta go for a swim.”

“Yeah, you look like you need to soak your head.”

Tony punched Vic’s upper arm hard, with a knuckle extended to ping the nerve cluster, and then headed to the apartment they shared above the shop to change.