She flirted with breakfast dishes, lunch dishes, dinner entrées, and other types of desserts. But in truth, she was monogamously committed to chocolate and unswervingly determined to create the most delicious chocolate she possibly could.
Back when they’d started Sweet Art, she and Maddie had both worked six days a week. Three years ago, they’d been able to hire part-time employees who operated the store for them on Saturdays and Sundays. Two years ago, they’d added a virtual assistant who worked several hours a week on marketing. A year ago, Britt had begun bringing in her pastry chef friends to assist in making chocolate for large custom orders or busy holiday seasons.
She and Maddie had good heads for business and worked wellas a team. They’d grown Sweet Art the same way a gardener might cultivate a garden. They’d expanded their online business. They’d sold their chocolate into retail stores across Merryweather, Shore Pine, and Seattle. They’d courted mentions in food magazines, travel sites, and blog posts.
Soon they’d have the funds to hire even more help. In the coming year, Britt hoped to begin scaling her business so that she could sell her chocolate to stores in neighboring states. After that: world domination.
When she’d arrived today, she’d gone through her familiar routine—donning her chef’s coat, catching her hair into a bun and adding a stretchy, shoelace-wide headband in case any strands dared to wander.
Deftly, she stirred the dark chocolate while turning and testing in her mind the idea she had for a brand-new truffle.
Since her chocolate inspirations were sometimes mercurial, she’d learned to jot them down as soon as they came to her. She kept track of them in little notebooks she had stashed in her car, her purse, her house.
Ordinarily, she pondered a new recipe until the urge to create jangled from her fingertips. Only then would she shut herself up in her kitchen—at any time of the week, the day, the night—and indulge in a fit of artistic productivity.
This morning, her fingertips had not been jangling. In fact, she was having to stretch to reach an inspiration that wasn’t yet full-bodied because her motivation was less about art and more about chocolate as distraction.
She really needed to lose herself in chocolate because she really needed a reprieve from these ill-advised, uninvited, embarrassinglymoonyfeelings she’d been having for Zander since their dinner in Seattle.
A memory of that dinner formed diamond sharp. Zander, who was wry and faithful and as constant as time, sitting near her, wearing that black Henley. His powerful concentration focused on her, just as it always did when he listened—
A pang of desire tightened within her.
This isexactlywhat had been happening!
And it was wildly annoying.
She seeded the chocolate by adding a handful of finely chopped cold chocolate to the warm, melted chocolate. More stirring. More chocolate fragments added. She tested it with a thermometer out of habit rather than necessity when she sensed that she’d brought it to temper. The thermometer confirmed her intuition. Eighty-six degrees. Now to reheat it slightly to finish the tempering.
The day that Nikki had met Clint at Sweet Art, she’d mentioned that Britt hadn’t “managed to keep” a single boyfriend. “Managed to keep” made it sound as though Britt had tried hard to keep her boyfriends. Actually, she hadn’t tried hard because she hadn’t wanted to keep them.
She lined up cream, cocoa butter, salted butter, rum, vanilla, and crème de menthe and imagined how different quantities of each would affect the outcome. She wanted this new truffle to blend the flavors of dark chocolate, white chocolate, peppermint, caramel, and salt into a perfectly balanced melody.
She’d had more boyfriends than either Willow or Nora. More than Willow and Nora combined.
Britt liked men and she liked dating them.
According to scientists, falling in love generated a huge endorphin rush, and Britt believed it to be true. Dating someone you liked intenselywasa huge endorphin rush. As it happened, she was a woman who liked endorphin rushes. Bungee jumping? White-water rafting? Skydiving? High-wire walking? She’d done them all. Few things, however, were quite as much fun as developing a crush on a new boyfriend.
It was the sustaining of said crush that she’d never successfully accomplished. One or three or five months into a relationship, her crush would wear off like sunblock she’d forgotten to reapply after swimming. She’d realize that her infatuation had led to indifference instead of love. Then, he or she—but almost always she—would end things.
She was fine with her pattern. It’s not like she was in a hurry to find a man who had the super-power ability to convert a crush into love.
In just over a week, she’d be turning twenty-seven, which, to her, seemed on the young side for marriage. I mean,marriage. Marriage was a heavy, forever kind of commitment.
She cherished not having anyone to answer to.
On the other hand, there’d been no one to tell her he didn’t want her kayaking on a flooded river because he was scared she’d hurt herself.
She cherished that she could decide she wanted to take a trip to Canada, then leave for Canada the very next morning.
On the other hand, she didn’t have anyone to take a spur-of-the-moment trip to Canada with.
She cherished her freedom.
On the other hand, when she saw Willow with Corbin and Nora with John, she sometimes suspected that belonging to someone might be worth a few sacrifices.
An hour later she sampled her truffle.
