Page 6 of Forbidden to Fall

When my phone timer went off, I pulled my cream puffs out. Not too shabby for my glorified Easy-Bake Oven.

Once I’d filled them, I drove half of them over to my mom and dad’s.

My car was an old Civic my three brothers and I had all used throughout high school. It had been old even then.

Mom and Dad lived in a house a couple blocks from the center of town. Neither of their cars were there, but my brother Wade’s was. He was a year older than I was and much less self-conscious about living with our parents than I’d always been. Then again, as principal at the high school—Dad’s position until recently—he had a much more adult-sounding job, and sounding was the operative word. Wade wasn’t often accused of acting very adult-like.

I petted our blind Irish setter, Rusty, set the plate of maple cream puffs on the counter, then walked over to the pad of paper Mom kept by the fridge. Rusty sniffed the plate while I scribbled a note to tell my parents hi and that I was sorry to have missed them.

When I turned around to set the note next to the plate, I started, my hand flying to my chest. “Jeez!”

Wade had the foil cover lifted and was trying to steal a cream puff.

I ran over to take it from him, but he stuffed it in his mouth before I could snatch it.

I set a hand on my hip. “Real mature, Wade. Those were for Mom and Dad.”

He smiled, teeth and mustache full of cream puff, then started chewing. His brows bunched in concentration. “Mm. Is that maple?”

I went over and firmly clamped the foil back down. “Yeah.” I kept my fingers busy tightening the foil rather than looking at him because I just knew I got it directly from May Carver was tattooed across my forehead.

“It wouldn’t happen to be Carver maple, would it?”

My gaze darted to his.

He smiled knowingly. “Illicit cream puffs. No wonder they taste so good.”

“You make it sound like I laced them with drugs.”

“Carver maple is its own sort of drug.”

It really was. The Stevenson family were recovering addicts. We hadn’t bought Carver maple since the falling out between Ryan and James. The boycott had never been explicit. A few weeks after James had left Autumn Ridge, Ryan had brought home a case of syrup from a neighboring town, and the Stevensons had been their customers ever since.

I’d lapsed a couple of times over the years and bought some Carver syrup. Always in secret, though.

“Please don’t tell Ryan,” I said.

“I won’t.”

I opened my mouth to say thank you, but he cut me off.

“In exchange for four more of those.”

I pressed my lips together as he ruined my precise foil job and filled his hand, balancing the puffs against his chest, but I wasn’t mad he liked the taste enough to want four more.

“But seriously, Sade,” he said, “you should sell these at the bakery.”

I put a hand to my heart and blinked at him in feigned horror. “And desecrate the Keller menu?”

He made his way out of the kitchen. “You can sell them to me under the table, then. Or better yet, make them for me in exchange for keeping your dirty maple secret.”

“If I’m going down, you’re going down with me!” I called after him.

There were just three cream puffs left, so I added a post-script to my note letting them know to thank Wade for the blank space on the plate.

But for all his thievery, Wade had given me an idea.

Mrs. Keller looked at me, hands on her hips.