Cheryl shook her head. “I’d pretend to be shocked, but that does sound like something he’d do. He’s such a meddler, always has been.” She patted Lena’s arm. “No wonder you seemed so angry when you got here,” she said.

  “So, you bought this place for me? You didn’t just end up with it, and needed someone to bail you out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you thought I’d have fun being a cook like grandma, but for hundreds of strangers instead of just for family.”

  Cheryl smiled fondly at her. “You always did like a challenge,” she said.

  “Yeah, thanks. And the alpaca farm? Did you buy that for Landry because he saw a picture of an alpaca in a book when he was a kid?”

  “No, I bought that farm because the widow who had run it for over forty years with her husband desperately wanted to sell and move to Denver to live with her sister. The farm needed a lot of renovation and some new stock to make it profitable again, and Landry happened to have a few months off while he was waiting for his visa to go overseas. I thought it would be good for him to get his hands dirty for once.”

  “I’m sure he appreciated that,” Lena said sarcastically.

  Cheryl just shrugged, unaffected by her snarky tone. “Does he talk about his experiences on the farm very often?”

  Lena didn’t even have to think about that one. “He’s brought it up at least once in every conversation I’ve had with him since,” she admitted. “And I get alpaca wool scarves, complete with lectures about how they’re sheared, every Christmas.”

  “There you go,” Cheryl said happily. “I had a chance to spend time with him, and he got to live a completely different lifestyle for a short time. The memory of it will last forever for him.”

  “And all the times Dad has helped you with businesses?”

  “I like to spend time with my brother, as annoying and meddlesome as he can be, and to be honest, dear, I’ve never felt especially welcomed when I came to his home. But he’s different when it’s just the two of us.” She smiled with an evil glint that Lena hadn’t seen in her before. “Plus, it’s fun to see him struggle to learn new things, especially since he’s so accustomed to being the best in everything he does. Damn him, though, that he always picks up any new skill so fast that it’s only funny for a little while.”

  Lena nudged the stein toward her, and her aunt pulled a dollar out of her pocket and tucked it in. Between the two of them, the jar would be full before the weekend was over. They could take the staff on a vacation to Hawaii in March.

  “So, this place. Another widow needing to sell?”

  Cheryl shook her head. “A young couple who got in way over their heads and couldn’t find a buyer that would pay enough to get them on dry land again.”

  Lena scrunched her nose and thought it through. The family opinion was that Cheryl was irresponsibly changing careers left and right, but Lena had always assumed she was only hurting herself in the process—and maybe annoying her family, too. But this was a different story than the one Lena had known, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. “So,” she repeated, “you flip businesses. Buy them for cheap, put in a little work, and sell for a profit?”

  Cheryl laughed. “My accountant would love your version. She’s not impressed by the way I do business, although I’m sure I’ve put her three kids through college. No, Lena, I’m not a vulture. I love the excitement of starting new projects, and the steep learning curve at the beginning of them, but then I get bored quickly. My solution is to buy failing businesses for much more than they’re worth, put some work into them, and then sell them for even more. I help people who can’t get out of bad situations, plus I’m helping the economies of the communities they’re in. I make a profit, but my main goal has always been to make enough so I can invest in something new and different.”

  Lena rubbed her eyes. “This is overwhelming,” she admitted. She felt as if her parents had been lying to her about Cheryl, but they never had. They had just brought up the way she failed to meet their expectations, which had nothing to do with money.

  “If you want to leave, you can,” Cheryl said. “You’ll still be my beneficiary, whether or not you stay for the season or not.”

  “Jes—Jeez, I don’t want your money,” Lena said.

  “Well, too bad, because you’re getting it. And if you only use it to make prudent investments in stocks, I’m coming back to haunt you.”

  Lena laughed, but it quickly faded to a more somber mood. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know what my parents are like, and how they impose their beliefs and expectations on everyone else. I should have realized that they were doing the same thing to you, and any…well, negative things I might have heard were results of their biases.”

  Cheryl smiled, but her eyes looked suspiciously bright. “That’s all I want, dear. For you to know who I am. Does this mean you’ll stay, for at least a little longer? I’d like to get to know the woman you’ve become, too.”

  “I’ll stay,” Lena said. “For now. If the weekend is a disaster, I might change my mind.” She paused. “Do you mind if I check out of the hotel and move in here? It’ll probably be easier to be here instead of walking back and forth. Unless, of course, you’re worried about being with me in a kitchen full of knives now that I know you’re rich and I’m the beneficiary?”

  Her aunt laughed and patted her on the cheek. “Oh, Lena, I’m very worried about being near you and the knives, but not because I believe you’ll intentionally try to hurt me. I’m afraid I’ll just be collateral damage while you’re slicing the roast.”

  Lena tried to look insulted, but ended up laughing along with her. She might actually enjoy this getting-to-know-you part, and she was more willing to stay in Leavenworth than she wanted to admit because Devin was here, too. She wasn’t ready to say good-bye to her just yet.

  But the kitchen and its contents? Lena could gladly do without those.

  Chapter Ten

  When Devin got back to the shop, her dad was polishing the glass on the display cases while Shay was pulling out the mop bucket from the back storeroom. It didn’t look like the site of an emergency, but her father did have a frantic air about him as he cleaned.

  “What’s happening?” she asked. “And why are we mopping the floors before we’ve even closed for the day?”

  “They’re coming,” her dad said.

  “The British? Aliens? A zombie swarm?” Devin shook her head when he gave her a stern glare. The dread in his voice could only mean one thing. The potential buyers were coming to the shop.

  “Shay, please put the mop back,” she said briskly. “The last thing we need is for them to slip on a wet spot and sue us for the store. Then check the pantry to make sure the labels on all the couverture boxes are facing the wall. I’ll be in the office.”

  Shay nodded and wheeled the mop bucket back through the swinging door.

  “What should I do?” her dad asked.

  He normally could handle crises without any problems, but this situation had too much emotion tied to it for him to be his usual calm self. She would step up and take care of this for him. “Keep cleaning the cases,” she said. “We want it to look as pretty as possible in here.”

  Truthfully, she was more concerned with protecting the shop’s interests. The ratios in their proprietary blends of couverture—the high-quality chocolate they used—and the names of their vendors would be handed over to the new owners, but not until the contracts were signed. She went into the office and made sure everything was locked away except the packet of financial information that their lawyer had said they could share with prospective purchasers. She didn’t really think these people were spies from some other chocolate shop, but she also wasn’t willing to gamble their trade secrets on that assumption. Chocolatiers were protective of their secrets, and her family had spent generations honing their craft. She wasn’t going to share their results with anybody who walked in off the streets.

  Once she knew the office was ready, she walked through the kitchen and pantry, double-checking that everything was okay. She didn’t care if they knew what brand of sugar she used, but they damned well weren’t learning the percentage of cocoa butter they had in their couverture.

  “What should I do when they get here?” Shay whispered to her as they returned to the main room.

  “Just take care of customers like you always do,” Devin said. “Dad and I will show them around and then probably go in the office to talk finances. Oh, and you can offer them some samples, too. They’d probably like that.”

  She tried to appear unflustered by this sudden visit, but the two of them looked a little panicky, and it was rubbing off on her. She just hoped they wouldn’t scream and run into the back room when the couple came through the door. That wouldn’t make a good first impression.

  “Remember what Carmen told us, Dad, not to go into specifics about anything, like which wineries buy our chocolates or whose weddings we’ve catered. Keep it general for now, until we know if they’re really serious about making an offer.”

  He nodded. “I’ll leave the talking to you, if it’s all right. I’ll just stand here and smile.”

  “Oh, scary smile,” Shay said, watching him demonstrate. “Maybe go for the Serious Businessman look instead.”

  “Is this better?” he asked, apparently trying for a more serious expression, but landing somewhere around serial killer instead.

  “Not really,” Shay said thoughtfully. “You look kind of stiff. Why don’t you lean casually on the counter, like you’re about to sell some chocolates to a happy family.”

  “How’s this?”

  “The happy parents would grab their children and run,” Devin said, rubbing her temples. “You’ve had decades of practice being the kindly store owner who is definitely not homicidal. Why don’t you stick with that.”

  He managed the death mask version of that. Devin had two options. Snap him out of it, or lock him in the cupboard with the mop until the potential buyers left.

  “We’ve been invited to be lab rats at Haus Bavaria tonight, Dad,” she said. “Lena is practicing some of her entrées and asked us to come. We need to bring dessert.”

  “Dessert,” he repeated, his face brightening and returning to some semblance of normalcy. “A Sacher torte would be good, wouldn’t it? Come on, Shay, I’ll teach you how to make candied apricots. They’re not the traditional garnish, but everyone loves them.”

  Okay, one crisis averted. He’d make a better impression if he was in the kitchen looking industrious than if he continued looming at the counter. She wondered if she should go check her own expression in the mirror, but she figured she was somewhere in the realm of About to Vomit. The buyers were just going to have to take what they got with her. She wished this was over, all of it—the season, the sale of the shop, moving her dad into a new place. They would both feel better once it was finished and they were settled into their new lives. Wouldn’t they?

  She wished Lena was there to talk to her. Shake her up and help her through the next hour or two. But when all this was over, Lena would be gone, too. She’d be back home, back to her job and her life in Portland. Devin could wish she was around—she couldn’t stop herself from doing that if she tried—but it would remain in the realm of fantasy. She couldn’t allow herself to rely on Lena for support or comfort because then she’d be lost once she was gone.

  The door chimed and Devin looked up to see a couple entering the shop. They looked to be in their early fifties, with friendly, eager smiles. Devin imagined Lena standing behind her, whispering Here come the evil developers! and she had to stifle a laugh.

  “You must be Devin,” the woman said, introducing them as Brent and Natalie Comstock.

  She shook hands with both of them, then gestured around the sales floor. “I can give you the grand tour, if you’d like.”

  “We’d love that,” Brent said. “We’ve been here before, as customers, but always around Christmas when this room was full of people.”

  Devin nodded. “Weekdays in the offseason are quite different,” she said. “Come Saturday, it’ll be wall-to-wall in here, and then every day from after Thanksgiving to February. We make enough profit during those three months to cover most of our expenses the rest of the year, but there are plenty of opportunities to do special orders for weddings, restaurants, and other events year-round.”

  She walked them through the different types of confections they sold, pointing them out in the display cases and handing out occasional samples.

  “And the recipes will come with the shop?” Natalie asked.

  “Of course,” Devin said. She’d have to write them out, though. She and her dad didn’t use recipes since they had been making the same chocolates forever. When they wanted to experiment with new flavors, they just created something new. Devin thought of Lena with her grandmother’s handwritten recipes, and she decided she wouldn’t mind writing her own for the shop’s inventory. She’d maybe even get a set of them bound as a present for her dad.

  Speaking of her dad, she decided he had been working in the kitchen long enough to be more relaxed and ready to meet the Comstocks. She led them through the swinging door to where her dad was preparing a springform pan and Shay was standing by the stove stirring what Devin assumed were dried apricots in a Cointreau syrup. Shay gave a small yelp when they appeared, and her dad dropped the parchment paper, which unrolled across the floor. But still, it was a less dramatic reaction than she had been expecting from them. She was just glad her dad hadn’t been whipping the egg whites for the batter at the time.

  She introduced her dad and suggested he explain what he was baking. As soon as he started talking about the torte’s Austrian origins and its flavor profile, he was back in his element and seemed to relax. While he was showing them around the kitchen, Devin quickly picked up the parchment paper and got a fresh roll off the shelf, cutting out a round and fitting it into the bottom of the greased pan. By the time they had finished their circuit of the kitchen, she had separated the eggs and measured out the rest of the ingredients for him. She sent Shay out to cover the front of the shop and then moved the apricots off the burner to let them soak in the heated syrup.

  “Do either of you have experience working with chocolate?” her dad asked.

  “Not really,” said Natalie. “But I love to bake, and we’re willing to learn.”

  Her dad looked prepared to launch into a lecture about how difficult that would be, but Devin caught his eye and gave him a quick shake of her head. That would be their problem, if they ended up buying the shop.

  “Actually,” Brent said, looking at Devin, “we hoped you might stay on for a few months. Your Realtor told us about your experience here in the shop and in Seattle, and we thought you might be able to teach us what we need to know.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” Devin protested. For so many reasons. She settled on the easy one. “I have a job in Seattle. I need to get back as soon as the season is over.”

  Brent looked disappointed, but he turned to her dad. “What about you, Ron? Would you be willing to put off your retirement for a little longer?”

  “Oh, well…I guess…I mean, I’d…” He looked helplessly at Devin, and she understood how torn he’d be about wanting to help them so they didn’t completely ruin his family’s legacy. But to work here, with all the memories of his wife and family, but not as the owner? It would be far too painful.

  “No,” she said firmly, jumping in. “Dad will be coming back to Seattle with me. What I could do, though, is contact a couple of my confectionary professors from culinary school. I’ll bet they know of some recent graduates who would love a chance to come work for you, whether it’s temporary or on a full-time basis.”

  Her dad looked relieved, but Natalie sighed. “We really wanted one of you to stay since we’ve been so impressed by your products in all the years we’ve come here as a family. We want to keep everything the same as it’s been. But I suppose having a qualified chocolatier would be the next best thing.”

  Devin gently herded them through the rest of the tour, talking up her experiences in pastry school so they’d be more receptive to hiring one of their graduates. They finally returned to the front of the shop, where Devin had Shay pack them a box of candy, and then they were out the door and back on the snowy sidewalk, having promised to contact her soon through their Realtor.

  She went back to the kitchen with Shay trailing behind her, and the two of them leaned against the counter and watched her dad finish mixing the cake batter.

  “They seemed nice, I guess,” Shay said, breaking the silence.

  Devin and her dad just nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak just yet and figured he felt the same. The couple had seemed nice. And they claimed to want to be true to the store’s history and products, although Devin knew that wouldn’t last. They’d eventually want to change recipes, make them their own. Or they’d decide to cut corners on couverture, choosing less expensive chocolates instead. Or they simply wouldn’t develop the knack for combining flavors and really understanding the nuances of their product, like she and her dad did. Whichever one happened, the result would be the same. In a few years, the shop would be nearly unrecognizable to her. The taste, the look, and the mouthfeel of the candies would be altered. Perhaps only subtly, but changed nonetheless.

  She almost wished they were planning to do something radically different, like selling pipes and tobacco instead of chocolates. That would be better than the slow erosion of everything her family had built.

  Her dad slid the pan into the oven, then went back to teaching Shay how to make the apricot garnish, so Devin left the kitchen and decided to make another batch of wedding chocolates while she watched the front of the store in case any customers wandered in. She mentally went through the list of confections she still needed to make and settled on pistachio pralines. When she went to get the ingredients, though, she changed her mind and brought out a sealed container of white couverture instead. White chocolate truffles might not be on the list, but they always went well at a wedding.