Assaulted Caramel Page 26

  Chapter 1

  When the pig went missing, I knew there would be trouble.

  “Bailey, honey?” Juliet Brody asked me in her sweet Southern drawl. “Have you seen Jethro?”

  I looked up from dime-sized bags of homemade black licorice I was stacking in one corner of Swissmen Sweet’s competition table. The licorice was my entry in the first round of the Amish Confectionery Competition. The licorice came in a variety of flavors: strawberry, lemon-lime, blue raspberry, orange, peach, and traditional black. The licorice was just one of my candies that would be judged in the competition. The competition had four rounds, and each was more difficult than that last, with only a certain number of competitors advancing to the next round. It was like the NBA playoffs but with way more sugar. No modern cooking implements or methods were allowed in the competition, and that included electricity since some Amish districts didn’t allow its use even for business.

  Everything had to be done the Amish way, which meant slow and deliberate. I’d thought I was up for the challenge of making candy using the Amish methods, but I was learning that it was much more difficult than I’d realized. It couldn’t be more different from how I’d learned to make chocolates and candies as Jean Pierre Ruge’s protégé for six years at JP Chocolates, a high-end chocolate shop in Midtown New York City.

  “Jethro?” I glanced up and down the row of competition tables. Just like mine, every table was cafeteria length, with a propane stove behind it. A white awning covered each space. At the table next to me, an Amish woman removed the candy thermometer from the boiling pot on her stovetop and poured the sugary liquid into waiting candy molds. If Jethro had been there, I was sure I would have seen him. He tended to stand out. There was no sign of the black and white polka dotted potbellied pig.

  “No, I haven’t seen him all morning.” I tucked a lock of dark brown hair behind my ear. “Is he running loose at the competition? I doubt the competition board would like that. I wouldn’t let Margot know he’s unattended on the square if I were you.”

  Margot Rawlings was the village chairwoman and was determined to make sure everything went perfectly for the Amish Confectionery Competition, also known as the ACC. Every year, the competition was held in a different Amish town. The towns had to audition to snag the competition and each one wanted it because it was a big tourist draw. It was quite an accomplishment for a village as tiny as Harvest to win the ACC, especially in Ohio’s Amish country, where there were so many better-known Amish communities in places like Charm, Berlin, and Sugar Creek. Margot had campaigned and won the hosting spot for Harvest almost single-handedly from what I heard. She wouldn’t let anything mess up Harvest’s time in the spotlight as the ACC’s host town.

  Juliet wrung her small pale hands together. “I just don’t know where he could have run off to. It’s so unlike him.”

  “How long has he been gone?” I dropped another bag of licorice on the pile on the table.

  She swallowed. “I don’t know exactly. I was helping some of the competitors set up their spots, and that took several hours. You would not believe the amount of stuff that some of these people brought for the ACC.”

  I glanced back at my stack of crates filled to the brim with candy making supplies, pots, pans, and utensils. “I can guess.”

  Juliet pursed her lips. “There was so much to do that I didn’t notice that Jethro was gone until we were done.” She clasped her hands together more tightly. “I thought he was there the entire time while I was working. The last time I saw him he was standing in the shade under one of the bushes near the gazebo. When I was ready to leave and went to collect him, he was gone.”

  I glanced at the large white gazebo that stood in the middle of the village’s town square. It was mid-day, and the autumn sun shone down on it like an orange pumpkin ripening in one of the many pumpkin patches scattered around the county.

  “I’m sure he’s here somewhere. Maybe the crowd spooked him. None of us are used to having this many people in town,” I said.

  Because of the ACC, the village did have an unusual influx of people. There were thirty Amish candy makers in the competition, and as a rule the Amish didn’t travel alone. The competitors came from as far away as Wisconsin and Florida, and some had brought their entire families to Harvest to watch them compete. In the Amish world, that could be as many as twenty additional people. Those numbers didn’t even include all the spectators, both Amish and English, who’d come to Harvest to watch the competition. I’d guess there were a couple thousand tourists.

  “What if someone took him?” Juilet’s voice caught and her accent became more pronounced as it always did when she was upset. “How will I ever know who did it in this crush of people?”

  I stepped around the side of my table and gave her hug. “No one took Jethro. I know it. I’m sure he’s just hiding somewhere. Why don’t we—”

  “There she is!” A shrill voice shouted over the din of visitors and candy makers packed into the square. “I demand that you do something about this!”

  I let go of Juliet to see a petite Amish woman in a plain navy dress, black apron, and white prayer cap stomping toward me. Her hair was parted in the middle and coiled into a bun at the nape of her neck in the Amish way. The woman was rail thin and couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. Despite her small stature, the crowd parted to let her pass like storybook villagers would for a dragon on a raid. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she breathed fire just like a dragon. She would be the world’s tiniest dragon but that didn’t lessen my chances of being burned, and I knew that was just what Josephine Weaver wanted to do. She wanted to burn me out of the competition.

  Jeremiah Beiler, the Amish organizer of the candy making competition, lumbered behind Josephine. He was a large, round man who was three times the size of Josephine, but not nearly as fierce even though he sported a luxurious Amish beard. If I had to choose between Josephine and Jeremiah to contend with, the big teddy bear of a man would always win.

  Margot Rawlings was a few steps behind Jeremiah. Her short blond hair bounced as she made her way across the village green in Josephine’s wake. She looked just as irritated as the Amish woman, but I wasn’t sure if it was with me, Josephine, or both of us. Knowing Margot, it was both and probably every other person on planet Earth. She wasn’t picky when it came to be being annoyed with people.

  When Josephine was within three feet of where I stood next to Juliet, she pulled up short and pointed at me. “She should be disqualified. She’s not Amish!”

  I looked down at my outfit. Purple suede ankle boots, designer jeans from my life back in NYC, and a pink and purple flannel shirt under a bomber jacket. To complete the outfit, I wore multicolored feather earrings that hung an inch down from the bottom of my earlobes. There was no one in the world who would believe I was Amish.

  Jeremiah folded his arms across his ample stomach. “Now, Josephine, we have been over this already. Bailey can compete in the ACC in her late grandfather’s place. Jebidiah King’s candy shop was accepted into the contest months ago.”

  Josephine’s lips curved into a sneer. “If a contestant dies, I see no reason to allow his relatives to compete, especially if those relatives have turned their backs on the Amish way and become English.”

  I balled my hands at my sides. My grandfather had died a few short weeks ago and his loss was still too raw for me to take such a comment lightly. “I haven’t fallen away from the Amish. I’ve never been Amish.” My words were sharper than I would have liked them to be, but I made no apology.

  The tiny woman sniffed. “All the more reason to expel you from the competition. You cannot possibly understand our ways.”

  “Please, please,” Margot said, looking around. “Keep your voices down. There is no reason to cause such an uproar. You will disturb the tourists.”

  “They should be disturbed. They came a long way to see the ACC, and there is an imposter in the competition.”

  “Josephine,�
� Jeremiah said as he inched away from her. I wondered if he was moving out of smacking rang. The Amish weren’t prone to violence, but I wouldn’t put it past Josephine to raise her fists. Jeremiah, now a good two feet away from the angry Amish woman, said, “We have been over this several times already. The board has made its decision and it’s too late to change it now.”

  “How are the Amish to fairly compete if we have to deal with a cheating Englischer?” Josephine wanted to know.

  “I’m not cheating. I’m making the candies using the same equipment as the rest of you.” Now, I was really getting annoyed.

  “Clara King should be the one taking her husband’s place in this competition, not you.” Josephine placed her hands on her narrow hips. “At least she is Amish!”

  “Don’t bring my grandmother into this,” I snapped.

  Maami was back at Swissmen Sweets minding the shop. Business would be brisk with all the tourists in Harvest for the ACC, but it certainly would be much quieter than it was on the square at the moment. Quiet was what my grandmother craved. Right after my grandfather had died, she had seemed to be a pillar of strength, going about her life in same orderly way she always had, but as the weeks after his death went by she became quieter, withdrawn, as if she finally realized that her lifelong companion was gone.

  Clara and Jebidiah King had truly been together all their lives. She and my daddi grew up on the same road. They had known each other since birth. My grandfather said it was love at first sight. As a young child, I would argue that point with him. I told him that babies can’t fall in love. He would say, “Sure they can. You fell in love with me when you were a baby.” I would protest and tell him that was different because he was my daddi. Boy-girl love was another matter. He would shake his head and say, “The soul knows when it’s found its match, no matter the age.” I didn’t buy that at eight. I wasn’t sure if I bought it at twenty-seven either, especially considering my own romantic record, or maybe my soul was just as confused as the rest of me.

  Juliet, who had been silent up to this point said, “Could it be, Josephine, that you want Swissmen Sweets to be removed from the competition because they just might beat you?” Her voice was as sweet as molasses.

  I winced. Even I knew that might not be the best method to deal with Josephine Weaver.

  Josephine dropped her hands from her tiny hips. “How can you say such a thing, Juliet Brody? I just want to have fair and safe competition of Amish candy makers. My shop, Berlin Candies, has a rightful place in the competition because I am Amish and everyone who works for me is Amish. We do everything the Amish way. Unlike Swissmen Sweets. There have been rumors about the worldly recipes that have been showing up there.”

  Worldly recipes, really? I wanted to ask her what she met by that exactly, but I thought better of it and held my tongue. It was true that since I’d taken over Swissmen Sweets I had added some new flavors to the many traditional Amish candies and sweets we sold. I’d added lavender blueberry fudge, chocolate cherry ganache truffles, and more. Even if I was going to live in Amish Country, I couldn’t leave my life’s work as a chocolatier behind. I had worked too hard for too long to master my craft to let it wither and die.

  “What we sell at Swissmen Sweets doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m entering in the ACC,” I said.

  “Doesn’t it?” Josephine’s eyes narrowed. “Shouldn’t this competition be for Amish confectioneries? If you are no longer an Amish candy shop, then that’s one more reason to disqualify you, and I’m going to make it my mission to do just that.”

  “Is that a threat?” I asked.

  She lifted her chin. “The Amish don’t make threats. We make promises.”

  Sounded like the same thing to me, I thought as Josephine stomped away with Jeremiah and Margot in her wake.