Assaulted Caramel Read online

  “Umm . . .” I stared at the pig. I couldn’t help it. Not only was a pig greeting me at the church door, but it was black and white polka-dotted. One of the dots made a perfect black circle around his right eye. The creature was the size of a toaster oven, and came up to the middle of the petite woman’s calf. I had seen many strange things during my time in New York City, but nothing quite like this. “Umm . . .” I repeated. The pig’s presence stole my words.

  She laughed. “I see Jethro has you tongue-tied.” She patted the top of the pig’s head. “He has that effect on people.”

  Yes, yes, I could understand why.

  “He’ll be a perfect gentleman. He always is. You won’t find a kinder, gentler soul than Jethro.” She smiled brightly, and there was something about her smile that was vaguely familiar, even though I knew I had never met her before. I certainly had never met Jethro before. I would remember Jethro.

  Before I could stop them, the words popped out of my mouth. “He has polka dots!” As soon as the words flew out of my mouth, I regretted them. I didn’t want this cheerful woman to think that I was insulting Jethro the Pig.

  She laughed, and her laughter sounded like the tinkling of the wind chimes hanging from my next door neighbor’s balcony back in the city. “He does. I know. That’s what made me fall in love with him. When I saw those polka dots, I knew I had to take him home. I love polka dots.” She held out her arms. “As if you couldn’t tell.”

  For the first time, I noticed she wore a yellow and red polka-dotted dress.

  She let her arms fall to her sides. “He’s a pinto.”

  “Like a horse?” Again, the mouth had a mind of its own.

  She grinned as if I had come up with the perfect answer. “Just like a horse. Potbellied pigs like Jethro can be pinto. Not many of them have such distinctive dots. He’s special that way.”

  The pig looked up at his mistress in adoration. If I didn’t know better, I would say that he understood every word she’d said.

  Juliet cocked her head at me and put her hand on her narrow hip. “I heard you were from New York City, but you act like you’ve never seen a pig before. Don’t they have pet pigs in the city? They’re great for apartments.”

  I stared down at Jethro and tried to imagine him living with me in my tiny apartment back in the city. “I’ve never had one greet me at a church door before.”

  She threw back her head and laughed, and again I was reminded of my neighbor’s wind chimes. “I suppose not. Why don’t you come inside? I’ll show you where the kitchen is. I know the other ladies are eager to meet you too. We’re all so fond of Jebidiah and Clara. It’s an honor to meet their granddaughter.”

  I stepped inside the church and stood in the dim entryway for a moment to allow my eyes to adjust. There was a set of glass double doors directly across from the door I’d entered. Through the glass, I caught a glimpse of the quiet sanctuary. Wooden beams ran up the white walls at intervals and crisscrossed the high ceiling. A grand pulpit presided over the rows of pews, while a large pipe organ dominated the front of the church.

  I had an itchy, guilty feeling tickling the back of my brain. I hadn’t been to church in a very long time. I tried to push the nagging feeling aside and rationalize why I had missed so many services the last few years. My work schedule was demanding. Didn’t the Bible say that we needed a day of rest? And Sunday was my day of rest. Sunday was also the one day of the week that Eric and I both had off. If I wanted to see my boyfriend at all and actually act like we were together, it had to be on Sunday. On Sundays, he’d whisk me away on his private jet to some random locale where no one knew us. We were always back in plenty of time to return to our everyday lives and pretend we only knew each other through our work.

  Standing at the threshold of this church made me realize what a lie I had been living. I had known it from the beginning, but in this place, there was no hiding from it, no rationalizing why it had made sense keep my romance with Eric Sharp a secret for so long. I was a fraud.

  If I was willing to admit it, there wasn’t a lot of authenticity in my life at the moment. My relationship with Eric wasn’t authentic. Sure, it felt that way when we were alone, and all his attention was on me, but that wasn’t often. I was certain he never gave me a second thought the other six days of the week. And it wasn’t just my relationship with Eric that felt artificial. I worked eighteen-hour days, six days a week, and I loved what I did. I loved Jean Pierre, but what was the point of it, really? Making chocolate creations that most people could never afford? What was I accomplishing? I didn’t have a good answer to any of those questions, and that’s why I knew I was in real trouble.

  Chapter 15

  “Bailey?” Juliet said. “The kitchen is down this hallway.” She stood at the far left of the entry at another door.

  Jethro leaned against her leg like a loyal retriever. I wondered if I would ever get accustomed to seeing a polka-dotted pig at her side.

  “I’m sorry.” I stumbled after her. “You caught me in a daydream.” Or a nightmare, I mentally added.

  She beamed and opened the door. “I daydream every time I enter the church too. It’s such a special place.”

  Jethro’s hooves made a tap-tap sound on the church’s wooden steps, and I suppressed a smile. When I’d decided to visit my grandparents, I had expected things to be different from what I was used to, but I’d certainly never expected to be following a pig through a church. I frowned. Nor had I expected murder. Traces of my dark mood returned. There was only one way to fix it, and that was to create my chocolate concoctions.

  The musical sound of women talking and laughing floated down the hallway. At the end of the hallway there was a set of double doors. Juliet opened one of the doors and ushered me inside a large room that was half-floored with industrial carpet. The other half was covered with hardwood. A basketball hoop hung from the wall on the side of the room with the hardwood. On the far side of the hardwood, I caught a glimpse of a kitchen.

  As much as I wanted to see what the kitchen had to offer, my eye was drawn to the middle of the room, where at least fifteen women—English, Amish, and I guessed a few Mennonite—sat around a massive quilt frame, stitching away at a quilt with some kind of block pattern on it. My grandmother had tried to teach me the art of quilting, but it never quite stuck. I had always been much more interested in what Daadi was doing in the candy shop’s kitchen. When I was little, he experimented with flavors and created new fudge and candy mixtures. He is the reason I work for JP Chocolates. I learned to love sweets at my grandfather’s knee. I bit the inside of my lip. That was why I couldn’t let this promotion to head chocolatier slip through my fingers. I wouldn’t just be letting myself down; I’d be letting Daadi down too. That couldn’t be tolerated.

  Juliet clapped her hands. Jethro sat beside her like a well-trained dog. “Ladies, ladies, we have a guest.”

  All the eyes in the room fell on me and studied with me interest. I felt like a bug under a microscope. Some of the women smiled, others waved, and still others watched me with curiosity, as if the jury was still out as to whether I was friend or foe.

  “Ladies, this is Bailey King.”

  “You’re Clara and Jebidiah’s granddaughter,” said an elderly woman working at the corner of the quilt. “My, you look just like your mother.”

  “June, I was thinking the same thing. It was no wonder Ben King left the Amish when Miranda came to town. She was prettiest girl I ever saw. Ben was smitten from the word go,” a younger English woman said.

  “It took some time for her to give Ben a chance. I don’t think she even tried until he promised to leave the Amish church,” another woman said with a chuckle.

  The three Amish women around the quilt frame shifted uncomfortably. One of the Amish women I knew. It was the girl from the pretzel shop, Esther Esh. When our eyes met, she quickly looked away. I frowned.

  “Bailey,” Juliet explained, “is here to create a sweet-treat tasting for Mira Hu
tton’s wedding. She’s a famous dessert chef in New York City. Can you imagine that?”

  “I’m a chocolatier,” I corrected automatically.

  The woman who had commented that my mother had given my father a chance only after he left the Amish, squinted at me as if it would make it easier for her to appraise me that way. “What exactly is a chocolatier?”

  The English woman to her left elbowed her. “Don’t you know anything? It’s a fancy name for someone who makes chocolate candies.”

  The women looked at me.

  “That’s pretty much it,” I said.

  “If you are here to make candies for Mira’s wedding, you will be working with her mother, Eileen,” said the same older woman who’d first spoken. “God speed, my dear, God speed. You’re going to need it.” She shook her head and resumed her stitching.

  “And a suit of armor to deflect the glares she will throw at you,” another woman added.

  The pair cackled together.

  “Really,” Juliet said. “You two are horrible.” Her chuckle took the bite out of her words. “I’m going to show Bailey the kitchen and where everything is. After that, we could use some help bringing in her supplies.”

  Juliet moved from the carpet to the hardwood. Jethro dutifully walked beside her. The heels of her ankle boots and the pig’s hooves click-clicked across the floor. Taking hold of the half-open, pass-through window cover, she grabbed the handle and yanked it up.

  Over her shoulder, I peered into the kitchen, and was pleased to see a large mixer, not the industrial one that my grandparents had, of course, but one adequate to create the tasting menu. I also saw stainless steel appliances, including a convection oven that I knew would come in handy since I was working under such a time constraint. The kitchen positively glittered, it was so clean. I made a mental note about that, because I knew that I would have to make it just as clean when I left it later in the day. “This is great! It looks like I have everything I need here.”

  Juliet beamed. “The church has always had a high-quality kitchen. We have many dinners here, including a free community dinner twice a month—on the first and third Fridays—to help those who are struggling. Simon—I mean, Reverend Brook—is very concerned about taking care of everyone in the community, not just those who fill the pews on Sundays.”

  I swallowed. Again, I thought of my life in New York. “That’s wonderful.”

  “There is a dinner this evening at six sharp. We will start the cooking around four.”

  “I’ll be out of the kitchen by then,” I promised.

  “We don’t want to rush you off.”

  “You’re not. It was very kind of the pastor to let me use the kitchen, especially on such short notice.”

  “Simon—Reverend Brook—is a kind man.” She leaned closer to me. “But I’m afraid Eileen didn’t leave him much choice.” She peeked through the pass-through back at the quilting circle ladies, as if to make sure that none of them were listening. “She’s a pushy one, that Eileen.”

  Her comment confirmed the assessment I had already made about the mother of the bride.

  She bent and patted Jethro’s bristly head. “But you didn’t come here to listen to the news about the church, did you? You have work to do. I’ll just draft some of the ladies to help bring in those supplies. Is there anything else you need?”

  I checked the readout of my cell phone. It had taken so long to make it to the kitchen, between Juliet and the quilting ladies, not to mention Jethro the Pig, that I no longer had enough time to run to the market and prepare all of the desserts before Eileen and the bride and groom arrived.

  “I hate to be a bother,” I began.

  “You’re not a bother at all. How can we help?”

  Within minutes, the ingredients I had brought with me to the church were spread across the counter, and Juliet had dispatched two of the quilting ladies to the local market with my list of additional supplies. It pained me to rely on them, but the women did seem genuinely interested in helping my grandparents, and me, by extension. Two Amish women stood over the stove, stirring chocolate over double boilers. Another one was cleaning the berries and other fruit that my grandmother had purchased at the farmers’ market.

  Juliet floated from task to task, advising and offering encouragement where she could. Jethro napped in the middle of the basketball court. I was grateful that he wasn’t in the kitchen and underfoot.

  I blended the berry filling for one of the three varieties of truffles that I planned to make. I hoped that I would have enough time to pop the truffles into the freezer, so that they would harden before the tasting began.

  “You’re doing a wonderful job, Bailey,” Juliet said when she poked her head inside the kitchen. “I’d love to help, but I’m no use in the kitchen. You should ask my son about that. Poor boy grew up on hot dogs and mac and cheese, except when your grandparents fed us. I never have been much of a cook. At church dinners, I always volunteer to serve to avoid being in the kitchen.”

  I frowned. Except when my grandparents were feeding Juliet and her son? What did she mean by that?

  Before I could ask, one of the ladies called me over to the double boilers because the chocolate was ready. My questions about Juliet’s odd comment would have to wait.

  With all the activity in the kitchen, nearly an hour had gone by before I noted that Esther wasn’t among the helpers. My brow wrinkled. I thought back to my conversation with the young Amish woman earlier that day, and tried to recall anything that I’d said that might have offended her. I knew she hadn’t liked me asking about selling her pretzel shop and about Tyson buying it.

  I poured the chocolate into a bunt cake mold that the church had. Once it hardened into the shape of the bunt cake, I planned to fill the shell with a white chocolate mousse.

  “What are you going to do with that?” an Amish woman named Lillian asked me.

  “I’m going to use it as a serving dish for one of my courses.”

  She raised her brow. “Why go to all that trouble when you can use a bowl?”

  It was a practical Amish question, but not one that I could answer easily, so I posed one of my own. “Did one of your members have to leave early? I thought I saw another Amish woman here. Her name is Esther. Her pretzel shop is next to Swissmen Sweets.”

  Lillian raised her brow. “Did Esther leave? I didn’t see her go.” She scanned the kitchen for any sign of the young Amish woman. “It’s not like her to leave without saying good-bye. I am her aunt. Did you meet her here?”

  “I met her earlier today.” I paused. “She was going to sell the pretzel shop to Tyson, I believe, but she mentioned she no longer planned to sell it now.”

  Lillian frowned, and I immediately saw the family resemblance between her and Esther. “I should go mind the next batch of chocolate boiling on the stove.” She turned away from me.

  I wasn’t getting very far in my questioning of the members of my grandparents’ Amish district. Did they refuse to talk to me about Tyson because I was a stranger, or because they had something to hide?

  Chapter 16

  I heard Eileen Hutton arrive before I saw her. “Juliet!” Her voice echoed across the fellowship hall. “Keep that pig away from me. It will get mud all over my outfit!”

  I settled the final truffle on the white plate for the tasting and sighed with relief. I’d made it. I never would have without the help of Juliet and her quilting circle, and I wondered how I would prepare the desserts for the wedding the next day without them. I pushed that concern to the back of my mind to worry about after the tasting.

  I peeked through the pass-through between the kitchen and the fellowship hall. Juliet and Jethro stood near the entrance to the hall, across from Eileen and a young couple. The couple held hands, or at least the groom held his bride-to-be’s hand. Her fingers weren’t wrapped around her fiancé’s. Something about the groom’s grip made me think he was holding her in place rather than showing her any sort of affection.
r />   Jace Colton had black hair that fell over his dark brows and his dark-rimmed glasses. Every so often, he shook his head in a practiced way to fling his hair out of his eyes.

  The girl, Mira Hutton, was as pale as the young man was dark. Her hair was white-blond and her skin was so white, that it seemed to shimmer under the room’s harsh fluorescent lighting. Like her mother, Mira wore a dress, but the A-line skirt and bow at the waist made her appear almost childlike, certainly not old enough to be getting married. I knew that the Amish married young, but clearly neither Mira nor Jace was Amish. I wondered what the rush was, especially now that Jace’s father was dead.

  “Jethro is as clean as can be. Pigs are naturally clean animals,” Juliet said in the same cheerful voice she had used to greet me at the church door. “They only wallow in the mud because they don’t sweat, and mud keeps farm pigs cool. I can assure you that Jethro has never even seen a mud puddle, although he does enjoy a good soak in the bathtub on hot summer days.”

  Eileen wrinkled her nose, as if the image of the polka-dotted pig lounging in a bathtub was too much. “So you say. That creature shouldn’t be in a house of worship. I’ll be sure to speak to Reverend Brook about this.”

  I glanced at Juliet for a reaction, but she smiled benignly at Eileen’s threat. “Let me just see if Bailey is ready for you,” Juliet said. “Would you take a seat at the table there?” She gestured at a solitary round table in the middle of the basketball court. The quilting ladies had covered it with a clean, white linen cloth and set it with silverware, glasses, and a pitcher of water. A vase of lovely, deep pink roses sat in the center of the table. Before leaving, the woman who set the table had whispered that the roses were from an elderly parishioner’s funeral dinner, which had been held in the fellowship hall the day before. She reassured me that the dearly departed wouldn’t mind in the least.