Dreaming in Chocolate Read online

  His brother managed to make it look not so bad. But he’d gotten the girl and had the best kid on the planet, neither of which Noah had.

  Don’t even think it. He whipped his gaze back to the road in front of him and swore at the woman walking down the middle of the lane. He swerved and somehow managed to keep control of the bike. The tires screeched, rivaling the deep growl of the engine as he jerked to a stop.

  She studied him with a guarded expression so like her daughter’s he felt compelled to try and win her over.

  Hopping off the bike, Noah walked to her, adrenaline sending his thoughts a dozen different ways at once. But they all spiked from the same source: he’d almost taken out Penelope’s mom.

  “Mrs. Dalton?”

  She blinked at him, her eyes dilated and unfocused. “Do I know you?”

  He stopped a foot away to keep from scaring her more than he already had. “I’m a friend of Penelope’s. Noah Gregory.”

  “Oh, yes. I recognize you now.”

  “Are you okay? You look a little … cold.” What she really looked like was lost. Stuck in the past without a clue that she was walking the streets in thirty-something degrees in nothing more than a cotton nightgown and robe.

  She tightened the cords of the robe at her waist. “I guess it is a little chillier out than we—than I—thought.”

  “Should I call Penelope?” Noah asked, his fingers already pulling his phone from the pocket of his motorcycle jacket.

  “No, no,” she said. She blinked at him a few more times. “I’m okay. Just a little turned around is all.”

  “Okay. Well, how about I call Dr. Wiley instead? I can take you home and have him meet us there.”

  “Marco is—was—my Ollie’s best friend and partner. A sweet, sweet man. Neither of them should have to see me like this. Do you really need to call someone?”

  Not sure if she meant Marco and Penelope or Marco and her dead husband, Noah said, “For one, I’d feel better if you got checked out. You know, just to make sure everything’s okay. And two, if you want to keep this from Penelope, it might be best to keep your husband out of it too. You know he’d have to tell her and then they’d both drive you nuts with worrying.”

  Sabina patted his arm. “You’re nice. She gets mad when I’m like this and tries to pull me back to reality before I’m ready. Before the chocolates have worn off.”

  “So you know what you did? That not everything you’re seeing or feeling is real?” At least he wouldn’t have to explain why her husband and daughter weren’t at home when he finally convinced her to let him walk her there.

  “The chocolates don’t last as long as they once did. Or maybe my body is just too used to them now. So, yes, I know. It’s easier to pretend the magic is still working when it’s just me in here.” She tapped a finger to her temple. “But I’ll be okay. No need for you to go out of your way.”

  “It’s not out of my way.” He’d already missed his shot at beating five minutes anyway. And there was no way he could just leave her to get home on her own when her brain was at least partially trapped in another decade. “And I still want to get Dr. Wiley to check you out. It’s that or I’m calling your daughter.” He held up his phone, though he didn’t have Penelope’s number, hoping she didn’t call his bluff.

  “Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “But you’re not letting this go, are you?”

  Noah shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her shoulders. With all of the internal armor and padding, it had to weigh a quarter what she did, but at least it would keep her warm. Wrapping her fingers around it, she hitched it up off her shoulders then burrowed into it.

  “’Fraid not. ’Cause to be honest, I’d rather face your wrath than your daughter’s. I’ve been on the receiving end of it once and I still have scars.”

  “She puts up with a lot more than most before it gets the better of her,” Sabina said. Narrowing her eyes at him, she continued, “You must have tried extra hard to make her mad.”

  “I was young and stupid. Really, really stupid.”

  “So you know what’s waiting for me if you call her.”

  “Dr. Wiley it is.” Thankfully Layne had programmed the doctor’s number into his phone for emergencies.

  The doctor didn’t even ask for an explanation before he agreed to be there in ten minutes. Not that Noah could blame the guy. Having a thing for one of the Dalton girls tended to block out rational thought.

  With his bike in neutral, he rolled it the five blocks to Sabina’s house and parked it on the street. The lights burned inside the house, as if she’d simply walked out in the middle of doing something. They sat in the living room where framed photos of Penelope and Ella were displayed on every surface. It was like watching the kid grow up right in front of him. He could tell approximately when Ella had gotten sick by the way Penelope’s smile no longer seemed effortless. The kid, however, grinned in every shot, eyes focused and bright.

  “You don’t need to stay with me. I’m all right,” Sabina said.

  Noah leaned forward, dropping his elbows to his knees. He looked over at her and smiled. “First Penelope. Now you. Wanting to get rid of me must be hereditary.”

  “I remember you. From when you were younger. Always looking for something high to jump off of and anything with enough speed to give your mama a heart attack. But you slowed down around my daughter, like maybe you’d found what you’d been chasing after all your life. Then you went and broke her heart. You don’t know how lucky you were that the apothecary table never gave me a recipe to curse you for that. But if you hadn’t run off the way you did, Penelope wouldn’t have gone looking for someone to take your place and Ella wouldn’t be here. So I guess I should thank you.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  She reached over and patted his arm with a clammy hand. “That’s okay. I just wanted you to know that you shouldn’t let Penelope chase you off if you’re looking to come home. She’s been happy without you whether she’ll admit it to you or not.”

  Of course Penelope had been happy without him. He’d be an idiot if he had thought otherwise.

  Marco came in a few minutes later without knocking. His familiarity with the house and its occupant was evident.

  Crouching in front of Sabina, he took her hands. “How far away are you tonight?”

  “Not very,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Sabina pulled her hands free and waved them in the air as she spoke. “Everyone’s all up in arms about the festival and Penelope refuses to believe that the Kismet hot chocolate works anymore. All she sees is that Ella’s still so sick. And if the magic didn’t fix her future, why would it change anyone else’s?”

  The magic must have had more of a hold over her than they both thought if she didn’t remember Ella had been cured. Why anyone would purposely put themselves through the emotional wringer like that made no damn sense to Noah. “Ella’s not sick anymore,” he said.

  “And how was this going to fix it?” Marco asked as if Noah hadn’t spoken. Somehow he managed to keep his frustration out of his voice. Or maybe this was so commonplace he didn’t get frustrated with Sabina anymore. Marco stood and slipped his hands into his pants pockets.

  “I thought maybe—” She turned her wide, sad eyes to Marco, the apology plain on her face. “I thought maybe Ollie would know how to change her mind. He always understood how to get through to her when she was being stubborn.”

  “You know Penelope will only change her mind if she wants to. We can put the truth right in front of her face, but until she’s ready to see it, it will be as if it doesn’t exist.”

  And Noah wondered what truth Penelope would see if she bothered to look at him long enough.

  * * *

  Penelope kept her gaze on the ground a few feet ahead of her. If she didn’t make eye contact with anyone, she might make it
through the walk back from school with Ella without incident.

  They got as far as the park.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” Noah said.

  River snapped her head up, forehead scrunched as she narrowed her eyes at him. Her cheeks were already pink from the cold. “No, it’s not. We’ve been waiting for them.”

  Anyone else in town would have stopped Penelope to plead their case for continuing the festival. But not Noah. Despite what he’d said on the cocktail napkin he’d left on her shop’s window, he didn’t believe in fate or the magic of the festival. Whatever he wanted from her now had nothing to do with that.

  Penelope didn’t know if that was better or worse.

  “First rule of being a good sidekick, never reveal our secret plans to anyone. But especially not the people we hope to involve in said plans.” He glanced at Penelope, his eyes bright with amusement. Then he hooked an arm around his niece’s shoulders and leaned over so only a few inches separated their faces. “Rule number two, always have a backup plan. In this case, Fish, that means running off to play with Ella while I distract her mom.”

  Ella at least hesitated, eyes veering to Penelope for a fraction of a second before latching on to River’s hand and racing away.

  “You could’ve just said hi to us at school and avoided all of the secret planning to begin with,” Penelope said, her attention on the girls instead of Noah.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t want it to seem like I was trying to get you to talk to me. You haven’t exactly been happy to see me the last few times I’ve tried.”

  Did he have selective amnesia about their past or was Noah really just so arrogant that he thought she’d still be hung up on him despite how he’d left things between them? She cut her eyes back to him. He wouldn’t charm her so easily this go-round. “And lying in wait at the park for us to walk by is supposed to help how?”

  Noah dragged a hand through his shaggy hair, his fingers catching in places where the wind had tangled it. “Well, if Fish had played it cool, it would’ve seemed less like an ambush and then maybe you wouldn’t mind hanging out with me while the girls played.” His hand fisted at the back of his head to keep his hair in place. When he looked down at Penelope, the playfulness of a moment before had vanished and in its place was a pinched expression Penelope couldn’t read. “Seriously, though, I don’t know how to tell Fish that I’m the reason Ella can’t play with her after school.”

  “Why wouldn’t I let the girls play together?”

  “Because I’m here. Thought that part was clear.”

  Penelope turned away from him to find Ella and River skipping across the park hand in hand. Their laughter was just a hint of sound in the air. But it was enough to remind Penelope that nothing came above her daughter’s happiness.

  “It’s a small town, Noah. Avoiding each other would be impossible even without River and Ella in the mix. And I really don’t want to spend the next few months dreading our inevitable run-ins because life is too short to be angry and stressed out over things that I can’t control.”

  “Which means what exactly?” he asked.

  “I can’t promise I’ll be happy to see you, but I’ll do a better job of pretending. At least when the girls are around.”

  Noah crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her. A hunk of hair fell across his eyes. “That’s the best I’m gonna get then, huh?”

  “For now,” she said, softening her voice to take some of the sting out of her words. Then she added, “See, I’m trying already.”

  “So, what? We just talk like we’re friends?”

  What was she getting herself into? Penelope shifted her weight from one leg to the other and said, “Friends know things about each other. We’re practically strangers.”

  “Would a stranger know that the night before your eighteenth birthday you drove down to Asheville to go to the Snow Patrol concert and then had to sweet-talk the manager to let you in because you weren’t technically old enough yet?” he asked.

  The concert had been one of their first dates. Penelope had been up front with the bouncer at the club, pointing out her birthdate and swearing she’d be eighteen at midnight. She had even offered up her mom’s number for the manager to call and confirm she wasn’t lying. But in the end, she hadn’t been the one to get the manager to draw a large X on each of her hands in black permanent marker and allow her to go inside.

  “It wasn’t so much my sweet-talking as you slipping him some money when you thought I wasn’t looking,” she said. Penelope still had the ticket stub tucked into one of the ring slots of her jewelry box. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it away, even after Noah was gone.

  “You weren’t supposed to know about that,” he said.

  “Well, I do.”

  Noah smiled at her. “And you were trying to say we don’t know anything about each other anymore.”

  “That was a long time ago, Noah. I’m not the same person I used to be.”

  “Neither am I.” He dropped his arms and stepped closer to her. “I know I screwed up and I’m—”

  “No.” Penelope held up a hand, fingers stopping inches from Noah’s chest. He did not get to do this now. Not when Ella’s diagnosis had pushed Penelope so close to breaking already. “If you want this truce to work, don’t apologize. Don’t try to explain why you did what you did. I don’t want to know.”

  “But I am sorry, Penelope.” His voice was thick with the truth of it.

  “I don’t care,” she said.

  She couldn’t let herself. Because letting go of her anger toward Noah would leave too much room for the heartache to take over.

  12

  Snow always brought people into the shop. Even with their gloved hands, scarfed necks, and thick wool coats, they still wanted to be warmer. So they’d buy a large hot chocolate and sit by the fire reading or talking with friends or they’d eat a Dragon’s Breath truffle for a few hours of warmth before heading back out into the cold.

  Penelope was tempted to sneak a truffle herself as another gust of wind whipped in through the opening door. But without knowing if she or her mom had made that batch, she wasn’t willing to risk it. She pulled a cardigan on over her apron and held on to cups for an extra second or two after she’d added the steamed milk before scooting them across the counter.

  When she hit a lull just before noon, she brewed a hot cup of lavender honey tea and started working her way through the list of inventory that needed replenishing. She held her breath when she stirred the ground peppers into the dark chocolate cocoa mix, as if just smelling it would cause her to dream of Noah again. The steady flow of customers and the slow dusting of snow had made it easier to stay focused.

  But her mental slipup seemed to be enough for the universe to take notice. Noah’s sister-in-law, Layne, hesitated outside the front door, looking over her shoulder as if embarrassed to be seen entering the store. Penelope wiped her hands on her apron and headed back out front just as the door swung closed. Layne shook snow off her coat and tucked a damp strand of her sandy-blond hair behind her ear. Her peacock-green corduroy pants unapologetically played up her curves as she made her way to the counter. She tossed out a few timid smiles to people as she passed the couches.

  At least it’s not him. With his stupid smile and stupid laugh and stupid, perfect hair.

  Penelope pinched her eyes shut to block the image of Noah. Forcing a smile, she looked up and said, “Is it getting worse out there?”

  “Oh, uh, not really. The snow doesn’t seem to be sticking,” Layne said. She tugged on her scarf so it hung loose around her neck and checked the sidewalk again. “But apparently it’s enough to send everyone out for a drink of one kind or another. The bar just opened, and it’s already packed.”

  “Yeah, I guess everyone’s looking for some kind of escape today.”

  Layne shrugged and drummed her fingers on the counter in time to the Weepies song drifting from the speakers behind the counter. Her long lashes fluttered
as she looked around the room, careful not to land on anyone too long.

  Penelope hooked her thumbs in the apron pockets and asked, “Is there something I can get you?”

  “It smells amazing in here. I can see why my daughter likes this place so much. My husband always brings her in ’cause I thought the magic was just a gimmick, you know. Something to boost sales and give the shop an air of intrigue. And to be honest, I thought you and your mom were kooks for believing in it.” Layne picked at her bottom lip with her electric-blue thumbnail. “I’m so sorry. That’s not at all what I wanted to say when I came in here.”

  “It’s okay. I’m used to weird looks for what we do here,” Penelope said, trying not to let too much of her irritation leak into her voice. She looked at Layne, with her jittery fingers that tapped against her lips and their inability to keep the words in. “And the magic is real. At least for the people who believe in it. The ones that don’t either chalk it up to a strange reaction to coincidence or are so closed off that the magic can’t even touch them.”

  “God, that must be the absolute worst. Like being a Muggle in a Harry Potter world. Except I guess they wouldn’t even know to be sad about it. I hope I’m not one of them.” Her laugh trailed off a second after it started. She pressed her fingers to her mouth again as her eyes went wide. “Crap, what if I am? What if because this is my first time here the magic knows I’m a skeptic and I feel nothing?”

  Penelope laughed. “There’s only one way to find out. Well, technically we have half a dozen candies and a few hot chocolates that would do the trick. So, you get to pick your poison, so to speak.”

  “So to speak,” Layne echoed. But she smiled at Penelope, one eyebrow lifting in amusement. The first real smile she’d given since entering the shop. “Do you have anything that can make me act like less of a crazy person around new people? I think I’d like to give that a try.” Her laugh erased the last trace of skepticism.