Dreaming in Chocolate by Susan Bishop Crispell

Author:Susan Bishop Crispell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

19

Penelope had resisted hustling Ella into the car the night before to go check on the shop. There was no reason to upset Ella with the news and risk the stress of it causing her headache to come back. And Penelope couldn’t have fixed the door at midnight anyway. But she’d woken up every hour from vivid dreams of the table emitting thick black smoke that swallowed up her customers and her chocolates erasing people’s futures so their bodies froze in place—mid-step, mid-sentence, mid-life.

Logically she knew the dreams were nothing more than her subconscious feeding off her anxiety, but she dropped Ella off at school a good twenty minutes earlier than normal and headed straight into work just to be sure everything was okay. When she got there, Noah was crouched on the sidewalk in front of her shop door. His leather jacket was tossed to the side, the sleeves of his Henley shirt shoved up to his elbows while he screwed in a new door handle.

“You fixed my door,” Penelope said, not entirely sure she was happy about it. The handle was too shiny, too unused, compared to the battered old door. Its newness was impossible to miss. She gave it less than an hour before the first person asked her what happened.

“Oh, hey.” He rocked back on his heels and braced a hand on the wall to keep himself steady when he looked up at her. He flashed his get-anything-he-wants smile. “I got Clover to open up the hardware store a little early. Didn’t want you to have to worry about this on top of everything else.”

It was hard to believe him when he said it with that smile. And when she didn’t have a clue what he wanted in return. She jingled her keys in the palm of her hand. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you?”

Noah shrugged. “To be nice?”

His mouth started tugging into a smile again. She looked away. Whatever he was trying to do, it wouldn’t work. She wouldn’t let it. But he was definitely making it difficult.

Penelope crossed her arms over her chest and pushed for an answer. “Yeah, but why are you being nice to me?”

“No ulterior motives. It was something I could easily do and I figured it would save you some hassle,” he said.

“I’ll pay you back for the parts,” she said.

“Receipt’s already on the counter inside.”

“Good.” Okay, so maybe this was just a nice gesture to help her out. She wouldn’t have thought twice if anyone else in town had stopped by to help her. She should be happy he was there, accept his help, and be grateful she wasn’t out there in her skirt trying to install a new door handle. “Thanks, Noah.”

He dropped one knee to the ground and splayed a wide hand on the door, pushing it open so she could go inside. “I’m almost finished. I’ll come in and see you before I go.”

Penelope skirted around him, careful not to let her bare calf skim his arm as she passed.

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