Better Than Chocolate. Sheila Roberts

      Chapter Two

      Your biggest asset is your family.

      —Muriel Sterling, Mixing Business with Pleasure: How to Successfully Balance Work and Love

      Two hours later, friends and extended relatives had exhausted themselves on the topic of Waldo and consumed all the potato salad and cold cuts. The party was over. Sent on their way with one final hug from Olivia Wallace and a paper plate containing half a dozen lemon bars, the three sisters and their mother stepped outside to a cold, cloudless night.

      Mom looked as drained as Samantha felt. Only Mom’s exhaustion was from pure grief. Samantha’s was contaminated by a less pure mixture of feelings.

      “I’ll follow you guys back to the house,” she said, and went in search of her car.

      It was now five-thirty on a Friday afternoon and the old-fashioned lampposts along Center Street stood sentinel over a downtown shopping area about to go to sleep for the night. Nearby restaurants like Zelda’s and Schwangau would open for business, but here, on what the locals dubbed Tourist Street, the shops were closed and only a smattering of cars remained.

      Samantha loved their little downtown, its park with the gazebo and multitude of flower beds, its cobbled streets edged with quaint shops, the mountains standing guard over it. Normally this time of year the mountains would have worn a thick blanket of snow, and both cross-country and downhill skiers, as well as snowboarders, would be in town for the weekend, shopping, eating in the restaurants, enjoying the little outdoor skating rink and admiring the Bavarian architecture. But these days there were few visitors. It had been a lean year for snow. Heck, it had been a lean year, period, and several once-thriving shops were now shuttered.

      Businesses going under—don’t even think about that.

      Too late. That was all it took to make her angry once more about her own company’s troubles and she had to remind herself that her world, unlike her mother’s, had not come to an end. Somehow she’d manage to pull the business from the brink but Mom would never have her husband back. This was the second one she’d lost in five years. What was that like, to be in love and happy and lose it all not once but twice? Samantha thought back to her own romantic troubles and realized she had no point of reference. She could only imagine.

      She needed to be a supportive daughter, lock any negative thoughts inside her head and keep her big mouth shut. Mouth shut, mouth shut, mouth shut. She chanted it for the last several steps to her car. Then she got in, closed the door and said it one more time. “Mouth shut.” Okay. She was ready.

      She got to the house to find Cecily starting a fire in the big stone fireplace, the sound of crackling cedar already filling the great room. Bailey was arranging cards along the mantelpiece where Waldo’s ashes reposed in a brass urn, while in the kitchen Mom made tea. The plate of lemon bars sat on the granite countertop. It was a regular postwake party.

      Bailey turned at the sound of the door and knocked the urn, making it wobble and their mother gasp. Fortunately, Cecily grabbed it before it could tip.

      “Sorry,” Bailey said.

      Mom shot a look heavenward. “Put him on the hearth, honey.”

      Cecily nodded solemnly and moved Waldo to safety.

      Samantha shed her coat and hung it in the closet, then forced herself to walk to the kitchen and ask her mother if she needed help.

      Mom shook her head, her gaze riveted on the mugs lined up in front of her on the counter. “Would you like some tea?”

      The offer came out stiffly. No surprise. The way they’d been not getting along lately, she could almost envision her mother lacing hers with arsenic. “No. Thanks.”

      She suddenly longed for the comfort of her little one-bedroom condo at the edge of town, where she’d find no emotional undercurrents and the new man in her life would be waiting to welcome her—Nibs, her cat. Everyone would be fine here without her. Mom had Cecily and Bailey to keep her company and listen to her Waldo stories. And they could do it guilt-free.

      “I think I’ll take off.”

      “Stay for a little while,” Mom said.

      Or not. Samantha nodded and went to slump on the couch.

      “Tea is ready,” Mom announced. Cecily and Bailey both picked up their mugs and returned to join their sister, Cecily taking up a position on the couch next to Samantha and Bailey settling on the hearth beside Waldo.

      Mom followed and sat on the yellow leather chair she always read in. She took a sip of her tea, then set the mug on the coffee table, laid back her head and sighed deeply. “I just want you girls to know how much I’ve appreciated the moral support. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that Waldo is gone.”

      “He’ll be missed,” Bailey said.

      “Yes, he will,” Mom agreed, giving Samantha a look that dared her to say any different.

      No way was she taking that dare. “I need a lemon bar,” she muttered.

      “Never mind that. Let’s get the hard stuff,” Cecily said. “Break out the chocolate.”

      But there wasn’t so much as a shaving of chocolate in the house. Mom had gone on a binge. So Bailey stayed with her while Samantha and Cecily made a run to the shop.

      Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company occupied prime real estate a few streets back from Center Street on a block the locals nicknamed Foodie Paradise. Across from them was Gingerbread Haus, Cassandra Wilkes’s fantasy bakery, specializing in fanciful baked goods. At Christmas she was swamped with orders for her gingerbread houses and shipped them all over the world. Next to that was the Spice Rack, which carried every exotic spice known to man. Every time the door opened, the scent of lavender or sage drifted out to tickle noses and tempt shoppers inside, and whenever she was in town Bailey practically lived there. On the other side of Gingerbread Haus sat Bavarian Brews, where everyone went to chitchat and indulge in great coffee—very convenient when Samantha needed a quick pick-me-up. Down the street they could see Schwangan’s, a five-star restaurant and another popular destination. Its owner and head chef, Franz Reinholdt, made a mean schnitzel.

      The Sterlings had the biggest piece of land, though—so far, anyway—and an inspiring view, with their second-story offices looking down on the town from one side and out over the Wenatchee River from the other. The factory and retail store occupied a full block. The warehouse, part of the company’s pre-Waldo expansion, occupied another. It should have been full of a lot more supplies and inventory than it currently was. Sigh.

      Samantha unlocked the store, flipped on the light and turned off the alarm as Cecily strolled in.

      “Sometimes I miss this place,” Cecily said, taking in the gift shop with its various shelves and display tables of treats. There was plenty to drool over—goodie bags of enrobed fruit, chocolate-dipped apples, potato chips and cookies, boxes of mixed chocolates, gift boxes of salted caramels, cognac truffles made from Great-grandma Rose’s secret recipe, fudge and hot fudge sauces (Mom’s contribution to the line) that ranged from spicy Mexican to chocolate mint. Over in the corner under the TV that played a video feed of the gang in the factory hard at work, shoppers could find all manner of nonedible goodies, including candy dishes, chocolate scented candles, little kitchen signs with chick-centric statements like “The Best Kisses Are Chocolate” and “I’d Give Up Chocolate but I’m No Quitter.”

      “You can take the girl out of the chocolate company but you can’t take the chocolate out of the girl,” Samantha teased, snagging a box of truffles and walking over to the cash register. “Have you got any money? All I have on me is a five.” And she was lucky to have that.

      Her sister looked