Sweet Somethings (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (8 page)

“What’s in these things anyway?”
he asked as they set the last one down.

“I have no idea. I guess I should
ask Rupert. He’s the one who made the deal with this Swiss chocolate company to
sponsor the festival.”

“My guess,” Rupert said when she
called him on the way back to her shop, “it’s probably their display materials.
I can come over and help you unpack it. Ooh—it’ll be like Christmas!”

Sam glanced at her dashboard
clock. She actually could turn around and get back home pretty quickly, but
Carinda would be showing up at the shop within the hour. She told Rupert they
better get to the boxes later in the afternoon.

She and Becky were in the middle
of checking inventory for the festival—there were more than a dozen boxes
filled with brownies, cookies, filled croissants and cupcakes. She also planned
on having her secret recipe amaretto cheesecake for sale by the slice and a
couple of the deep chocolate Kahlua cakes. The task now was to count everything
and be sure the supplies were adequate.

Tomorrow, while Sam set up the
venue and directed the other vendors as they arrived on site, Becky and Julio
would continue to bake whatever items might run low. If the first day was a
sellout, both of her bakers had committed to work Saturday to assure more stock
for the final day.

“That’s the plan,” she told Becky
after reciting it all.

“And you know what they say about
the best laid plans.” Becky grinned as she carried two boxes of brownies back
to the fridge.

“Sam?” Jen had walked up behind
her and Sam jumped when her assistant touched her shoulder. “That Carinda
Carter is here.”

Sam braced herself. She needed to
be firm with Carinda about her duties but she also remembered how easily the
woman’s feelings had been hurt at the last committee meeting. She walked into
the showroom to find Carinda facing her, birdlike legs in a firm stance, skinny
arms planted on her almost non-existent hips.

“You have something to say to me?”
Carinda demanded.

Chapter
7

“Excuse me?” Sam said.

“You have a lot of nerve,
lecturing me.” Carinda came forward, shaking her index finger at Sam.

Sam glanced toward Jen, who stood
frozen behind the register. A customer who had been browsing the cookie
selection edged toward the front of the room.

“Carinda, how about if we discuss
this outside? A little stroll might help.”

Sam walked to the front door and
held it open, ready to step out and leave Carinda talking to the walls unless
she followed. Leading the way past the front of Puppy Chic, Sam started out
with the gentle tone she’d planned to use.

“Carinda, I want you to know that
we all appreciate—”

“Like hell! No one has cared one
bit for all the work I put in. I had those booth spaces lined up perfectly—then
I find out you redid all my work according to some other plan that didn’t even
exist!”

“Carinda—”

“I have to do everything for this
festival and then you come along and—”

Sam stopped in the middle of the
sidewalk. “Wait just a minute. It was never your assignment to allocate the
booth spaces. I’m not saying that you couldn’t have done it, but you didn’t
have the vendor applications and didn’t know what each of them needed.”

“And what about distributing the
posters all over town? That was another of my jobs that someone else took over.
I tell you, I’m mad as hell over this!” She spun toward Sam. “And then you
dared
to hang up on me.”

Sam felt the sting of that—she had
done so.

“Sorry. Can’t we just—”

“I’m not putting up with it. I
don’t need any of you people. I might as well just—” Her eyes were wild and she
made a hacking motion with her hand.

“Carinda, settle down. That’s
crazy talk.” Sam reached to touch her shoulder but the woman jerked back and
ran toward her car.

“Crazy? You think I’m crazy?” She
yanked open the car door and slid in, starting the engine and putting the car
in gear immediately. “Well,
you
are a
controlling bitch!” she shouted through her open window.

Sam stood frozen to the spot.
Crazy? That would probably be a yes.

“Sam? What’s going on?” Riki had
stepped out of her grooming shop with a tiny Maltese cradled in her arms, just
in time to hear the chirp of Carinda’s tires and the honk of another driver’s
horn when she reached the street.

“I have no idea.”

Riki shrugged and gave the fluffy
white dog a tickle on its head before going back inside.

Why did I go for the bait?
Sam chided herself on the way back to
Sweet’s Sweets.
I knew the lady was a
little off balance; why didn’t I pacify her?

Because maybe everyone has always pacified her and that’s how she gets
away with these temper tantrums. Or, she’s having raging PMS?

Another car had pulled up in front
of the bakery and a woman with two kids got out. Sam held the door, then
followed them inside where she sent Jen a half smile and continued to the back.

“Trouble?” Becky asked, looking up
from a tray of chocolate nut drop cookies.

“I really hope our voices didn’t
carry all the way in here.”

“Only a comment or two when your visitor
first arrived.”

Sam rolled her eyes. Four more
days and she would never have to speak to Carinda Carter again. The image of
that slashing motion came back to her—could Carinda be suicidal? Maybe she
shouldn’t be so flippant about this. She supposed one never knew with someone
whose moods swung as wildly as this woman’s. Maybe she could learn something
more about Carinda’s state of mind from Rupert when they met to unpack the
boxes in the barn.

Sam couldn’t get Carinda’s freaky
mood swings out of her mind as she finished checking her festival inventory,
gave a glance at her desk and informed the others that she would make a couple
of deliveries and would be at home after that.

She phoned Rupert as she was
leaving the home of a baby shower hostess, where a cupcake tree featuring two dozen
pink booties was now ready for a party. He agreed to be out at the ranch in
twenty minutes.

“Never saw the woman before that
first committee meeting,” Rupert said when she brought up Carinda’s odd
behavior.

Sam unlocked the barn and swung
the big door open. Late afternoon shadows made the place a little gloomy but
high windows at each end gave enough light for their purposes.

“I was under the impression she
knew Sarah Williams or that somebody else at the Chamber of Commerce had talked
her into volunteering,” he said as Sam showed him inside.

The mention of Sarah’s name
reminded Sam that a couple of days had passed in a blur and she’d heard nothing
new from Marc Williams. She should give him a call this evening.

“Whoa, look at this!” Rupert had
slit open one of the tall, flat boxes and he now peeled back the top to reveal
an elegantly printed panel with the
Qualitätsschokolade
logo overlaid across a superb hi-def photo showing bricks of chocolate.

Together they lifted the panel to
reveal another. The other flat box contained two more. The set of four were
designed to snap together for a booth backdrop.

“They told me they would send some
colorful advertising materials. This will be perfect in the dais area you set
aside for the judging, Sam. I can see our celebrity judges sitting in front of
this beauty.”

Sam had slit the tape on a large
cube-shaped box. Cloth banners of the same royal blue used in the corporate
logo would drape elegantly above the scrumptious photos.

“Look.” She held out a roll of
stickers, small enough to go on vendor badges and to be given out to kids who
roamed the festival. “And . . . goodie bags for the vendors! What a great idea,
including recipe ideas using their various chocolates. Everyone will love
these.”

Rupert was poking around in the
box, like a kid with his Christmas stocking. “Chocolate truffles,” he said. “I
recognize these; they’re one of the more exclusive Swiss brands. There’s a huge
box of them. We can give them out to everyone who stops by the judging stand.”

“And these . . .” Sam held up
gift-bagged mugs with packets of hot chocolate mix. “. . . these will make
great door prizes. People hang around longer if they might win a prize. Rupert,
this is so cool. How can I ever thank you enough for finding this sponsor?”

 
He actually looked a little bit humble. “Well,
you are letting me do some sneaky promotion for my secret nom de plume.”

“Speaking of promotion, I’m making
you and Bentley the MCs of this deal. You work out the timing for prize
drawings and coordinate the tastings so the judges get around to all the entries.”

Sam thought again of Sarah, sad
that she wasn’t here to enjoy the festivities. After all, she’d been the one to
start the ball rolling for the festival in the first place.

Rupert had stacked the photo panels
neatly so they would fit in the back of Sam’s pickup when it came time to take
them to the hotel ballroom.

“I can take the prizes and other
small items with me now,” he offered. “If you want some of these things out of
your hair.”

“Anything. Take any and all of it
that you wish.”
See, Carinda? I’m not a
controlling bitch.

Carinda really
had
gotten to her this afternoon. Sam wanted to drop it but
couldn’t let go of that image of the rail-thin woman stomping back to her car,
throwing insults as she went. The woman was over-the-top batty, and the sooner
this whole event was over, the better.

 
Beau pulled into the long driveway just as
Rupert was driving out. He walked over to the open barn door and Sam showed him
the display materials they had just unboxed.

“Pretty amazing, huh? I think our
little festival is taking on a really professional tone.”

He nodded with a grunt.

“Beau?”

“Grr. It’s Mulvane. Now he’s
calling my department, a little worried that so many of the Flower People are
showing up. It’s getting out of hand, he says, and he wants me to supply a
security detail.”

“Can you even do that?” She
watched as he swung the barn door into place and latched it.

“I pointed out to him that no one
is breaking the law, and that it was only a few days ago he was chasing me off
his land, saying he had the right to do whatever he wanted. I told him to call
a private security firm if he wanted to.”

“And?”

“Well, now it comes out that the
earth children only gave him five hundred dollars, with a promise of more before
they go. He can’t afford much in the way of hired security for that.”

They walked to the house, where
Sam pulled two beer bottles from the fridge.

“It’s always this way,” he said,
taking his. “People get themselves in trouble and then expect public resources
to bail them out. The fool who tried to parachute off the gorge bridge awhile
back, got his lines twisted, and State Police had to get a helicopter out there
and a rescue team to pull him back. All those out-of-shape hikers each year who
start up the mountain wearing sneakers and then need Search and Rescue to come
after them when they’ve slid off a rock and broken their legs. They’re lucky if
they don’t die but do they ever pay for those services? No.”

“Do you think Mr. Mulvane is
genuinely afraid of the hippies?”

“Nah. I think one or two of them
may have mouthed off to him, but generally they seem to be of the ‘peace and
love’ set. His wife may have gotten pretty offended when she observed a trio
doing the ‘love’ part of it behind one of the buses in full daylight. I think
that’s what’s behind this sudden desire to have some uniforms around.”

“So, what’s your plan?”

“I’ll go out there in the morning
and talk to them, just let them know that there are eyes everywhere and that we
expect everything to stay quiet and legal.”

“Let’s hope. Meanwhile, since
we’re both in for the evening, how about if we grill some burgers?”

He gave her a kiss, thanked her
for being the voice of reason, and went outside to light the grill. Sam went to
the fridge and pulled out lettuce and tomatoes, the ground beef and some onion
rolls she’d bought a few days ago. She worked automatically, assembling the
meal, but Carinda Carter’s parting words kept nagging at her. Tomorrow, she
would see Carinda as they set up the ballroom for the festival. Not looking
forward to that.

She fell asleep by telling herself
that nothing on her crowded agenda could be accomplished in the middle of the
night and that she would awaken in the morning with renewed energy to deal with
it all. Good in theory, but she woke up at three-thirty and nothing would make
those eyes close again. She tiptoed around the bedroom and bathroom, getting
dressed as quietly as possible, and left Beau snoring peacefully.

By the time she arrived at the
Bella Vista at nine o’clock she had already spent nearly five hours at Sweet’s
Sweets where she had baked another four-dozen brownies for her booth and while
they were in the oven she’d decorated one of this weekend’s wedding cakes. She
drove past the hotel’s elegant entrance and parked in the same lot as before,
noting that Rupert’s vehicle was the only one she recognized.

Sure enough, the big man was there
in what he would consider work clothes—soft grey cashmere pants and a breezy
purple tunic. His silver hair flowed straight back from his forehead to his
shirt collar, with teeth marks from his comb, although those would go away as
soon as it fully dried.

“Please appreciate the fact that I
have taken away from my sacrosanct writing time this morning for this project,”
he said, grazing her cheek with a kiss.

“I do, Rupe. You’re the best.”

“So, what’s first, lady-boss?”