Texas Christmas. Nancy Robards Thompson
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was good for the heart. Royalty adorned fruits and other delicacies with it to sustain the health of their hearts. The Elizabethans created sumptuous banquets by adding edible gold dust to fruits such as oranges, grapes, pomegranates and dates and figs.
But Maya’s creation was intended for loftier purposes than feeding royals; it was meant to conjure true love.
Ardent, passionate love.
The thought warmed Maya from the inside out, and she smiled with quiet satisfaction as she stepped back to admire her handiwork.
Yes, this was a particularly beautiful batch of chocolate. However, just who would receive the dozen bonbons wasn’t quite clear...yet.
The answer had not yet revealed itself, but it would come in due time. Of that, Maya was sure. There was no mistaking that the winds of love had danced around her this morning as she’d walked down the ancient cobblestone streets of St. Michel on her way to open the shop. When the winds had called her to action, there was no resting until she’d filled the heavenly order. She wouldn’t rest until she’d done everything in her power to bring the intendeds together.
Whoever these intendeds might be.
Excitement, shimmering as brightly as the gold dust, shook her. Finding the lucky couple who belonged to these chocolates would be the reward for her hard work.
But first things first. Right now, she had to finish her work. Since the truffles weren’t quite set, she pondered whether or not she should add another element...or two, perhaps? Maya surveyed the bunches of twine-tied dried herbs and flowers hanging from wrought-iron rods suspended above her workbench. There was lavender that had dried to a wiry grayish-purple, looking like veins that stood out on an old crone’s hand. Lavender denoted purity, silence, devotion and...caution.
Non. It didn’t fit. Maya’s intuitive heart insisted that that this batch of chocolat was intended for true love that thrived on passion. Lovers whom fate would send careening toward each other; a lovely collision resulting in two hearts becoming one. She sighed in breathless delight, her hand fluttering to her heart.
Caution would never do.
Her gaze lingered on several fat bunches of rosemary that were bound so tightly they bristled out like small hedgehogs. Rosemary signified remembrance. While it was a sweet sentiment, it didn’t quite fit this order, either. Besides, the robust fragrance would overpower the delicate rosewater she’d used in the recipe.
Non. She gave her head a resolute shake. Rosemary wouldn’t do, either.
She purposely averted her gaze from the bouquet of dried yellow chrysanthemums because that flower meant love slighted. It wasn’t as if merely looking at the flowers would infuse the chocolates with bad juju, but when crafting an aromatic enticement for something so delicate as l’amour du cœur, one could never be too careful.
Maya, of all people, knew that. As a third generation chocolatier and un marieur—a matchmaker—she listed chocolate and love, not necessarily in that order, as her passions. But chocolate paid the bills and afforded her the pleasure of answering the call when the winds of love blew in, summoning her to work. It was a challenge she couldn’t resist, and she wouldn’t rest until her job was done.
In the realm of matchmaking, many factors were out of Maya’s control. With that in mind, she’d adopted the philosophy that she was simply the messenger. Still, she always approached her work with care and vigilance, because matters of the heart were as delicate and fragile as spun sugar.
Her gaze danced over the dried flowers and herbs one last time. When nothing spoke to her, she went completely still for a moment and listened to the communiqué her heart had been receiving since she’d awoken that morning with the urgency to whip up this special concoction.
Keep it simple. Rose petals and gold dust. Fini.
As she opened her eyes she was compelled to pick up one more pinch of gold. She blew it off her fingertips, infusing it with another wish and a prayer...for true love of the purest, most selfless sort.
Chapter One
As Pepper Merriweather entered the shop, a sudden, strong gust of December wind blew in, rocking the sign that was adorned with garland and red Christmas ornaments and hung above the shop’s door. It read Maya’s Chocolates ~ Happily Ever After Starts Here. The wind ballooned the lace curtains on the window and made the bells on the door dance with extra life. Pepper tightened her grip on the brass handle so the glass door wouldn’t slam back against the building’s ancient stone facade.
The momentary struggle felt like she was arm-wrestling with Mother Nature. When the biting wind finally let up, it felt good to prevail, as if fate were finally cutting her a break.
Silly thought, she mused, as she stepped inside and eased the door shut. The last thing she wanted to do these days was draw attention to herself. Sheepishly, she glanced around the shop. To her relief, the cluttered sales floor proved to be as empty as the cobblestone street behind her.
Despite the principality being dressed in all its Christmas finery and like something from a medieval holiday fairy tale, December was the off-season in St. Michel. Mostly the locals were the lucky ones to enjoy the twinkle lights strung from building to building, the giant, decorated Christmas tree that stood as the centerpiece in the center of town, and the shop windows all decorated for Christmas. The decorations always went up on December first, rain or shine.
During the cold months, foot traffic was lighter in the quaint little village. That’s why it had been such a great escape for Pepper, and also why Maya was usually the only one tending the store. That was probably why Pepper didn’t see anyone standing behind the counter or out on the floor of the small shop.
“Bonjour?” she called. As if answering, the wind outside gusted another chanson. The shop sign creaked in harmony with the blustery phrases.
“Bonjour!” a muffled voice answered, trailing from the back room. “I’ll be right with you.”
Pepper stepped away from the door, and a quiet calm settled over the shop. She glanced around at the baker’s racks, rough-hewn wooden tables and glass and wrought-iron fixtures that held red-and-green cellophane-wrapped boxes and baskets filled with Maya’s handmade delicacies. The Christmas packages were in addition to the à la carte candies displayed behind the glassed-in counter. There, chocolate lovers could create their own magical mix of cordials, truffles or pieces of pure, rich chocolate. Souvenir candy shopping was exactly what Pepper had come to do before returning home to Texas. Well, she’d come to do a little Christmas shopping and to say goodbye.
Stopping to admire a towering display of holiday fudge, Pepper was overcome by doubt—was she really ready to leave St. Michel to return to Texas?
Pepper’s mother, who had fled to St. Michel with her daughter, planned to stay in Europe indefinitely—at least until the furor over the scandal died down. But Pepper had grown restless. It was time to go home. Time to reclaim her life. Or at least that was what she’d told herself when she’d started out on foot that morning.
The producers of the reality television show Catering to Dallas, of which she was a cast member, had been wonderful about granting her a short leave as she tried to make sense of the turn of events that had landed her father in jail and sent her mother into hiding. The press had been hounding Pepper, too, and at first, St. Michel seemed like the perfect place to seek sanctuary. But as her father sat in prison—denied bail because the judge deemed him a flight risk—it hadn’t taken long for the press to catch up with Pepper and her mother.
The turning point had come when her father’s lawyer had relayed a message to Pepper on behalf of her father: the longer she hid away, the worse the collapse of the family’s Texas Star empire made them look. In other words, the family looked guilty by sequestering themselves. Of course, that was ridiculous because neither she nor her mother had anything to do with Texas Star Energy. It was merely guilt by association. The media and the masses couldn’t get to Pepper’s father, Harris Merriweather. The next best thing was to flog the family members.