January Thaw (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) by Jess Lourey Read Free Book Online Page B

future children a toothache if you eat it, but it is also heaven, particularly if consumed when frozen. Sometimes I wondered if the Nut Goodie was jealous of the Salted Nut Roll’s success, if it dreamed of finally fitting in and no longer being a Rorschach blob in a chocolate log world, if it wondered what it’d be like to play all the major vending machines. But in the end, it was the hardest-working, humblest candy I’d ever met, and I loved it for that very reason. Why not share that joy with Battle Lake?
    I searched for “homemade nut goodie” recipes and received over 406,000 hits. Holy crap. I gravitated toward the ones with photos, of course, salivating as I read. In the end, I chose the simplest and most honest recipe, giving it a new name and a personal twist so I couldn’t be sued for plagiarism.

    MMMM-PIES
    Ingredients
    Fondant:
    3 cups powdered sugar
    ½ cup sweetened condensed milk
    ½ teaspoon maple extract
    Topping:
1½ pounds milk chocolate broken into 1-inch squares
¾ pound Spanish peanuts (not cocktail peanuts)
    Mix the fondant ingredients together until well-blended and stiff. Roll into ¾-inch balls. Place the balls 2 inches apart on a wax-paper covered cookie sheet. Flatten the balls with the palm of your hand, keeping them around 1 ⁄ 8 -inch thick.
    Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave in 20- second increments, stirring between each, until the chocolate is smooth and melted. Be careful not to burn. Drop the peanuts in the melted chocolate. Stir. Pour the peanut and chocolate mixture over the fondant, allowing it to crawl lusciously just past the edges. Cool. Flip, spooning just enough of the chocolate peanut mixture onto the bottom to cover the remaining fondant. When cool, turn over and store in the freezer. Remove and ingest as needed, particularly in moments of extreme stress.
    I spell-checked the recipe and emailed it to Ron, feeling good about my work. I glanced at the clock in the lower right screen of my computer, wondering if I had time to shelve books before going home to prepare for my date with Johnny.
    Despite my mental and physical exhaustion, I got a warm buzzy feeling thinking about a repeat performance of our previous night together. I didn’t know if it was a result of the day I’d had, but for the first time in weeks, I was considering whether or not holding him at arm’s length was good, or even necessary. When he was around, I was happy. I desperately needed that right now.
    He was honest and kind, and man, those hands of his. He’d slide them gently under the curve of my rear and pull me in for a long, deep kiss that left my knees trembling. He might be The One. Maybe it was time to let myself be vulnerable to him and to try to see in him what he saw in me.
    My eyes went misty from my hot daydream, and it took me a couple seconds and a few blinks to process the time. How could it be six o’clock already? My eyes darted to the windows. It was dark outside. Johnny would be at my house in half an hour! He said he would bring the dinner and the movies, but I’d hoped to at least have the house and myself picked up before he arrived. Crap. It’d been so long since I shaved that it looked like a homeless Mediterranean had taken up residence in my underpants, and speaking of undergarments, it was laundry day tomorrow and I wasn’t exactly wearing the starting lineup. White bra with the puckered cups that was just too comfortable to throw away? Check. Dangit!
    I jabbed my finger at the computer’s power button, forcing a shutdown, tugged on my coat, and hightailed it out the door, barely remembering to lock up behind me. My car had cooled down along with the night, but I didn’t have time to let her preheat. I slammed the gear stick into Reverse and tore out of my parking spot.
    I hit rush-hour traffic on the way home, or at least Battle Lake’s version of it. Pickup after pickup drove painfully slowly in front of me. Even though the skating rink had been