Sweet Somethings (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) by Connie Shelton Read Free Book Online Page A

racks with a wrench, Becky sitting at
Sam’s desk with a cup of tea and red-rimmed eyes, and Jen picking up decorating
tools and broken ceramic wedding cake toppers. Becky’s eyes welled with tears
when she saw Sam.
    “Are you all right?” Sam rushed to
her side and looked her over for injuries.
    “I’m okay but I am so sorry! I don’t know what happened.”
    Sam could pretty well figure it
out. She’d been meaning to empty that rack and repair the shaky leg on it for
some time. Since it meant unloading hundreds of little items and reorganizing
the whole thing, she hadn’t yet found a minute to do it.
    Becky set her tea aside and stood
up. “I just reached for the plastic bin with the bottles of edible glitter but
that shelf was a bit over my head. I should have stood on a stool. This is the
worst of it.” She showed Sam the remains of the pueblo chocolates—some intact,
many broken in pieces, lying among a litter of the small cardboard boxes in
which they would have been sold.
    A solid rock went to the pit of
Sam’s stomach. All that work. At home she might have claimed the
five-second-rule and picked them up, but there was no way she could sell these
in her business. Her license would be gone in moments even though the bakery
floor was probably cleaner than in most hospitals.
    “Let’s see if any of the boxes can
be salvaged,” she said. “Unfortunately, the chocolate has to go.”
    A vision of the wooden box flashed
through her head. In times past, faced with insurmountable deadlines, she had
used its energy burst to perform some amazing things. But none of the employees
knew that. She had to go carefully here.
    “I’ll come in at night and help
with it,” Becky pleaded. “Anything at all. I feel so awful.”
    Sam faced her and put her hands on
Becky’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault. I should have fixed that shelf a long
time ago. And I shouldn’t have started stacking the chocolates there. I could
have found a safer place.”
    Tears spilled down her assistant’s
face.
    “Listen—it’s fine. I’ve really got
the recipe down pat now so I can remake them in a lot less time. Do not worry!
I mean it.”
    Julio set down his wrench and gave
the leg of the shelf a couple of good tugs. Sam went to his side and the two of
them set the shelving unit upright. She gripped both sides of it and shook it.
The thing felt solid but she agreed with Julio’s suggestion that they should fasten
it to the wall. He rummaged through her toolbox and came up with enough sturdy
bolts to do the job.
    “Okay, back to work,” Sam said.
“What else needs to be finished this afternoon?”
    Becky pointed to a princess-themed
birthday cake she’d been working on when the need for the glitter arose. She
assured Sam that she felt steady enough to finish it. Jen went back to the
front displays, and Sam began sorting through the boxes for clean, unbroken pueblo
chocolates.
    It would be far simpler to sell
them from a bulk tray and bag them for the customers rather than boxing them in
charming sets of four and six as she’d done earlier. She glanced at the clock.
Tonight was as good a time as any; once the shop closed she would sneak back
and work on them.
    “Don’t forget all these posters,”
Jen said later, as she set the bank bag on Sam’s desk. She tilted her head
toward a large box that Sam hadn’t noticed earlier, what with the demands of
reorganizing the contents of the downed shelf.
    Carinda had, as per the plan,
counted out some posters to place around town but had left the majority to be
divided and distributed by Sam, since most of the committee members were her
friends. She’d figured on twenty posters per person. Sam pulled a few off the
stack and asked Jen to place two in the front windows of Sweet’s Sweets and
take twenty to Riki’s dog grooming shop for distribution. She would see that
Kelly took a share of them too. And she could drop by Rupert’s place on her way
home and leave a batch with him.