RaeAnne Thayne - Willowleaf Lane

When she first opened the store, Charlotte had made everything herself but she inevitably ran out of inventory by the end of each day. Now she had three people who came to her back kitchen before 6:00 a.m. to hand-dip the sweets. She still made most of the fudge herself, prepared in the traditional copper pots with wooden spoons.

“You’re welcome to come watch,” she said. “Are you staying in town long?”

“I really hope not,” the girl muttered fervently, her expression dark.

“Oh, ouch.” Charlotte smiled. “Some of us actually choose to live in Hope’s Crossing, you know. We like it here.”

The girl fiddled with the strap on her messenger bag adorned with buttons and pins. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m sure it’s a nice town and all. But nobody asked me if I wanted to move here. Nobody cares what I think about anything.”

Sympathy welled up inside Charlotte. She knew very well what it was like to be this age, feeling as if her life was spinning completely out of her control.

Who was she kidding? She had spent most of her life feeling out of control.

“So you’re moving here. Welcome! You know, you might discover you really like it. Stranger things have happened.”

“I doubt that.”

“Give it some time. Talk to me again after you’ve been in town a few weeks. I’m Charlotte, by the way. Charlotte Caine.”

“Peyton,” the girl offered and Charlotte had the strange feeling the omission of her last name had been quite deliberate. The fairly unusual first name struck a chord somewhere in her subconscious but she couldn’t quite place where she might have heard it before.

“Would you like to sample a couple flavors so you can choose?”

“Is that okay?”

“Sure. We give customers sample tastes all the time. It’s quite sneaky, actually. One taste and I’ve generally hooked them.”

Small pieces of the different variations of fudge were arranged in a covered glass cake tray on the countertop. She removed the lid and after a moment’s scrutiny, separated a few flavors onto one of the pretty plastic filigree sample plates she kept for that purpose then handed it to the girl.

“These are our three most popular flavors. Blackberry, peanut butter and white chocolate.”

She waited while the girl tried them and had to smile when her eyes glazed a little with pleasure after each taste. She loved watching people enjoy her creations, even though she hardly tried them herself anymore except to test for flavor mixes.

“These are so good! Wow.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you like it.”

“No. Seriously good! I don’t know which to choose. It’s all so yummy.”

“See why the samples are a sneaky idea?”

“Yeah. Totally. Okay, I guess I’ll take a pound of the blackberry and a pound of the peanut butter.”

“Good choices.” Two pounds of fudge was a large amount, but maybe Peyton had a big family to share it with.

“Oh, and I’ll take a pound of the cinnamon bears. I love cinnamon.”

Charlotte smiled. “Same here. Cinnamon is my favorite.”

She enjoyed finding yet another point of commonality between them. Maybe that explained her sympathy for the girl, who appeared so lost and unhappy.

While Charlotte hadn’t been uprooted at this tender age to a new community, she might as well have been. Her entire world, her whole perspective, had undergone a dramatic continental shift at losing her mother. She had felt like she was living in a new world, one where nobody else could possibly understand her pain.

While Charlotte cut, weighed and wrapped the fudge, Peyton wandered around the store looking at some of the Colorado souvenirs Charlotte stocked.

The husband half of the older couple clutched a bag with saltwater taffy while his wife had several boxes of jelly beans in her arms. The two of them moved to the chocolate display and started debating the merits of dipped cashews versus cherries.

Charlotte smiled politely, waiting for the argument to play out. When Peyton approached the cash register, Charlotte held out the bag of sweets.

“Here you go,” she said.

“Thanks.” Instead of taking it immediately, Peyton reached into her bag and retrieved a hard-sided snap wallet with splashy pink flowers on a black background. She pulled out a credit card and Charlotte spied several more inside the wallet.

She felt a moment’s disquiet. Why would a girl barely on the brink of adolescence need multiple credit cards? Had she stolen them? Charlotte wondered fleetingly, but discarded the idea just as quickly.

She had certainly been wrong about people before. She would be delusional to believe her instincts were foolproof. History would certainly bear that out. She had instinctively liked Peyton, though, and didn’t want to believe her a thief.

She probably had self-absorbed, indulgent parents—divorced, more than likely—who thought throwing another credit card at her would fix any heartbreak or trauma.

Charlotte slid the card back across the clear counter. “Tell you what. No charge. Why don’t you consider this a welcome-to-Hope’s-Crossing sort of thing?”

Peyton’s mouth dropped open a little and she stared at Charlotte, obviously astonished by the simple kindness. “Seriously?”

“Sure. It’s a gift for you and your family.”

At her words, the look in Peyton’s dark eyes shifted from incredulity to a quiet sort of despair before she veiled her expression.

“I don’t have a family,” she declared, her voice small but with a hint of defiance.

Was she a runaway? Charlotte considered. Should she be alerting Riley McKnight, the police chief of Hope’s Crossing, so he could help reunite her with whomever she had escaped? With the vague idea of keeping the girl talking so she could glean as much information as possible, she glanced at the other couple and saw they were busy sampling every variety of fudge.

“Nobody at all?” she asked.

Peyton shrugged, the movement barely rippling her thin shoulders inside the T-shirt that looked a size or two too large. “I had a mom but she died last year.”

Ah. Maybe that explained Charlotte’s instant empathy, that subtle connection she felt for the girl.

“I’m sorry. My mom died when I was about your age, too. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

Peyton made a sound that could have been a snort or a rough laugh. “You could say that.”

“So who do you live with, then?” she asked with studied casualness.

“My stupid dad,” Peyton said and Charlotte felt herself relax. Okay. The girl had a dad. One she wasn’t crazy about, apparently. No need to jump to conclusions because she said she had no family.

“Where is your dad?”

She pointed out the door. “He stopped to take a phone call. I got bored waiting around so I came in here.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“No. Just me.”

“So you and your dad are moving to Hope’s Crossing together?”

“Yeah.” Her mouth tightened. “He took a job here even though I told him I didn’t want to move. I had to leave all my friends in Portland, my best friend, Victoria, this boy I like, Carson, and the mall and everything. This dumb town doesn’t have any good stores.”

Charlotte, for one, had hated clothes shopping when she was Peyton’s age. Even before her mom died, she had been pudgy, with plenty of baby fat that stubbornly clung on. Afterward, the pounds just piled on until she couldn’t find a single thing that fit in any store except what she had considered the fat old lady stores.

Now her favorite thing was to go into a clothing store and actually have choices.

“We have a pretty decent bookstore and a couple nice boutiques that specifically cater to teens. And a killer candy store,” she added with a smile.