Criminal Confections Read Online Free PDF Page A

and waved to her. Before long, Team Orange needed only one more sticker to win. Bernard Lemaître seemed impressed by my performance. His approval was like a shot of adrenaline, driving me toward the waiting finish line. After all, Bernard was a verifiable chocolatiering hero! His approval meant a lot to me—even if he was, at this point, behaving like a kindly but horny grandpa out for a nature hike. Bolstered by the real possibility of winning—and by the idea that I could restore a little luster to Bernard’s reputation by sealing a victory on his behalf—I took a bold shortcut across the jagged promontory point I’d observed from my hotel room window.
    There, I almost took a header into the frigid bay waters.
    â€œWhoops! Watch yourself there, Hayden!” Bernard chuckled and hauled me to safety just in time. He gave me a gruff pat with his bearlike arm. “It’s pretty steep around here.”
    â€œYou’re not kidding.” With my heart pounding, I gawked at the gray-looking bay waters swirling at the rocky point’s edge, fifteen or twenty feet below the designated trail. “Thanks!”
    â€œYou’re more than welcome.” Bernard’s warm smile, twinkly blue eyes, and kind, wrinkled face made him look every inch the chocolate company mascot. If he told you chocolate-covered bees were delicious, you’d believe him. He was just that likable.
    â€œAre we done yet?” Sounding bored, Isabel cast her gaze on the gold-stickered scorecard in my hand. “I’m cold, Bernie.”
    At that, Bernard’s eyes twinkled even more. He seemed oddly touched by his wife’s use of her nickname for him. It was . . .
    Okay, it was sweet. You guessed it. I couldn’t quit thinking that Bernard and Isabel were sweet together. They were!
    Tenderly, Bernard hugged his wife close to him for warmth. “We’ll go down to the spa and have a nice hot-cocoa mud bath after this, all right? That will warm you up in a hurry.”
    Isabel smiled. “You’re always so good to me, Bernie.”
    I was tactfully trying to look away to allow them some privacy, gazing studiously across the resort’s grounds to locate the final challenge station. But as luck would have it, I accidentally chose that moment to let my eyes wander back to Bernard. His expression looked hard. And . . . guilty? What the . . . ?
    An instant later, I decided I’d imagined it. Because that’s when I spied the challenge station I was looking for— and Team Blue T-shirt, heading straight toward it for the win.
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    Ordinarily, I’m not ultra competitive. I mean, I might not know how to change a carburetor or grow cucumbers from scratch, but I have my areas of expertise. I’m fine with my skill set just as it is. I don’t usually feel the need to grandstand or brag.
    Yes. Okay. I can work magic with chocolate. But that’s not going to change the world or anything. I have to be realistic.
    I have to accept that I’m not going to conquer everything.
    But for whatever reason, as I squinted across the resort’s grounds and saw the blue team—headed by the unmistakably boyish Christian Lemaître, the company’s CEO, my host, and the man who clearly was about to win his own scavenger hunt (which basically defined “poor sportsmanship”) —something in me snapped.
    I had to get down there and win.
    â€œWe’d better get going!” I said brightly to the Lemaîtres.
    Then I took off at a loping run/walk, mentally reviewing the most arcane bits of chocolate trivia I knew in an effort to prepare for anything. Other competitors waved. I waved back but kept going. Colored T-shirts and green grass and flowered shrubs flew past me. The deluxe resort’s windows glinted in the distance. I was almost there, and I knew I could win.
    I couldn’t wait to tell Danny I’d won. Travis too.
    Fifty yards from the final