Page 10 of Treated to a Mountain Man (Fall for a Mountain Man #11)

Sawyer

Afew days had passed since Cinn and I had turned her kitchen into our personal playground.

The harvest was complete, all the syrup bottled and stored, and her competition truffles had finally reached that sweet spot we'd been chasing—not too sweet, with just enough smoky depth from my syrup to make them memorable.

Tomorrow the Autumn Harvest Festival would open, and with it, the competition that would determine whether Cinn's shop survived. She'd been buzzing with nervous energy when I left her place this morning, going over her checklist for the tenth time.

Which is why the text that came through while I was splitting wood made my blood run cold.

911. Shop broken into. Everything ruined.

I dropped the axe and grabbed my keys, not bothering to change out of my work clothes.

The twenty-minute drive down the mountain felt like hours.

I took the curves too fast, tires squealing.

When I pulled up behind Sugar & Spice, I found Cinn standing in the alley, arms wrapped around herself, staring at the back door hanging off its hinges.

"How bad?" I asked, pulling her against me.

"See for yourself." Her voice was flat, defeated.

The refrigerator door hung open—they'd pried it so hard the seal was damaged, letting all the cold air out.

The cream and butter had spoiled overnight, giving off a sour smell that mixed with chocolate and flour.

The six dozen competition truffles she'd spent days perfecting were ruined—stomped into the floor, leaving dark chocolate smears across the tiles like skid marks.

They'd smashed the jar of specialty Belgian chocolate she'd special-ordered, scattered the gold leaf into the flour they'd poured everywhere, and emptied most of the maple syrup I'd given her.

Glass shards glittered in the sticky mess on the floor, our shoes making wet, tacky sounds with each step.

"Christ," I breathed.

"All my competition entries. Gone." She bent to pick up a gold leaf that had somehow survived, holding it up to the light. "I already called Lucy, told her not to come in today. The specialty chocolate alone takes two days to order."

Her hands were shaking. Not just a tremor—real shaking, like her body couldn't process what had happened. I'd seen that kind of shock before, when Dad found out Sweetland had screwed us over.

"We'll figure it out."

"How? The festival starts tomorrow morning. Judging is tomorrow afternoon." Her voice cracked. "Even if I could scrape together money for new ingredients, the specialty items would take days to order."

I surveyed the wreckage again, my jaw tightening. This wasn't random vandalism. This was targeted. Personal. Someone wanted her out of the running. The cash register sat untouched. The front display cases still held regular candy. Only the competition materials had been hit.

"First things first," I said, grabbing the broom from the closet. "We can't work in this mess."

For the next hour, we cleaned in grim silence—sweeping up glass, mopping the sticky floors, sanitizing every surface. Only when the kitchen was safe to work in did we take stock.

"What survived?" I asked, starting to search through cabinets. Then I noticed her favoring one side. "Hey, how's your back holding up? Let me handle the heavy stuff."

She started to bend for a lower cabinet, caught herself with a wince. "I'm fine—"

"No arguments. You direct, I'll lift."

She gave me a look but relented. "Some cocoa powder up high. Sugar in the canisters. A few chocolate bars I kept in the drawer for personal stash." She laughed, but it came out wrong, hollow. "Not exactly competition-grade ingredients."

"What about your apartment?" I asked. "You must have something up there."

"Let's check." Cinn led me up the back stairs. Her apartment kitchen was tiny but neat, with barely room for one person to work. She opened cabinets, taking inventory. "Half a bag of flour, some cocoa powder, couple chocolate bars I keep for emergencies. Butter in the fridge."

"Better than nothing. What about working up here?"

She shook her head. "The stove's temperamental—can't hold steady heat for tempering chocolate. And the fridge is already packed. That's why I always work downstairs, the commercial equipment is more reliable."

We made three trips, bringing down what we could from her apartment—sugar, vanilla extract she'd forgotten she had, even some cream that was still good. Every bit would help.

"Still not nearly what we need for six dozen," she said, looking at our pile back downstairs.

"But maybe we can make two dozen if we're smart about it," I said.

I went through every cabinet, every shelf in the shop. Most of what we found was ruined—containers opened and dumped, bottles smashed. But tucked behind bags on a high shelf, I spotted an intact jar of maple syrup.

"Look—this one survived." I held it up. "Hidden behind the flour."

"That's barely enough for two dozen."

"Then we'll make two dozen that'll blow their minds." Her chin lifted, that stubborn streak I'd come to love returned. "Ida closes at six. If we hurry—"

We ransacked Ida's store like people preparing for a blizzard. More butter, cream, the best chocolate she had. Ida disappeared into the back room and came out with a small container of gold luster dust.

"Ordered this for the bakery but they never picked up," she said, pressing it into Cinn's hands. "About time someone used it."

She didn't ask questions, just tallied our purchases and threw in some extra vanilla "on the house." She also gave us a roll of parchment paper from her baking supplies. As we loaded the truck, she caught my arm.

"You tell her the whole town isn't against her," Ida said quietly. "Some of us know what it's like to start over."

Back at the shop, we MacGyvered solutions.

No Belgian chocolate? We'd blend what we had from her apartment with Ida's stock and pray the maple flavor carried it.

The damaged fridge couldn't hold temperature?

We'd use coolers with ice from the gas station.

The stove's temperature control was wrecked from where they'd slammed pots on it, so we had to watch it constantly, adjusting the flame every few minutes.

"Temperature's critical," Cinn muttered, hovering over the double boiler with her candy thermometer. Her hand shook—fatigue or nerves, maybe both. "Two degrees too hot and the chocolate seizes."

"You've got this," I said, supporting her hand with mine. "Just breathe."

She did, leaning back against me for just a moment as the room filled with the scent of melting chocolate. "What if they taste like desperation?"

"They'll taste like grit." I kissed the top of her head. "And maple. Really fucking good maple."

The first batch seized. The chocolate turned grainy, useless. Cinn stared at it for a long moment, then dumped it and started over. The second batch was better, but the temper was off—the chocolate was dull instead of glossy. Into the trash it went.

"We don't have materials for many more attempts," she said, but her hands were already measuring cocoa for the third try.

We worked through the day and into the night.

My back screamed from hunching over the counter.

Cinn's hands cramped from piping filling, and she had to stop every few minutes to shake them out, flexing her fingers to get feeling back.

The chocolate had to be tempered three times when the temperature spiked—that busted stove couldn't maintain heat.

By midnight, we had twelve that met her standards. Twelve out of the twenty-four we needed.

"Take a break," I said when I saw her eyes weren't focusing right anymore.

"Can't. Not enough time."

"Five minutes. You're going to fall over."

She sat on a milk crate in the corner while I kept stirring the chocolate. Her head drooped forward, and for a second I thought she'd fallen asleep sitting up. Then she straightened, drank some water, splashed more on her face.

"Okay. Let's go again."

My eyes burned from the concentrated focus, the fluorescent lights harsh after so many hours.

My shoulders felt like someone had beaten them with a bat.

When the damaged refrigerator started making grinding noises that meant imminent death, we transferred our work to coolers packed with fresh ice.

Another trip to the gas station. Another twenty bucks spent.

The kid at the register looked at me funny—covered in chocolate, buying a fourth bag of ice at one in the morning.

"Long night?" he asked.

"You could say that," I said.

Around two in the morning, fatigue hit like a sledgehammer. Cinn swayed on her feet, and I caught her before she could fall into the ganache.

"Break time," I ordered, pulling her onto the one clean patch of floor.

We sat against the wall. Her head dropped against my shoulder, her words running together when she spoke.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked quietly.

"Doing what?"

"This. Staying. Helping. You could've just said sorry about your syrup and walked away."

"Sometimes you just work with what you've got," I said, tracing a pattern in the spilled cocoa powder. "Besides, this is about more than syrup now."

"What's it about?"

"Us. Whatever that means. Whatever we're building here."

She was quiet for a moment, her breathing slow and deep. "I haven't had a real partner in... maybe ever.”

"Well, you've got one now."

"Yeah," she said softly. "I do."

The kitchen clock ticked loudly in the silence.

Outside, Woodbridge Falls slept peacefully, unaware of our small war against time.

Part of me worried we wouldn't pull this off, that whoever did this had already won.

But looking at Cinn—cocoa powder in her hair, ingredients under her fingernails, still fighting—I pushed that fear aside.

"Come on," I said, pulling her to her feet. She stumbled, and I kept her upright. "Let's finish these and show them what we're made of."

The last few hours blurred together. Melt, temper, pipe, cool, repeat. Cinn's movements got slower but more careful, like she was pouring her last reserves into each piece.

We completed the final piece at four in the morning. Twenty-four chocolates, proof we weren't giving up. We packed them carefully in the coolers with fresh ice, each one snug in layers of parchment paper.

"They need to stay cold," Cinn said, gripping the counter to remain standing. "The shop fridge is shot."

"My cabin. I've got the commercial unit running for syrup storage." I put an arm around her waist. "We can catch a couple hours of sleep before we need to be back."

"Lucy's meeting me at seven-thirty to set up the booth," she mumbled against my shoulder.

"I'll make sure we're up. Multiple alarms."

She nodded, too exhausted for more words.

The drive up the mountain was quiet, Cinn dozing against the window.

The October night air was sharp with cold—probably close to freezing.

I had to shake her awake when we arrived.

At the cabin, I checked the refrigerator in the sugar shack—still running perfectly for the syrup inventory.

We secured the chocolates inside, the same unit that had held generations of Blackwood maple syrup.

I double-checked the temperature, made sure the door sealed tight.

Inside the cabin, we collapsed on my bed fully clothed. Cinn's boots were still on. I managed to toe mine off, but that was the extent of my energy. Three hours wasn't much, but it would keep us functional.

"Sawyer?" Her voice was thick, words slurred. "We're a good team, aren't we?"

"Yeah," I said, pulling her close. "We are."

She was asleep in seconds. The alarm would come too soon, but for now I held her close and let exhaustion take us both.