Candy Crush

  Candy Crush

  River’s End Ranch Book Forty-Three

  by Amelia C. Adams

  Copyright © 2018 Amelia C. Adams

  Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill

  My thanks to my betas—Amy, Erin, George, Jen, Laurie, Mary, Meisje, and Shelby.

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  Table of Contents:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter One

  Oz Burton walked into Pushing Daisies, the new floral shop on River’s End Ranch, and leaned on the counter. Whitney, his boss, was hunched over a magazine, her eyebrows scrunched together.

  “What are you scowling at?”

  “Oh!” She jumped, and her hand flew to her throat. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “There was no sneaking going on here. I’m wearing boots. There’s a bell on the door. Sneaking was not a thing.”

  “Did you get those deliveries made?”

  “Yup. The last one cried—said no one’s sent her flowers in years.”

  Whitney smiled. “That’s why I love this job so much. We have the power to make people cry.”

  Oz raised an eyebrow. “That’s a little sadistic, isn’t it?”

  “Happy tears, you dork.” She slid the magazine toward him. “Check this out. Vintage wedding bouquets.”

  He shook his head. “You know I just deliver them—I don’t know anything about them. What’s that for?”

  “Steven Pickman—you know, the producer of Legacy—asked me to come up with some stuff for the show.”

  Oz sighed. “That show—it’s kinda driving me nuts. I think it’s great that they’re making a TV show out of the Westons’ story and it’s cool that they’re filming it here, but I had to drive clear around the back of Main Street to get here because there were trucks blocking the other end. I thought they said they weren’t going to disrupt the ranch.”

  Whitney shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.” She began studying the magazine again. “Look what they did here with the Queen Anne’s lace. That’s so pretty.”

  He held up both hands. “That’s your department. If you start off on ribbons and froufrou, I’m outta here.”

  “Did you know that another name for Queen Anne’s lace is wild carrot? Is that crazy or what?”

  The phone rang at Whitney’s elbow, and she answered it, saving Oz from having to reply to her comment. “Pushing Daisies. How can I help you?” She listened for a moment. “Oh, that’s too bad. Of course we’ll help. Today?” She glanced at the clock and pulled a face at Oz. “We’ll do our very best. What’s the address, please?” She scribbled on her notepad, then asked what they’d like written on the card.

  Oz wandered around aimlessly and looked at the displays while he waited for her to end the call. The whole store was done up in shades of red and pink—Valentine’s Day was just two weeks off, and Whitney had warned him, it was going to be a madhouse. She’d arranged for some temp workers to come in and help, thank goodness.

  She hung up. “Oz! I need you to run over to the general store and buy a whole bunch of chocolate. M&Ms, Snickers, Baby Ruth—all the good stuff. Like, thirty of them.”

  “How do I know what’s good stuff?”

  “You don’t know the good stuff?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not really into chocolate.”

  She blinked. “If I had time to be shocked and aghast right now, I’d be shocked and aghast.” She opened the cash register and pulled out fifty dollars. “Here. If you need help, ask Heidi or Alicia, but I need you back as soon as possible. We need to get this delivered immediately.”

  “Where?”

  “North Riston. By five o’clock.”

  Oz grimaced. “I’ll do my best.”

  “And I’ll do mine.” She was already headed for the cooler to grab some flowers.

  Oz left the floral shop and crunched across the street to the general store. It was kind of weird that he hadn’t been inside yet, but then again, he’d only worked here for two months, and just part time. There were a lot of places on the ranch he hadn’t seen yet.

  When he opened the door and stepped inside, he picked up on the scent of sugar cookies, one of his favorites. Especially the big pink ones with way too much frosting. After wiping his wet feet on the mat, he glanced around, looking for chocolate. The good stuff. Whatever.

  “Hello there,” a young woman called out from behind the cash register. “How can I help you today?”

  “Hi. I was sent over here by Whitney from the floral shop. She said I need to buy thirty candy bars or whatever. And to hurry.”

  The woman came out from around the counter. She wore a pioneer-looking dress, which, he supposed, fit in with the whole general store thing, but it still seemed a little odd in 2018. “Let me help you. The candy is right over here.”

  It looked to Oz like they had a tiny little grocery store in that corner of the building, and he figured that was a good idea—he understood that many of the cabins had kitchenettes or even full kitchens, so the guests would need food to cook in them, right?

  “I’m Heidi, by the way,” she said as she stopped in front of a huge candy display. “You’re Oz, the floral delivery driver, aren’t you? Whitney mentioned that she’d hired you, and I remembered your name because it’s so unusual.”

  “Yeah, that’s me.” He ran his eyes over the shelves and shelves. It all looked exactly the same to him. “So, what’s the good stuff?”

  She laughed. “Would you like me to pick out some things for you? You said you needed thirty?”

  “Yeah. We just got a rush order. If you could help me, that would be great.”

  She moved quickly down the aisle, picking up all kinds of brightly colored packages. When her hands got full, she started piling things in his arms. “We should have grabbed a basket,” she said with a chuckle.

  When he was just about to say he couldn’t hold anymore, she stepped back and made a show of dusting off her hands. “There’s your thirty.”

  “Thanks. I couldn’t have decided that fast.”

  “Well, I am a self-proclaimed chocolate expert. You can just ask Alicia.” She nodded her head to a spot over Oz’s shoulder.

  Oz turned to see who she was talking about and spotted a young woman coming up the aisle, her arms full of candy boxes. She didn’t see him, though, and he had turned too fast, and they collided. Boxes of candy went everywhere.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said, crouching to help pick up the mess. Whitney was probably losing her mind wondering where he was—he didn’t have time for this. He pushed down his frustration and helped the girl with her load. “I should have been more careful.”

  “No, it was me. I had my ear buds in and wasn’t paying attention.” She glanced up, then did a double take. “Oz?”

  He sat back on his heels. “Alicia. Wow. What are you doing here?”

  “I work here. In the store. What about you?”

  “I’m the delivery driver at the floral shop. Wow,” he said again, completely blown away. “How long has it been? Like, five years?”

  “Something like that.” Her eyes were just as blue as he remembered, but she was different. More mature. Something.

  “So, I hate to break up this little reunion or whatever, but didn’t you say Whitney was in a hurry?” Heidi called out from by the cash registe
r. “I’ve already rung you up—I just need you to come pay me.”

  “Oh. That’s right. Sorry.” Oz stood up and carried his load over to the counter, where he dumped everything into a sack. Then he pulled out the money. “Here you go.”

  Heidi handed him his change and the receipt. “Good luck.”

  For a second, he thought she was talking about him and Alicia, and then he realized she meant with the delivery. “Thanks. Appreciate your help.”

  “No problem.”

  He spun on his heel and walked to the door, but paused. Alicia was placing boxes of Junior Mints on the shelf, her blond hair pulled back into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck. “Hey, um, can we get together later? Talk or something?”

  She turned and looked at him, her lips pursed. “That would be okay,” she said after a long second. “How about after work?”

  “I’ll swing by here at . . .” Oz looked at the sign on the door. The store would close at six that night. “Six fifteen?”

  “Sounds good. See you, Oz.” She gave just a hint of a smile before turning back to her task.

  Oz stepped outside and pulled the door closed. Alicia. After five long years. He shook his head, trying to stay focused. He crossed the street, gave Whitney the candy bars, and watched as she deftly affixed them to long plastic stake thingies and inserted them everywhere in the huge basket she was making. It was a good thing the delivery van had a large sliding door—that thing was gigantic.

  “That’s pretty massive,” he said, nodding toward the arrangement.

  “Yeah. Guy really feels bad—his girlfriend broke her leg skiing, but he’s out of town on business and can’t get back here to see her until Monday. And she’s being picked up tonight to go stay with her mother, and her mother hates him and doesn’t want him to know where she lives, so we have to deliver this to her apartment before her mother gets there.” Whitney could talk and work at the same time better than anyone Oz knew.

  He chuckled. “People just tell you their life stories all the time, don’t they?”

  “Pretty much. A florist is kind of in the same category as a bartender or a hair dresser—we’re inexpensive therapy.” She inserted the last Snickers and went to work on the Baby Ruths. “This is a good selection. You did well.”

  “Um, Heidi helped me.” He couldn’t take the credit. “And . . . I ran into an old friend while I was over there.” If florists were inexpensive therapy, maybe Whitney could help him make sense of the muddle he was feeling.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. Alicia Roper. She works there, I guess.”

  “She’s really nice. I met her my first day here. So, you already know her from somewhere?”

  He grabbed a stool from under the counter and sat down. “Yeah, it’s kind of weird. Her sister was engaged to my brother. This was five years ago. They had a huge fight and called off the wedding and all this other stuff. It was pretty ugly.”

  “So, the two of you were almost in-laws?”

  “Kind of, yeah. Except . . . well, I had a crush on her.”

  Whitney paused, a bag of peanut M&Ms suspended in her hand. “Wait. I need to figure this out and see where it weighs on the grossness factor. If her sister married your brother, Alicia would be your sister-in-law’s sister. Or your brother’s sister-in-law.” She looked thoughtful. “No shared bloodlines, so your children wouldn’t have three heads or something, but I’m still not sure. Is that weird or not?”

  “I don’t know. It’s too complicated for me.” He shifted a little. Stools weren’t the best chairs. They weren’t even chairs at all. They were like, mockeries of chairs. “So, after the wedding got called off, we still tried to hang out.”

  Whitney smirked as she affixed the next bag of M&Ms. “The plot thickens.”

  “Not really. I brought over a pizza, and we watched a movie. We didn’t make eye contact with each other the whole time, I left, and that was that.”

  “Wait. What? You had a crush on her, but you left? What kind of love story is that?”

  “One that’s not meant to be, I guess. It was crazy, though—while they were planning the wedding, we’d hang out at my parents’ house for family meals and we’d play card games or whatever, and the chemistry was amazing. I’d never had so much fun with anyone before. We joked around, and there was this . . . zingy thing . . . I don’t know.” Oz wasn’t used to talking about relationships like this, but Whitney was like a sister, so he felt comfortable with her. Plus, she was almost engaged to Mike, her architect boyfriend, so she’d know all about angsty romance stuff.

  “Zingy things are awesome,” she replied. “I’m rather fond of zingy things.” She reached for ribbon and started making a bow, her hands going so fast, he couldn’t follow them. “Can you make the card?”

  “Sure.” He reached for the order and grabbed the appropriate card from the rack. He never should have let her see his handwriting. Once she’d seen that it was actually pretty decent for a guy, she had him do the cards whenever he was around. “Wait. He really wants this for the message?”

  She laughed. “Yup. Thought you’d get a kick out of that.”

  He shook his head. “Okay. Whatever. But this guy’s got problems.” The customer had taken lyrics from Bruno Mars’ “Grenade” and rewritten them to say that he would have taken her broken leg for her. Great—now Oz would have the song going through his head the rest of the day.

  “I don’t know—I think it’s sweet.”

  Oz tried not to snort. “Seriously, that song? If the girl’s in that much danger all the time, maybe she needs police protection, not the dude trying to save her from everything.”

  “She’s not in that much danger. He’s just saying what he’d do if she were in that much danger.” Whitney paused. “Never mind. I see your point. Whaddya think?”

  Oz glanced over and gave a low whistle. She’d used bright flowers that coordinated with the candy bar wrappers, and it looked fantastic. “You done?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I’ll get on the road. Good job.”

  He maneuvered the basket outside and into the back of the van, then placed large pieces of foam on all sides so it wouldn’t tip as he drove. Then he backed out and maneuvered around the far side of Main Street again because the trucks were still blocking the exit. He tried not to feel grumpy. This show would be good exposure for the ranch, but still, it would be nice if he could just do his job.

  And maybe to do it without the distraction of pretty blonde girls from his past.

  Chapter Two

  Alicia took a few deep breaths after Oz walked out of the general store. He was probably the last person in the entire world she’d expected to run into, but here he was. Looking just like he always had—slightly longish brown hair styled in one of those too-cool-to-be-styled ways, a ripped denim jacket, hiking boots. Eyes that seemed to see into her soul. Always on the brink of a smile.

  She turned up the volume on her ear buds and concentrated on stocking the shelves. There weren’t any customers in the store just then—if there were, she’d turn off the music and be social. For just that minute, she needed to be antisocial. She needed to get her thoughts back under control.

  When she was done shelving the candy, she took the empty boxes to the recycling bin out back, and then she went in search of Heidi, who was dusting the artisan jewelry case at the front of the store.

  “Okay. So. Oz,” she began.

  Heidi immediately put down her dusting rag. “Spill it. What’s going on?”

  Alicia shook her head, trying to figure out where to start. “We knew each other back when we both lived in Boise. We went to the same high school and stuff, and then my sister got engaged to his brother.”

  “Just engaged? They didn’t get married?”

  “No. His brother turned out to be a real jerk. He was dating this other girl on the side, lying to my sister about it, and lying to the other girl too. It was actually his mom who figured it out and told my sister, and
he just acted like it was no big deal.”

  “Oh, that’s rotten,” Heidi said. She leaned against the counter. “So I can see why things were kind of awkward there between you and Oz just now.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not all.” Alicia pressed her lips together. “I had a crush on him—like, a major crush. The biggest, worse one I’d ever had. We were both eighteen, and we’d hang out and have so much fun together, but then I found out that he knew what his brother was doing. He tried to stay friends with me after that, but I just couldn’t, and then I went to Idaho State in Pocatello and then I moved here. I honestly never dreamed I’d see him again.”

  “Wow. He broke your heart.”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Alicia started tidying up the display of postcards near the cash register. “I mean, I don’t know how in love you can really be when you’re eighteen, but I thought for sure that I was. He’s just so funny and quirky and cute, totally different from anyone else I’d met. I’d lie awake at night and relive everything he’d said, even the stuff like ‘Can you pass me a napkin.’ That’s how bad I had it.”

  “I don’t know,” Heidi said, a smile on her face. “Asking you to pass him a napkin sounds serious, like he was proposing or something.”

  “Oh, definitely. Like a secret code.” Alicia shook her head. “No, I don’t think he knew I was alive. There was this whole crowd of girls at school who followed him everywhere, kind of like they had no brains of their own and they were relying on him to get them through the hallways without running into the walls. He could have dated any one of them in a heartbeat. He didn’t need me.”

  “So, did he date any of those girls?” Heidi asked, picking up her dust cloth again.

  “No, not that I know of.” Alicia finished up with the postcards and moved on to the souvenir mugs, making sure that all the handles pointed the same way. “And then it didn’t matter because I found out he’d been covering for his brother.”

  “I can’t believe he did that. So, how’s your sister? Did she find someone better?”