I let myself into the candy store with my key and headed back to the kitchen. Mom and Christy were making candy, and they both turned to look as I stood there in the doorway. “Hey Mom, hey Christy. Need any help?”
“Mia, this is your day off,” Mom said in surprise. “What are you doing here? Not that I don’t want to see you, but you need a day off.”
I sighed. “Ethan and I were headed out of town to go snowboarding, and we came across a car accident. A bad one.”
I walked into the kitchen and picked up an apron and tied it around my waist.
“Oh no,” Mom said. “What happened? How many cars were involved?”
“Do you know who it was?” Christy asked before I could answer Mom. She held a decorator’s bag of icing in her hand and was drawing pumpkins and hearts onto chocolate bonbons. With Pumpkin Hollow being a town that celebrated Halloween all year long, we always had several Halloween items available all year long.
“Yes, it was Logan Michaels,” I told them. “He went off the road and hit a tree. He was dead when we got there. Thankfully, there was only his car involved in the accident.”
“Oh no,” Christy said. “Was he by himself in the car?”
I nodded and went to the printer and picked up the order on top of the stack that had been printed out. “Yes, he was by himself. Ethan thinks he might have hit a patch of black ice and went off the road, hitting the tree.”
“You have to be careful about black ice,” Mom said quietly. “It’s so dangerous.”
I nodded. “You do. As we were going around the curve, Ethan hit a small patch and the truck slid to the other side of the road. Thankfully he was able to get control of the truck quickly.”
Christy pursed her lips “I guess the only thankful thing about the accident is that he was by himself. It would have been terrible if he had had his parents with him.”
“Or his girlfriend,” I said and went to the counter. “Would you like me to make anything?” I turned to Mom. “Since I can’t be with Ethan, I thought I may as well come and help out around here.”
“Why don’t you just take the day off? You work so hard when you’re here,” Mom said.
I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll just work for a couple of hours. Ethan was really shaken up when he saw that it was Logan. They’ve been friends for a long time, and I feel so bad for him.”
“It’s a real shame,” Mom said. “If you would like to make some of the white chocolate raspberry fudge, that would be a big help. I haven’t gotten around to doing it yet this morning.”
“I swore that Logan and his girlfriend Mariah broke up a few months ago,” Christy said thinking about it. “I heard they had a big fight.”
I turned and looked at her. “Really? I hadn’t realized they had broken up. Ethan didn’t mention it, so maybe he wasn’t aware of it either,” I said and went to the refrigerator to get some butter out.
She nodded. “I heard it was a nasty breakup.” She shrugged. “Maybe they got back together.”
“Maybe so. I think we need to go see his parents after they’ve been notified about his death. Ethan was going to take a police cruiser and do that when I left him.” Connie and Bradley were nice people and one or the other would stop in at the candy store every few weeks or so. Bradley had a fudge addiction that he liked to feed.
I heard the shop door open and close and I looked toward the kitchen doorway.
“Hello Ladies,” Linda Reid said, stepping into the kitchen. She was bundled up in a gray tweed coat and a black scarf that went over her head and around her neck. “It’s cold out there!” She chuckled.
“You can say that again,” I agreed. “It’s freezing. All that snow we got in the past couple of weeks is going to stay hard and frozen for a while. It will take more than a plow to get us out of this mess.”
She nodded. “I told my husband we needed to invest in our own small plow so we don’t have to rely on the city to dig us out.” She chuckled and picked up an apron. “I think he’s about ready to agree to it. Now then, what can I help with?”
“I’m about to make some white chocolate raspberry fudge,” I told her. “Looks like there are a lot of orders on the printer that need to be packed up.”
She nodded and went to the printer, then she stopped and looked at me. “Wait a minute. Mia, aren’t you supposed to be off today? Seems like I recall you saying you were going to spend some time with that handsome boyfriend of yours today.”
I smiled. “I did say that. And that was what we planned, but on the way out of town, we came across an accident on the highway. Logan Michaels’ car hit a tree.”
Her brow furrowed at the news. “Oh no, don’t tell me it was serious. Something tells me it was if you had to cancel your plans.”
I smiled sadly and nodded. “I’m afraid he died in the accident.”
“Oh, how terrible. His poor parents.” She frowned. “He was a nice young man.”
“That’s what we were just talking about,” Mom said.
