Salt Water Taffie (Boardwalk Brides Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

reception and placed the call to his brother, quickly explaining the problem.
    “A taffy machine?” Luke asked. “I don’t have a clue how—”
    “No, that’s not the right answer,” Ryan interjected. “I don’t ask a lot from you, Luke, but this time I really need your help. We’ve got to figure out how to get this done. I don’t care how. I don’t care how much. But we’ve got to figure it out—and soon.”
    “What’s her name?”
    “W–who?”
    “The girl. What’s her name?”
    “T–taffie.”
    An awkward silence followed, then, “You’ve fallen in love with taffy?”
    Ryan held back the laugh that threatened to erupt as he responded to his brother’s question. “I guess you could say I have developed a sudden interest in the art of candy making. Let’s just leave it at that. But get over here as quick as you can, okay?”
    “Sure. Whatever.”
    As he ended the call, Ryan stepped back into the shop and then shifted his gaze to Taffie, who now waited on a customer. She glanced his way with a warm smile, one that very nearly melted his heart.
    Ryan did his best not to let the corners of his lips give him away as they shared a glance. For whatever reason—nerves, maybe—he reached into the plastic bag, coming up with a bright pink piece of taffy. Ready to throw caution to the wind, he unwrapped it. . .and popped it in his mouth.

FOUR
     
    Taffie kept a watchful eye on Ryan over the next twenty minutes or so, as he waited for his brother to arrive. She tried to tend to her customers with the usual zeal, but with someone as handsome as Ryan pacing back and forth, she found it a bit difficult. She accidentally measured out a pound of cherry taffy for a woman who asked for strawberry and she overcharged another customer for a quarter pound of licorice. But who could blame her? Ryan Antonelli proved to be a formidable but happy distraction.
    Her parents apparently found him likeable, as well. They’d pretty much swept him into the fold. . .in a number of ways. Since his arrival, he’d heard her father’s tale of how the Carini family had come to New Jersey from Italy in the thirties. Her mother then took to playing hostess, offering Ryan a hot fudge sundae followed by a caramel mocha frappuccino. All of this following the initial espresso and taffy, of course. If this repair took too long, he’d put on twenty pounds. Or send his blood sugar levels soaring.
    Hmm. Taffie looked down at her midsection and sighed. She’d put on a few pounds over the past year, working with sweets, hadn’t she? Oh well. Such were the woes of life in a candy shop. There would be plenty of time to focus on that later. Right now she needed to zero in on the broken taffy machine. If they didn’t get it up and running, production would go down. If production went down. . .
    She shivered, thinking about it. Her parents wanted to travel in their RV, to leave the shop in her capable hands. If production stopped, everything else would eventually come to a grinding halt, as well. She couldn’t let that happen. And, with Ryan’s help, she wouldn’t.
    Taffie looked past the throng of customers as she heard a voice ring out. “Hey, little brother. What’s cookin’?”
    She watched with interest as Ryan rose from his seat and moved in the direction of a fellow a couple years older than himself. One with a swagger in his step and a crooked smile on his face. In many ways the two men resembled each other, though she had to admit Ryan took the prize for good looks.
    Seconds later her father greeted Luke with the usual Carini gusto. The three men stood in the middle of the busy shop, talking at length.
    When the crowd thinned, Taffie made her way out from behind the counter to introduce herself. She wondered at the laughter in Luke’s eyes as she spoke her name, and couldn’t figure out why Ryan jabbed him in the arm.
    What’s up with that?
    Unfortunately, she never had time to search for answer. An incoming rush of