Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(33)

Only to find she’s vanished.

He immediately shoulders through the crowd to locate her but she’s nowhere to be found.

Frustrated, he inspects the truffle again, scanning the clear box all around and over to see if there’s some mysterious clue he missed.

There is.

A slow, sexy grin transforms his features and he immediately pulls out his phone to dial the number written on a tiny slip of paper underneath the chocolate.



*



“CRAP,” whooshed Xoey, as she clicked off the Desert Confections’ video ad on YouTube.

Dani shared her sentiments. The commercial was good—really good. Girls would no doubt fall in love with it and guys would secretly not hate it. Damn.

The video had already racked up an exorbitant number of hits. Clever girl that she was, Quinn had asked Rylan’s permission to use one of the songs he’d sung during the concert scene as music for the entire commercial. She smartly put the band and song in the video description and in doing so, managed to piggyback off the band’s popularity to steal fan views.

What made the video hype take off from there, however, was her second genius idea of asking viewers to comment on the whole Valentine’s Day / White Chocolate Day package deal. That was all it took for folks to start debating the pros and cons. With way more pros. By this morning, the two-part holiday idea was trending on Twitter and headlining on Facebook pages and blog feeds. From teen lovebirds to silver anniversary couples, support for this holiday revolution was growing and spreading like crazy. It was a holiday revolution in the making.

And it was all thanks to Quinn. Due to her enormous web presence, a ton of attention was being drawn to what was being dubbed ‘the most unlikely romance battle of the season,’ aka the Desert Confections vs. Ocotillos throwdown. Remarkable. Something that had begun as a little town wager between two business owners was escalating into a colossal showdown. With the cyberstorm Quinn was detonating across the internet, a frenzy of folks from all over were starting to declare their dogged allegiances between Luke and Dani, chocolate and beer.

Dani felt the excitement brewing in her. For her, competition was worse than chocolate and almost better than beer. She thrived off it. All this couldn’t have come at a better time. A healthy battle like this was just what she needed to forget about failed winery ideas and the like.

Her eyes narrowed. That reminder provided the creative jolt she needed for a fun idea to take shape—well, fun by Luke’s standards at least. Soon, a slow smile spread across her face.

Xoey’s eyes rounded. “Tell me!” She sat down excitedly. “I know that look. It’s your evil genius grin. What do you have planned?”

She simply raised her brows in a way that had Xoey doing a cackling fist-pump. Dani reached for the town phone directory to look up Desert Confections’ phone number.

If she wasn’t mistaken, Quinn would be the one manning the shop right about now...




DANI HUSTLED AROUND the deck of Ocotillos, rushing to add final touches for the last scene of their commercial shoot. Aidan, Rylan’s drummer and the band’s resident video guru, had translated her vision perfectly, capturing the fun, sexy marketing angle she was going for—first date romance, laid-back style. And because his day job consisted of shooting and editing wedding ceremony videos on site in time to be viewed by the guests at the reception, he was fast. Aidan had the first half of the video edited within an hour, which allowed Dani to watch it while he set up the equipment for the second half.

Hitting play, she smiled when Rylan’s voice crooned out her favorite love song to start off the scene capturing Rissa and Evan’s first date:



Evan fusses with his tie, repeatedly adjusting it until the sound of knocking at the door causes him to nearly strangle himself. Thankfully, he’s able to loosen the death knot cutting off his air supply as he races to open the door.

The moment he sees Rissa, his breathing is halted once again.

Mesmerized, he smiles and greets her with a gentle kiss on her cheek. Little bowl vases of red roses line every furniture piece in the living area of his bachelor studio, and tealight candles flicker on the romantically adorned coffee table. The ambiance is quietly elegant.

As is their conversation.

Stilted chitchat on current affairs segues to an awkwardly hushed wine glass clinking, followed by her faint cringe and his choking cough when they actually taste the fancy wine.

Evan runs a finger under his collar in growing despair at what’s looking to be the most uncomfortable first date ever.

The kitchen timer dings.

With visible relief, he rushes off to retrieve the plates of food he left warming in the oven. They were plated to perfection, like something off a Food Network show. His brief smile of confidence quickly fades, however, when chirping crickets mock his return to the living room. Even more nervous than before now, he puts the two plates of risotto-stuffed Cornish game hens and seasoned baby vegetables on the low table.

Eyebrows raised, Rissa quietly compliments him on the lovely meal.

And with that one brief, shining moment of promise, their sporadic dinner talk over tidy bites of the fancy food quickly goes from clumsy to nonexistent. They even begin a horrifically boring discussion about the unusual weather lately.

Then silence again.

Finally, one sterile, overlong minute later, Evan reaches for Rissa’s hand. “You want to pack all this up and go hang out at Ocotillos instead?”