After the customer left, the tension dissolved between them, and Tyler began studying the mounted chalkboard menu with real interest.

“Who makes these recipes?” he asked.

Genevieve swelled with pride. “I’ve created most of them, and I make the ice cream myself every week.”

He looked impressed. “Where do you find the time to make everything from scratch?”

“Oh, we don’t make the base from scratch,” Genevieve explained, wiping a glob of hot fudge from the syrup dispenser. “We purchase an organic custard base from the local dairy. Here, I’ll show you.” She led him to the back again and opened the freezer, pointing out the gallons of premade base stacked on a shelf.

“But isn’t making ice cream all about... you know, the base?” Tyler said. “I mean, what, you just add some vanilla, some blueberries⁠—”

Genevieve shut the freezer door a little too hard. “It is not that simple,” she said. “Every flavor is different in terms of whipping speed and time and how much air is mixed into the product; it can be very difficult to get just right.” She twirled a loose string on her apron and yanked it off. “What people don’t realize is that for an ice cream shop to make their own base we’d need our own pasteurizer and a dairy license, which is incredibly expensive. This way, we get to focus on the flavors and support our local dairy.”

Tyler’s face broke into a rare smile. “You sound like you’ve rehearsed this speech quite a bit.”

“Well, people can get so snotty about it!” she said. “Like we’re somehow not authentic enough. But do seamstresses make their own fabric? Do writers manufacture their own paper? It’s ridiculous!”

“You think of ice cream as artistry,” Tyler said, though not patronizingly.

Genevieve said simply, “It is artistry.” Then she added, “My father built this business. He made a lot of dreams come true, including mine.”

Tyler nodded thoughtfully and they made their way back to the front of the store. He looked around again, seemingly with new eyes, and an expression crossed his face that looked almost like sadness, or longing. Genevieve was about to ask him if he was all right when a flood of high schoolers burst through the door.

“Oh my gosh!” she said, glancing at the clock. “I didn’t realize the time.” Then she turned to him with a grin. “Are you ready for a workout?”

Tyler didn’t answer her; he was staring wide eyed at the crush of customers lining up at the counter and looked as frozen as a tub of strawberry sherbet. Genevieve laughed, fully in her element now. She loved the afternoon rush.

It went on for more than an hour—Genevieve happily scooping, sprinkling, and swirling while chatting easily with her customers and directing Tyler at the register. Shortly after she’d switched spots with him so he could get more practice scooping, he approached her warily, saying there was some guy at the far counter who wouldn’t let him take his order. Genevieve leaned around Tyler and grinned. Her favorite regular, retired detective Charlie Moran, was shuffling up to the register, waving in a surly manner toward Tyler.

“Hello, Detective,” Genevieve said, delighted. “Your order’s coming right up!” She turned to Tyler. “Detective Moran served on the Pinewood Police Force for forty years. He retired four years ago. He comes in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and he always orders the same thing—a butterscotch malt. And he’ll only let me make it.”

“I see,” Tyler muttered, attempting to step out of her way and nearly tripping on his own feet.

“Tell him why,” the former detective said gruffly, pulling out a paperback book and thumping it down on the counter. The cover showed a tawny cat curled on an armchair next to a stack of books, a crackling hearth, and a half-knitted sweater with a knitting needle poking out at a sinister angle.

Tyler leaned closer to Genevieve and whispered, “Is... is that a cozy mystery?”

Genevieve stamped on his foot and said loudly, “So, Tyler, like I mentioned earlier, the history of Sweet Dreams goes back to when I was seven years old.” She grabbed a milkshake tin and started filling it with generous scoops of vanilla bean.

“My family and I had moved from Mountain Ridge after my grandmother died and left my father the house here. My father can be a bit overprotective,” she said, pouring milk into the shake tin and mounting it on the blender, “and he liked the idea of raising me somewhere smaller, safer. Anyway,” she pulled a frosted fountain glass from the cooler and waved Tyler aside again, “my mother hated the idea of living here and she hated it when my father decided to open the ice cream parlour. She thought it was the craziest idea ever. But the first time we went out for ice cream it was at the Cool Whip down the corner. I wanted a butterscotch malt,” here Genevieve tossed a grin over her shoulder at the detective, “and they said they didn’t have butterscotch, but they had caramel.”

The detective gave a loud snort of disgust.

“Well, my mother got all worked up about that. It was a huge pet peeve of hers. ‘Those two flavors are not remotely the same,’ she said. ‘Why would you offer my daughter caramel if she ordered butterscotch?’”

“Not remotely the same,” Detective Moran muttered darkly.

“So,” Genevieve said, pouring the thick, creamy drink into a fountain glass and adding a dollop of whipped cream, “she turned to my father and said, ‘Fine! Open your silly shop. Just promise me you’ll always have butterscotch.’ And that’s just what he did. He even named the flavor for her.” She pointed to the menu and Tyler read aloud, “Forever Butterscotch.”

Detective Moran laughed roughly and slapped a five-dollar bill on the counter. “Never gets old!” he said.

“Okay,” Tyler said to Genevieve. “But how come only you can make the shake?”

“Malt!” the detective barked, and Tyler jumped. “And that’s exactly why. She’s the only one who doesn’t screw up my drink.”

“I inherited my mother’s love for butterscotch malts,” Genevieve explained, filling the shake tin with warm water and mounting it on the blender to rinse the blades. “And it just so happens I like them the same way the detective does, with an extra spoonful of malt, and blended⁠—”

“—not so thick you can’t drink it through a straw,” the detective finished. Genevieve smiled at him.

“Hey, Genevieve, you missed the drama!”

Genevieve looked up and spotted Carlos Martinez walking across the shop holding hands with Kristin Bourne from her calculus class.

“Hey, guys,” Genevieve said. “Tyler, here are some more regulars you’ll get to know well. Kristin always gets a double scoop of mint chocolate chip, and Carlos is just here for the gossip.” Carlos laughed at that, but Genevieve noticed Kristin’s usually bubbly persona seemed a little flat; she was staring at Tyler with a strange expression on her face, as if she’d recognized him but couldn’t quite place him, and didn’t look happy about it.

Flummoxed, Genevieve turned to Carlos. “Anyway, what drama?”

Kristin shook off her momentary trance and said, with feeling, “Miss Love was in the middle of a lesson and ran out of the room. When she came back it looked like she’d been crying.”

“I think she’s pregnant,” Carlos said.

“I heard there was a fight between her and Ms. Pierce,” jumped in another girl Genevieve didn’t know by name. “That horrible sub’s been throwing all kinds of shade to Miss Love.”

“Well, yeah, she’s furious she didn’t get the job,” Carlos said, snickering.

“Like we’d want to be stuck with her every day,” the other girl said, and began mimicking Ms. Pierce in a cruelly accurate impression.

“Guys,” Genevieve protested, but just then a deafening crash resounded behind her and she leaped forward with a little yelp. Someone else shrieked and Genevieve spun around to see Tyler standing directly behind her, an alarming scowl on his face. He’d broken something and blood dripped from his hand, which was closing into a fist. He looked as if he were about to leap over the counter and punch someone with it.

“Are you all right?” Genevieve asked shakily, but instead of answering her he stormed off into the back of the store, leaving behind a trail of blood.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DISAPPEARANCE

“Maybe he was just mad when he saw the ‘now hiring’ sign in the much more dignified bookstore across the street,” joked Brandon the next morning. “After all, working at a well-respected establishment like Hidden Treasures is more manly than slinging scoops at a floofy ice cream shop.”

Genevieve glared at him from the corner of his shabby brown couch, where she’d just polished off a plateful of Mrs. Summers’s French toast. “Really, Brandon?”

“Just saying. If I had to wear a pink hat to work, I’d be annoyed too.”

She ignored that. “He looked positively murderous. And bleeding all over the place! What a nightmare. Oh!” Genevieve started at a rapid tumbling sound coming from the stairwell which soon revealed itself as a huge golden-haired dog. The dog bounded toward the couch, sniffed at Genevieve’s plate, and began lapping up the leftover syrup, of which there was precious little.

“Who’s this?” Genevieve cried. “You didn’t tell me you got a pet.” Having cleaned the plate in two seconds flat, the dog now leaped onto the couch next to her and pressed a cold, wet snout under her arm.

“Oh, she’s just a stray.” Brandon powered down his computer and stood up.

“This girl?” Genevieve said, patting the dog’s head and laughing as the feathery blonde tail beat up a cloud of dust from the cushion. “I don’t believe it.”