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“Saturated fat,” the two kids echoed together.
“Wow, you have my lectures memorized already.” Bella suddenly wanted to cry for no good reason. They weren’t trying to be mean. They were the sweetest kids she knew, and she knew a lot of kids. She was just sensitive.
Very sensitive and riding a wave of hormones that had her acting nuttier than one of her Christmas fruitcakes.
“I’ll consider takeout,” Bella sighed. “But will one of you please try my truffles? I can’t have any more caffeine today, doctor’s orders.”
“I will,” Hansel said, his face lighting up at the possibility of having his coveted moo goo gai pan for supper.
Bella couldn’t help but laugh as he made a great show of bravely forcing himself to take a still-gooey truffle, pop it in his mouth whole and chew thoughtfully for nearly a minute before swallowing. The change in him was remarkable, even more so than Gretel. He was a new kid. Still quiet and reserved, but making friends at his school and growing happier and more relaxed every day.
He still had bad dreams, but Bella didn’t mind sitting up with him when he was scared. She was up half the night herself—cooking, knitting, cleaning the house— anything to avoid sleeping and dreaming about Heath’s golden eyes.
“Exquisite,” he pronounced after he swallowed and wiped the edges of his mouth like one of the butlers they’d seen at the Castle where they’d been invited for Christmas dinner.
The kids had loved that, of course, feeling as fancy as the royals themselves. Bella had practically slept through the entire affair, so tired from the move and the emotional upheaval of the past year that not even a trip to the castle could banish her exhaustion. Meeting the Queen had been nice, however. She seemed like a decent—though not necessarily the most clever—girl who would do her best to take care of the Kingdom.
“Just lovely,” Hansel continued, still affecting a regal manner.
“Do you really mean that?” Bella asked. “I need honest opinions, you know. Our rep is riding on every piece of candy.”
“Our rep is safe with the truffles,” Hansel confirmed with a thumbs up.
“Good.” Bella nodded in satisfaction. “We did an entire coffeehouse truffle line for Valentine’s Day and it’s been so popular that we’re doing an Easter truffle line as well. These go into production tomorrow.”
“Now that they have the Hansel seal of approval.”
“Of course.” Bella began clearing up the mess from her test batch. It was hard not tasting everything herself, but with as much candy and chocolate as she made on a daily basis, she just couldn’t taste it all anymore. Too much caffeine and sugar was bad for the baby.
Strangely enough, the end result of her forced abstinence from the sweet stuff had been a weight loss of ten pounds. So here she was, four months pregnant and thinner than she’d been before.
She had a slightly thicker waist, but all of her old skirts still fit and no one who hadn’t been told suspected the truth. Only Hansel, Gretel and her personal assistant, Mia, who she’d hired to help her through the period of fatigue and morning sickness at the beginning of her pregnancy, had any idea that she was nearly halfway through growing an entirely new person.
She liked it that way. Mostly. Except when she cried about it at night, wishing she could share this experience with one certain person. The one person who had told her in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t be trusted with her heart or the job of being a father to the baby he had no clue would be born the middle of next summer.
“What are you doing tonight for Valentine’s Day?” Gretel asked, coming out of her room in her favorite pink pajamas, alleged to be exact replicas of the ones Queen Cindy wore to bed every night.
Bella was going to have to talk with Gretel about idolizing a woman who seemed to have cotton candy between her ears, but that could wait for a little while. Maybe Gretel would grow out of her “I want to be a Princess” phase.
“I don’t have any plans.” Bella loaded the last of the dishes into her new high-powered dish washer. Moving out of the cottage had a lot of upsides other than escaping evil spirits—modern kitchen appliances being at the top of her personal list.
“You don’t have any plans for Valentine’s Day?” Gretel asked, looking completely horrified. “But I thought that—”
“Gretel will you just give it a rest?” Hansel snapped. “You are so stupid sometimes.”
“Hansel, don’t use words like ‘stupid’ with your sister. Or with anyone else for that matter,” Bella said gently, understanding that he was only trying to spare her feelings.
He was way too perceptive for a barely teenaged boy.
“I’m sorry, Hansel.” Gretel looked like she wanted to say something else, but bit her lip instead.
“You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Bella said, moving to give Gretel a hug.
“I’m the jerk.” Hansel sighed, a dramatic chest-heave that actually made her smile.
“Geez! Nobody’s a jerk.” Bella laughed. “I should have plans for Valentine’s Day. We should make plans. Do you guys want to go out for pizza and Chinese and then see a movie or something?”
“No!” They both shouted at the same time, giving Bella her first clue that they were up to something.
