Chapter 1
Standing on the grass in the backyard, looking into the woods behind the house, Erin moved through her tai chi forms slowly, stretching and flexing her muscles as she moved through each of the familiar patterns. The sky turned from blue to orange, and the sun dipped behind the trees. Cicadas buzzed in the trees.
It had been a long day, at the end of a long week, and she was sure the upcoming week would not be any more restful. Though she had to admit that she was eager for the festival to get under way after the weeks of anticipation. Who knew that a food festival took so much preparation? She wasn’t even the organizer, but she felt like she had been swept into someone else’s life, no longer just a humble gluten-free baker, but a foodie, a participant in The World’s Largest Festival Celebrating the Humble Chickpea. She didn’t even care about the contests and awards; she had just wanted to participate in what had seemed like a fun local tradition. A lighthearted way to kick off the summer with food, fun, and festivities.
Maybe it was not such a good thing that the festival organizers had decided that Bald Eagle Falls was just the place to hold the festival when the previously selected host town had been struck with a large water main break that might take the entire summer to fix.
Bald Eagle Falls had been familiar to the organizers of the festival because of the tragedy that had occurred there some months earlier, when Gerald Montgomery, a celebrated food critic, had died suddenly after eating Erin’s debut Morning Sunrise muffin. Rather than being disastrous for business at Auntie Clem’s Bakery, as Erin had feared, Montgomery’s death had spurred tourism to the tiny Tennessee town as Montgomery’s fans and followers took their pilgrimage to Bald Eagle Falls to get a taste of the gluten-free strawberry compote muffins that had been the cause of the icon’s death. Though the idea seemed morbid, Erin welcomed the Instagrammers and influencers, giving them a selfie-worthy experience and accepting their generous tips.
The rest of the town couldn’t complain about the extra business the pilgrims brought to Bald Eagle Falls buying mementos at the General Store, staying at the new B&Bs that had sprung up, and spending their money at the grocery store or restaurants. And now, bringing the chickpea festival to town at the last moment when Moose River had found themselves unexpectedly underwater.
Erin heard Vic open the door from within the loft apartment over the garage and come most of the way down the stairs attached to the outside of the building. She knew without having to turn to look that Vic had taken up her customary seat on the stairs to watch the sunset and wait for Erin to finish her tai chi before going inside for a cup of sleepy tea and conversation before bed.
After Erin had moved to Bald Eagle Falls to claim her legacy following Clementine’s demise, Vic had quickly become her best friend. Erin had taken in the young, homeless, and recently outed trans woman who had been sleeping in the basement of Clementine’s old tea shop, which Erin had transformed into Auntie Clem’s Bakery. Neither Erin nor Vic had been particularly popular in Bald Eagle Falls in the early days, and they had relied upon each other for company and support.
Erin drew her practice to a close, standing and holding the final position for a few extra breaths. Then she relaxed her muscles and sighed.
“How has your evening been?” she asked her young employee, turning her gaze to the willowy blond sitting on the stairs. Erin swiped a few dark, stray hairs away from her own face in irritation. She didn’t spend much time fussing over her looks, but did sometimes feel like an ugly duckling—or a duckling who had never managed to figure out how to do her hair and makeup properly—when comparing herself with Vic.
It wasn’t like they had been apart for long. They had closed Auntie Clem’s Bakery together only a few hours earlier. But Erin never tired of Vic’s company. They always found things to talk about. Or they just worked or sat in companionable silence while Erin rewrote lists in her planner and tried to think of what else needed to be done before the festival kicked off in a few days.
“Quieter than a whisper,” Vic advised. “I’m telling you… I thought I would be happy when people found out that Willie’s death had been faked and people stopped bringing me flowers and casseroles… but the silence has been… unsettling.”
People had been rather chilly toward Vic and Erin since they learned about the deception. But Erin didn’t know what people expected them to have done. They’d had to keep Willie’s secret until it was safe for him to make it known that he was still alive. And they’d never told anyone he was dead; that news had been spread by those of the Dyson clan who were loyal to Willie and helped with the plot to get him out of the criminal syndicate.
“Folks don’t really care what we said,” Vic said, as though she could read Erin’s mind. “We definitely let them believe that Willie was dead, and I accepted their gifts and condolences as if he was.” She let out a heavy sigh. “It’s going to be a long time before they forgive me for that.”
Erin nodded. She couldn’t disagree with Vic’s sentiment. It looked like it would be a long time before the townspeople forgave them. But Terry assured her that they wouldn’t hold a grudge forever.
She wasn’t sure she believed it, after learning about some of the grudges and feuds that had been going on in Bald Eagle Falls for generations. Maybe her great-grandchildren would be forgiven for Erin’s deception. But she wasn’t sure she ever would be.
“Let’s go in for tea,” Vic suggested.
Erin nodded, and they walked together into her kitchen. She put on the kettle and puttered around while she waited for it to boil.
They had just barely sat down at the table when there was a sharp knock on the front door. Erin looked at the clock on the wall. Bakers kept very early hours, needing the time to get the bread, muffins, and other goodies baked before opening the door for the before-work crowd, so they also headed to bed early. But although it was getting close to their bedtime, it was still early enough in the evening not to be considered rude to pop in for a visit.
Erin shrugged and stood. “I’ll be right back,” she promised.
Chapter 2
Erin was never sure who to expect at the door. She had been targeted by some nasty characters since she had moved to Bald Eagle Falls. But the slim figure on the other side of the fish-eye peephole was familiar and not someone she was afraid to open the door to.
“Joshua!” Erin greeted the teen with a smile and motioned for him to enter. “Come on in, how are you?”
Joshua smiled and entered. He made his way to the kitchen when he saw Vic at the table there. He pushed dark, wavy hair back from his eyes.
“I don’t suppose you want tea,” Erin said, “but how about a cookie?”
Joshua grinned. “Well, you know I’m always up for a treat,” he admitted.
Erin smiled and opened the freezer to see what she had for him. Joshua was a growing boy, and his family was on a tight budget, so he didn’t get a lot of treats. His lanky form was just starting to fill out. He would be a handsome man, in Erin’s opinion. He had the same dark, wavy hair as Campbell, his older brother, but didn’t have the same hardness in his face, even after being kidnapped and after all the tragedies his family had suffered.
Erin thawed a few cookies in the microwave and put them in the center of the table, distributing smaller plates to the rest of them. Erin didn’t allow herself a lot of treats. She did not have Vic’s height, and every pound she gained showed at her waist. But she decided to indulge in one cookie with her friends tonight.
She sipped her tea and nibbled a ginger cookie. “How is your family?” she asked Joshua.
“Everyone is okay,” Joshua said with a shrug.
His bar for “okay” was probably lower than most people’s. They were not financially secure. His father suffered from cognitive and emotional problems, was heavily medicated to prevent violent outbursts, and required a lot of work on Joshua and Mary Lou’s parts. Cam had dropped out of school and moved to the city. Joshua had dealt with a lot of challenges personally, most recently the disappearance of Mary Lou, his mother. But she was back now, so he didn’t have to handle everything alone.
“How is Mary Lou?” Vic asked.
“She’s fine,” Joshua said automatically. But his lips thinned and turned down, and worry lines deepened between his eyes. “She hasn’t been the same since she came back.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Erin offered. Her first thought was for what they could take to Mary Lou. A box of baking to lighten the financial load and the amount of work she had to do to prepare meals. But food probably wasn’t what she needed. Their financial circumstances had not changed so much as Mary Lou’s outlook and her worries that people would recall her relationship with Willie when they had both been young, a past she had been able to bury, but was too close to the surface now.
Josh shook his head. “No. She’s doing the best she can, and… there’s nothing anyone can do about what people think about her disappearing or… anything.” Joshua took a big bite of a cookie, which he chewed in silence for a while.
When he swallowed that mouthful, he forced a smile and changed the subject.
“I wondered how things were going with your preparations for the ‘Bald Eagle Falls Chickpea Palooza, a Taste of Togetherness and Festival of Friendship.’” He grinned.
“What a name!” Erin laughed. “Let’s just stick with Chickpea Palooza.”
“That rolls off the tongue a little more easily,” Vic admitted. “What a grand name for a little food festival.”
Erin nodded her agreement. “I don’t know what possessed them to make it so long. It’s crazy.”
“I guess they really want it to be about getting together, not just about chickpeas,” Joshua said. “That seems to be where the marketing is focused. I guess they figured chickpeas themselves wouldn’t be enough to get people out.”
“Well… they might be right,” Erin allowed. “Most people I know rarely even eat chickpeas. Unless they are vegetarian or from some other country. The chickpeas on the grocery shelves here have been sitting on the shelf for quite a while.”
“But…” Vic said, her voice encouraging Erin to expound further, and Erin knew she had spent way too much time extolling the humble chickpea over the past few weeks.
She grinned at Vic. “But they are a great source of protein and extremely versatile,” she told Joshua. “You can use them in all kinds of foods, savory and sweet. You can use the chickpeas whole or mashed, use the brine or cooking water as an egg substitute, or grind chickpeas into flour for baking.”
“Gluten-free?” Josh guessed.
“How did you know? Chickpeas—or garbanzo beans, they are the same thing—are entirely gluten-free and the flour is light and sweet and works in all kinds of applications.”
Josh laughed. “So I’ve heard,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get interviews with all of the contestants, and they’ve been talking my ear off about the humble legume.”
“So… do you know what everyone is planning to make?” Erin asked with interest.
“People are pretty closed-mouthed about their planned dishes. But I can guess what a few of them will be.”
Erin leaned forward. She took another sip of her tea, waiting to hear what Josh could tell her. The more she knew about her rivals and their entries in the festivity’s contests, the better. She might need to adjust her own repertoire, and while she had been baking all kinds of test products, she hadn’t yet made the final decision as to what she was going to enter. It would help her to know what everyone else had in mind.
“What did you mean about cooking with the brine?” Josh asked. “Wouldn’t that be… salty and gross?”
“Well, it’s not brine like you use to make pickles,” Erin assured him, letting herself get distracted momentarily. “There is some salt, if you’re using canned chickpeas. But not if you’re cooking your own. But you can whip it up like egg whites to make a meringue. You wouldn’t believe it, but the proteins in the aquafaba—”
“Here we go…” Vic intoned.
Erin rolled her eyes and sat back. “You can use it as an egg whites substitute in some baking,” Erin said flatly. “Now, don’t think I’m going to let you get away with distracting me. What do you know about what the other contestants are making?”
“Well, I don’t know if I should,” Josh teased. “You know, I have professional ethics…”
“If you want to get anything out of me, you have to dish,” Erin told him sternly. “You can’t just use me as a source.”
“Well…” Josh’s hand hovered over the plate of cookies as he considered his next choice. “I wouldn’t want to give away any trade secrets…”
“You know you’re going to tell me. So get on with it.”
Josh shrugged. “Well, who do you know out of the competitors?”
“I don’t know anyone really well. Marty Lawson and I have run into each other a few times at other events. She specializes in Mediterranean foods, so I guess she knows lots of traditional dishes that use chickpeas.”
Josh nodded. “I don’t know what she’s making, but she seems to know her stuff.”
That wasn’t news to Erin. She knew Marty’s reputation and how much Marty bragged about her own knowledge and skills.
“You didn’t find anything out about her?” Erin prodded, appealing to his investigative reporter’s mind.
“Sure, I found out plenty about her. She comes from a family of restaurateurs. She’s toured all over the Mediterranean, learning about the cultures and how to make their traditional dishes.”
Erin didn’t know how she, who had never been out of the country except for a quick trip through Vancouver on the way to their Alaskan tour, could compete with Marty’s experience. She had certainly never been to Europe.
“So you figure she’ll do some kind of traditional chickpea dish.”
Josh shrugged. “That would be a good guess. But I’m sure she wouldn’t confirm or deny it if I suggested it.”
Erin agreed. Marty was a force to be reckoned with. A brusque older woman who didn’t have much tolerance for other people’s opinions. Someone who knew it all and wasn’t afraid to tell anyone so.
“So, who else?” Erin asked. “Do you actually have any information, or are you just going to keep teasing me and hoping that I tell you something you don’t already know?”
Josh put his hand on his chest in mock hurt. “Would I do that?”
Vic and Erin both nodded. “We know how good you are at getting the scoop,” Vic encouraged. “So…?”
“Well… how about Frankie Delaney?”
“The food truck guy?” Erin asked. “I’ve seen him. Well, he’s pretty hard to miss, isn’t he?” She giggled. The food truck owner was a gawky-looking man with bright pink hair done up in a bun, held in place with a pair of chopsticks or other kitchen implements.
Josh chuckled. “He does stand out a little, doesn’t he?”
“Like a sore thumb,” Vic agreed. “I think he might be a few fries short of a Happy Meal.” She giggled.
“Have you eaten at his food truck?”
Erin shook her head. “I suppose I should take the opportunity to check out the competition and what he can do.”
“He makes grilled cheese sandwiches,” Joshua offered.
Erin nodded slowly. “Seems like sort of a limited repertoire.”
“But he doesn’t just make your average grilled cheese sandwich. He has all kinds of different breads and cheeses, and he adds different condiments and additional ingredients. And serves them with fries or other sides. It ends up being quite a varied menu.”
“But it’s still just grilled cheese sandwiches.”
Josh shrugged. “Just grilled cheese sandwiches,” he agreed. “So what do you think he’s making for the competitions?”
“Grilled cheese sandwiches,” Vic filled in.
Josh grinned and pointed at her. “Exactly.”
“But what kind of grilled cheese sandwiches?” Erin demanded. “Is he going for a chickpea filling with the cheese? Like a vegetarian tuna melt? Or is he going to make a chickpea flour bread? Socca or Cecina? Or an actual yeast-raised loaf that is gluten-free or wheat flour enriched with chickpea flour?”
“I don’t know,” the young reporter admitted. “I thought it was pretty weird to put chickpeas in grilled cheese sandwiches, so I didn’t have a lot of follow-up questions.”
“So your startling revelation to me is that the grilled cheese guy is going to make grilled cheese?”
Josh nodded, grinning.
“You’re not very much help,” Erin told him. “Next, you’re going to tell me that the Mexican food truck lady will make chickpea tacos.”
“Something like that,” Joshua agreed. “I mean… it could be burritos or tostadas. But you can bet it will be some Mexican dish with other beans swapped out for chickpeas. Or chickpeas added.”
Erin shook her head.
“Or use socca or another flatbread for the wrap,” Vic suggested.
“So you don’t really know what anyone is planning,” Erin accused.
“I know Frankie is going to make grilled cheese sandwiches,” Joshua laughed.
“How about Nina Chu or Liam Harper? Do you know what either of them is planning to do?”
“No,” Joshua admitted. “Everyone is playing it pretty close to the vest. Maybe we’ll find out more as we get closer to the competitions.”
“Not likely.”
“What about you? What are you planning to make?” Josh asked. “I’ll bet you’ve got something delicious planned.”
Erin and Vic exchanged glances. “Of course I do,” Erin agreed. But she didn’t tell him what any of the dishes she was experimenting with were. She certainly didn’t want to be the only one whose plans were known ahead of time. She wanted her offerings to be a surprise, just like everyone else. “I think the contestant I’m most worried about is Nina, because she’s a pastry chef. Chances are, she’s going to pick some sweet dessert, which will compete directly with any dessert I make.”
“But there’s such a wide variety of options,” Vic said. “She’s not going to pick the same thing.”
“But some of them are really trendy right now. The aquafaba meringues, blondie flourless brownies, truffles…”
“Exactly how popular are they?” Josh asked. “I’ve never heard of any of them.”
“But in healthy eating and vegan circles, they are well known. So I don’t want to pick anything that is trending right now…”
“And then there’s that Liam Harper,” Vic pointed out. “He’s really into the trendy vegan foods, so he could pick one of them too.”
Josh wrinkled his nose. “Liam Harper…”
Erin couldn’t help laughing at his expression. Especially after meeting the vegan chef in passing. He had rubbed her the wrong way, and apparently, Joshua had reacted the same way.
“He’s a bit much, isn’t he?” she laughed. “Maybe I’m mistaking his body language and tone of voice, but… he seems very superior and condescending.”
“It’s more than that, but yeah!” Joshua shook his head. “The guy is very… abrasive.”
“His restaurant is called ‘Chickpea Charm,’” Erin said. “You would think that with a name like that, he would be barred from entering the competition. I mean… it’s his specialty. He’s a professional chickpea cook!”
“Maybe someone should tell him that,” Vic said with a chuckle. “I’m sure it would go over really well.”
“Yeah,” Josh agreed. “I’m sure he would take it with good grace.”
They all laughed at the thought.
There was only one way Liam Harper could be eliminated from the competition.
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