The Cinderella Cook-Off (The Feminine Mesquite Book 1) Read online

  The Cinderella Cook-Off

  The Feminine Mesquite, Book 1

  Sable Sylvan

  www.sablesylvan.com

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek: “Beauty And The BBQ”

  Sneak Peek: “Spicy Beauty”

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by Sable Sylvan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Foreword

  Dear readers,

  You can buy all the hot sauces and sweet teas featured in this series online. You can find links to these items on www.shopsablesylvan.com . The hot sauces are by a company called Mo Hotta Mo Betta, fulfilled through Zazzle. The teas are fulfilled by a company called Adagio Teas through their website. All teas can be enjoyed hot or cold, with or without sweetener. To make a delicious iced sweet tea, make your tea hot, add as much sugar or sweetener as you want/can, and then, chill the tea in the fridge or with ice.

  The Cinderella Cook-Off:

  Alice and Herb’s story

  Jalapeño ‘Secret Sauce’

  Watermelon Sweet Tea (herbal, no caffeine)

  Beauty And The BBQ:

  Abigail and Clove’s story

  Roasted habanero ‘Awesome Sauce’

  Mint Julep Sweet Tea (chocolate mint green tea)

  Spicy Beauty:

  Addison and Sage’s story

  Adobo chipotle ‘No Bullshizz Sauce’

  Raspberry Sweet Tea (black tea)

  The Matchstick Grill:

  Cayenne and Basil’s story

  Cayenne garlic ‘Fated Mate Sauce’

  Peach Sweet Tea (black tea)

  Little Red Hot Sauce:

  Savina and Mace’s story

  Savina habanero ‘Alpha Sauce’

  Lemon Sweet Tea (black tea)

  Yours truly,

  Sable Sylvan

  Chapter One

  The Quincy Sisters sat on the couch inside the law firm. While some places in the Northeast would kick their clients out after a meeting, things were different down South, where hospitality was still important. Their grandfather’s lawyer had insisted they compose themselves before they headed out. The hot Texas sun shone down on them through the large stained glass window, and because all five sisters were wearing all black, they felt even hotter. Even though these five were used to the heat, they still weren’t used to the loss of their last grandparent, their father’s father, Elijah Quincy.

  “I can’t believe Pop-Pop is gone,” said Savina, the youngest, wiping a tear from her eye.

  “He wouldn’t want you to be sad,” said Alice, the eldest, offering Savina a tissue from her purse. “After all, you’ll be going off to college this week. You’ve gotta keep your chin up. That goes for you too, Abby.”

  “At least the four of us will have our studies to keep us occupied,” said Abigail, the second eldest. “I’ve got my senior thesis to work on, but you’re going to be here, alone.”

  “Oh, I won’t be that alone,” said Alice. “After all, I have the kitchen and the shop to run now. The four of you have got to focus on your studies, and yes, Addy and Kai, that goes for you too.”

  “We’ll visit over breaks,” promised Addison, the middle sibling.

  “You’ll see Dad often, won’t you, Allie?” asked Cayenne, a.k.a. ‘Kai,’ the second youngest. “I’ll make sure to call him at least once a week.”

  “Yeah, I’ll visit Dad,” promised Alice. “Pop-Pop lived a long life, a good life. We have to make sure that we continue his legacy, all five of us.”

  “You sure you want to share his gift to you with us?” asked Cayenne. “After all, you are the sole heir to The Quincy Hot Sauce Company.”

  “Before Pop-Pop passed, he had a conversation, in private, with Dad and me,” said Alice. “I didn’t bring it up at the time because I didn’t want to worry the four of you. This was when he was first diagnosed with lung cancer, and we were hoping the chemo would work. He told me that he had intended to leave the company to all five of us, given that we are his only grandkids, after all. But, the lawyer said that, because the four of you are still in college, owning part of the company would interfere with your financial aid.”

  “It would?” asked Savina.

  “Yeah, by the time Mom and Dad were helping you with your forms, they had already done them four times,” said Addison. “But, I remember when we were filling mine out, they asked us to disclose what assets we personally owned.”

  “The more you own, the less aid you qualify for,” explained Abigail. “That’s why it makes sense for Alice to be the sole heir. She’s graduated, so she doesn’t have to worry about financial aid.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Alice. “As soon as each of you graduates, you’ll get a share of the company, so that we end up with twenty percent each, one fifth per sister. That’s what Pop-Pop wanted to have happen eventually.”

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay running the company on your own?” asked Abigail. “I could take the year off, help you get into the groove.”

  “No, you need to graduate,” insisted Alice. “After all, how hard can running a hot sauce company be?”

  Five men entered the room. Tall, blond, they were all wearing suits, and Alice didn’t recognize them. She knew everyone in this small town. After all, there were only a few thousand people living in Fallowedirt, and she would’ve remembered these guys. Each of them was exceedingly handsome, with blond hair in varying shades. The tallest was toned, but strangely pale. When was the last time she had seen a guy that pale? It was hard to avoid the sun in Texas. Shouldn’t he at least be a little tan?

  The men walked towards the front desk, and the tall, toned man spoke for all of them. The other four were standing by quietly, but their presence was still intimidating. Alice heard their voices raise. Who the heck did these guys think they were, coming in here and treating the paralegal so rudely?

  Alice got up off the couch.

  “Alice, what are you doing?” asked Cayenne.

  “I’m about to give these men a piece of my mind,” said Alice, a hand on her hip, as she shimmied over to the desk. “Excuse me. Excuse me!”

  “We’re in the middle of something,” said the man, turning to face Alice and looking her over.

  Alice felt the man’s eyes eating her up. He felt predatory, but at the same time, he wasn’t scaring her. He had an accent. It sounded British, but there was something else there. Alice couldn’t tell what it was. German? Dutch? Swiss?

  “Who do you think you are, talking to her that way?” asked Alice. She looked at the man. Tall. Blond. Broad-chested, muscular, and pale. He was so pale. Where the heck was he from where they didn’t have sunny days all the time? His designer suit made him look sophisticated, like one of those Yankees from upstate who passed through town and stopped for gas or the New Yorkers she’d met during a New Year’s Eve party in Times Square she’d gone to back in college when staying with a friend from New England over a winter break.

  However, his body had a primal aura of masculin
ity, his muscles pressing against the slimmer cut designer European suit that only served to make him look even sexier. Alice had never understood the appeal of a man in a well-tailored suit before, but now, she definitely would have a thing for sartorially educated men. She just had to make her body resist having a thing for this one. Why did she want nothing more than to lean into his body, which was strangely familiar to her?

  “Again, it’s absolutely none of your business,” said the man, turning to face the secretary again.

  “Excuse me, it is my business,” said Alice. “If I didn’t stand up and say something when I saw something wrong going on, well, then I wouldn’t be Alice Quincy!”

  “Alice Quincy?” said the man, turning to face her. “Well, speak of the devil. I was expecting someone a little more…masculine.” He inhaled. As a shifter, he had heightened senses, and as the heir to his family’s fortune, he used those senses in the hunt, whether he was hunting fine women or finer business deals. This woman wasn’t what he’d been hunting…but her scent seemed familiar. His polar roared and told him to pursue her, but he shut his animal up. After all, the polar could take over when it was allowed to take over, and right now, it was to remain quiet and let the man handle his grandfather’s business.

  After all, it had to be a coincidence. Maybe all American women with those curves had some special scent. It was no matter. He had to ignore it. He wasn’t here to sniff around for some woman with curves and sass, especially given how his hunt for a woman with those same curves had turned out the last time. Even if this woman was, as he had to admit, the most beautiful woman he’d set eyes on, she was off-limits. Of course, his grandfather’s rival’s heir had to be drop-dead gorgeous, and abso-frikkin’-lutely forbidden.

  “Masculine?” said Alice. “What the heck is that supposed to mean? You wanna explain what the heck you’re talking about?”

  “The name’s Herbert, Herbert Scoville. Friends call me Herb, but, trust me, you and I won’t be friends,” said Herbert. “I came here looking for an ‘Al Quincy,’ and assumed that they’d be an Albert, not─”

  “Not, what, a woman?” asked Alice.

  “Well, honestly, no,” said Herbert.

  “Well, what do you want with me? Spit it out,” demanded Alice.

  Feisty. Curvy. Sassy. Under any other circumstance, Herbert would’ve listened to what the head in his pants was telling him to do, but, he hadn’t come five thousand miles for a quick lay.

  “Again, I’m Herbert Scoville, you must’ve heard of me,” said Herbert. “Your grandfather and mine, they had…unfinished business.

  “Scoville?” said Alice, then, it hit her. Scoville. The rat bastards. “You mean your grandfather was Morten Scoville?”

  “The very same,” said Herbert. “Your grandfather stole something from my grandfather, rather, one very important recipe. It’s the recipe for the sauce that your grandfather sold as his ‘Special Sauce.’ There are suspicions your grandfather stole four other recipes from my grandfather, but─”

  “But you have no evidence other than hearsay,” said Alice. “Who do you think you are, coming here, on the day of the reading of my grandfather’s will? I don’t know how they do things wherever you’re from ─”

  “Norway, by way of Britain,” said Herbert with a smirk.

  “Well, you’re in Texas now, and we don’t play that game here,” said Alice. “Now get out of here before I have to take you out of here by that pretty blond hair of yours.”

  “Any other day, an offer to be taken out by you would be an offer I’d take you up on, but I’m not leaving this state until I have my grandfather’s recipes in my hands,” said Herbert. “If it’s a war you want, well, I’ve got an army of lawyers waiting to take you down.”

  “The men you’re with?” said Alice.

  “No, and there are two things you’re wrong about,” said Herbert. “First off, we’re not men. We’re polars. Polar bears. Shifters. You know what that means? We’re hunters who can handle any situation and keep a cool head. They’re not my lawyers. They’re my brothers. Basil. Clove. Mason. Sage. And they’re not about to leave my side. You’d think we were wolf shifters by the way we hunt in a pack.”

  Herbert leaned down to whisper that last sentence into Alice’s ear. Her cheeks blushed with arousal and frustration. Who the heck did he think he was to treat her like this, to whisper in her ear as if he were her lover, and to turn her on like no man ever had before? He was the man who in the last few minutes had established himself as her arch nemesis, but he was making her wetter than she’d ever been before. It had to be that dang shifter animal magnetism at work. It was no fair. How could she, a human compete?

  The minute Herbert leaned down, he knew he’d made a mistake. He wanted to whisper something else into Alice’s ear, about what he wanted to do with her, and how hard. He couldn’t help but take in her scent. Underneath the light scents of soap and floral shampoo was her natural musk, and it signaled her fertility as strongly as her ample curves and sass signaled that she was in need of a good pounding. His cock twitched. It only did that when he was on the prowl, either for business or a woman’s honeyed petals. In this case, it was for both reasons, and that drove Herbert wild. He could feel his polar wanting to burst from his skin, and he heard his inner bear tell him to take this woman back to his cave, or any cave at all, and breed her with his seed.

  Herbert pulled away quickly. As he stood back up, something brushed against Alice’s stomach. She looked. Something was bulging from his pants.

  Alice raised an eyebrow. Had Herbert really gotten a semi just from talking to her?

  “I’ll be seeing you again shortly,” said Herbert, trying to get the boner to go away. What the heck was happening? He usually had fine control of his body, but around Alice, it was obvious that all bets were off. Yes, she was the most attractive woman that he’d seen since stepping foot in America. But he knew that she was forbidden, for two reasons. First off, she was his grandpa’s arch rival’s heir. Secondly, well…he shook that thought out of his head. It was no use thinking about her while he was here, especially when he had no clue where she was…or who she was.

  “I look forward to it,” said Alice sarcastically.

  “Brothers, let’s go,” said Herbert. He turned and walked off with his entourage of tall hot Norwegian blonds.

  Alice walked back to her sisters.

  “Uh, what the heck was that?” asked Abigail, who had been comforting her sisters in Alice’s absence.

  “Do you remember the stories Pop-Pop told about the war?” said Alice. “About the Norwegian polar bear shifter he was stuck with in a POW camp?”

  “Yeah, Scarsdale or something,” said Cayenne.

  “Scoville,” corrected Abigail. “Well, they had that rivalry, and apparently, Morten Scoville has been telling people that he owns the rights to the hot sauce recipes that Pop-Pop uses. One of the recipes is the recipe for the Special Sauce.”

  “So who the heck were the blonds?” asked Savina.

  “Pop-Pop wasn’t the only one with a gaggle of five grandkids,” said Alice. “Apparently, Morten had five of his own, grandsons, all polar bears, who are here to get the recipes.”

  “Are you kidding me?” asked Addison rhetorically. “I thought for sure that you and that tall one had chemistry. What the heck is gonna happen next?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen,” said Alice. “I’m going to handle this. This Friday, we’ll all go out to the county fair and have a great time, and you’ll fly out to your colleges in a few weeks. Things are gonna be okay, I promise. Don’t worry. I’ll handle everything.”

  Alice drove them all home, to the house that their parents had left them in Fallowedirt before they had moved to Florida to retire. As Alice drove, she couldn’t help but wonder how she’d solve the two new problems that had popped up in her life: the problem of the hot sauce recipes, and the problem of her attraction to the man that was there to steal them, and who might just s
teal her heart.

  Chapter Two

  Lights. Neon lights, car lights, the lights of glow sticks and light up novelty headbands. It was like she was looking down into a reflecting pool underneath the cosmos. It was like the cosmos was a reflecting pool, and with a swish of her hand, she could mix everything up. She reached out, and of course, the lights didn’t move.

  “Don’t do it,” said a voice.

  “Huh?” said Alice, turning. In the doorway to the balcony was a man in a tailored suit, which described practically everyone inside the party. He was wearing a fox mask which concealed all his features save his steely gray-blue eyes which pierced hers with a depth which made her wish that there was more of her for him to pierce.

  “Don’t do it,” said the man in front of her. “I know this party’s bad, but there’s so much to live for.”

  “Ha-ha, very funny,” said Alice. “I’m just getting some air.”

  “Really? There wasn’t enough air in there for you, even with all the pretentious blowhards?” asked the man, walking over to look out over the balcony. He inhaled.

  “So I’m not the only one that thinks this party is for─” started Alice.

  “Stuffed shirts and short skirts?” asked the man. “Yeah, I get what you mean. That’s why I came out for some air too. Imagine that, willingly going out in New York City to get some frikkin’ air. You smoke?”

  “No way,” said Alice.

  “Good,” said the man.

  “After all, you are here to get some air, right?” joked Alice.

  “Exactly,” said the man. “You get me. What’s your name?”

  “My name?” said Alice. She was suddenly very aware of the fact she was wearing a mask, a mask of a black cat. Wasn’t the point of the party to pretend to be someone else? “It’s…Cindy.”