Sabrina glances our way and does a quick double take. She bounces out of her seat and races to the counter.
Holly gives me a firm shove in that direction. “You’re on.”
“Sabrina.” I press my hands over my apron as I plaster on a smile. “What a pleasant surprise.” Shockingly, it doesn’t at all sound sarcastic. What is happening to me? “I see things are going well for you.” I tip my head over to their table as Graham turns my way and gives an unenthused wave. He doesn’t look happy at all, and yet somehow this makes my spirit soar.
“He’s antsy,” she hisses, her blood red lips quivering as if she were rabid. “He’s making every excuse just to leave. What do I do? What do I tell him?” For the first time ever, Sabrina looks as if she’s about to crawl out of her skin. I’ve never seen this unsure, jittery side of her, and a part of me is lapping it up. But this is no time to gloat.
Just great. I line up a great catch, and suddenly Sabrina is short on clues on how to keep him coming back for more.
“I don’t know,” I hiss right back. “I’m boring, remember?” A thought comes to me. “Wait a second.” I glance back to the kitchen at those rows and rows of sweet confections just waiting to come to life, and my heart sinks a bit. “Tell him you have an idea that can help save Holiday Pies.” She leans in, and I spill every last salted caramel detail.
Sabrina takes off with a spring in her step and they start in on a casual conversation, which quickly turns lively, and just as they seem to spark to life, I seem to power down. It’s as if my insides are coated with lead. A selfish part of me wanted to be the one who saved Holiday Pies, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. It doesn’t matter who saves it—merely that it’s still operational at the end of the day. People’s livelihoods are at stake. I happen to know firsthand that many of the people who work at the factory live right here in Gingerbread. And the last thing Gingerbread needs is for the unemployment rate to increase. Those are my neighbors. They have families, children who will undoubtedly want a long list of presents this Christmas and every one after that, too. Plus, I love the Holidays. I love Graham.
A breath hitches in my throat as I stare right at him. He must sense a disturbance in the force because he turns my way slightly and our eyes hook over one another. Sabrina slaps the side of his arm and gifts me a dirty look in the process, and I shake all thoughts of loving Graham Holiday right out of my head. I spin on my heels and bump into Holly.
“I meant I love his family,” I mumble my way past her. My goodness, where is my head? It’s clear I’m delirious from staring at baked goods all morning. My mind is turning into dough.
“What?” She follows me back to what amounts to the test kitchen of Holiday Pies as I stare at all the potential options that lie ahead. And to think, Sabrina is out there taking all the credit while I roll up my sleeves to break a sweat. “I think all that eggnog you’re sipping on the side has gone to your brain.”
I shake my head her way. “I’m not in love with Graham.” I bite down so hard over my bottom lip, I’m positive it’s about to split. I try my best to refocus my thoughts as I study the neat rows of pies, each awaiting their final culinary destiny.
“Newsflash, sister”—Holly folds her arms across her chest as if she’s had it with me—“we have about six dozen more gingerbread houses we need constructed and delivered to customers who have alreadypaidfor their orders, and you’re busy playing matchmaker with more than a few pie ingredients?” Her affect softens, and the moisture builds in her eyes. Holly has been a lifelong crier. Sheearnedthe nickname Crybaby. It was just a fact I was spouting when I called her it all those many years ago. But at the moment, she’s making me want to boo-hoo right along with her.
“It’s not what you think.” I shake my head, trying my best to uphold my argument, but my chest feels as if a mountain is sitting on it. “I was just talking to Sabrina and—”
She cuts me off. “You realized you made a mistake.”
I try my hardest to refute her, but I can’t seem to move past the boulder sitting in my throat.
My lips press together. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“You didn’t have to. Your subconscious did it for you.” A self-satisfied smirk comes to her face as she turns to leave abruptly. “Don’t worry. I’ll spy on the faux lovebirds while you hide out in the kitchen.” She pauses before she heads out of sight. “Good luck with those pies. I already know they’ll turn out great. You’re pouring your whole broken heart into them.”
“You’re such a sap!” I shout after her, spiking my fists into my hips as I grunt out at the legion of pies I’ve set out to tackle. Holly is right. I don’t have time to play superhero. I have a business to run—an entire village of gingerbread houses to build. But as much as my feet want to turn in another direction, my heart saysfinish this first.
So I do. I bake a dozen designer pies as a test run of what I’m hoping will be delicious things to come, and I do it all for Graham Holiday, but I will never tell a soul—not Holly, not Sabrina, and certainly not Graham himself. There are some acts of kindness best kept to yourself.
I mix and melt, adding ingredient after ingredient, taking the brilliant suggestions my mother prodded me toward to the very next level. No thought is too wild, no idea too out of reach to strive for. It’s as if everything I had was riding on these very pies—as if it were my neck on the line, my final paycheck looming up ahead. At the end of the day, those factory workers, theHolidaysare family. They need this more than anyone on this planet needs a gingerbread house delivered today. One by one I set them in the oven and the kitchen lights up with their delicious scents, and something in me comes alive with each hint of something new. While they’re baking, I peer into the café and note that Sabrina and Graham are still chitchatting away, their intermittent laughter seems to be set on a regular timer, and my heart sinks clear to middle earth. It wouldn’t matter even if I did have feelings for Graham. It’s becoming clearer with every cookie they gobble down that Graham Holiday is a very taken man.
* * *
On Friday,after an arduous workweek, after three more days of witnessing the atrocity-slash-quasi-blessing in disguise that is Sabrina and Graham’s blossoming relationship, I finally arrive home—correction, I arrive at Graham’s to pick up Noel.
“Knock, knock,” I say unenthusiastically. It’s my usual spiel, but it’s been far more cheerier than anything I can muster right now. Typically, Graham and I exchange a few lighthearted barbs before Noel and I go on our merry way, but I don’t even have the energy for a single wayward word from that man. It’s all wearing on me, the gingerbread house hustle and bustle, the snarky comments from Holly about the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life—to hear her say it, you’d think I gave an entire gaggle of children to a complete stranger—and, of course, Graham himself. Yes, his presence is finally eroding me on the inside. Now that’s something I’ll freely admit.
The door swings open, and there he is, larger than life. His dark hair is slicked back, and his dimples are ironically neatly in place and doing what they do best, dimpling at me. He’s wearing his long dark winter coat, and those rugged boots I find so alarmingly attractive on him are still firmly on his feet. The warm scent of his cologne feels like a titillating invitation, and I blush just thinking about it. I hate that my biological response to him overrides my need to detest him properly.
“Heading out on a hot date with Sabrina?” I can’t even muster the energy to frame that properly with sarcasm. It sounded more like a pathetic fact, and pathetically, it probably is. That is what I wanted, isn’t it?
He takes a step down the porch and locks the house up behind him before turning back to me with a grin.
“Youwould actually be the girl of the hour. Noel’s still at the lot. Why don’t you come with me? Rumor has it, you still don’t have a tree up.”
I make a face, but something inside me purrs at the thought of being the girl of the hour. “I don’t have a tree for the same reason you don’t have a tree. Noel will chew it to matchsticks by morning. She’s already barreled through my closet, and I don’t have a single set of matching high heels left. And purses? She ate the Coach purse my mother gifted me last Christmas. All of it—gone. And don’t get me started on what she does with the laundry she gets ahold of. I’m going to need a whole new wardrobe once she gets out of puppyhood. By the way—how long does puppyhood last, anyway? Six weeks? Seven?” I’m secretly hoping for less.
Graham tips his head back and belts out a laugh. Just the sight of this beautiful man with a smile on his face sends my heart thumping a little too fast.
“Try two years.” His lids hood low as he looks to me, and my stomach bursts with heat. “But it’s nothing you’ll need to worry about. I’ve got a whole closet of Italian leather waiting for her back in Manhattan. Your shoes will be safe soon enough.”
