Brayden was certain he heard her wrong.
“I’ll stay through Christmas. But, wewillhave this conversation on Christmas Day. I’ve been more than patient with you this last year.” Some emotion Brayden couldn’t quite pin flashed across Mom’s face.Pain?“I’m retiring whether you like it or not, and this company needs to stay in the family. It’s what your father would’ve wanted.”
“You’re joining in the Christmas festivities.”
“I’m not doing a baking contest.”
Feeling victorious, he slipped his arm around Mom’s shoulder and led her back to the door. “Oh, but you are, Mother.” He found Mallory on the cot, snuggling Elsie. “I even picked you out an apron.”
ChapterEleven
Ava
“Mom, what are you doing to my kitchen?” Ava dropped her purse on the couch, too stunned at the baking explosion happening in her cramped kitchen to unwrap her scarf. When she agreed to let her mom come over early to prepare for the Christmas sweater party, this was not what she had in mind.
“I’m practicing for the baking contest tomorrow.” Mom rinsed a metal measuring cup in the sink and towel-dried it. Practicing was hardly the word Ava would use to describe the array of mixing bowls and dozens of cookies taking over every inch of surface from the breakfast bar to the dining table, to the window ledges. “I can’t come all this way and lose to Tillie Grant.”
“Don’t you meanwe?”
Mom flashed her a smile before she dunked that same measuring cup into a bag of white sugar. “Of course, Ava dear.”
Overheated no doubt from an oven that had likely been running nonstop for hours, Ava finally shed her coat and scarf and tossed them over the back of the couch. The Christmas sweater party was in less than an hour, and Mom hadn’t done a thing to get ready for it.Guess I’ll text Brayden to help.
Ava:SOS. Come over ten minutes ago.
Brayden:Coffee run. Be there soon.
Ava:Get me a double shot plz?
Brayden:You got it
“Texting your boyfriend?” Mom cooed in the same tone she had when Ava was a teenager mooning over a boy.
“He’s grabbing coffee.” All weekend, Ava had been free of her mom outside of a quick pie date. Brayden had worked some sort of magic to pair the moms together and keep them occupied. She never expected Pamela to go for it, but Mom had sent photos throughout the weekend of their adventures. Despite the mountain of work that never ended, Ava felt the pressure ease those two days.
She hadn’t seen much of Brayden, as he was working on some last-minute order. It shouldn’t seem like a downside. And her heart certainly shouldn’t flutter the way it did now at the prospect of seeing him. They weren’t together.But what if we were?
“I do hope he’s bringing that sweet Elsie with him. I’m tempted to smuggle her back to Minnesota in my carry-on.”
“Elsie.” Ava spun in a circle, overwhelmed by the number of cookieseverywhere. “I have containers downstairs,” she said. “Let me grab them. Elsie on sugar is . . . you don’t want to know.” She scurried down the stairs, diving into the spare bedroom half-filled with holiday totes in search of her snowman-decorated Tupperware. “No way I have enough,” she muttered, stacking them in her arms.
It wasn’t until Ava was at the foot of the stairs that she noticed the cracked door to the garage.
“Oh, no.”
Ava set the wobbly stack of containers on the bottom step and approached the garage with caution. It didn’t matter that she’d assembled more than two hundred baskets. Mom snooping in her garage with all the remaining supplies wasn’t good. It was downright terrifying.
Flipping on the light, Ava cautiously moved through the narrow aisles, searching for anything out of place. A clue that Mom had invaded and was coping with her overly excessive baking.“That could be it,” Ava muttered. Mom might’ve figured out the dire financial situation of the store and was too afraid to say anything. She was never one to sit still when anxious.
But nothing was moved.
“Maybe I got lucky,” she murmured.
“Ava?” Mom called, her voice much too close.
With what she could only consider to be ninja moves she’d stored deep in her subconscious for a perilous situation such as this, Ava weaved back to the door. Flipping the lock, she yanked it closed, nearly bumping noses with Mom.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked, craning her neck over Ava’s shoulder as if she could see through the solid door.
