Chapter One
Belle
By six a.m., Cookie Haven already smelled like cinnamon, clove, and desperation.
The cinnamon and clove were intentional.The desperation was hanging over me like a cloud.
I stood in the center of my bakery with flour on my cheek, powdered sugar in my hair, and a clipboard clutched to my chest like it might save me from the absolute madness that was the week before Christmas.The ovens were humming, the mixers were churning, and somewhere behind me, Salt barked sharply because Pepper had stolen his chew toy again.
“Pepper,” I warned without looking.“Give it back or you’re on dish-rag duty.”
Pepper, my blue merle Australian Shepherd with more gray than sense, wagged his tail and trotted away like he hadn’t heard a word I said.Salt, his red merle brother, glared at him like betrayal was a personal injury.
I sighed and dragged a hand down my face.
This was my life now.Award-winning baker.Gingerbread queen.Woman barely holding it together with isomalt and canned air.
Cookie Haven had started as a dream.A tiny storefront with two display cases and one overworked oven.Now, thanks to one stupid viral video of me assembling a gingerbread Victorian mansion with working sugar windows and spun-sugar icicles, it was a holiday destination.
People drove in from three towns over just to see the display pieces in my front window.Kids pressed their faces to the glass.Adults took pictures.A local news crew had come by last week and asked me how it felt to “bring magic to the holidays.”
I’d smiled for the camera and said something about joy and tradition.
What I hadn’t said was that magic didn’t pay gambling debts.
“Belle,” Marcy called from the prep table.“We’re down to one tray of iced cookies, and the walk-in’s full of dough that still needs rolling.”
“I know,” I said as I flipped a page on my clipboard.“We’ll catch up.”
I had no idea how, but saying it out loud felt like half a solution.
Marcy raised an eyebrow but went back to work.She’d been with me since year one.She had a sharp tongue, a soft heart, and a terrifying ability to ice cookies faster than anyone I’d ever met.Next to her, Jessa piped snowflakes onto sugar cookies with surgical precision, while Owen wrestled with a tray of cooling gingerbread slabs like they’d personally offended him.
Three employees and I to “bring magic to the holidays.”Whoa, boy.
The bell over the front door jingled, and I felt my shoulders tighten on instinct.
Customers were good.Customers meant money.But lately, every time that bell rang, part of me expected trouble to walk in wearing a smile.
Instead, an older woman stepped inside, bundled in a red coat and a knit hat, her cheeks pink from the cold.
“Good morning!”I called and forced brightness into my voice as I moved to the counter.“Welcome to Cookie Haven.”
Her eyes lit up as she took in the display cases with the twinkling lights and the massive gingerbread village dominating the center table.“Oh my,” she breathed.“It smells like Christmas in here.”
I smiled for real this time.“That’s the goal.”
She ordered a half dozen snickerdoodles and lingered to watch Pepper press his nose against the glass door separating the bakery from the front.Salt sat politely beside him, looking like the responsible older brother he pretended not to be.
“They’re beautiful dogs,” she said.
“They think they’re employees,” I replied.“Pepper’s in charge of morale.Salt supervises.”
She laughed, paid, and left with a wave.
The bell jingled again.And again.And again.
By nine a.m., the line stretched out the door, and my hands ached from shaping dough and boxing orders.I moved on autopilot, smiling, thanking, and promising pickup times I prayed I could meet.
