Still, Eliza’s fingers twitched, eager to reach out and get to work, but Lachlan and the frosting fire hazard were both still present.
Sensing her dissatisfaction, Lachlan quirked up a brow. “I take it you don’t like animals, then?”
“Animals? No, I actually quite like them. Sentient flying sugar biscuits? I haven’t decided yet.” She eyed the creature, who was now sniffing about the place like a dog on a mission to find its missing treat. “Though, I will say you both have lost points in your favor for keeping me from what I came here to do.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lachlan straightened, eyes running over her blonde hair, fresh manicure, and pale pink cable-knit jumper. “What’d I do, ruin your weekend retreat with your book club?”
“What? Absolutely not,” she sputtered.
“Emergency mad shopping trip for more pastel winter jumpers?”
She let out a huff, not amused in the slightest by his teasing. “Look, can we not just put him back outside?” Eliza protested. “He can clearly heat himself up, it’s not like he’ll get frostbite.”
In answer, the dragon narrowed its glowing eyes at her. A sound somewhere between a hiss and a sizzle came from the back of its throat.
Point taken.
Lachlan settled himself onto a vanilla wafer barstool. “He might be hungry. Maybe he’ll like the pastries you’re going to make for us.”
“Forme,” Eliza corrected, already digging through her mental go-to of holiday recipes. “The pastriesI’mgoing to make forme. If you’re lucky, you can have one single pastry.”
What did a gingerbread dragon eat, anyways?
“One pastry per clothing article,” Lachlan bargained, holding up a finger in objection.
Before Eliza could argue, the dragon fluttered over to her, sniffing at the icing crusted in her hair. She stood perfectly still, worried that one wrong move might cause her to go up in flames.Instead, it nuzzled the side of its jaw into Eliza’s shoulder, like a cat grazing against its owner’s leg.
“Okay, that’s adorable,” Lachlan said, and Eliza couldn’t say she disagreed.
The dragon, sensing he was being observed, fluttered over to Lachlan next. Eliza could’ve sworn she saw the dragon’s tail wagging.
Lachlan laughed, reaching out to boop the gingerbread dragon on the nose. The dragon blew a puff of smoke at him and rumbled a low growl in warning.
“Careful,” Eliza said over her shoulder. “Looks like you might be his next victim.”
“Guess that explains the scorch marks on the wall,” Lachlan muttered. “What should we call him?”
Eliza raised her brows. “Call him? We’re not keeping him.”
Lachlan and the sentient pastry both shot her a look.
“Fine.” Eliza rolled her eyes, not willing to put up a fight. She couldn’t say she was happy about it. Not in the slightest. Not only would she now be in the company of a complete stranger for the evening, but she now had a pet to take care of.
Despite her temptation, she knew she couldn’t kick either of them out in the middle of a snowstorm. “Keep things ticking over while I go upstairs. Do you mind if I borrow those clothes now?” She was already tired of wearing jeans.
Lachlan nodded politely, crossing the room and pulling out a festive t-shirt and a pair of gray sweats. He offered the clothes to her with an eyebrow raised, “Hope you like Christmas shirts. That’s all I packed this week.”
Eliza took the clothes without looking and headed up the stairs, murmuring her thanks.
The bedroom was as she remembered. Quaint and cozy. She stalked over to the bedside table, and in its drawer, she found the guest-book log. She parted the leatherbound book, one of veryfew things in the house that wasn’t edible, and scanned over the names until she found her nan’s curly handwriting.
Marjorie Elizabeth Snow
Tears gathered as she traced her finger over every lacy letter of the signature her nan once used on every Christmas gift tag, and at the bottom of her grocery lists. Not here, though. Here, the baking supplies never ran short.
She pulled out her mobile and snapped a picture of it before shutting the guest-list book and setting it back on the nightstand. In the bathroom, the sugar-spun tile was the same outdated geometric-green pattern. As a kid, she used to run her finger along the edges of the design for what felt like hours until she went cross-eyed. And there, on the door, her tiny, smeared handprint was still there from the time she finger-painted and got a little too excited that she forgot to stay on the paper.
Her nan scrubbed and scrubbed until Eliza was certain the wall would’ve crumbled underneath Nan’s forceful grip, but the damage was done. It was forever a part of the house–just like the memory of her nan was forever branded into the very presence of it.
