Like maybe a date at the Christmas market one afternoon, or possibly an evening of mulled wine at the North Pole Nook and Tavern.
My shoulders tense like they did that night at the cookie swap. But I try to shake off these annoying feelings. I can handle setting him up no problem. Especially here. Since there’s nothing like a drive through downtown Evergreen Falls to get you in the holiday mood.
I turn onto Main Street, where the evidence of snowfall earlier this week is sprinkled along the sidewalks and in the small park I pass. Just enough snowpack for a snowman or a snowball fight.
I pass the Candy Cane Diner, its door painted to match the striped treat. Ah, yes! Another great spot for a date. Next is A Likely Story, one of my favorite bookshopsanywhere, and I can’t wait to see how it’s decorated for the holidays. That would be a good place for matchmaking magic—maybe a blind date with a book? Yes, that could work. The stationery shop is over-the-top festive with cards, notes, and notebooks in all the colors of the Christmas rainbow. There’s the Sugar Plum Bakery, too, its window boasting drawings of snowflakes and a decal, I presume, sayingBaking Spirits Brightin a festive, scripty font.
So many date-worthy spots. I’m looking forward to practice-dating Rowan here.
I mean, I’m looking forward to prepping him for matchmaking and his dates.
That’s what I’m picturing in these places. Not me dating him. Not really. Especially since practice-dating him is simply part of my work. And really, what better place to show the man that love doesn’t hurt—that it can heal—than in this town?
At the end of Main Street, I take a right, putting dating behind me.
Time to focus on my family.
I wind through some neighborhoods and up a few curving hills, climbing until the curves become switchbacks. More snow blankets the lawns the higher I go. When I turn onto Elmhurst Lane at last, the snow-capped mountains looming nearby, I’m flooded with fond memories of my childhood.
Mainly pelting my annoying older brother with snowball after snowball. My aim is insane. Jason’s, not so good. I also regularly schooled him in sledding competitions—including official town contests—which I won.
I can’t wait to remind my brother when I see him. I turn into my parents’ driveway then cut the engine. I popout and draw a deep inhale of the cool, crisp mountain air.
Home.
And this year, I’m in a better place. Well, that’s not hard, considering last year I discovered how I’d been fooled by my ex. I spent the holiday season licking my wounds.
I square my shoulders and shrug off the past.
I take a bite of a snowball cookie and moan. “This,” I say, pointing to the baked good as powdered sugar sticks to my mouth, “is proof that happiness is often directly related to sugar.”
In the farmhouse kitchen, my mom smiles, her brown eyes crinkling at the corners, her highlights glinting in the early afternoon sun. It streams through the windows, casting rays across the blender, the red-and-white canisters of flour and sugar, and the kitchen island—home to more cookies than any one person could eat.
But I might try to hit a cookie-eating record, especially since Mom and Dad are known around town for their prowess in this department. Neighbors whisper for months, wondering what new recipes the Marlowes might debut each year, and if there’s anything anyone can do to make sure they’re on the Marlowe Christmas Cookie Distribution List. It’s the must-have invite of the holiday season.
I take another bite of the shortbread and nearly die of culinary delight.
“Is there anything better than Christmas cookies?” mymother asks proudly, as she unties her Christmas apron and hangs it on a nearby hook.
My dad narrows his brow, like he’s hedging his bets. “I can think of a couple things,” he says, then wraps an arm around her and nuzzles her neck.
“Eww. Gross,” I say, since I’m required to say that when my parents subtly reference sex.
But also? They’re relationship goals. They’ve been together forty years, and they’re still in love. It’s never in question. Their love is obvious in everything they do. In how he holds her hand and looks at her like she’s the star of their show. In how she makes time for him, puts him first, and saves him the best cookies from her batch.
“Bet you’d really think this is gross then,” my dad says, then plants a loud kiss on her lips.
She kisses back, almost, but not quite, melting into the kiss.
I feign a gag. “So gross,” I say, but I also use their distraction to snag a seven-layer bar. How could I not? They left them out on the counter. They were calling to me.
“Young lady,” my mother chides, wrenching apart from Dad. Dammit. Evidently, she has eyes all over when it comes to cookie theft. “I’ll be giving those out tonight to the neighbors.”
“You let me have a snowball,” I point out.
“That was from the sampler platter. We need all the seven-layer bars,” she says, then wiggles her brows. “But I have an idea.”
I give her a look. “Are you really going to make me bargain for baked goods?”
