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Emily stood very still in her kitchen with flour on her hands and the bread half-kneaded.

“Emily?” Madison said.

“When?”

“I don’t know. Jackson didn’t say it was definite. He just said Cole was talking about it.”

The bakery was very quiet. Just the stove and the clock and Emily’s heartbeat, pounding unnaturally in her chest.

“Em, are you okay?”

Emily looked at the dough. At her hands. At the bakery that had been her safe place since she was small, the place where nothing could touch her, the place where she could always stand when the ground shifted.

The ground was shifting.

“I have to go,” she said.

“Emily—”

“I have to go, Mads.”

She hung up. She washed her hands. She took off her apron, put on her coat, and walked out the front door of the bakery into the cold dark December night, praying Cole would give her a second chance.

FORTY

COLE

Wednesday, December 23rd

Cole stood in the kitchen at the fire station, watching his dinner heat up in the microwave. He hated how things were with Emily, but he didn’t know what to do about it. You couldn’t change the way someone acted, or the way they treated you and your family. That was the worst part. He couldn’t make her believe his grandfather was innocent. But he wanted to. God, he wanted to. Life would just be easier if she simply did.

Liam and Jackson’s mom, Beth, had dropped off a hearty beef stew for the crew to share as a thank you for clearing off the roads to the farm. Christmas tree season was just as busy as pumpkin patch season at the farm, and they wouldn’t have been able to open back up if Cole and his crew hadn’t come to their rescue.

He hadn’t been hungry. Hadn’t had one bit of an appetite. But if he remembered one thing about living in the Midwest, it was that you didn’t turn down food. Not when someone kind and caring made the trek all the way into town to deliver it.

So, he made himself a bowl and was going to try and tuck into it, when there was a knock on his apartment door.

Emily stood there in a black wool coat—the color washing her out. Her eyes were slightly red. Her hair was coming loose and she hadn’t fixed it. She had her hands in the coat pockets, looking lost and empty, and nothing like the proud woman he knew.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he said.

He didn’t move from the doorway. Not coldly. Just—waiting. She’d come to him, and that mattered, but the wound from the Kettle was still there, and he wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t, which was why he hadn’t returned her calls.

“Can I come in?”

He stepped back.

She came into the kitchen, saw that he was about to eat dinner and apologized. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. It’s just, I know you don’t want to see me, but I need to say something, and I need you to let me finish before you respond.”

Cole leaned against the counter. Arms folded. Waiting.

“What I said at the Kettle was unforgivable.” She held his eyes. “I called your grandfather a thief in front of every person we care about. I said it like it was fact. I said it like the whole town had always known. And I said it while you were sitting right there, on a night when you’d finally—” Her voice caught. She steadied it. “On a night when you finally felt you belonged.”

Cole said nothing. His jaw was tight.

“Cassidy told me something,” Emily continued. “She said I have a pattern. When I’m scared, I reach for the nearest weapon. I decide what someone is before they’ve had a chance to show me. And she’s right.” She paused. “I’ve been doing it to you since we were ten years old. You were my best friend, and I threw you away because I was scared and angry and it was easier to make you the enemy than to sit with not knowing what happened.”