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He had a vague memory of saying something along those lines. “I said it might be, if it wasn’t in proper working order. I didn’t make a ruling.” He stood, brushing dust from his knees. “Do you want to be warm or not?”

Emily folded her arms tightly across her chest, tucking her hands beneath them. Her lips had lost some of their color, but she said nothing, which was as close to a yes as he was going to get.

“It might not work,” he said, turning back toward the boiler room. “But we’re going to be here at least another couple of hours, and I’d rather rule it out than freeze.”

He hadn’t spoken to his crew since the night before, but he knew they would start digging them out at first light.

He didn’t add what else he was thinking: that he had a town to get back to, that every hour he spent trapped in this bakery was an hour someone in Maple Falls might be going without help. That this nightmare needed to be over for reasons that had nothing to do with Emily Whitaker and everything to do with his job.

“Just tell me what you need me to do,” she said, from somewhere behind him.

He almost turned around to check that it was really her.

Miraculously, they didn’t fight while Emily held her phone up for light in the cramped space so Cole could check the connections. She only dropped it once, catching him squarely on the back of the head when she thought she saw a spider.

“Sorry,” she said, not sounding it.

“Mm.” He straightened up, rubbing his head. “Line looks clear. Do you have something we can use to test the draw? Anything that’ll catch.”

Emily backed out of the small space, already scanning the kitchen.

“Towels or a wooden cutting board?” she offered.

“How about both.” He surveyed the shelving above the stove, looking for long-handled matches. The shelves were a blast from the past, holding dusty vases and old metal cookie tins, the kind people converted into sewing kits once all the cookies were gone.

He picked up the first tin and popped it open. Old cookie cutters. He set it aside and reached for the second. When he gave it a shake, something loose and light shifted inside, not clunky like the cutters.

He pried it open, revealing a handful of long-handled matches. And beneath them, folded small and soft with age, was something else.

“Emily.”

“What?” She didn’t look up.

“Come here.”

“I’m looking for the cutting board⁠—”

“Emily.” He repeated it in the tone he used on the job. The one that didn’t leave room for negotiation, but with Emily, he never knew.

She reluctantly came over and looked at what he was holding. “What is that?”

He lifted the matches out carefully and set them aside. Beneath them, taped to the inside of the lid, was a small card. It was a recipe. The card was in bad shape. Smoke-damaged, the edges brown and brittle, the ink faded to near invisible in places. It was barely legible. And beneath that, folded into a neat square so old the creases had gone soft, was a piece of paper.

He held it out for Emily to take.

Her hands were shaking while she read the card.

“It’s my nana’s Christmas sugar and spice cookie recipe. Other than the bake-off, she only made them on Christmas Eve. The rest of the year you couldn’t have them, and that was what made them—” She stopped. “That was how I knew Christmas had arrived. The whole house smelled like cinnamon and molasses.” She ran her thumb along the edge of the lid. “I’d sit on the counter and watch her. She never measured anything; this was just a guide.”

Her mouth tightened almost immediately, and a small crease appeared between her brows. Whatever she was reading had annoyed her. But as her eyes moved farther down the page, the line between her brows eased. Her lips parted slightly.

She went back to the top and read it again, slower this time.

“What does it say?” he asked.

Emily swallowed. Her voice came out quiet.

“She says she hid the recipe after someone stole her cookies.” She paused, her thumb moving over the paper. “She says she hated how it tore the town apart. Accusations flying everywhere. She just wanted to bring people some Christmas joy. She was so tired of the fighting. So fed up with it all that she hid the recipe away.”