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The bakery was very quiet.
“She says she hoped someone would find it someday.” Emily’s voice had dropped almost to a murmur. “A future generation. She wanted them to use it to rediscover the magic of Christmas.”
Whatever had softened in Emily’s face for that one unguarded moment hardened now. “She hid it because your grandfather stole the batch she made for the bake-off. The ones you said she lied about.”
Cole glared at her. He wasn’t backing down. He hadn’t then, and he wasn’t about to now.
“My grandfather,” he said carefully, “did not steal those cookies.”
“Cole—”
“I’m not doing this again.” He set the tin down and started to walk away; where he was going, he had no clue, seeing he was stuck in this godforsaken kitchen with her.
“The whole town—”
Cole turned on his heel. “The whole town’s full of shit.” He regretted it instantly. That wasn’t him. That wasn’t even close to him. But Emily had a way of reaching past every wall he’d built and pulling out the ten-year-old boy underneath—the one who didn’t think before he spoke.
He looked at her steadily. “My grandfather said he didn’t do it. And your own grandfather apologized for accusing him, which you seem to keep leaving out of the story.”
Emily clutched the tin against her chest. “He just hated confrontation.”
“Or he knew the truth.” Cole held her gaze. “If you’re going to keep accusing my family, Emily, then prove it. Find out who actually took those cookies. Because it wasn’t him.”
Emily lifted her chin.
“Maybe I will.”
Cole held her stare for one more second. Then he reached into the tin, struck a match, and walked back to the wood-fired stove without another word.
Within moments, the fabric caught, flames licking up the cotton. Despite the icy glares he shot at her, he couldn’t deny the heat growing between them.
Emily shifted behind him.
Cole felt it without looking.
Last night should have gotten her out of his system.
It should have burned the temptation out of him.
Instead, all he could think about was how badly he wanted her again.
FIVE
EMILY
Sunday, December 13th
Emily stood as close to the wood-fired stove as she could without singeing her eyebrows, feeding it the last of the hand towels she could bear to part with. The heat was bliss after the night she’d had. She’d slept with Cole’s arms around her, felt the warmth of him enveloping her, and she hadn’t hated it.
That was something she refused to think about. Cole, with that childhood smirk of his as he’d called her nana a liar, said it right to her face like it was nothing, and then acted shocked when she’d decked him.
He’d never apologized for that. And if he didn’t, she never would either.
She pushed through the kitchen’s swinging door into the front of the bakery and told herself for the nine hundredth time to let it go.
Out the front window, she’d never seen Maple Falls look like this. Icicles as long as her forearm hung from every awning, and the snowdrifts were taller than her. Every shopfront on Oak Way was dark without even a security light in sight. It was as if someone had put Maple Falls in the middle of a deep freezer and forgotten about it. The Christmas decorations were completely buried. Her poinsettia planters, miniature trees, and inflatable gingerbread man were nowhere to be seen.
Across the street, her mother’s café sat silent and empty. She could vaguely make out the string of lights around the Maple Leaf Café’s window display, also darkened.
