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“The Pumpkin Pie Bakery.” Mayor Bloomfield sounded as though he were reading from a historical record. “That Whitaker girl kept half the town fed for three days. Soup, bread, coffee. Wouldn’t take a penny for it.” He shook his head admiringly, jingle bells bouncing. “Remarkable operation.”

“We’re doing something similar this time,” Cole hollered back, the snowmobile bumping across the uneven terrain.

He couldn’t hear the hum of the generators, but he could tell which houses had them from the lights on. More than one house had smoke rising from the chimney, and outside, neighbors were already meeting up, bundled up to their eyebrows with their snowplows and shovels, trying to dig their cars out.

The mayor replied with a nod and a comment, words lost to the wind.

Cole spent the rest of the ride trying not to think about Emily Whitaker, which meant he thought about almost nothing else. The plan was set. That part was done. What he hadn’t planned for was how hard it was going to be to walk back into that kitchen every day with the stove glowing, the air thick with cinnamon and warm bread, and Emily at the center of it all, flour on her sleeves, hair coming loose, those blue eyes daring him to say one wrong thing. The kitchen had felt smaller with both of them in it. Warmer than the stove alone could account for. He was going to have to spend a lot of time in the foreseeable future in that kitchen, working beside her, close enough to smell the vanilla on her skin and the woodsmoke in her hair.

He filed that in the same box as everything else and put the lid back on.

By the time the mayor pulled up to the fire station, Cole had his phone out. The old brick two-bay looked different under three feet of snow. The red trim paint barely visible beneath the ice. It wasn’t Engine 54. It wasn’t the gleaming, seven-bay house in Manhattan where everything was steel and chrome, and never, ever quiet. This station had a leaky roof over bay two, a coffee maker from 2005, and a pole he wouldn’t trust to slide down if his life depended on it. But the generator was running, the side door path had been shoveled, and one of the volunteer crew members, Tyler probably, had left the crew room light on.

He could hear Captain before he even got through the door, the familiar pattern of paws on concrete, followed by one sharp, offended bark. And then another.

His Irish setter had been waiting patiently.

Now he was done being patient.

“Thank you for the lift, sir,” Cole said, stepping off the snowmobile with as much dignity as he could manage.

“Any time, m’boy. Any time.” The mayor pulled his visor back down, raised a mitten in farewell, and rumbled off into the gray morning.

Cole stood there for a second watching him go.

Then he went inside, crouched down, and let the Irish setter lose his mind at him for a full thirty seconds, the dog’s whole body wagging, nose going everywhere, completely unbothered by Cole’s mood or the night he’d had or any of it. Just: You’re here, you’re here, finally you’re here.

Cole scratched behind his ears and thought that loving Captain was the easiest thing in his life. Loving Emily had been the hardest, and he’d been ten the last time he’d been foolish enough to try. He was smarter now. Older. Knew what love was and what it cost. He would never get that close to Emily and her blue eyes and vanilla-scented skin. She didn’t get to call his grandfather a thief, cut down his family, and still get to have him. Not that she wanted to. Last night had been—hell, he didn’t know what it had been. A mistake. A lapse. Something that would never happen again.

Except his body hadn’t gotten that message. Because every time he closed his eyes, she was there—the breathless sound she’d made when she sank down on him, the way his name had left her mouth like something sacred, the weight of her in his arms.

He told himself it was over. Once. Done. Filed away.

He didn’t believe a word of it.

SEVEN

EMILY

Sunday, December 13th

Emily had found her rhythm. The wood-fired stove threw steady heat across the kitchen, soup simmered in the big stockpot, and bread dough rose under a flour-sack towel on the prep table. She’d tied her hair back, rolled her sweater sleeves to the elbows, and fallen into the focused, repetitive work that made her forget about everything except the next task. Chop, stir, season. Wipe down the counter. Check the bread. This was her kitchen, her space, and for the first time since the storm hit, she felt like herself again.

Nutmeg was back to dozing on his favorite window seat out front. The battery-powered lights were casting enough light throughout the bakery. Cooling racks lined the wall beside the ovens, already full with loaves and rolls and a tray of rosemary focaccia she’d pulled out twenty minutes ago. The kitchen smelled like rosemary and warm bread and the faint sweetness of cinnamon from the wreath on the back door. It was perfect.

And then Cole walked in.

His radio was clipped to his chest, those damn shoulders filling the door frame. The solid ones she’d braced her hands on the night before. Snow caught in his dark hair and melting down the collar of his turnout coat. He stomped his boots on the mat, nodded at her like this was his kitchen too, and headed straight for the counter like he had every right to be there.

Which, technically, she supposed he did.

She turned back to the soup and chopped an onion with more force than it deserved.

“Emily,” Elsie said, appearing at her elbow. The town’s social media manager, and Mayor Bloomfield’s niece, had arrived in the kitchen that morning looking polished enough for a town council meeting, despite the storm. Her hair was pulled into a high, sleek ponytail, and her tailored coat and designer boots gave her a professional vibe that was softened by her enthusiasm.

She’d gotten the word out within the hour, and now a steady stream of snowmobiles was pulling up outside, their engines cutting out one by one as locals came in, stomping snow from their boots. Some had their own sleds. Others had snagged lifts from neighbors. All of them arrived cold, and all of them left warmer, which was exactly the point.

“Can I grab a quick interview? Just a few words about what you’re doing here with the kitchen, and the deliveries. People are going crazy for it online.”