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But she couldn’t give up. Without the recipe, Emily was toast. And there was no way in hell she was going to let Cole win. Not to mention the winning prize—a thousand-dollar donation to the charity of her choice. Emily could picture herself dropping off that check to the City Rescue Mission in Nana’s name. Pride swelled in her chest at the thought, keeping Nana’s memory alive one kind act at a time, and one so close to her family’s heart.

Emily pushed the flue lever on the old wood stove, adjusting the draft. It had been running all day—longer than she’d ever pushed it, honestly—and the draw felt off. She made a mental note to look at the chimney tomorrow, then slid another tray into the oven and promptly forgot about it.

“Have you tried mixing light and dark brown sugar?” Mrs. C. asked, unpacking her crafting tote.

The group had been working on a patchwork quilt for Zoe’s baby, who was due in March, and they weren’t about to miss a session. The quilt was a surprise, which meant they could only work on it when Zoe wasn’t around. And with half of the town still buried under feet of ice and snow there was no way her fiancé, Jackson, was going to let her out of his sight.

He could be a bit bearish that way, which Zoe not-so-secretly loved.

As for Emily, she liked the company, liked the low hum of conversation and the click of scissors and the way her kitchen became the type of place where people just showed up and settled in. Besides, Emily could use all the taste testers she could get.

“Yep. Close, but no cigar,” Emily said, pointing to batch number three.

She stared at her latest batch, arms folded, trying to figure out what her next step was, when the rest of the crafting club filed in: Mrs. Bishop with a crockpot full of homemade mac and cheese. Cassidy with a selection of holiday truffles. Kit with a red beret positioned just so, and pressure cooker in tow. Madison with two bottles of red wine. And Edith with the fresh-baked bread. The three of them, Kit, Madison and Edith, having walked down from the inn.

The kitchen was getting warm. Really warm. Between the wood stove, all the food, and seven women, the air had thickened into something almost tropical. Emily cracked the back door an inch, letting a blade of cold air cut through the heat.

“That smells delicious, dear,” Mrs. C. said.

“It’s a pot-au-feu,” Kit explained, taking the lid off the dish to give it a stir.

“A what now?” Mrs. Bishop asked, taking an oversized spoon out of her purse for her mac and cheese.

“It’s a French dish. Sort of like a combination of a beef roast and a stew. My girlfriend Rachel and I are going through a bit of a French phase,” Kit explained, unwrapping her scarf but leaving on the beret.

“A French phase? Is that like you each have a mistress and you all go shopping together?” Cassidy asked.

Mrs. Bishop was scandalized. “People do that?”

Kit let out a bright ha! “No, I meant long dinners that turn into even longer nights, lots of kissing, lots of touching, and zero shame about enjoying every single course. Pot-au-feu is just the warm-up. Last night we skipped the stew entirely and went straight for dessert… twice.”

Edith chimed in. “Oh, if that’s the case, Hank and I are very French.”

“Gram!” Madison said, her face turned crimson like her hair.

“What? You know us old people still do it. Trust me. You’ll be happy Zach’s still got it in forty years.” Edith looked around the kitchen. “Now where’s the corkscrew?”

Emily found the corkscrew in the utensil drawer where she kept it and handed it to Madison, who went to work on the first bottle.

“Pour me a generous one, sweetheart,” Edith said, smoothing out a square of fabric in Christmas red. “I need steady hands for this border stitch and wine is the only thing that works.”

“That’s not how steady hands work,” Cassidy said.

“It is at my age.”

Emily smiled and turned back to the recipe card, pinching the bridge of her nose. The smudged ingredient could be anything. Cardamom? She’d already tried cardamom. Some kind of extract? She held the card up to the light again, tilting it, willing the ghost of her grandmother’s handwriting to sharpen into something legible.

Behind her, the ladies fell into easy rhythm. Scissors snipping. Fabric rustling. The low murmur of gossip that passed for conversation in Maple Falls. Madison was telling a story about a guest at the inn who’d asked if the continental breakfast came with a continent, and Mrs. Bishop was wondering what was funny about it.

Emily was pulling out a fresh mixing bowl when she heard it. A low, growling sound from the stove. Not the usual crackle and pop of burning wood. Something deeper. Almost a roar, like the fire was breathing too fast.

She set the bowl down.

The stovepipe was hot. Not normal stove hot either. She could feel the iron radiating heat from two feet away. The metal started ticking and pinging as it expanded.

“Does anyone else hear that?” Emily asked.

The quilting table went quiet.