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“All of it. The lights. Is the wind going to blow them off?”

“Not a chance. We wrapped them extra tight,” Cole reassured her.

Emma considered this, deemed it satisfactory, and went back to looking at the tree.

“She’s been talking about this for a week,” Tyler said.

Cassidy arrived in a burst of light, which Cole was beginning to realize was the only way she arrived. She was wearing a sweater that appeared to have actual working LED lights sewn into the cable knit, a string of light-up bulb earrings, and a headband with lit-up Christmas trees bobbing on springs. She was also somehow carrying four cups of hot buttered rum at once.

“I come bearing gifts,” she announced, distributing them one by one. She pressed one into Cole’s hands before he could object and then turned, beaming, as Liam appeared behind her.

Cole clocked the hesitation. Just a beat, the briefest tightening around Liam’s jaw as his eyes landed on Cole. He had expected it.

What he hadn’t expected was the look Cassidy shot him.

It was a look that said, Be nice!

And miraculously, Liam listened. He even extended a hand.

Cole shook it, but he wasn’t under any illusion of it being more than what it was—a temporary truce.

“Okay,” Cassidy said, settling into the group with her rum. “Can I tell Cole the evergreen story?”

“Please don’t,” Liam said.

“I’m telling him.” Cassidy turned to Cole and took a dramatic pause. “Picture it. Maple Falls, last year on this magical night of all nights. I’m new in town, and I think I love Christmas, I love trees, I’m totally going to help with the tree lighting ceremony. Liam pulls up, I hop in his truck, and then… disaster.”

“Disaster?” Cole couldn’t see how helping with a tree could be disastrous, unless Liam dropped the tree on her or something.

“My eyes start watering. My skin starts itching. I can’t stop sneezing. I am losing my mind trying to figure out what is happening to me.”

Cole looked at Liam.

Liam’s expression was caught between amusement and something that was clearly a well-worn affection. “She forgot she was allergic to evergreens.”

Cole tried to keep the incredulity out of his voice. He mostly succeeded. “You forgot.”

“It’s not all evergreens,” Cassidy said, with great dignity. “Just Norwegian spruces.”

She looked at Liam.

“Which my family farm specializes in,” he added dryly.

“It was the start of a beautiful relationship,” Cassidy said.

“She’s kept me on my toes ever since.”

He said it looking at her. She looked back at him. Something passed between them that was private and real and none of Cole’s business, and then Liam leaned down and kissed her right there in the cold in front of the lit tree and half of Maple Falls.

Cole looked away. Not from discomfort, but from the instinct to give people their moments.

His eyes moved, without his permission, to the bakery window across the street.

The light was on. Of course it was.

Cassidy appeared at his elbow.

“She’s still trying to crack the recipe,” she said, following his gaze.