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“Emily Whitaker,” Edith said, “and her grandmother’s sugar and spice cookies.”

The bakery erupted.

Emily looked up.

Her first instinct—and she was not proud of this—was to seek out Cole.

She’d expected disappointment. She’d expected the careful blankness he used when he was containing something. She’d expected, despite his kind words and encouragement, that he wouldn’t be able to hide his disappointment.

She had not expected what she actually saw.

He was smiling at her. Not the controlled almost-smile, not the wry half-curve she’d cataloged over weeks of arguing with him. A real one that reached all the way to those gray eyes and stayed there, warm and unguarded and completely, genuinely happy for her.

It hit her somewhere in the chest.

She wanted to tell him everything. That she was falling for him. That she was sorry—for today, for seventeen years ago, for all the wasted time in between.

She didn’t say it yet. The room was too loud, and Edith was presenting the certificate, and it wasn’t the time.

But she held Cole’s gaze across the noise and the celebration, and she let him see, for just a moment, how much he was starting to mean to her.

His smile didn’t change. If anything, it settled deeper.

Soon, she told herself. She’d tell him soon.

TWENTY-SIX

COLE

Saturday, December 19th

The last guest had gone. The judges’ table was cleared. The crowd had filtered out in ones and twos, talking of Christmas and cookies, and everything felt right.

Mayor Bloomfield had shaken Cole’s hand on the way out, said something about Gary Alders being a lucky man to have a grandson like him, and Cole had nodded and meant the “thank you” more than he usually meant thank yous.

Now the kitchen was quiet.

Just the two of them, the overhead lights dimmed to their lowest setting, the soft glow of the fairy lights along the ceiling beams casting everything in warm amber. Through the propped-open door, the twinkle lights in the front of the bakery sent colored reflections across the tile floor—red, gold, green—and the last of the evening light came through the frosted windows, blue and fading.

Emily was wiping down the prep counter like she’d done ten thousand times. Cole picked up the broom without being asked and started on the floor.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said.

“I know.”

“Cole. You helped remake my cookies; you cheered louder than anyone when I won—” She shook her head, setting down her cloth. “You’ve done enough today. You don’t have to stay.”

“I know I don’t. But I want to.” He shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t trying to make more of it than it was, but Emily had had a hell of a day, and he wasn’t going to leave all the cleanup to her.

Emily looked up at him. In the low light her eyes were softer than usual and there was none of the armor in them that he’d spent weeks learning to see past. She was just looking at him, the way she’d looked at him across the noise of the celebration earlier, the moment he’d felt something shift before she looked away.

“You said you care about me.” Her voice was quiet, careful. “Even though you tried not to.”

“I did say that.”

“I wasn’t honest with you back there.” She held his gaze. “I want to be.”

He waited.