CHAPTER ONE
Jade Bennett’s life was a burnt soufflé—collapsed in the middle, bitter at the edges, unfit for consumption. Which explained why she was rattling into Frost Pine Ridge in a hatchback that smelled faintly of dumplings and despair.
So much for Boston. So much for the career, the apartment, the fiancé who’d praised her palate but couldn’t stomach her ambition. One puff of scandal and she’d gone from “up-and-coming food critic” to “woman who cried into her own crème brûlée.”
She tightened her grip as the town square came into view. Men wrestled Christmas lights onto the giant spruce. On a bench, Ida and Ruth sat bundled like tartan burritos, whispering with CIA-level intensity. Fantastic. The Gossip Agency was on duty. By sundown, they’d have her whole tragic bio updated.
She considered ducking her head, as though ten years away had given her invisibility powers. Spoiler: it hadn’t. She’d always be Mabel’s niece—the girl who ran off chasing starlight and crawled back with burn marks on her cheeks.
Her hatchback groaned up Sugar Pine Lane, protesting like it had been promised retirement and got Vermont winters instead.
And there it was. Sugar Pine Sweets.
In memory, it was warm light and cinnamon air, little Jade on a stool kneading dough into crime scenes. In reality? A gut punch.
Paint peeled. The gold letters on the window sagged, the “S” halfway gone. The whole building slumped like it had given up.
She killed the engine. It died with a wheeze, same as her self-respect. For a moment she just sat, staring. This wasn’t just a bakery. It was four generations of Bennetts. It was four generations of Bennetts, countless cookies, tons of childhood memories, and every ounce of pride her family had ever kneaded into dough. Legacy, meet foreclosure notice.
“Okay, Jade,” she muttered, tugging her coat. “Time to face the music.”
She pushed open the door. The bell gave a half-hearted jingle. The smell of vanilla and cinnamon lingered, watered down by mildew and failure.
The display case, once a crown jewel, sat dark except for a few ghosted cookies. A lonely string of lights blinked like a dying goldfish.
“Mabel?” Her voice echoed in the bare room.
Her aunt appeared, apron dusted, hair tucked in a kerchief. Smaller than Jade remembered, shoulders stooped, spirit weathered. But the smile—still a beacon.
“Pumpkin! You’re here.”
The hug smelled of cloves and love and unspoken apology.
“I came as soon as I could,” Jade said, glancing at the dark case. “What happened?”
“Oh, the case went out this morning, oven’s moody, mixer sounds like a badger in a tumble dryer.”
Jade ran her hand over the cold glass. A dark case was a closed sign, no matter what the door said.
“Three months, Mabel? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Pride, I suppose. Eleanor never asked for help. Built this place from nothing.” She gestured to the plaque. “I thought I could bake my way out.”
Jade's eyes followed her aunt's gesture to the brass plaque on the wall—tarnished now, but still legible:Eleanor Bennett - First Prize, Holiday Bake-Off, 1928. Traditional Fruitcake.
"I remember this," Jade said softly. "Great-grandmother's famous fruitcake. You used to make it when I was little."
A shadow crossed Mabel's face. "I tried. Never could get it quite right. Eventually I stopped trying—people's tastes changed anyway. Everyone wants cookies and cupcakes now." She turned back to the dark display case. "Besides, that recipe belonged to your great-grandmother. It died with her, I suppose."
“Baking doesn’t pay the bank,” Jade muttered, wincing. Another failure to add to today’s list.
But the fire inside her—the critic who once shredded restaurants for limp hollandaise—was waking up. And this time, it wasn’t foie gras on the chopping block. It was her family’s bakery.
The bell jingled again, with more gusto this time. In swept Ida and Ruth, tartan-clad and sharp-eyed even though they both were well past eighty years old.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Ida said, peppermint stick clenched like a cigar.
“Good to see you too, Ida.”
