Right. He’d explained to Lila yesterday morning when she’d asked about helping with the festival. Told her about Vixen’s leg, how they couldn’t do the rides this year. She’d been disappointed but sweet about it, the way she always was when things didn’t work out.
And Lila, bless her heart, couldn’t keep information to herself if her life depended on it. She’d probably mentioned it to Mabel when she stopped by the bakery. Or to her teacher. Or to Ruth and Ida, who always needed to know what was going on.
Which meant half the town probably knew by now that there wouldn’t be sleigh rides.
But somehow, Jade didn’t?
Leo picked up his phone again, staring at her texts. The casual tone, the assumption that everything was still happening. Like she had no idea he’d backed out.
Like she was still counting on him.
His chest felt tight. Through the window, he could see lights blazing at the bakery across the fence line. Movement inside—Jade and Mabel, probably, working late. Still baking, still preparing.
Still fighting, even though she’d said it was hopeless.
Or had she said that? Leo tried to replay their conversation, but all he could remember clearly were his own words. The cruelty of them. The way he’d twisted her pragmatism into proof of betrayal.
Caring doesn’t pay electrical bills.
He’d said that. Had thrown her own desperate honesty back at her like a weapon.
And now she was texting as if she trusted him. Like she had no reason to doubt he’d be there.
Leo’s thumb hovered over the keyboard. He should respond. Should tell her the truth. Should explain that he wasn’t doing the rides.
But that would mean admitting he’d bailed. Would mean facing her reaction—hurt or anger or that careful professional distance that would somehow be worse than either.
Would mean confirming that he was exactly the coward he suspected he’d become.
Leo set the phone down without responding and walked back to the kitchen, where his pizza had gone cold.
Through the window, the bakery lights continued to glow. Warm and inviting and completely confusing.
What was Jade doing over there?
And why did the answer suddenly feel like the most important question in the world?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Saturday passed in a blur of flour and sugar and desperate productivity. Jade baked until her feet ached and her hands cramped, filling container after container with cookies that had to be perfect because everything had to be perfect. Mabel worked beside her, mixing and rolling and decorating, while Felicity appeared periodically with supplies and encouragement and photographs for her portfolio.
They stocked the booths in shifts—thermoses of cocoa mix, stacks of cups and napkins, carefully packaged cookies arranged just so. Jade triple-checked her inventory sheets, her timeline, her contingency plans. Everything was organized, coordinated, ready.
Everything except the one thing she couldn’t control.
Leo hadn’t responded to any of her texts.
Saturday night, Jade lay in the narrow guest room bed and stared at the ceiling, her mind racing through scenarios. Maybe his phone was broken. Maybe he’d been too busy with last-minute preparations for the rides. Maybe he was just as uncomfortable about their fight as she was and figured they’d work it out through sheer professional necessity tomorrow.
Or maybe he was still angry. Still convinced she was going to leave. Still determined to keep her at arm’s length.
Well, fine. If he was going to be that way about it, she wasn’t going to chase him. She supposed he’d just show up tomorrow, avoid eye contact, do his job with cold professionalism while she did hers. As long as those reindeer showed up and dropped people off at the booths, she didn’t care if Leo Carter never looked her way again.
She barely slept. When her alarm went off at four a.m., she was already awake, staring at the dark ceiling and running through her mental checklist for the hundredth time.
By five-thirty, she was dressed and caffeinated and loading the car with last-minute supplies. The town was still dark, Christmas lights twinkling against the predawn sky like captured stars.
By six, she was at the gazebo booth—her station, the crown jewel position right in front of the massive Christmas tree—arranging and rearranging until everything looked exactly right. The fairy lights Felicity had strung glowed warm against the white paint. The vintage mugs caught the light just so. The cookies, protected in their clear containers, looked like something from a magazine spread.
