Jade’s hand froze on the thermos she’d been refilling. “What do you mean? The sleigh rides start any minute. Leo should be?—”
She trailed off as Lila’s face crumpled with confusion. “But Uncle Leo said he can’t do them. Because of Vixen’s leg.”
The world seemed to tilt slightly on its axis. “What?”
Steve cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “I guess Vixen got injured a few days ago. Leo told her he couldn’t do the festival rides this year.”
“A few days ago?” Jade repeated slowly, her voice sounding strange in her own ears.
“Wednesday, I think?” Steve glanced at his daughter for confirmation. “Honey, when did Uncle Leo tell you about the sleigh rides?”
“Thursday morning,” Lila said, her excitement about the cookie forgotten as she picked up on the sudden tension. “He said Vixen hurt her leg and couldn’t pull the sleigh. He felt really bad about it. I don’t know why he couldn’t have Blitz or Maple do it. They can pull sleighs.”
Friday morning.
Friday morning, when Jade had been planning and organizing and texting him about logistics. When she’d been setting up booths based on a route that required sleigh rides to work. When she’d been operating under the assumption thatthey were partners in this, that he’d be there, that the plan they’d made together still meant something.
And he hadn’t told her.
“Miss Jade?” Lila’s voice was small now, worried. “Are you okay?”
Jade realized she was gripping the edge of the booth’s counter hard enough that her knuckles had gone white. She forced herself to release it, to paste on a smile that felt like it might crack her face.
“I’m fine, sweetie. Just... surprised. I must have missed the message.”
But she hadn’t missed any messages. She’d sent three texts asking for confirmation, asking about logistics, asking if everything was set. And Leo had ignored every single one while telling the rest of the town that he was backing out.
Steve was watching her with sympathy that made everything worse. “I’m sorry, Jade. I assumed you knew. Leo should have?—”
“It’s fine,” she cut him off, her voice brittle. “Really. These things happen. Vixen’s welfare comes first, obviously.”
The lie tasted like ash, but what else could she say? That Leo had sabotaged her last chance to save the bakery? That he’d let her set up three stations spaced for sleigh-ride traffic without bothering to mention that the sleigh rides wouldn’t exist?
That he’d been so convinced she was leaving that he’d decided to prove himself right by abandoning her first?
Around them, the festival continued. People laughed and chatted, children ran between the vendor booths, Christmas music drifted from speakers set up around the square. Everyone was having a lovely time, completely unaware that the evening’s main attraction—the thing that was supposed to tie everything together—wasn’t going to happen.
Jade’s carefully planned, perfectly organized, desperately needed festival was falling apart before it even really began.
“Well,” she said, her voice sounding too bright, too brittle, “I should check on the other stations. Make sure everyone has what they need.”
She made it around the corner of the church before she had to stop, leaning against the cold stone wall and trying to breathe through the panic rising in her chest.
No sleigh rides meant no traffic between stations. The pond booth was already struggling—without rides to bring people out there, it would sit empty all evening. The church station, equally remote, would be the same. Even her prime location by the tree would suffer, because half the appeal had been the ability to hop on a sleigh and tour the whole town with hot cocoa in hand.
All that work. All those supplies purchased with money they didn’t have. All those cookies baked, all those hours spent planning and organizing and believing that maybe, just maybe, they could pull this off.
And Leo had known. Had known for days that she was building something that couldn’t work without him, and he’d said nothing.
Jade pulled out her phone with shaking hands and pulled up Leo’s contact. Her thumb hovered over the call button.
What would she even say? How do you ask someone why they destroyed you without warning? How do you demand an explanation from someone who’d already made it clear what he thought of you?
She lowered the phone without calling.
Through the wall, she could hear the festival continuing—laughter and music and the normal sounds of a town celebrating Christmas. Inside, she felt like she was breaking apart.
All their work. All their hope. All the money they’d spent on supplies and ingredients, money they couldn’t afford to lose.
