“You’re an idiot,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.
“I know,” he whispered back, a slow, genuine smile spreading across his face—the one she’d only seen a handful of times, the one that made her heart do a stupid, clumsy backflip. “But I’m your idiot.”
“Are you?” she asked, needing to hear it, needing to know this was real. “Because I’m not going anywhere, Leo. This is it for me. This is home. I’m staying and I’m fighting for the bakery.”
Something fierce and protective flashed in his eyes. “Then we fight together. I can help with the repairs—I know what I’m doing with electrical and plumbing. And if you need money for materials, contractors, whatever—I can get a loan. The farm’s equity is good.” He paused, his expression darkening slightly. “But Monday’s meeting... I don’t know what I can do about that. Cecily’s really gunning for you, and the violations are real. Even if we fix everything, she’s not going to make it easy.”
Jade felt a small, determined smile curve her lips.
“Leave that to me,” she said, meeting his gaze with renewed confidence. “I might have an idea.”
Leo studied her face for a moment, then grinned—that rare, genuine smile that made her heart flip. “I believe you do.” He leaned in to kiss her again, softer this time, a promise sealed under the light of a thousand Christmas bulbs.
From somewhere in the crowd, she heard Ida’s voice: “Well, it’s about time!” followed by Ruth’s gentle laughter.
Leo wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, his solid presence an anchor in the swirling joy. Then he turned to the crowd, his voice carrying across the square.
“Now it’s time to really get these sleigh rides going!” he called out, gesturing toward both sleighs. “Who’s ready for some Christmas magic?”
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Children squealed with excitement, parents laughed and hurried toward the sleighs, and a general stampede began toward both the rides and Jade’s cocoa booth. People who had been milling around uncertainly suddenly had direction and purpose.
“Hot cocoa and fresh cookies at all three stations!” Jade called out, finding her voice and her business instincts at the same time. “Follow the sleigh routes!”
Brice was already helping families into the smaller sleigh, getting the rides started while Leo and Jade had their moment. The festival that had been limping along suddenly burst into full, glorious life.
The scent of pine and cinnamon mingled in the air. The sound of the crowd was a happy, excited roar. The lights of the tree cast everything in a warm, festive glow. She was standing in the middle of what had been a disaster that had, in the space of a heartbeat, become exactly what she’d dreamed it could be.
She wasn’t just a baker in a failing bakery. She wasn’t the girl who had run away.
She was home. She was finally, completely, terrifyingly home.
And for the first time since returning to Frost Pine Ridge, she believed everything might actually be okay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Frost Pine Ridge Town Hall smelled of damp wool, industrial-strength floor polish, and the slow, inevitable death of hope. The room, with its unforgiving fluorescent lights and rows of severe-looking wooden chairs, was designed for the methodical crushing of souls via bureaucratic procedure. It was, in short, Cecily Glick’s natural habitat.
Jade clutched the white bakery box on her lap, its cardboard edges digging into her palms. The box contained her entire argument, her Hail Mary, her one-way ticket to either glorious victory or a spectacular flameout. Her stomach was a churning mess of nerves and exhaustion. She and Leo had been up all night—him in his workshop, her in the bakery—preparing for this moment.
The room was packed. Every chair was filled, and a line of curious townspeople snaked along the back wall, craning their necks like spectators at a particularly grim tennis match. In one corner, Felicity stood with her arms crossed, her expression a mixture of fierce loyalty and the kind of anxiety usually reserved for watching someone defuse a bomb. Mabel was in the front row, looking small but resolute, her hands clasped tightly inher lap. Even Ida and Ruth were here, perched on the edge of their seats, their gossip-honed senses practically vibrating with anticipation.
Leo sat beside her, a solid, immovable mountain of calm in her sea of chaos. He wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was fixed on the front of the room, on the long table where the town council sat like a panel of weary gods. But his shoulder was pressed firmly against hers, a silent, steadying weight. Every so often, his thumb would brush against the back of her hand where it rested on her lap. It wasn’t a reassuring pat. It was an anchor. A reminder: We face it together.
“The special agenda item,” Mayor Whitcomb announced, his voice straining for its usual boom but landing somewhere near a nervous squeak, “concerns the property at fourteen Main Street, also known as Sugar Pine Sweets. The building has been served with a notice of closure pending a compliance review. We will first hear from Ms. Cecily Glick, chair of the town planning and safety committee.”
A hush fell over the room as Cecily rose. She glided to the podium, a sheaf of papers in her hand, her posture as straight and unforgiving as a ruler. She was dressed in a tailored navy-blue suit, her hair coiled in a tight, impenetrable bun. She looked less like a town official and more like a hanging judge about to pronounce sentence.
She tapped the microphone, the sound a sharp, brittle crack that made Jade jump.
“Thank you, Mayor,” Cecily began, her voice crisp and devoid of emotion. “The situation is, regrettably, straightforward. Inspector Morrison’s report, which I have here, details no fewer than seventeen distinct code violations at the property in question.”
She began to read from the papers, her tone clinical and precise. “Unpermitted electrical work performed by anunlicensed individual.” Jade felt a hot flush of embarrassment and shot a sideways glance at Leo, who remained impassive, his jaw tight. “Structurally unsound roof repairs. A commercial oven that fails to meet current fire safety standards and is, by the manufacturer’s own admission, obsolete. Noncompliant ventilation. Shall I continue?”
She paused, letting the weight of her words settle over the room. The hopeful buzz that had filled the air a few minutes ago was gone, replaced by a heavy, somber silence. This was Cecily’s power: the ability to drain the color from a room with facts.
She looked up from her papers, her gaze sweeping the room before landing, with chilling precision, on Jade. “Sympathy for a historical business is one thing, but public safety is another. The law is not sentimental. The codes are not optional. Sugar Pine Sweets, in its current state, is a liability and a fire hazard. To allow it to continue operating would be an act of gross negligence on the part of this council. My recommendation is clear. The bakery must be closed until everything on this list is fixed and inspected.”
She placed the papers neatly on the podium and returned to her seat. The silence that followed was absolute. It was the sound of a nail being hammered into a coffin.
