“My mom lit candles because the dining room light had a short. We ate cold ham and boxed stuffing by candlelight, and my grandmother told stories about growing up in West Virginia and we were all still laughing at midnight.”
Margot turned her cup in her hands. “It was the best Christmas we ever had. None of it went right and it was the best one.”
The fire settled. Sparks drifted up and died.
She wasn’t sure why she’d told that one. She’d never told it to a room of people before. It was something she’d been keeping for herself.
She glanced across the fire. Evan was looking at her. Not the curious stare, but the quiet, attentive look, like she was the only thing worth listening to.
For a moment she let it land. The fire popped. Someone shifted a log and the sparks went up again. Nobody filled the quiet, and for once she didn’t want to.
She looked away first.
Lou moved into a different song, slower, something she half-recognized. The fire burned lower. The ocean kept its rhythm in the dark.
At thirty-two minutes, Margot snatched her phone back from Jolene and stood. She was halfway back up the beach path when she heard footsteps behind her. She didn’t stop or turn.
“Good Christmas story.” Evan came up beside her.
“Yours too.”
They walked the rest of the path without talking. At the top, where the path split, he went left toward the marina, and she went right toward the staff wing.
Tomorrow would be another story.
Chapter twenty-one
The Chapel Bell
Margotfoundthethermoswaiting for her in the resort kitchen with a handwritten note taped to the side.
You need this more than I do. Don’t add water, it’s perfect.
Jolene was right. The hot cocoa was rich and dark with just enough cinnamon to linger afterward. Margot sat on a prep stool in the empty kitchen with both hands wrapped around the mug, letting the warmth seep into her fingers.
The walk-in cooler hummed behind her. Somewhere in the dish room, a faucet dripped in slow, uneven beats. Stainless steel counters gleamed beneath the emergency lights, and the whole kitchen carried the scent of whatever Lou had baked that afternoon, sugar, spice, and the faint ghost of cinnamon.
The after-hours kitchen had its own kind of quiet. The tired, honest silence of a room that had worked hard all day and didn’t need to pretend anymore.
The door opened. Evan walked in, paused when he saw her. He crossed to the industrial coffee maker without comment. Poured himself a cup of whatever was left, black, and leaned against the counter across from her.
Neither of them spoke for a full minute. It should have been awkward. It wasn’t.
“Long day,” Margot said.
“They’re all long days here.”
“True.” She smiled into her cocoa. “But some are longer.”
She didn’t know how it started. One minute they were talking about the expo schedule, debating whether to move the baking demo indoors, and the next she was telling him about David.
Not the facts. He’d heard enough of those. The parts underneath. The parts she’d never told anyone, not Jolene, not her mother, not the therapist she’d seen for three sessions before deciding she couldn’t afford it.
Maybe it was the cocoa. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was the way he stood across from her with his coffee and his patience.
The morning she’d found out. Sitting at her kitchen table with bank statements that didn’t add up, her two-and-a-half-year of partnership collapsing into a column of numbers that didn’t. The call to the vendor who’d bounced the largest check, a woman named Rita who ran a catering company with three kids and a van payment due that Friday.
“Rita cried on the phone. Not angry crying. Scared crying. She needed that money.”
