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“Do you want the polite answer or the useful one?” Evan pushed himself to his feet.

“The useful one.” Gabe turned to Mara. “You two haven’t met, have you? Mara, Evan. Evan, Mara.”

Evan gave her a warm, distracted smile. “Good to finally meet you. Sorry it’s not under better circumstances.”

Mara smiled back. “Good to meet you too.”

Then Evan turned back to Gabe and Karina, and Mara moved aside to let them talk. The more she took in the kitchen, the clearer the scale of the problem became.

This wasn’t a bakery caught unprepared. Quite the opposite. Karina had already done the work. Ingredients had been weighed, fillings prepared, trays organized, equipment laid out ready for the next stage. Everything was waiting for heat that wasn’t coming.

Mara understood that kind of failure. Not the ovens themselves, but the awful moment when one broken piece brought an entire plan to a stop. She had stood in that moment at work more times than she liked to remember. And hadn’t she stood in it at home too, with ten days planned and the one person it all depended on gone?

Evan wiped his hands on a rag. “The good news is they’re fixable.”

Karina closed her eyes briefly. “And the bad news?”

“I need parts for both. I can get them, but not tonight. Best case, I have them in three days.”

Silence fell over the kitchen.

“The fundraiser is in two,” Karina said.

“I know.”

“And I’ve got orders due tomorrow.”

Evan nodded, clearly unhappy about being the person giving her the answer. “I can probably get one of them limping along enough to test it, but I wouldn’t trust it for production. Not with the amount you need to put through it.”

Karina turned away and looked at the racks lined against the wall, at the covered bowls and everything she had already prepared. “Oh, hell.”

Gabe moved closer. “How much were you planning to bake tonight?”

“Enough that I can’t lose the night.” Karina rubbed both hands over her face and let them fall. “Tomorrow was already full. The fundraiser prep was supposed to fit around the normal bakery work. If I lose tonight and tomorrow morning, everything starts pushing into everything else.”

Mara could see it too. One delay creating another, every lost hour turning into a problem farther down the line.

Karina gave a tired shake of her head. “I should have promised fewer things.”

“No,” Gabe said. “You promised what you could make with two working ovens.”

“That distinction isn’t especially helpful right now.”

“It might be.” He looked around the kitchen, working it through. “If you use mine.”

For a second Karina seemed not to understand. “Your ovens?”

“At Mountain View.”

Her answer was immediate. “Gabe, no. You’ve got your own production tomorrow. Your own customers, your own staff, and you’re already making two hundred cinnamon bears for the fundraiser.”

“I know.”

“You cannot put two bakeries into one kitchen.”

Mara looked around again. The mixers still worked. The refrigerators were humming. The benches were usable. Everything Karina needed to prepare the food was still here. Only the ovens were silent.

Maybe they didn’t have to put two bakeries into one kitchen.