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Robin flushed, then hoped he wouldn’t notice, given the warm lighting in the equally warm bakery. There was a fireplace, after all. She could blame that for the heat on her face and neck, couldn’t she?
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Robin replied with a shrug.
“Are you gonna decorate cookies too?” Abby asked him, her hopeful smile making Jack’s answering one even sweeter than it otherwise would have seemed.
“I thought I might try my hand at it.” He pointed at the bag of icing in Abby’s hands. “That is if you promise not to spray that stuff all over me.”
Abby rolled her eyes. “I’m a professional now. I wouldn’t do that.”
“I guess we’ll find out. This seat taken?” He gestured to the chair next to Robin, and when she shook her head, he came around the table and took a seat.
Robin scooted her tray of cookies toward him so they could share it since Miss Patty had already passed out supplies to everyone now that the class was underway. “You can pick three, and I’ll do three.”
Jack selected the tree—giving her a wry smile as he did so—then frowned when Abby reached over and plucked the snowman off the tray and replaced it with a set of bells.
“Mom always lets me do her snowman, but you can have these,” she explained with a shrug.
He bowed his head and took the bells, then his warm gaze caught Robin’s. “You wanna choose my last one for me?”
Since Robin had already finished her own bell cookie and favored the reindeer one, she pointed with two fingers at the remaining two on the tray. “You can pick between Santa and the snowflake.”
At this, Holly turned around to shoot him a wicked grin. “Oh, yes, because Jack Frost would choose Santa over a snowflake.”
Jack stuck his tongue out at his sister in an alarmingly endearing move, despite the fact that it made him look like a teenager. Holly returned the immature gesture, then turned back to her own tray without further comment.
Robin watched this exchange with interest. She would have thought Holly would’ve had more to say about her brother being there at all. Unless, of course, she’d already been expecting him to come.
Sneaky.
Robin shot Jack a sidelong glance, then burst out laughing when he chose the cookie shaped like Santa’s head. “Oh, okay. Got a little stubborn streak in there, huh?”
“Maybe more than a little.”
Robin grinned. For a few minutes, they worked on their cookies and chatted about the various embellishments and nothing of any real substance. But then Robin’s curiosity won out, and she put down the container of glitter she’d been using on her snowflake.
Turning to Jack, she kept her voice low. “Any progress on the case that’s been bugging you?”
Jack finished filling in the red portion of Santa’s hat—with an alarmingly steady hand, proving that having Holly for a sister meant he likely wasn’t a complete novice in this arena. Then he looked up at her with an intense stare that nearly took her breath away.
“Did you find something?” she asked in a hushed whisper, conscious of her daughter’s presence on her other side.
Jack shook his head. “Nothing concrete. But I’m working on it, and I need you to know, I won’t stop until I figure out what happened.”
The air around them crackled with more heat than could possibly be blamed on the fire, and Robin swallowed hard. The promise he’d made was punctuated by his intense gaze and the firm set of his mouth, and she knew she trusted him to do exactly that. For better or for worse.
CHAPTER11
Jack
HelpingNick set up for Noelle’s birthday party was the exact kind of uncle-y duty Jack had missed during the time he’d been working for Philly PD. Sure, he’d visited Snow Hill as often as possible, but living a few doors down from his sister and her family? Getting to come to the inn two hours before the party after intentionally taking the day off on a weekend? Unheard of until now.
“So, have you given any thought to the ball?” Nick asked as Jack helped him extend the ornate wooden dining table to add two large leaves.
Jack lifted a brow at his brother-in-law. “Any thought to it?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean… I’ve been helping you set up for it whenever I’ve been off work, so I guess I’ve given it some thought.” Jack had no idea what other thoughts he could possibly expect him to have.
