Chapter Eleven
C hloe arrived at Jessica’s house on Cramer Mountain ten minutes early loaded with three bulging shopping totes of supplies. Sarah and Meghan were already there, wine open. They were quiet when she arrived, and Chloe had the uncomfortable, but not unusual feeling that they’d been talking about her.
“Who are you and what have you done with Chloe?” Jessica asked, looking at the totes.
“So funny,” Chloe said breathlessly as she began unloading the ingredients for the cookies and decorations, the holiday-themed plates, colored cellophane and ribbon and gift tags, the red wine Rustin had recommended for making the mulled wine, along with the spices and the ingredients that Jessica had texted her periodically throughout the afternoon.
“So, what’s up? Is this an intervention?”
“Paranoid much?” Meghan asked, her voice light, but her cheeks flushed pink, and she didn’t meet her gaze.
“No,” Sarah said firmly. Her voice calm and her gaze steady. She was the oldest and naturally the leader and smoothed things over. “We’re just…” Sarah looked at Jessica. “Worried.”
Chloe felt her good mood evaporate. “Why? Everything’s going great. The Movable Feast worked out. The Madrigal Dinner earned more money than ever. My contract to teach choir at the college was renewed for next semester. I’m happy.”
“That’s great,” Sarah said.
“Are we going to bake cookies or not?” Chloe finished unloading the supplies, slapping them down harder on the counter than she should.
“Yes of course.” Sarah looked at Jessica and then flowed to her feet.
“No, we’re not going to bake cookies.” Jessica stood up jerkily and crossed her arms. Chloe felt flanked. “Not yet. We’re going to discuss the book and Rustin.”
“Jess, let it go.” Meghan stood next to Chloe. “It’s just an old recipe book. Nothing weird about it. Chloe says she’s happy. Let her be happy.”
“We have to protect her,” Jessica insisted. “The book actually has ‘love spells’ in the title. And Chloe cooked something from it and Rustin ate it.”
“That’s the way recipes usually work,” Chloe said. “Seriously, Jessie, you’re overreacting.”
“Maybe,” Jessica said. “But you’re our little sister, and we are not going to throw you to the wolves and Rustin Wildish is a wolf.”
“He’s a talented chef and a new business owner like you want…” Chloe broke off at the aghast look in Jessica’s green eyes.
“Huh?” Meghan looked between them.
“Nothing. Let’s keep the focus,” Jessica snapped. “You didn’t see the way she was gazing at him like he was the sun and the moon.”
“So what?” Chloe breathed, feeling betrayed. “I can be happy. I can be in love.”
“Love,” Jessica yelped. “You barely know him. This is dangerous, Chloe. Can’t you see it?”
“No. You don’t think Rustin can have feelings for me?”
“Him? No. Any other man yes, but not Rustin. It’s that darn book. There was a spell that made you gaga over Rustin.”
Chloe felt like she’d been slapped. Jessica was belittling her strong feelings for Rustin that she’d had forever.
“We need to look at the book, girls,” Jessica said to Sarah and Meghan. “You brought iut right? We need to study the recipe. Reverse whatever Chloe accidentally did.”
“There was no spell, Jessie. I just followed a recipe—exactly. Rustin helped. He trained me. He spent time with me. He said he’d help and he did. There was no magic.”
“He took advantage of you.”
“Never. Rustin is so professional. He gives each task or person his total attention, like it’s the most important thing happening, and I’m like that with my teaching, with my students. But in my personal life I just…” she nibbled on her lip, “muddle through. I’m passive or I lack confidence and let the day and my to-do lists roll by me.”
“When Rustin looked at the book with me, walked me through each step, forced me to see how each step was connected to the whole, it opened my eyes to the big picture. I had hoped he would take over because he’s so much more skilled, but his perseverance in only supervising while not letting me cook anything slap-dash showed me I could achieve near perfection. ‘Good enough’ didn’t have to be my fallback.” The words, finally uncorked, just spilled out.
“Cooking with Rustin helped me take myself more seriously. He listened and he pushed, and I rose up and worked harder then Rustin started taking me more seriously. I saw that I mattered just as much as the recipe, the guests, and the community cause, and that started bleeding into the rest of my life.”
“Chloe, that’s wonderful.” Sarah pulled her into a hug and looked at Jessica, warning clear in her gaze.
“I know it’s new, and maybe it’s hard to believe that Rustin could lo…care for me,” she amended.
“It’s not hard at all,” Sarah said quickly. “You are infinitely lovable.”
Jessica huffed out air and slouched against the preheated double stove. Jessica continued to stare at her, expressions chasing across her face too quickly for Chloe to get a read. Pain clenched her heart.
“He’s a brilliant chef, Jessica. And a really smart and good man.”
Jessica seemed to shrink. She stared at the wide-planked heartwood pine floor.
“I know,” Jessica said to her toes. “I know.”
The silence felt like a dirge while Chloe stared at the top of Jessica’s head.
“What recipe do you want to start with?” Chloe finally broke the silence, willing herself to let her heart go.
“Why don’t you get the wine mulling.” Jessica finally looked up. “We can have a mug at the end and keep it warming for Mom and Dad’s open house. You’re still going to help Saturday, right?”
“Of course,” Chloe said, breathing a sigh of relief that Jessica seemed to be backing down from her distrust. She was relieved that Elizabeth Katharine always held her open house in the afternoon, which would give Chloe plenty of time to meet Rustin and his crew at the McAdenville light Festival.
Chloe’s task was to hand out a holiday-inspired nibble sample on a cute cork-backed coaster advertising The Wild Side. She’d pitched the idea to Rebekah, who’d loved it, and Chloe had designed and ordered stickers with the date of the open house the following weekend, so that the remaining coasters from the order could be used again for future events.
But she didn’t tell Jessica any of that. Instead, she relaxed into the conversation between her cousins, although her anticipation for the evening had faded. She’d felt attacked, and yet defended. And she no longer wanted to share the book with Jessica. She didn’t have an open heart or spirit to cook using the book.
You didn’t either until Rustin helped.
“Let’s look at the recipe book—love spells I think were mentioned.” Meghan made a kissy face. “Maybe we should make some cookies using a recipe and create chaos at the open house. We could have half the town in polyamorous relationships.”
“Stop,” Sarah laughed and lightly slapped Meghan’s hand. “You are so bad.”
“I’m going to look through the book,” Jessica said staunchly. “I am. I might make something to help.”
Meghan hooted a laugh. “I’ll put a warning out on the town’s Facebook.”
Even Sarah stifled a giggle. Jessica sounded evasive, and yet her words had the tone of a dare. Deciding she was being too defensive, Chloe tried to join into the fun, reluctantly taking the book from one of the totes and handing it over.
“Be careful who eats whatever you make, Jessica,” she joked. “Rustin accused me of putting a spell on him. When I finally made the Movable Feast entrée correctly, Rustin took one bite, looked at me weirdly, muttered something about magic, and ran out the door.”
Jessica didn’t laugh. She took the book from Chloe using the tips of her fingers like it was hot.
“But I made the same entrée for hundreds of people, and I don’t have masses banging on my door for dates so…” she drawled out, but Jessica kept baking, her expression intent, inward.
Four hours later, Chloe had packaged up the gift plates of cookies for the high school staff and the tins of cookies for her holiday parties. She stifled a yawn and helped Jessica store the cookies for the open house. No one had tried the mulled wine, and Sarah who had an early start had been the first to escape. Meghan had brought an overnight bag and had already claimed a bedroom.
“You can stay the night here if you’re too tired,” Jessica offered as Chloe slipped into her puffer coat to take her first load to her car. “Meghan’s already crashed. She’s been staying here more and more. It’s been nice to have her here.” Jessica looked hopeful.
“No, I’ve got to get an early start tomorrow,” Chloe demurred even though she had an overnight duffel in her car. She loved spending time with Jessica, but tonight had felt like a high-wire act. They were off , so even though Chloe had a guest ensuite that she and Jessica had decorated for her in the rambling house, she wanted to go home.
Chloe took out her first load and returned for the second but Jessica, coatless, was already there carrying the rest.
“Chloe, be careful,” Jessica urged.
“I’ve driven this road hundreds of times.”
“No, I mean with Rustin. He’s not. I… Darn it, I already ruined tonight, and I’m sorry.”
“What?” She’d never heard Jessica admit fault before.
“Chloe, I’m so sorry. I thought it was done, over. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I’ve been… Oh I can’t even explain. Never mind. Forget it.”
Wrapping her arms around herself, Jessica ran back toward the house. Chloe sprinted after her, leaving the hatch of her car open.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Chloe pulled Jessica’s stiff, slender body into a hard hug. She couldn’t stand that Jessica was hurting. “You’ve been off all night.”
Chloe’s heart thumped heavily and not from the dash up the path and stairs to the house.
“I’m so confused.” Jessica’s voice broke, and she edged backward into the house.
“About what?” Chloe propelled Jessica toward a chair by the island and poured her a mug of the mulled wine they’d ignored earlier. “Take a gulp. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Alcohol isn’t going to fix this.” However, Jessica glugged some wine and held out the mug for more. She half giggled and sobbed. “Damn, even your mulled wine recipe tastes magic. I’ve been such an idiot.”
“What? Why?” Chloe felt as if she’d stumbled into the wrong theater rehearsal space and didn’t recognize the scene or play.
“I love Rustin!” Jessica wailed.
“What?” In the process of dolling out more mulled wine, Chloe dropped the mug into the wine, and warm, fragrant liquid sloshed onto her hand.
Her entire body went cold. Stiff. Time-tunneled. “But you…you…” She had no idea what to say. Jessica had only expressed suspicion and contempt toward Rustin.
“I loved him in high school.”
Chloe stared at Jessica, trying to make sense of the words. Jessica had dated John Randall, the homecoming king and quarterback. Of course, she had.
“We loved each other.”
Chloe staggered back.
No. It was impossible.
“Rustin was… He was so…everything,” Jessica breathed out. “So wild and romantic and intense and beautiful, and he made me feel alive and like I could do anything. I used to sneak out to meet him. Lie and skip class to meet him. He was my first. My everything. He wanted us to run away together.”
As Jessica spoke, Chloe backed up with each shocking admission until she hit the kitchen wall. Her knees gave out inch by inch, and she slid to the floor.
“I loved him. But I hated him too. He terrified me. He was so…so…everything I wasn’t. What would Mama and Daddy do if they knew about Rustin? What if my friends found out? Mama and Daddy’s friends? I’d lose my reputation. My social standing. My family’s respect.”
“But you loved him?” Chloe whispered, still not quite able to believe she hadn’t once guessed.
“I was so afraid I’d lose everything, so I broke it off. He didn’t believe me, so I said hateful things. A lot of them to get rid of him. I was so mean. So nasty. I think God has been punishing me because I was so awful. I threw Rustin away because I was heading off to college and thought I’d easily find a more suitable boy.”
“Jessica.” Chloe’s heart broke for Rustin and also for Jessica’s frightened teenage self.
“And Rustin went away, taking my heart and soul with him. He went so far away. For good, I thought.”
Chloe couldn’t speak or even process. Jessica seemed like a different person right now. She’d had a secret life, a secret love. All that self-contained elegance and air of untouchability hid a once wild and passionate heart.
“I was horrible. I lost respect for myself because I’d been cruel, and now that he’s back, I don’t know what to do. When we were in love, he swore it would always only be me,” Jessica said. “And I’ve had other boyfriends, but no one like him. No one who made me feel like he did.”
Chloe thought she was going to throw up. “What are you saying?” she whispered. She felt frozen with dread.
“Rustin was the love of my life, the man I haven’t been able to forget. I think we were soul mates, and I tossed him away because I didn’t want to disgrace myself and disappoint Mama and Daddy.”
Chloe stared in mute misery at the glowing blue numbers on the microwave as they ticked over three minutes. “You still love him?”
“I don’t know,” Jessica replied. “And I don’t know if he’d give me another chance, but what will people think?”
“Who cares what anyone thinks?” Chloe breathed out what felt like fire.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Because it is easy.” Chloe pushed herself to her feet. “If you truly love Rustin, you won’t care what anyone thinks!” Her breath sawed through her lungs. “Love is everything! Nothing else matters!” Her voice gathered passion. “Love is the beginning, middle, and end! And it’s sacred! No one else’s opinions or gossip count in the face of love!”
Jessica looked up at her, eyes swimming in tears.
“I don’t think I have your courage,” Jessica whispered.
Something knitted together in Chloe’s shredded heart. Courage. She did have courage now. She’d always had it; she just hadn’t recognized it. And she’d need every ounce of it because she loved Rustin. She’d always loved him. She didn’t need an ancestral cookbook to tell her that. She loved Rustin and didn’t care who knew. But Rustin should be the first person she told. He should have a true choice, and while Chloe marveled at her audacity to possibly go up against Jessica, she would.
“If you love him,” Chloe said, thinking of Jessica’s cookies and possible love spells, “you should tell him, or you’ll regret it. But know that I, too, will not cede the field and slink away, because I will not live my life hiding my heart and counting up my regrets.”
Chloe walked out of Jessica’s kitchen, closing the door softly behind her.
She paused on the porch, said a little prayer while looking at one winking blue-white star. She sucked in a cold, deep breath. Taking on the Movable Feast for Grandma Millie had been a big step into adulthood, but she’d taken so many smaller ones over the past few years. And now with Rustin she was going to take one more—risk her heart and perhaps risk her relationship with Jessica.
“I love Rustin,” she tasted the words, wondered what his response would be when she told him. Chloe squared her shoulders, stepped off the porch. She’d soon find out.
*
“Now we’re cooking with gas, Chef,” Lucas called out, probably to irritate him with the trite saying, but it was good to see his brother relax a little, enjoy himself. Lucas liked working the pop-up more than straight kitchen work, and Rustin knew why: more visual exposure, less stress, more chances to switch up tasks, and more freedom to get out and enjoy the event during a break. Plus, Rustin let him make the music mix.
Rustin knew Lucas was more passionate about music and bartending than he ever would be in the kitchen, but he had solid skills. Rustin didn’t want to hold him back, but he was having a hard time letting him go. Teaching his brother marketable skills and a work ethic had been paramount, and he was proud of Lucas and enjoying the international-vibe music mixes he’d made both for The Wild Side and the pop-up. He’d used a chunk of his last paycheck to buy a new mixer and other equipment, and Rustin knew he couldn’t keep his younger brother under his wing forever.
His eyes scanned the crowd looking for Chloe. He hadn’t seen her since Wednesday night, and anticipation lit down his spine.
“Pull it together,” he muttered as the next order came in. In just a few weeks he’d enjoyed Chloe’s funny and happy texts and pictures. She saw the world so differently than he did, and he found himself relaxing in her warmth. Chloe’s lack of communication today didn’t mean anything was wrong.
He knew with the end of the semester, she’d be busy, and he’d had quite a few press and podcast interviews regarding The Wild Side, but still, he’d been a little uneasy that she’d only texted him once to say that she would arrive after she helped with Sean Patrick and Elizabeth Catherine’s open house. Strange that she never called them aunt or uncle or mom and dad. Chloe was a deep river he was only beginning to plumb.
Relief coursed through him when he spotted her petite frame, wrapped in her white puffer jacket that made him think of a s’more. Chloe was angled away from the trailer and partially behind a tree along the small man-made lakefront, where the food trucks were set up for visitors taking in the famous light show.
Almost like she doesn’t want to be seen.
The thought dried his throat.
What. The. Hell.
“Take the counter. Two minutes,” he told Hannah, who was taking orders and handing out the food tonight. Now that he’d spotted her, he noted that she already had the tray of samples and was handing them out, but she’d been sneaky. She hadn’t said hi when she’d arrived to hand out the samples.
Or kissed me.
He had it bad. Definitely worried now, he vaulted out of the back door of the trailer and headed through the crowd. He hadn’t gone far before he ran into Jessica.
“Rustin! Hi!” she smiled, and then her tongue moistened her already gleaming plump lower lip that had driven him crazy when he was a teenager. “How’s it going?”
“Busy. Good.” He looked over her head trying to spot Chloe. It was harder now that he was on the ground.
Jessica nodded and smiled like he’d said something fascinating. She held a Tupperware of…something and suspicion coursed through him.
“You seen Chloe?” He wanted to make it clear that his interest was definitely elsewhere though it floored him to think she might want to rekindle anything after the way she’d treated him. True, they’d been kids, and the pressure for her to perform and behave in her family had been intense in a way he couldn’t fathom as a kid. And it had been years. And Chloe loved her. Inwardly sighing, he forced himself to not bolt.
“No” Her smile faltered. “I came to see you, Rustin. I wanted to talk.”
Her voice had that Adele husk to it that had always made him feel like the only one who mattered long before he’d been a man. He cringed at what a fool he’d been. Run away with him. How had he been such an idiot? They’d been children. And why had he idealized her long after he should have matured out of a teenage crush? Thank all the gods she’d had some sense because it had taken him years to get her and her words out of his head.
“What about?” His gaze lifted again to search out Chloe. He couldn’t shake the feeling she was hiding from him.
“Do I have to have a specific topic? We used to talk for hours about nothing,” she smiled.
“Used to,” he emphasized. “C’mon, Jessica. I’m on the clock. If you’re here to warn me off Chloe, you’re too late and none of your business.”
“Chloe is my sister.”
“Cousin.”
“My parents always made that distinction. I’m not sure why, but from the first morning we found her and brought her in from the cold, she felt like mine.”
“You treated her like a doll.”
Jessica swallowed hard, and her creamy skin paled. “I want to protect her.”
“From me?” His voice was hard. “From the filthy stench of my family?” He could feel the muscle twitch in his jaw, and he could barely unclench his teeth.
“No, of course not.” Jessica flushed prettily.
“I should be beyond that. I’ve proved myself.”
“You are. You have.” The words spilled out in a torrent. “I was cruel Rustin. Overwhelmed and afraid and out of my depth, and I’ve…I’ve regretted the words I said so many years ago even as I uttered them. But this is about Chloe and that book.”
“Huh?”
“The Love Spell recipes.”
This time he did laugh. “You don’t believe in woo-woo or whatever do you?”
“Do you?” she challenged. “Chloe admitted that when she followed the recipe exactly , and you had a bite you accused her of putting a spell on you.”
He ran an unsteady hand through his hair. “Unbelievable.” He tried to gather his thoughts. “You think I’m playing with your sister—why? To get something? I already have what I want. My own restaurant. Restoring my family name and reputation. I’m taking care of my mother. I helped send both my sisters to college, and they have careers in health care—what they always wanted, and I’m helping Luke to find his way. I don’t need to play Chloe.”
“I’m not saying it’s deliberate,” Jessica muttered.
“Your sister is smart and fun and warm and funny and so full of life. She’s light to my dark, and she accepts me and my dreams and my schedule. She makes sense, and yeah, we’re new, but I’m happy. She’s happy. Life has no guarantees. Why isn’t that enough for you?”
Jessica gulped in a deep breath. “Prove it.”
“I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
But she was holding out a floral china plate with cookies artfully arranged that she’d unlocked from the Tupperware container.
“Prove it,” she dared.
“You poisoning me, Jessica Maye?”
“No. But I know how to follow a recipe exactly including grinding a cinnamon stick with a marble pestle and other unusual requests.”
“So what?” he asked warily. “I eat a cookie and poof I’m in love with you, not Chloe?”
“You love Chloe?”
He waited for a moment, replaying the small moments over the past few weeks—the way her eyes sparkled when she shared something about her day. The way her face lit up when she saw him. Her willingness to help out. The way ideas sparked off her like a Fourth of July sparkler.
“Feels like,” he said, though why he was confessing to Jessica when he should be telling Chloe was all kinds of messed up.
“So if it’s real love and not the book, you shouldn’t hesitate to prove it.” Jessica seemed stuck on this theme. She even tucked one of her long, loose strawberry-blonde curls behind her ear, which she did when she meant business.
Funny I remember that.
She was still beautiful. But cool. More ice princess than a siren. Yes, she’d once devastated him, but he’d risen. Stronger. Absently, he rubbed his thumb along his phoenix tattoo. A cliché, yes, but a necessary reminder in the early years. But he was clear-eyed now about who he was and what he wanted.
“Did you follow the recipe in the Southern Love Spells book exactly? Alone. No help?”
“Yes,” she said pushing the plate a little closer. “I mixed the dough yesterday at dawn because that’s when the first sprinkle of rain finally came.”
What?
The air between them felt electric. Jessica watched him intently as he picked up a cookie. Her dare felt life changing. Fine. And then he spotted Chloe walking towards him. She saw the cookie and stopped.
He held the cookie up as if toasting both women and took a bite. Chloe needed to trust him and his feelings. He chewed. Let the flavors coat his tongue front to back.
“Huh. Basic butter cookie, a hint of molasses, but more maple, a touch of cinnamon, nutmeg. Crystalized brown sugar for a crunch.”
The axis of the world hadn’t changed. He didn’t feel dizzy or breathless like last time when he’d panicked and fled Chloe. What an idiot he’d been running away. His place was beside her.
“Pretty good, Jess. I’d add some cardamon next time. Thanks. See ya’ around,” he nearly laughed as her expression morphed from worry to relief, to doubt and then something he couldn’t read. He finally felt free of the past.
“The book is safe to use.” He wiggled his fingers at her witchily and then laughed again. Turning around he felt determination flow through him like molten steel. Chloe stumbled over her feet, and then she hopped and ran towards him. He caught her in a fierce hug.
*
A hug had never felt so fantastic. Chloe clung to Rustin like he was a tree in a hurricane.
“I can’t believe she had the audacity to bake you cookies.”
“She was trying to prove a point.”
“What point?” Chloe demanded. Then she wiggled out of his arms, her eyes glittered with tears, and she dashed them away.
“She’s your sister. She loves you and wanted to protect you.”
“I had no idea she had such a superstitious streak.”
Rustin laughed. The night finally felt just right. “She was feeling like a mama bear.”
Rustin sounded like he was in a forgiving mood, but Chloe wasn’t. She’d doubted herself and when she’d seen him with Jessica and the cookies, all her insecurities had come roaring back, and she didn’t want to live that way.
“I’d rather talk about us. Were you hiding from me?”
“Um…no?” He looked so good. He rode that edge of frustration but was trying to dial it back, which made him even hotter. “Yes. No. I’m trying to think of what to say,” she admitted.
“Just say it.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“Chloe, you’re freaking me out.”
“I have to get the words right.”
“Everyone who’s ever met you knows you have no filter. Just spit it out.” Arms crossed, he waited.
“Did you eat Jessica’s cookie?”
That was not what she’d meant to ask, but it was, quite possibly, important. She searched his beautiful charcoal eyes looking for…something. An invitation? A validation? A warming?
Courage. She stood up on her tiptoes.
“Yeah, she dared me to take a bite. You saw me so what about it?” A hint of a smile chased the dare in his voice.
“I’d ask how you feel.”
“Before or after?”
Excitement bubbled through her at the look in his eyes and their teasing rapport.
“After.”
“The same.”
“As before?” She crossed both fingers.
“You asking me how I feel about you, Chloe?”
“I love you,” she blurted. “I’ve always loved you. You are my North Star, Rustin.”
“Did you doubt that I feel the same?”
She fidgeted. “You said it was the book. It was a spell. Magic. Not me.”
“It’s you, Chloe.” He pulled her in tightly and kissed her lips, her cheeks, her chin. Then he held her against him, and she experienced his warmth seep into her body, and her inner trembling subsided. She felt his heart slam against hers, a reminder that they were alive and that they were together. “Thank God,” he murmured feverently.
“You’re magic. You. Not the book.”
She sighed happily and looked up at him.
“Maybe you are the spell, or maybe the book pushed us there,” Rustin whispered. “I don’t know. I don’t care. You’re real, Chloe; we’re real.”
She pressed herself deeper into his embrace.
“Jessica told me you and she had been in love. I thought what if she still had feelings for you or that your feelings might have rekindled.”
Rustin pulled away enough so he could look deeply into her eyes.
“I thought I was in love with her when I was a teenager, but I was in love with a fantasy, not a flesh-and-blood-and-heart woman. Jessica’s a memory. And your sister so she’ll always have a place in my heart, but you are my heart, Chloe. I’m a different man now. A better man. And I hope that I’m your man.”
“You are,” she happily agreed and smiled up at him as families and friends moved around them and the lights glowed, casting them in red and gold and the green of new beginnings. “This is going to be the most perfect holiday.”
“This is only the beginning,” he promised, kissing her reverently. She relaxed into his body, his strength surrounding her.
“This is all the magic I need.” She snuggled close. “With you, Rustin, I see the beginning, middle, and the most romantic ending. All we need now is snow.”
His laugh rumbled, tickled her chest.
“Look up, Chloe. Once again you’ve created magic.”
She tilted her head back toward the blanket of black sky illuminated by the ring of dozens of homes decked out for the holidays around the small lake. Fat white flakes drifted in a swirl that seemed sentient. Chloe stuck out her tongue.
“Catch a snowflake, Rustin. First of the season. Make a wish,” she invited.
“I have all my wishes, Chloe. Every single one.”
The End
Read Jessica Maye’s love story A Touch of Spring Magic March 2025