Chapter 20 Baking Spirits Bright
BAKING SPIRITS brIGHT
ISLA
The air is crisper here as I near Evergreen Falls.
The trees are taller, rising high into the blue winter sky as I cruise along the highway on Friday morning after a few hours of early driving.
I pass a red wooden sign with the words Welcome to Evergreen Falls painted in white.
A red-and-green garland illustration curls around the border of the sign, and it feels like a hug. A familiar, cozy warmth envelops me.
Home.
This is where I grew up. This is where I fell in love with Christmas and everything it means—family, love, joy.
I flick on my blinker and exit, leaving the city far behind me.
The last few days there have been busy, with Friendsmas, and then with wrapping up other business I needed to tend to in person.
I met with Emily to talk about next steps with the restaurant owner, since their date was, in her words, magic.
Exactly what I hope my clients will say. I connected with other clients, too, and oversaw a fun wine-and-sip speed dating–style event that led to some second dates.
My fingers are crossed. I even chatted with Doctor Katie this morning. She said she might need a little more practice and there wasn’t any chemistry for her with Rowan.
I’ll stay in touch with them from Evergreen Falls, but mostly I can focus on my biggest, most ornery project while I’m here, nestled in the snow-capped mountains, with the endless rows of evergreen trees calling me home for the holidays.
Getting Rowan ready for the dates I’m scheduling for him in Evergreen Falls is a top priority.
But I’m hopeful. Like I told him, there’s no shortage of people who want to date pro athletes.
The key is finding matches who are in it for the right reason.
But that’s what I do. And now I just need to iron out the details for the dates I’ll be setting up for him.
Like maybe a date at the Christmas market one afternoon, or possibly an evening of mulled wine at the North Pole Nook and Tavern.
My shoulders tense like they did that night at the cookie swap. But I try to shake off these annoying feelings. I can handle setting him up no problem. Especially here. Since there’s nothing like a drive through downtown Evergreen Falls to get you in the holiday mood.
I turn onto Main Street, where the evidence of snowfall earlier this week is sprinkled along the sidewalks and in the small park I pass. Just enough snowpack for a snowman or a snowball fight.
I pass the Candy Cane Diner, its door painted to match the striped treat.
Ah, yes! Another great spot for a date. Next is A Likely Story, one of my favorite bookshops anywhere, and I can’t wait to see how it’s decorated for the holidays.
That would be a good place for matchmaking magic—maybe a blind date with a book?
Yes, that could work. The stationery shop is over-the-top festive with cards, notes, and notebooks in all the colors of the Christmas rainbow.
There’s the Sugar Plum Bakery, too, its window boasting drawings of snowflakes and a decal, I presume, saying Baking Spirits Bright in a festive, scripty font.
So many date-worthy spots. I’m looking forward to practice-dating Rowan here.
I mean, I’m looking forward to prepping him for matchmaking and his dates.
That’s what I’m picturing in these places. Not me dating him. Not really. Especially since practice-dating him is simply part of my work. And really, what better place to show the man that love doesn’t hurt—that it can heal—than in this town?
At the end of Main Street, I take a right, putting dating behind me.
Time to focus on my family.
I wind through some neighborhoods and up a few curving hills, climbing until the curves become switchbacks. More snow blankets the lawns the higher I go. When I turn onto Elmhurst Lane at last, the snow-capped mountains looming nearby, I’m flooded with fond memories of my childhood.
Mainly pelting my annoying older brother with snowball after snowball. My aim is insane. Jason’s, not so good. I also regularly schooled him in sledding competitions—including official town contests—which I won.
I can’t wait to remind my brother when I see him. I turn into my parents’ driveway then cut the engine. I pop out and draw a deep inhale of the cool, crisp mountain air.
Home.
And this year, I’m in a better place. Well, that’s not hard, considering last year I discovered how I’d been fooled by my ex. I spent the holiday season licking my wounds.
I square my shoulders and shrug off the past.
I take a bite of a snowball cookie and moan. “This,” I say, pointing to the baked good as powdered sugar sticks to my mouth, “is proof that happiness is often directly related to sugar.”
In the farmhouse kitchen, my mom smiles, her brown eyes crinkling at the corners, her highlights glinting in the early afternoon sun.
It streams through the windows, casting rays across the blender, the red-and-white canisters of flour and sugar, and the kitchen island—home to more cookies than any one person could eat.
But I might try to hit a cookie-eating record, especially since Mom and Dad are known around town for their prowess in this department.
Neighbors whisper for months, wondering what new recipes the Marlowes might debut each year, and if there’s anything anyone can do to make sure they’re on the Marlowe Christmas Cookie Distribution List. It’s the must-have invite of the holiday season.
I take another bite of the shortbread and nearly die of culinary delight.
“Is there anything better than Christmas cookies?” my mother asks proudly, as she unties her Christmas apron and hangs it on a nearby hook.
My dad narrows his brow, like he’s hedging his bets. “I can think of a couple things,” he says, then wraps an arm around her and nuzzles her neck.
“Eww. Gross,” I say, since I’m required to say that when my parents subtly reference sex.
But also? They’re relationship goals. They’ve been together forty years, and they’re still in love.
It’s never in question. Their love is obvious in everything they do.
In how he holds her hand and looks at her like she’s the star of their show.
In how she makes time for him, puts him first, and saves him the best cookies from her batch.
“Bet you’d really think this is gross then,” my dad says, then plants a loud kiss on her lips.
She kisses back, almost, but not quite, melting into the kiss.
I feign a gag. “So gross,” I say, but I also use their distraction to snag a seven-layer bar. How could I not? They left them out on the counter. They were calling to me.
“Young lady,” my mother chides, wrenching apart from Dad. Dammit. Evidently, she has eyes all over when it comes to cookie theft. “I’ll be giving those out tonight to the neighbors.”
“You let me have a snowball,” I point out.
“That was from the sampler platter. We need all the seven-layer bars,” she says, then wiggles her brows. “But I have an idea.”
I give her a look. “Are you really going to make me bargain for baked goods?”
“Oh, she will. You know she will,” my father says warily while busying himself sorting cookies into recyclable Christmas baggies.
Mom wiggles her brows, and Dad slinks by, whispering, “Stay strong.”
Uh-oh.
Mom draws a deep breath. “Here’s my idea, and I think you’ll be rather…chuffed.”
Did my mother just adopt a British accent there at the end? Along with a Britishism? “Okay. Why will I be chuffed?” I ask, my tone laced with skepticism.
“Because as you know I’m friends with Molly Abernathy, and we were all hoping to set you up with her son, Oliver.”
I can usually handle curveballs, and really, I should have seen this one coming. The matchmaker’s parents want to match her. Of course they want to do it over the holidays too. I part my lips to protest, but my defense isn’t remotely ready.
“She likes the idea, Christine,” my father says, pleased, and completely misinterpreting my reaction.
“So much she’s speechless,” Mom says, beaming.
But all I can think is I can’t go out with the handsome, intelligent, charming man since I’m practice-dating Rowan.
How can I date the local art history professor while I’m prepping Rowan to find love?
Only, how do you say that to your parents?
It’s unconventional, to be sure, my practice dating arrangement.
It feels wrong to date someone else while prepping Rowan. I’m not sure how to articulate why though. There’s nothing technically wrong with dating someone else while I work with Rowan on dating lessons.
Why does guilt settle into me at the thought of being set up?
And why does my stomach flip so much when I picture myself fake-dating Rowan?
I’m seriously annoying myself. Instead of answering my parents, I take a furtive bite of the seven-layer bar, and once I’ve chewed it for an eternity, trying to figure out what to say, I manage to get out: “That’s a Christmas surprise.”