Chapter 1 #2
He says it like it’s nothing. Like he’s telling me about the weather. Like he hasn’t just put a crack in the wall that I’ve been stubbornly keeping in place for the last few years.
I clear my throat, trying desperately to sound normal. “Well, someone has to keep you functional.”
Hayes leans forward, resting his arms on the table, his warm gaze fixed on me with a softness and longing in his eyes. Almost like I’m the only thing in the room worth looking at.
“You do more than that, Emmy.”
His voice dips—low, reverent, dangerously close to a confession.
“You keep me grounded.”
My pulse thunders. “Hayes…”
He reaches out, fingers brushing over the back of my hand—a barely there, whisper of contact that somehow feels like a doorway opening into unchartered territory.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
I nod, suddenly unsure if I’m breathing correctly. “Are you?”
A soft laugh escapes him, warm and a little sheepish. “Yeah. I think so.” He pulls back, running his hand through his hair. “Sorry if I’m weird today. Sleep deprivation makes me bluntly honest.”
“It’s… fine,” I manage. “Honesty’s good.”
He smiles at that. Slow. Gentle. The kind of soft smile that you give to someone that you care deeply about.
Before either of us can speak again, the café door opens and a rush of cold air swoops in—followed immediately by half a dozen locals stamping snow off their boots and heading straight for the counter.
Evie shouts over the incoming chaos, “Sorry, Em. Break’s over!”
Hayes glances toward the crowd, then back at me. “Duty calls,” he murmurs, amusement tugging at his mouth.
“Seems so.” I slide out of the booth, suddenly very aware that his knee stays pressed against mine until the last possible second.
“Come back tomorrow?” I ask before I can stop myself.
He looks up at me, eyes warming in a way that melts straight through my chest. “I always do.”
And even when I’m back behind the counter and customers are shouting orders at me, I can still feel the echo of his words. The heat of his knee touching mine. The possibility that maybe, just maybe…this year might end differently after all.
The bell above the door jingles for the final time as the last customer waves goodbye and disappears into the cold. What started out slow, turned into one of the busiest days so far this week. So busy that poor Evie is yawning so hard her eyes are watering.
“That’s it,” I say, stretching my aching back. “Go home. Sleep. I’ve got the rest.”
Evie tries to muster an argument, but another yawn betrays her. “Fine. But only if you lock up behind me.”
“I always lock up.”
“You always say you lock up,” she teases.
I flick a towel at her. “Get out of here.”
She grins, grabs her coat, and leans over the counter to kiss my cheek before heading for the door. “Love you. Don’t burn the place down.”
“I won’t,” I promise, flicking flour at her as she goes.
I’ll get this sugar cookie dough in the fridge, and then I’ll lock everything up.
The café grows quiet—comfortably so. I love this time of night. When Dockside falls silent. Just the hum of the old cooler, the soft buzz of the overhead lights, and the scent of sugar and cinnamon thick in the warm air.
I’ll be here for a few more hours, but I’m looking forward to it.
I turn on the kitchen speakers, queue up my favorite Christmas playlist, and read over the next round of holiday pastry orders.
The sugar cookie dough for the elementary school’s winter festival is chilling, gingerbread for more gingerbread house kits is cooling, and a tray of cranberry orange bars waits to be sliced.
There are still six rum cakes for this week’s farmer’s market to be made, and more scones for tomorrow’s breakfast rush.
I’m elbow-deep in buttercream frosting for a gingerbread latte cake I’ve been dying to try when there’s a sharp pop, then a flicker light, and the faint smell of something overheating.
I turn just in time to see sparks spit from the old outlet near the mixer.
“Oh—no, no, no—”
The sparks catch the edge of a towel, and flames rise up fast. Too fast.
Panic slams into me as I grab the fire extinguisher, but my hands are shaking so hard it nearly slips from my grip.
The flames lick higher. My breath goes thin.
Then the hardwired smoke alarm screams.
Within a minute, maybe less, I hear the sirens.
“Fire department!”
The back door bursts open, and Hayes is suddenly there—silhouetted in the doorway, commanding and steady, his eyes sweeping the kitchen with laser precision.
“Emmy,” he breathes when he sees me frozen with the extinguisher.
He’s already crossing the space and swiftly moving me out of the way, passing me off to another firefighter who escorts me outside.
His crew floods in behind him, helping and assessing the situation.
“Ma’am, if you’ll come with me to get you checked out.” One of the paramedics on the scene drapes a blanket over my shoulders and guides me toward the ambulance.
“No,” I try to protest. “I can’t. That’s…I’m…” My bottom lip begins to tremble and tears well up in my eyes.
“It’s just a precaution while the firefighters do their job,” she replies in a gentle voice.
Somehow, my feet carry me to the back of the ambulance.
“You can have a seat on the bumper or you can have a seat inside the rig on the gurney. Whatever will make you more comfortable.”
No way in hell I’m getting in the back of the ambulance so I sit on the bumper instead and let her do her assessment.
The whole thing is over fast.
Much faster than my heartbeat calms.
Hayes and his team filter out of the building, pulling off their gear and gathering up their tools.
Someone says, “Minor damage—good save,” and claps Hayes on the back, but I note he’s not really paying them much attention. His eyes are already searching the crowd for me.
The minute he spots me sitting on the bumper of the ambulance wearing an oxygen mask as a precaution, he comes jogging over.
His jaw is tight while his eyes scan me like he’s checking for burns, injuries, or smoke inhalation. As if the paramedics didn’t already do just that.
“You okay?” His voice is low. Too steady. Too controlled.
I nod, except it’s not really a nod—more like my head bobbing on a weak hinge. “Fine. I’m fine. Just… startled.”
“Vitals are good. She declined our offer to take her to the hospital for a chest x-ray to check for smoke inhalation,” the paramedic rats me out.
“Em.” He raises a brow and closes the distance between us in three slow steps.
“Don’t you ‘Em’ me. I wasn’t in there that long before you came barreling in with your fire fighter friends. I. am. fine.”
“Your hands are shaking.”
I look down. They are. Violently.
“Well, whatdyaknow?” A laugh escapes in a desperate attempt to hide my nerves. It’s the best I can manage because I’m two seconds away from completely falling apart.
He takes my hands in his and stands closer than anyone probably should, but he’s Hayes, and right now being this close feels like the safest spot in the world.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he murmurs. It’s not accusatory. It’s not dramatic. It’s raw.
“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper, embarrassed by how weird my voice sounds with the oxygen mask still on.
“I know.” His hands remain steady overtop of mine. “Looks like it might have been faulty wiring.”
I pull the mask off and set it beside me. “Yeah. It—uh—it sparked. The outlet’s been acting weird, but I just…” My throat tightens. “…I just thought it could wait until after the holidays.”
Hayes exhales through his nose, the kind of breath that’s equal parts relief and frustration.
“This building’s old, Em. If something looks off, you tell someone. You tell me.”
I blink. “You?”
He gives me a look that is somehow exasperated, tender, and entirely too intimate all at once.
“Yes. Me. Preferably before there’s smoke involved.”
My laugh comes out shaky. “Okay. Point taken.”
“There’s a scorch mark on the wall, soot on the counter, and the whole place smells like smoke. You’re not going to be able to open tomorrow.”
My bottom lip trembles. “But…I have to! I’ve got orders to fill and the people of Mistletoe Bay count on us for their morning caffeine and carb fix!”
“It’s not negotiable, Emmy. Fire Marshall isn’t going to allow it.” He lets go of my hands only to brush a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I’ll fix this,” he says.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t, but I’ll be here first thing after my shift ends. I’ll help you clean up and see what needs to be done to bring the wiring back up to code.”
“But—”
“Emmy.” His voice dips. “Let me help.”
Something inside me unclenches.
I nod.
“Since you won’t go to the ER, you should head home now. Nothing else you can do tonight.”
“My coat, keys, my purse…it’s all inside. I need to go get it,” I say, shedding the blanket.
“You shouldn’t go back in there.”
I grab Haye’s forearms. “I need to or I’ll never be able to sleep tonight.”
I won’t be able to sleep either way, I’m sure of it, but I’m not telling him that.
Hayes blows out a deep breath. “Okay, fine. Come on, but make it quick. Get your stuff and get out.”
He escorts me back inside. My heart squeezes in my chest as I survey the damage.
“Can I at least clean the dough and all these pastries up?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and curses. “Em.”
“I can’t leave it like this.”
He mutters my name again—low, resigned, defeated by the one force in the universe he’s never been able to battle: me.
“Two minutes,” he says. “And I’m helping.”
I nod, already moving toward the counter. The bowl of buttercream is half-splattered, the mixer smudged with soot. My heart aches painfully at the sight of the half-finished cake, its warm gingerbread layers sitting practically untouched on the far prep table.
Hayes grabs a trash bag from the storage closet and holds it open while I scrape in the ruined dough, the scorched towel, the frosting and the gingerbread layers that picked up too much smoke.
“This stuff was good, huh?” he asks.
“Was going to be great.” My throat tightens.
He notices—of course he notices. Hayes’ eyes soften and he places a steadying hand against the small of my back. “You’ll make another batch tomorrow or the next day. And the next one will be better.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Yeah, I can,” he murmurs. “Because you’re you.”
The simple certainty in his voice hits harder than the fire ever could.
We move quietly after that, sweeping up the extinguisher residue, clearing the countertops. It’s not much—nothing that actually fixes anything—but my heartbeat finally starts to slow. My hands stop shaking.
When we’re done, Hayes flicks off the lights and guides me out with a gentle brush of his palm against my lower back. He locks the door behind us, steps out into the cold night, and the world feels too quiet.
“Emmy.” His voice is soft. “You’re exhausted.”
“I know.”
“You’re also not driving home.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
I open my mouth to argue, but the second the wind hits me, my knees wobble. Hayes catches my elbow before I can pretend I don’t need it.
“Stay put. I’ll be right back,” he says, propping me up against the wall behind the bakery.
He exchanges a few words with Fire Chief Duke Burns, strips out of his turnout gear, and jogs back over to me in his blue cargo pants and blue button up uniform shirt that they all wear under their gear.
“Come on. I’m driving.” He holds out his hand for my keys.
“Uhm. No?”
“Emmy.” He raises his brow at me again.
“Give me the damn keys, Em. Or if you’d rather, I can throw you over my shoulder, tuck you into the back of the engine, and we can all take you home that way.”
There’s a joke about a fantasy menage with a bunch of hot fire fighters on the tip of my tongue, but I hold back because the look on Hayes’ face is anything but playful.
“I don’t want to be a burden.”
Moonlight glints off the soot still smudged on his jaw. “You’re never a burden to me.”
My breath fogs between us. His eyes hold mine for one long, unbearably tender beat.
Then he clears his throat. “Let’s get you home.”
I swallow, nod, and let him lead me to my car.
For the first time all night, the panic fades—not because the danger is gone, but because Hayes Thatcher is the one guiding me through the aftermath.
And that feels like safety I shouldn’t want, even though I do.