Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Danny Morrison arrived the next morning just as Leo had promised. Jade stood outside the bakery at seven-thirty sharp, clutching a steaming cup of coffee and watching an electrician van pull up to the curb. Ruth’s nephew emerged with a toolbox and a clipboard, his expression professionally neutral.
“Miss Bennett? I’m Danny Morrison. Leo Carter said you needed an electrical inspection before Monday’s official review.”
“Thank you so much for coming on such short notice,” Jade said, ushering him inside where the warm air carried the scent of fresh cinnamon rolls. “I really appreciate this.”
Danny was methodical in his approach, testing every outlet, examining every fixture, running his hands along visible wiring with the practiced touch of someone who understood how electricity moved through old buildings.
Jade hovered nearby, trying to read his expression while Mabel bustled around the kitchen, preparing their usual morning batch of maple cookies.
“The display case work looks good,” Danny said, making notes on his clipboard. “Clean connections, proper grounding. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”
“That was Leo,” Jade said, relief flooding through her. “He fixed it after I nearly electrocuted myself.”
“Smart man. But Miss Bennett...” Danny’s tone shifted, becoming more serious. “We’ve got some bigger problems.”
Jade’s stomach dropped. “What kind of problems?”
Danny led her to the back of the kitchen, pointing to a metal box mounted near the ceiling.
“Your main electrical panel is from 1962. The breakers are shot—half of them don’t trip when they should, which is a serious fire hazard.
And this wiring...” He indicated a section where old cloth-wrapped cables disappeared into the wall.
“This should have been replaced decades ago.”
“Is it... fixable?”
“Oh, it’s fixable. But it’s going to require rewiring about sixty percent of the building.
New panel, new breakers, bringing everything up to current code.
” Danny flipped through his notes, his expression sympathetic but professional.
“I can write up a detailed estimate, but you’re looking at substantial work. ”
The word ‘substantial’ hit Jade like a physical blow. In contractor speak, substantial meant expensive. Very expensive.
“How substantial?” she asked quietly.
Danny was quiet for a moment, calculating. “For a building this size, with the age of the existing system... you’re probably looking at eight to twelve thousand dollars. Maybe more if we find additional problems once we open up the walls.”
Eight to twelve thousand dollars.
Jade felt the blood drain from her face. The bakery’s entire bank account held less than four hundred dollars. Even if they had their best weekend ever, even if every single person in Frost Pine Ridge bought cookies for Christmas, they couldn’t come close to that kind of money.
“I see,” she managed.
“I’m sorry,” Danny said gently. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear. But the inspector on Monday is going to find the same problems I just did. And once they’re documented officially, you won’t be able to operate until they’re fixed.”
After Danny left with promises to have the written estimate by afternoon, Jade slumped into one of the café chairs and stared at the number he’d scribbled on his business card. Twelve thousand dollars. It might as well have been twelve million.
“Oh, pumpkin,” Mabel said, settling into the chair across from her with two mugs of hot chocolate. “I was afraid it might be something like this.”
“The bakery can’t survive being closed for weeks while we find the money for repairs,” Jade said numbly. “And we can’t operate illegally. We’d lose our business license, our insurance...”
“There has to be another option,” Mabel said firmly. “We just need to think creatively.”
Felicity burst through the front door like a whirlwind of purple scarf and determination. “I came as soon as I got your text. How bad is it?”
“Twelve thousand dollars bad,” Jade replied.
Felicity whistled low. “That’s... that’s a lot of Christmas cookies.”
“It’s impossible,” Jade said flatly. “Even if we had the best month in the bakery’s history, we couldn’t come close to covering that kind of expense.”
The three women sat in silence for a moment, the weight of the situation pressing down on them. Outside, snow continued to fall in lazy, fat flakes that made the world look peaceful and manageable. Inside, Jade felt like everything was falling apart.
“What about a loan?” Felicity suggested. “Banks do business loans, right?”
“With what collateral?” Jade asked. “The bakery’s already mortgaged to the hilt. My credit’s shot from six months of unemployment. Who’s going to loan money to someone with no assets and no guaranteed income?”
“Crowdfunding?” Mabel offered hopefully. “I’ve heard people raise money online for all sorts of things.”
“Maybe,” Jade said doubtfully. “But that takes time, and we’d need to be closed on Monday if we don’t have the money for immediate repairs.”
Felicity was unusually quiet, her normally bright demeanor subdued. “There is one other option,” she said finally.
“What?”
“You could sell.”
The words hung in the air like smoke from a snuffed candle. Jade stared at her friend, processing the suggestion that felt both logical and devastating.
“Mr. Connors mentioned last month that he’d be interested if Mabel ever wanted to retire,” Felicity continued quietly. “He’s been looking for a downtown location for his catering business. He’d probably pay enough to cover the mortgage and leave something for Mabel’s retirement.”
“Sell Sugar Pine Sweets?” Mabel’s voice was very small.
“It would solve the immediate problem,” Felicity said gently. “No electrical bills, no inspector problems. Clean break.”
Jade looked around the bakery—at the gleaming display case Leo had helped her fix, at the fresh pine garland they’d hung together, at the careful notes she’d made about festival routes and customer preferences, at her great-grandmother’s fruitcake plaque.
Two weeks ago, this place had been a desperate last resort. Now it felt like home.
“I need some air,” she said abruptly, grabbing her coat.
“Jade—” Mabel started.
“I just need to think,” Jade said, already heading for the door. “I’ll be back.”
The December air was sharp and clean, carrying the scent of snow and wood smoke from chimneys around the square. Jade walked without any particular destination, her mind churning through options that all seemed to lead to the same conclusion: she was going to fail again.
She’d come to Frost Pine Ridge to save the bakery, to prove she could accomplish something meaningful. Instead, she was facing the possibility of watching it disappear entirely, of letting down Mabel, who’d trusted her with the family legacy.
Without consciously deciding to, she found herself walking toward the reindeer farm.
Leo would understand the business realities, the impossible mathematics of small-town economics.
He’d faced similar challenges with the farm, had probably wrestled with the same kinds of decisions about whether to keep fighting or cut losses.
She found him in the barn, grooming Vixen with long, steady strokes that seemed to calm both him and the reindeer. The space was warm and fragrant with hay and leather, peaceful in a way that made her shoulders relax for the first time all morning.
“Hey,” she said softly.
He looked up immediately reading something in her expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Danny Morrison finished the electrical assessment.” She leaned against the stall door, suddenly exhausted. “Eight to twelve thousand dollars to bring everything up to code.”
Leo’s hands stilled on the brush. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Jade laughed, but it came out hollow. “So much for my grand plans to save the bakery.”
“There have to be other options,” Leo said, setting down the brush and turning to face her fully. “Loans, grants, something.”
“With what collateral? What credit history?” Jade shook her head. “I keep thinking I’m missing something obvious, but the math is pretty straightforward. We don’t have the money, and we can’t operate without the repairs.”
Leo was quiet for a moment, studying her face. “What are you going to do?”
The question she’d been avoiding all morning hung between them. Jade took a shaky breath.
“Felicity thinks we should sell. Mr. Connors wants to expand his catering business, and he’d probably pay enough to cover the mortgage.” The words tasted bitter. “Clean break. No more electrical problems, no more inspector visits, no more failing at something else.”
Something shifted in Leo’s expression—a shuttering, a drawing back that she felt like a physical chill.
“Sell,” he repeated, his voice carefully neutral.
“It makes sense,” Jade continued, desperate to make him understand, to find some comfort in his practical perspective. “Cut our losses before they get worse. Mabel could retire with dignity instead of watching the place fall apart around her.”
“Right,” Leo said. “Makes sense.”
But he’d stepped back from her, putting the width of the stall between them. His hands were busy with unnecessary adjustments to Vixen’s halter, his attention focused anywhere but on her face.
“Leo?” she said uncertainly.
“So you’ll be heading back to Boston then,” he said, still not looking at her. “Once the sale goes through.”
“I... I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Haven’t you?” Now he did look at her, and his brown eyes held a distance that made her stomach clench. “This was always temporary, right? Just until you figured out what’s next.”
“That’s not...” Jade struggled to find words for the hurt in his voice, the sudden coldness that seemed to come from nowhere. “Leo, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, turning back to Vixen. “You’re making the smart choice. This place was never going to be enough for someone like you, anyway.”
The words hit like a slap. “Someone like me?”
“Someone with ambition. Someone who belongs in the city, not stuck in a small town running a failing bakery.”
“That’s not fair,” Jade said, anger flaring to life in her chest. “I’ve worked my butt off for this place. I’ve cared about it, about Mabel, about—”
“About what?” Leo’s voice was sharp now, all pretense of casual conversation abandoned. “About playing small-town baker until something better comes along?”
“About you,” she said quietly, the words escaping before she could stop them. “I’ve cared about you.”
Leo’s hands stilled completely, but he didn’t turn around. The silence stretched between them, charged with everything they’d been building toward and everything that was suddenly crumbling.
“Yeah, well,” he said finally, his voice rough. “Caring doesn’t pay electrical bills.”
The casual dismissal of everything that had been growing between them—the almost-kiss in the woods, the partnership, the way he’d looked at her like she mattered—cut deeper than any financial crisis.
“You’re right,” Jade said, her own voice going cold. “It doesn’t.”
She looked at his face, at the hard set of his jaw and the ice in his eyes, and she saw a stranger. The man who had held her in his arms, the man whose quiet strength had been her anchor, was gone. In his place was a judge who had delivered his sentence.
So she turned.
And she walked away.
She didn't run. She walked back into the bakery, each step a monumental effort.
She walked past the non-compliant oven and the useless heating element.
She walked past the counter still dusted with the flour of her failure.
The happy, festive lights flickered, and for a second she thought they might go out for good.
But as she reached the kitchen, something shifted inside her. The hurt was still there, raw and bleeding, but underneath it, something else was building. Something hotter. Angrier.
Like her. That's what he'd said. As if she was just someone who ran at every opportunity. As if leaving for college at eighteen made her some kind of flight risk for life. As if coming back here, fighting tooth and nail for this place, meant nothing.
The anger hit her like a physical force, burning away the tears that had been threatening. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
How dare he. How dare he reduce her to some cardboard cutout from his own fears.
She wasn't the girl who'd left ten years ago.
She'd built a life, made mistakes, learned hard lessons, and come home because this mattered.
Because Mabel mattered. Because sometimes the most important battles were the ones that seemed impossible to win.
She found Mabel in the back office, sitting at the small, cluttered desk, staring at a stack of unpaid bills. Her aunt looked up as she entered, taking one look at Jade's face and straightening in her chair.
"We're not selling," Jade announced, her voice ringing with steel.
Mabel blinked in surprise. "Honey, I heard what Dave said about the wiring—"
"I don't care about the wiring. I don't care about Cecily or the inspector or Leo Carter's opinions about who I am.
" Jade moved to the desk, her movements sharp with purpose.
"We're going to make this festival spectacular.
We're going to show this entire town what Sugar Pine Sweets is really about.
And if we have to close after that, at least we'll close fighting. "
A slow smile spread across Mabel's face, the defeated slump of her shoulders straightening. "That's my girl."