Adaline’s phone had been blowing up all morning while she’d been working on Maple and Ford’s wedding cake. Every time it pinged with a call or a text, she glanced at the display to make sure it wasn’t Jace. Then she got back to work. Everyone else would just have to wait.
After she’d left the library yesterday and made a quick stop at Bluebonnet General, she’d gone straight back to Cherry on Top and baked a practice cake layered with homemade tart cherry filling made with a generous dollop of her homemade almond extract. She’d needed the quiet time in the kitchen, not only to prepare for the wedding, but also to absorb what they’d learned about Jace’s uncle Gus.
Baking had always been Adaline’s therapy. Since the day Gram taught her how to roll out dough and make her very first pie, she’d turned to baking whenever her feelings felt too big to understand. She baked when she was anxious. She baked when she happy. She baked when she was sad. Countless tears had been baked into the hundreds of pies she’d made over the years. But no bake had ever had to soothe as much grief as that practice wedding cake had.
She grieved for Jace as much as she did for his uncle. The loss Gus had endured fifty years ago had taken its toll on everyone around him, most notably his nephew. She hoped that might change, now that Jace knew the truth. Surely it would. Gus had to see how much Jace loved him. Adaline knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one had cared more for that man, except maybe his dearly departed wife.
Still, she had a sinking feeling every time she thought about Jace trying to talk to Gus about the newspaper article. After the recital last night, she’d offered to go with him to the senior center this morning for moral support. But Jace wanted to do it alone, and Adaline completely understood why. Gus was going to have a tough enough time allowing himself to be vulnerable in front of his nephew. If she came along, she’d just make things worse.
“What do you think, Fuzzy?” she said as she slid the final layer of the cherry vanilla wedding cake out of the oven.
The Cavalier woofed from his nook in the bakery. Adaline knew he was only responding to the sound of his name, but she liked carrying on a conversation with him throughout the day.
Adaline nodded. “I agree. We’ve got three perfectly pink layers of sponge. Soon, the fun part begins—the decorating.”
She needed to take a breather to check her messages and voice mails. Maple’s name had popped up on her screen at least once, along with a phone number she didn’t recognize. The cake needed time to cool before she covered it with a base layer of pink-tinted frosting. Then she’d smooth the edges with a scraper before starting on the fanciful piping.
But first, a quick break.
She glanced at the clock above the stainless steel sink and wondered how Jace was getting on with his uncle. It was probably a good sign that it was past noon and she hadn’t heard from him. They clearly had a lot to talk about.
Adaline opened her voicemail and listened to Maple’s message on speaker while she lined up the piping bags and the five different nozzles she’d need to decorate the wedding cake.
Hey, Adaline. It’s me. I know you’ve got a lot going on today, but I wanted to let you know that I heard back from the veterinary association about the grant.
Adaline went still, piping nozzles forgotten.
We didn’t get it, hon. I don’t want you to worry, though. You did such a great job getting us that space at a reduced rate. We’re going to be fine. Comfort Paws has a big and bright future, in large part because of you. I love you like a sister.
Disappointment sagged through Adaline, despite Maple’s kind words. Everything had been going so great. She’d been so convinced they’d get that grant.
Maple was right, though. They still had the storefront, and they could raise the remaining funds they needed. Comfort Paws would still go on to do great things in the coming year. Best of all, in two days, she and Maple would be real sisters.
She took a deep breath and pressed play on the next voicemail, fully expecting it to be either spam or a new custom order for the bakery. Cherry on Top’s customers had been filling her voice mail with pleading messages for days, despite the fact that her cutoff date for holiday orders had passed over a week ago.
Hello, this message is for Adaline Bishop.
The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Adaline couldn’t immediately place where she’d heard it before. She didn’t recognize it as one of her regular customers, though.
This is Vanessa Kruger from the property management company at Bluebonnet Circle, calling about the lease agreement you signed yesterday for the storefront currently occupied by Tiny Tots Day School. I’m afraid I have some bad news...
Adaline stiffened. How could there be bad news? They had a contract. The property manager had just referenced the lease agreement.
Shortly after you left yesterday, we were contacted by another party interested in the space. After taking a look at the storefront, they put down a deposit for the full asking price on the rental. Given that your lease agreement has a twenty-four-hour cancellation clause, we’ve chosen to exercise our right to cancel the contract. I’m sorry if you find this news disappointing. We wish you and Comfort Paws the best in the coming year. Merry Christmas.
The message cut off with a click, and Adaline snapped out of the trance she’d fallen into the second she’d heard the phrase “twenty-four-hour cancellation clause.” This couldn’t be happening. She’d done everything right this time, and once again, someone had come and stolen her space right out from under her.
She marched to her handbag, where the lease agreement was still tucked away, waiting for the ink to dry. Adaline remembered the twenty-four-hour cancellation clause, but she hadn’t given it much consideration. Such cooling off periods were pretty standard on contracts in the state of Texas. They gave people a chance to back out of an agreement if they had immediate regrets or somehow felt pressured to sign the contract in the first place.
But no one really did that, did they?
Adaline wanted to scream. The only reason she didn’t was because she knew it would frighten Fuzzy, who was already watching her with a concerned crease in his furry brow. Plus, if she screamed, all three layers of Maple and Ford’s wedding cake might collapse.
She was half-surprised they didn’t just go ahead and spontaneously implode. It would make perfect sense since everything she touched was falling to pieces all of a sudden.
Her gaze bore into the useless contract in her hands. There it was—the dreaded twenty-four-hour cancellation provision, right at the top of page two. She tried to read it and search for a loophole or something...anything...that might mean the space still belonged to Comfort Paws. But she couldn’t see straight. The words blurred as her eyes filled with tears, and a fat drop landed on the contract, smudging her initials so the letters were no longer readable.
Adaline wadded the paper into a ball and threw it at the wall. It ricocheted into Fuzzy’s pen, and the Cavalier pounced on it with his backside in the air, tail wagging in triumph.
“Go ahead, tear it to bits if that makes you happy,” Adaline said. What difference did it make? The lease agreement was useless now. In a matter of minutes, all her grand plans for Comfort Paws had gone up in smoke. First the grant and now the training space.
She’d done it again. She’d gotten too excited. Too invested. Too dang hopeful. When would she ever learn to rein herself in? A heart could only get broken so many times before it shattered completely.
Adaline dropped her head in her hands and gave in and let herself cry. She cried until her tears ran dry. Then she did what she always did when something like this happened—she washed her face and vowed to make herself small enough to fit the world around her instead of trying to stretch everything and everyone to accommodate her oversize wants and desires.
Then, just as she finished making that familiar, fragile promise to herself, the bells on the front door chimed. The bakery wasn’t even open today. Apparently, someone had decided to ignore the Closed sign and waltz inside anyway. She must’ve left the door unlocked after she’d taken Fuzzy for his walk earlier.
She sniffed, forced her lips into a smile and went to see who it was. Her footsteps stalled the second she spotted Jace. The stricken look on his face said it all...
Things were about to go from bad to worse.
Jace had dragged his feet coming to Cherry on Top, but he couldn’t postpone it any longer. Adaline had encouraged him every step of the way with Uncle Gus. She deserved to hear what happened this morning at the senior center, and he owed it to her to explain everything in person, no matter how much it hurt.
He swallowed hard as he drank in the sight of her. With her fresh-scrubbed face and hair swept back in a high ponytail, she looked as close to the fifth-grade version of Adaline as he’d seen her thus far. Jace wasn’t sure why the similarity surprised him the way it did. He’d been chasing ghosts all day...trying to recapture something he’d never really had. It only made sense that seeing Adaline one last time would take him back to a place he no longer wished to remember.
“Hey,” she said. She fiddled with her hands like she didn’t know what to do with them.
Jace glanced around for anxiety pies but didn’t see any. Maybe he was only imagining the haunted look in her eyes. Or maybe he was time traveling again, catching a glimpse of the pain he was about to inflict before it really happened.
“Hey,” he said, and his voice sounded wooden and wrong, even to his own ears.
Just get through this, and then you can put this town and everything in it in your rearview mirror once and for all.
He couldn’t stay in Bluebonnet—not after the things Gus had said to him this morning. After he’d left the senior center, he’d gone straight to Gus’s cabin and packed up his things. Then he’d made arrangements for the rest of the Christmas trees on the lot to be donated to a composting initiative. A crew from the company was scheduled to pick up all remaining trees tomorrow evening. By midnight on Christmas Eve, there would be no trace of Jace Martin left in Bluebonnet, just as Adaline had predicted.
“Are you okay?” she asked, but she didn’t make a move to come closer. “How did things go with Gus?”
“Not great,” he said, and for the first time all day, Jace felt like he might break down and cry.
He clenched his teeth and ordered himself to hold it together. Never in his life had he shed a tear in front of a woman, and he wasn’t about to start now. All those times he’d been told he was too closed off and distant for a real romance had been right on the money. And now, irony of ironies, he felt more vulnerable and real with his fake girlfriend than he’d ever been with anyone else.
All his life he’d bestowed hero worship on Gus Martin. Was it any wonder he was screwed up in the relationship department?
“Oh, Jace. I’m so sorry,” Adaline said, and this time, she did come closer. She rushed toward him like she wanted to throw her arms around him. But as soon as she was an arm’s length away, she came to an abrupt halt, almost like she’d run smack into an invisible wall.
It’s me, Jace thought. I’m the wall.
He dragged a hand through his hair. He needed to get this over with and say what he’d come here to say before he did something utterly foolish like change his mind.
“Listen, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I really am, but I’m done here. I need to go home.”
Adaline looked at him like he’d just spoken to her in a foreign language. “Home?”
He nodded. “To Texas Tidings.”
“Oh, right. The Christmas tree farm.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
She’d thought Bluebonnet was home to Jace now. It was an honest mistake. He might’ve even thought so too...until his uncle had told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t welcome here.
Adaline glanced past him, and her gaze landed on his truck parked just outside. Everything he’d brought with him when he’d arrived in town was neatly packed and stored in the bed of the pickup, visible to all.
Her eyes flashed. “You mean you’re leaving now? As in, right this minute?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” He couldn’t stop apologizing, even though he knew they were just empty words. If he really didn’t want to hurt her like this, he’d show up for her like he said he would. He’d made her a promise, and now he was letting her down at the eleventh hour. “I can’t stay for the wedding.”
“Can’t?” She arched a brow. “Or won’t?”
Both, Jace thought, but he just stood there, feeling woefully out of place in her cheery, sugar-coated corner of the town square.
He waited for her to read him the riot act, which he most definitely deserved.
Instead, she simply nodded and gave him a placid look, like this was the ending she’d expected all along. “It’s fine. I broke all the other rules. You’re entitled to break one too.”
Jace had never for a second thought they’d stick to the midnight rule. He’d just always imagined they’d break it the other way around...that what they’d had would outlive the Christmas trees that would start drooping in their stands soon. But that was probably wishful thinking. They’d never said it was real. Not once.
But damned if it hadn’t felt a lot like love.
“Adaline,” he said, and all the emotions he couldn’t express were laid bare in that single, aching word.
Something was wrong. The Adaline standing in front of him with the vacant eyes and the deflated spirit wasn’t the same girl he’d been falling for all over again, just like in elementary school. The Adaline he knew was larger than life. She’d never give him a free pass like this and just let him walk away.
Fight for me, sweetheart. Please. Fight for us.
He hadn’t realized until that exact moment how badly he wanted her to ask him to stay. He needed to hear her say it. All it would take would be that small, simple word. Stay. He knew it was a selfish thing to expect, but the confrontation with Gus had left him feeling so hollow inside. So lost. All he needed, deep in the darkest part of himself, was to know someone still wanted him. Someone still cared. And more than anyone else on earth, he wanted that person to be Adaline.
She deserves better than you, and you know it. A good man would never put her in this position, but Jace had never really believed he was good. He might seem that way on the outside, but in his soul, he knew better.
The placid, detached expression on Adaline’s face told him she knew it, too. Either that, or he was just trying to fool himself into believing he wasn’t breaking her heart.
She squared her shoulders, and for a brief, beguiling moment, he caught a glimpse of the headstrong, bubbly woman he’d never forget. Then she vanished as quickly as she’d appeared, replaced once again by a girl with a broken smile.
“Goodbye, Jace.”