After uncovering the frozen sheets of cookie dough resting atop some Tupperware containers of butternut squash soup and tubs of eggnog ice cream, Kate made quick work of baking, and within a few minutes, the marble counters turned snow-white and sticky. Without a cookie-cutter or can of baking spray in sight, she improvised, using a wire star ornament to cut out the dough. A brief dig through the pantry and the fridge rewarded her with flour and butter to grease the cookie sheets. The available dough was meant to feed at least forty people, so once the first batch entered the oven, Kate focused on the next twenty or so cookies.
Did she need to bake every single bit of dough left behind in the freezer? Of course not. Even at her most hungry, Kate’s cookie-eating record never broke seventeen cookies in a single sitting. The end product of the baking wasn’t the point, really. She baked because it gave her something to do, something to occupy her hands as she tried to plan her next steps. The night was still young, and she wasn’t sure she’d made any progress with Clark earlier. Sure, he’d been slightly nicer to her than he was this morning, but he hadn’t seemed any more sympathetic to Christmas or the cause of saving the festival. She certainly had her work cut out for her. If a redecorated house, a feast and a visit to the river didn’t convince him, what would?
“Smells good in here.”
The steaming tray of cookies in Kate’s hands almost went flying across the room as a voice from the door behind her spooked her straight out of her skin.
“Sorry, sorry! Did I scare you?”
“I don’t know.” She dropped the steaming plate of cookies onto the counter as her free hand flew to her chest. She could feel her pounding heartbeat. Like being faked out by a horror movie jump-scare, Kate couldn’t help but chuckle even as she shivered in fear. “Maybe you should ask my ghost. You can’t just sneak up on people like that!”
Clark hovered in the doorway, halfway into the kitchen and halfway out, as if he couldn’t decide whether or not to fully engage with her. Since waking to find him precisely nowhere in his own house, Kate assumed Clark had been hiding from her to avoid any more Christmas talk, despite his promise to at least try and enjoy her company. Thinking he hated her and her holiday so much had stung, and his arrival here and now soothed the wounds only slightly. To his credit, Clark gave off a sufficiently sheepish air. He filled the room with his uncertainty.
“I smelled cookies.”
Oh. A stab of disappointment shot straight up Kate’s arm, following the flow of her blood until it pierced and filled her heart. He hadn’t come because he wanted to talk to her or come out of hiding. She’d angered him with more supposed “waste” of his family’s resources. Kate turned her back on him. If he wanted to chew her out, fine. But she didn’t have to pay attention. She transferred the steaming cookies from the baking sheet to the cooling rack she’d found in the back of a dusty cabinet.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t spend any of your money to make them.”
“No, that’s not why I’m here. I just wanted one.”
“Really?”
“I like sugar cookies.” He shrugged. “Is that a crime?”
“Not at all.” If anything, the defensive admission only endeared him to her. Clark prowled around Miller’s Point with all of the arrogant attitude of a demigod. Liking cookies made him more human in her eyes. She tried to imagine Clark sitting on a beat-up couch somewhere eating a plate full of cookies for Santa. The picture never came into focus. “It’s just surprising, I guess.”
“Why?”
“You don’t like anything other people like. I just assumed you usually eat nothing but plain yogurt and protein bars. And water.”
Given that he didn’t know she’d been accidentally spying on him, she couldn’t tell him she’d seen him order a plate of pancakes and bacon at Mel’s, so she stuck with gentle teasing instead. As someone who ate almost every breakfast at a greasy diner in the town square, Kate couldn’t think of anything more disgusting than plain yogurt and protein bars. She preferred her pancakes like Emily preferred her men: rich and sweet.
“There’s nothing wrong with plain yogurt,” was his weak defense.
“Yeah, if you enjoy things that don’t taste good.”
Clark reached for the cookies, stopping himself short in a “where are my manners” way.
“May I?”
“No, I’m sorry. They’re all for me.”
“You’re gonna eat all…” Sweeping the cooling rack with his eyes, Clark gave a quick whispered count under his breath. “All twenty-four of these?”
“I’m hungry.”
“Seriously?”
“No, not seriously,” she huffed. “Eat as many as you want. Are you sure you want to though? I wouldn’t want you to spoil your precious diet.”
A diet program never came up in their conversations. It didn’t have to. Despite those pancakes at the diner—which could have been explained away by a cheat day or the fact that Mel didn’t serve healthy food—Clark was the kind of man whose tight belts screamed, “I had exactly 1.1 ounces of cashew nuts today as a snack. That’s exactly 143 calories and lots of good fats to fuel my crossfit workout later this afternoon.” The tips of his ears went red and he reached for the cookies anyway, taking one into each hand. Kate followed his lead.
“It’s a holiday, right? I can afford the calories.”
“Then you admit it. A holiday is happening.”
“Just because I don’t celebrate it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Besides…” They shared a meaningful look. What kind of meaning, Kate wasn’t sure. But it meant something. Her insides churned. “I promised someone I’d give it the old college try.”
On the surface, she liked the sound of that. He’d come down here not to fight with her or start another argument, but because he wanted to honor his promise to her. His absence until now stuck in her craw.
“Then why were you hiding?”
“I wasn’t hiding,” he retorted, mouth full of cookies.
“You carried me through a storm and then I didn’t see you again. You were hiding.”
They both chewed, savoring the subtle flavors of the fresh treats.
“I’m sorry about what happened.”
“Why? I lived, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but—”
She flicked flour in his direction, failing to strike him with the white powder.
“I said I wanted an adventure, didn’t I?” A big bite of cookie melted in her mouth. “Well, I got one.”
“Listen.” Clark clapped his hands together, ridding them of cookie dust and crumbs. “I promised someone I’d try this Christmas thing out, so what do I do?”
“Wanna help me make cookies?”
They didn’t need anymore, but with three more trays of cookie dough and time to kill, Kate could think of no better option than this one.
“Is that a thing people do?” Clark raised an eyebrow; Kate almost choked.
“You’re really out of the loop, there. Go into the other room and grab another one of these ornaments, will you?”
She raised the wire star she appropriated as a cookie-cutter. It glimmered in the low winter light. Clark left for the living room.
“You got it.”
Kate dressed herself in a mothballed apron. In the next room, rustling and tinkling of ornamental bells danced in the air as Clark searched for a wire star. She continued their conversation through the door, raising her voice just enough to be heard.
“You’re telling me you never made cookies around this time of year?”
A deep, masculine chuckle. “Are you fishing for my tragic backstory?”
“Only because I think you’ll bite.”
“You don’t want to hear it.”
He returned with the star in tow. Kate took her place at the long kitchen island, which looked like a tiny winter wonderland. Flour covered the surface like perfect snowcapped mountains.
“You’re admitting there is a tragic backstory.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” Mr. Woodward, Clark’s uncle, was one of the kindest men Kate ever knew. As much as she liked to tease Clark about what he called his tragic backstory, she had a hard time believing she was opening up old wounds by asking after it. How could a man as good as Mr. Woodward allow someone as close to him as a nephew endure a miserable life? Kate assumed Clark had some kind of stigma associated with Christmas—maybe a girlfriend dumped him around the season or he was allergic to pine or something—but those were all easily solvable problems. If she could replace the sad memories with beautiful ones, maybe she could take away the lonely emptiness in his eyes. “I was thinking if I knew, maybe I could help.”
Clark didn’t speak right away. He went into a cabinet and found an apron of his own. As he pulled it over his head and rolled up the sleeves of his blue collared shirt, Kate stopped herself from breathing too loud. She’d thought he was handsome since she met him, but this was something else. The clash of the domestic apron with his strong, exposed forearms, his willingness to open up and be sensitive around her… Her cheeks flushed, and it had nothing to do with the blazing oven. When Clark returned, he spoke again.
“I haven’t had a real Christmas since I was nine years old. If I ever did make cookies, it was so long ago it’s impossible to remember if I did.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He clearly thought that would be the end of it. Holding up the star ornament, he stared at Kate through its negative space like a rich man assessing a stranger through a monocle. “Now, what do I do with this?”
On the marble countertops before them, Kate set up their station. A frozen pad of cookie dough waited on the floured countertop and a greased cookie sheet waited for the cut-out cookies. She demonstrated the method, every so often glancing at Clark to gauge his reaction.
“You just sprinkle some flour on it and press it in. Like so.”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated over the preparations, suddenly skittish. “I don’t want to ruin it.”
“You can’t ruin it. Just press in…” She demonstrated again, “And pull it out.”
Clark breathed in deep, as though he were diffusing a bomb instead of cutting out cookies. It was a cute image, in a way. He’d been out of practice in having fun for so long, he couldn’t even take something as simple as cutting out cookies any less seriously than negotiating a huge business deal. He laid the makeshift cookie-cutter into the dough, pulled it out, and fumbled to pick the newly made star up. There weren’t many ways to mess up using a cookie-cutter, so Clark’s clumsy attempt came out fairly neat. Two of the star’s points were lopsided and inconsistent with the rest. Clark deflated.
“I messed up the ends. What do I do now?”
“Just put it on the tray and try again with another one,” Kate said, obviously.
“But—”
“Not everything’s a disaster, Clark. You can always try again.”
“I can’t—”
He stopped himself short, hesitating to finish his thought. Like a starving man given a bite of food only to have it taken away, Kate longed to hear it completed. What couldn’t he do? And why couldn’t he do it? She reminded herself to be grateful. For most of the day, he’d been as emotionally distant as he possibly could be. This was one of the first glimpses she got of his full emotional range. Even if his disappointment seemed silly to her, at least he was showing her some feeling. He could have kept himself closed off and private, deflecting her every attempt to get close to him. But he didn’t. He was letting her see him for the first time. Kate stepped behind him, reaching her arms under his to better help him.
She didn’t want to think about how good he smelled. Like an oaken whiskey barrel or a fresh forest. Nor did she want to think about how good his warmth felt mixing with hers. She didn’t want to think about her desire to wrap her arms around his chest and hold him to her until he turned around and returned the gesture.
She didn’t want to. But she did anyway.
“Let me help,” she whispered, unable to catch her own stampeding breath.
Slowly, she guided his hands through the process, paying special attention to the tips of the stars.
“See?” She withdrew from him as he laid the star down on the cookie sheet, wanting to wipe the girlish swoon from her eyes before he could catch it. “Perfect.”
“Thanks.”
Was it her hope talking, or did he sound as breathless as she felt? Kate cleared her throat and returned to their task. Maybe talking about him would remove all of the magic tingles crossing her skin.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of it.” She nudged him playfully with her shoulder. “Why haven’t you had Christmas for twenty years?”
“I went to boarding school.”
A diplomatic answer. Kate didn’t accept it.
“And what? You never came back?”
“My parents died on New Year’s. We’d just had our big family Christmas. I was only nine.” Her lungs stopped working as he delivered his story with matter-of-fact sincerity. Her hands stilled over the cookies, but Clark went on cutting. “They were up in Eagle Point. I was here with my uncle. They went to a party and never came home. They told me a drunk driver lost control on a patch of black ice.”
“Oh, Clark. I didn’t mean… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
Such a small way to apologize for something so massive, but Kate couldn’t think of anything else to say. The gears of comprehension ground together in her head as information flew at her. She pieced it together. It all led to one heartbreaking picture.
“That’s why I was so afraid of the forest. When they told me, I just ran out there. I didn’t bring a flashlight or anything. I just ran through the rain until I couldn’t see the house anymore. My uncle came out and found me eventually, but I was…” He rubbed a rough hand over his face. “He took custody of me, but I begged to go to boarding school. I didn’t want to be here and remember. I didn’t want The Christmas Company reminding me of what happened. That’s part of the reason I hate it so much. I didn’t want to think of Christmas ever again. So, I stayed at school almost all year round.”
He shook his head. “On the one hand, it made me the man I am today. I pinch pennies because I’m afraid if I spend a cent out of line I’ll lose the company. The only thing of them I still have. I wear my father’s old suit jackets because I don’t want to lose them. I stayed in school and worked all the time to make them proud, to become the great man they would have wanted me to be. On the other hand…staying at school made it easier to avoid thinking about it. No matter how much my uncle begged me to come home even for a weekend, I just couldn’t face being here. I wanted to hold onto them, but I didn’t want to remember them, either. It was too painful. Now, it’s like I pushed it all away for so long, I can barely remember even when I want to.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“I mean…why are you telling me all this? You could have just lied.”
All at once, she became aware of tears blurring her vision as she gazed up at him. Tears for a man who’d lost everything. He’d been defeated by the world again and again, all while she’d been basking in the attention he’d been denied. The cookie-cutter remained useless in her limp hand. Clark sighed and put his own down to turn and meet her.
“Because this is the first Christmas no one let me be alone. The first time I pushed everyone away but…” They shared a meaningful look, one filled with the warmth of a freshly lit fireplace. “Someone stayed anyway.”
She wanted to hold him. Or kiss him. Anything to show him he didn’t deserve to be alone. Keeping her hands and lips to herself, she swiftly changed the subject, breaking the emotionally devastating mood with one joking question.
“How am I doing so far on that front? Have I made an elf of you?”
“You know, it’s not so bad. I don’t see what the fuss is all about yet, but I’m warming up to it. Keep feeding me these cookies and maybe I’ll like it even more.”
In a few swift movements, he placed the full baking sheet into the oven and plucked a few cookies off of the cooling rack.
“The good news is that we’ll have enough cookies to last us three lifetimes.”
“You don’t know how many cookies I can eat.”
He handed her a stack of five cookies, and Kate’s stomach both curdled and leapt for joy. The idea of so many cookies was appealing, but the reality frightened her stomach. She almost refused the gift. Then, the smell hit her. She was powerless to the combination of sugar and butter cooked to warm perfection.
“If I eat more than twenty, drop a piano on my head,” she encouraged, accepting the stack. “It’s the only way to stop me once I get into a feeding frenzy.”
“Deal.” He laughed, a sound sweeter than any cookies.
They snacked in silence. Though this huge revelation hung between them, things seemed less fraught between them. Still, Kate couldn’t help but sink in the sadness she’d heard in his voice. Cookies weren’t enough to erase that memory.
“Hey, Clark?” she asked.
“Yeah?”
“What do you remember about Christmas? You said you don’t remember much. Do you remember anything?”
Clark hesitated, then shook his head. “I haven’t thought about it in so long.”
“Do you want to remember? You don’t have to. I know it’s hard,” she assured him.
Kate thought of her parents every day. She couldn’t imagine the pain of wanting to forget them, of hiding away at boarding school so no one could make you think of them.
“I remember…” Clark bit his bottom lip. His hands flexed. He leaned against the counter for support. A tiny, tiny smile glowed on his softened face. “My mother’s perfume. Tuberose, I think. I remember them dragging me to go caroling. Every year, my mom would make a tub of hot cocoa and my dad would help her make cookies and we’d walk through the neighborhood caroling. None of us could sing, really. Dad was the worst of us, but it didn’t matter. It was fun.” He lost himself in the thoughts of his past. “When my mom would tuck me in on Christmas Eve, I remember she’d light a candle and put it on my windowsill. She told me it was so Santa knew where to find me.”
“Those are beautiful memories.”
“I miss them. I haven’t let myself think about them like this in so long, but…I miss them.” He trailed off, staring out into the distance. But no sooner had he withdrawn than he brought himself back, clearing his throat as if to clear the air of his very self. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear this.”
“I don’t mind at all. In fact, it’s pretty nice.”
“Cookies and sad stories. What next? Champagne and a dentist appointment?” He chuckled, but the light didn’t quite meet his eyes. Kate wanted nothing more than to sit here and talk to him about this forever. She wanted to know everything about him. What was his favorite shade of blue? What had his life been like after boarding school? What did he dream about?
For now, the questions would have to wait. As much as she wanted to keep talking, he needed something else. He needed a distraction. He still needed to fall in love with Christmas.
“Well.” She smiled, her fingers brushing the top of his hand reassuringly. “The tree still isn’t decorated.”
New memories would never replace a lifetime of horrible ones, but Kate could at least give him one special night.