Page 14 of Meet Me at the Christmas Cottage (Jonathon Island #6)

Jonah peered over his shoulder, his cocky grin firmly in place. “I’m making you something sweet to see if we can’t help with that sour.”

Bronte froze. “You’re doing what?” The microwave dinged.

“Can you pass me that butter?”

Using the sleeve of her sweatshirt as an oven mitt, Bronte pulled the bowl from the microwave and set it next to Jonah on the counter. “So, if you think the story would be so much better with a happy ending, do tell, how would you finish it?”

“I think for this last book, you need lots of romance. Throw your readers for a loop. They always say real life makes the best stories?—”

Bronte shot Jonah a look. That was what she’d been trying to tell him.

“—but I say the best stories just emulate real life. Always better with a little bit of spice.”

Bronte choked. “Spice? I draw the line at spice. I don’t write those kinds of books.”

“I was talking about the cookies.” Jonah bit back a smile. “Can you grab the cinnamon? Should be in the cabinet next to the stove.”

“Fine.” She handed him the jar of cinnamon and plopped back down on the barstool, watching Jonah work. “And what do you mean by lots of romance? My books have romance.”

“Meh.” Jonah shrugged.

“What? They do!” Bronte insisted.

“Your books have a guy and a girl that kiss, maybe, but they either aren’t together or don’t seem happy in the end.

A kiss doesn’t necessarily mean you have romance.

” He pointed the whisk in her direction, a glob of cookie batter plopping onto the counter.

“You’ve got to think about it like Rogue One .

It had all the romance, all the feels, and they didn’t even kiss!

You need to put feeling into your scenes. ”

“My scenes have feeling,” Bronte muttered as she tore a napkin into strips.

Fifteen minutes later, all talk of “spice” and “happy endings” had ceased as, apparently, Jonah had somehow pulled Bronte into helping him make cookies—enough for an entire army, from the looks of the kitchen.

They’d started with chocolate chip, Jonah’s grandmother’s famous recipe—so famous he wouldn’t even let Bronte read the recipe card.

After chocolate chip, they’d moved on to sugar cookies (which Jonah had promised they could decorate), and now they were making thumbprint cookies, which Bronte had decided may be her favorite.

The last batch in the oven, Bronte plopped onto the couch, a plate of fresh cookies in front of her. Jonah joined her, grabbing a cookie off the plate and turning the television on.

“So, my sister has this thing where she watches Christmas movies from Thanksgiving until New Year’s.”

“Shouldn’t she stop at Christmas?”

Jonah gave Bronte a pointed look. “I’ll let you have that conversation with my sister when you meet her.”

Bronte’s heart did a little flutter. Stop it, heart. You don’t flutter. Brad had taken all the flutterings with him when he’d told her she wasn’t enough. Or was too much. He had said both in the mighty speech that he’d declared had taken him days to write and hurt him more than it’d hurt her.

Hardly.

It hadn’t taken him that long to move on either, it would seem.

She shook thoughts of Brad from her head, instead focusing on the overwhelming scent of sugar from the plate in front of her.

No, she decided, the flutterings must be guilt over not working on her book.

Or thinking that she’d be stuck in this house until the rest of Jonah’s family came home.

But would that be so terrible?

Yes! Yes, it would be terrible. She had a book to write. She wasn’t here for fun.

“Hey. Where’d you just go?”

Bronte blinked. “What? I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m right here.” The way Jonah was looking at her made her stomach dip. Bronte wanted to roll her eyes at her reaction, ignoring the fact that Brad had never looked at her like that. Never once in the six years they had been together.

“You’re here, sure, but your eyes did that glazing over thing where you weren’t exactly here .”

“I was just thinking that I really need to get that book written.”

“You’ll get it written.” Jonah sounded so sure.

Bronte hated the confidence in his voice. Confidence she didn’t have. Didn’t feel.

“But first”—he settled back into the couch, turning the volume up on the TV—“I think you need to watch Elf .”

“ Elf ?”

“Only the best holiday movie ever.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“What?” Jonah’s head swung in her direction, mouth agape.

“Not a fan of the actor who plays the elf.” Bronte shrugged her shoulders, plucking another thumbprint cookie off the plate. “And a man running around in tights? Please.”

“You gotta give it a chance.”

Bronte chewed the inside of her cheek. They had spent most of the morning making cookies, and she really did need to get caught up, but maybe there was a compromise. “How about, I’ll watch Elf while I work, but then I should probably hole away and get some serious words down.”

“Deal.”

Bronte had never needed to make deals with anyone before regarding her work, and she didn’t need to now.

She could leave and head upstairs and get to work right now.

She didn’t need to watch a Christmas movie—especially one that starred her least favorite actor.

But what could it hurt if she sat here for just a little bit?

* * *

The credits had just started rolling when the doorbell rang.

Bronte shot a look toward Jonah, not sure if she should answer it or if he should. Technically, she was renting the house, but he lived here. Had lived? It was his sister’s house.

Before she could open her mouth and ask, Jonah popped up from the couch. “I’ll get it.”

Bronte tried to get back into what she had been typing, but if she was totally honest, she hadn’t gotten much written in the last two hours anyway. She wasn’t convinced she’d call Elf the greatest Christmas movie ever, but she had enjoyed it.

“Look who stopped by.”

Turning, Bronte found Jonah being followed by Mia carrying a pot of soup, and a man with floppy brown hair and chocolate eyes was behind her with a loaf of homemade bread. The scent of the bread hit her two seconds later, and her stomach growled.

“Hey, Bronte. We heard about the mix-up with Jonah coming home.” She shot Jonah a grin. “Cody and I wanted to stop by and see how you were doing and to bring you some vegetable soup and bread.”

“Oh, wow.” Bronte set her laptop aside and stood to take the pot from Mia. She’d never had neighbors check on her before. She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel. “Thank you.”

“Why don’t you guys stay for a bit? Have some soup and bread with us,” Jonah said, taking the bread from Cody and putting it on a wooden cutting board.

Mia shot a look to Bronte. “My kids’ grandma is watching them for a bit since they were going stir-crazy at my house, so we’ve got time, but only if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

Bronte’s mouth tugged into a smile—at least, she hoped it was a smile.

She was still trying to place this warm, gooey feeling in her middle.

“Only if you and your husband promise to take cookies with you when you leave. We baked enough for a small army, and I’m afraid I’ll eat every last one of them if they’re here. ”

“Oh, we’re just dating.” Mia blushed at Cody’s declaration of “for now” and cheeky grin.

“I ended up over at the house this morning checking on her and the kids,” Cody said, shrugging out of his coat and draping it on the back of a chair. “I needed to make sure her snowmobile was in good working order in case they needed to get out and get somewhere.”

“How are the kids doing?” Jonah asked, pulling a knife from a drawer and slicing the bread while Cody pulled bowls from the cabinet and Mia got the soup ladle from a drawer and turned the oven on low. There were no strangers in Holland’s kitchen except for Bronte.

Needing to do something, Bronte grabbed the spoons from the drawer she had seen Jonah get some from earlier.

“Doing good,” Cody replied, setting four bowls out on the counter.

“The kids got out and played in the snow this morning. We probably shouldn’t have let Maggie go out, but she’s convinced she can do anything Finn can do.

” A grin tugged on Cody’s mouth. “They made a few snow angels and fed Jack—that’s the town’s dog,” Cody explained to Bronte.

“But they only lasted about five minutes before they were inside asking for a movie and hot chocolate.”

Jonah slathered butter on the bread slices and put them on a cooking sheet before sliding them into the oven. “I don’t blame them. It’s cold.”

“At least the snow seems to have stopped, and I don’t think we’re supposed to get any more.”

The doorbell rang again, and Bronte’s gaze shot to Jonah. She was beginning to feel like the White house was Grand Central Station.

“Are you getting your writing done with Jonah here?” Mia asked after Jonah disappeared to answer the door.

Bronte shrugged. “Enough.”

“Martha told us that he wasn’t able to meet up with his family. I wish I could offer him a place to stay, but my house is completely packed with family for Christmas.”

“It’s okay, really. I’m starting to get used to him being here, and this is a big house.

I’m not sure what I’d do all alone.” You’d write your book , one part of her brain told her, while the other part told her that in a big, quiet house like this, she’d be jumping at every little noise.

She should never have opted for such a big house, but then again, it wasn’t like she’d had a ton of options.

“We have two more for dinner!” Jonah declared, stepping back into the kitchen carrying a tray of something, two people following him. “And they brought brownies.”

“And homemade eggnog,” the girl following Jonah declared, holding up a bottle of white liquid.

Jonah set the brownies on the counter, and Bronte didn’t think it was possible after all the cookies that afternoon, but her mouth started watering. “Bronte, this is Dani and her fiancé, Liam.”