Page 5 of Only for the Season

“Go on home,” I tell Holly. “I’ll handle the front.”

She lifts her eyebrows. “While you bake?”

“Sure.”

“Do you not remember what happened the last time you tried to handle the front while baking?”

“Maybe I wanted the fire department to come.” I wiggle my eyebrows. “The new recruit is pretty cute.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. You complained non-stop about how they overreacted.”

“They totally did.”

“The smoke alarms went off.”

“Fire does not always follow smoke.”

“Your Blackbeard’s revenge cookies were burnt to a crisp.”

“But there was no fire.”

“Whatever,” she mumbles. “It’s time to open.”

She pushes through the door to the front, but I chase after her. “I’m serious, Holly. You should go home.”

She motions toward the door where a line of customers has formed. “No way. You’re too busy baking pies to handle customers today.”

“I can do it.”

“Don’t you have to deliver all those pies before noon?”

Crap on a rusty smuggler’s ship. I did promise to deliver all the pies this morning. What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking. I was envisioning dollar signs.

“I don’t want you to miss Thanksgiving with your family.”

“We don’t eat until this afternoon.” She grins. “Mom’s just mad because I can’t help in the kitchen this morning because I’m here.”

“In other words, you should thank me.”

She rolls her eyes as she hurries to the door to open the bakery. “Good morning. Who’s ready for some pastries this morning?”

I leave her to it and return to the kitchen to finish the Thanksgiving pie orders.

“Parker!” Holly shouts sometime later.

I sigh. She usually only asks me to come to the front if someone’s complaining. She doesn’t handle criticism. But she doesn’t mind soaking up all the comments about my baked goodies.

I force myself to smile before joining her. “How can I help?”

She motions to the customer at the front of the line. “Sloane wants to order a pie. For today.”

“Sorry, Sloane. I stopped accepting Thanksgiving orders last week.”

“But you don’t understand.”

I do understand. I’ve known Sloane since we were both kids running around the island getting into trouble for tormenting the tourists by giving them false directions and winding them up about ‘mermaid’ sightings.

Which is why I know she probably forgot all about the holiday until she woke up this morning and saw the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on her television. Sloane doesn’t understand the concept of keeping an agenda. Let alone, actually referring to it from time to time.