Page 3 of Spicy or Sweet (Wintermore #2)

SHAY

I’ve been doing this for long enough to know better than to shake a bottle of food color without triple-checking the cap. Yet here I am, splattered with red like an extra in a slasher movie. This couldn’t have happened on a worse day.

“Shit,” I curse, looking for somewhere to drop the dripping bottle without causing more carnage.

It’s no easy feat: almost thirty years as a baker, and I still work like a tornado.

I like to do a big cleanup at the end of the day, the repetition of it helping me switch off.

Which is fine, until I’m in a rush in the middle of my workday and can’t find an empty spot.

Eventually, I just drop the bottle in the sink and wince as color splatters up the sides. I quickly strip off my apron and wash my hands before hurrying to my supply shelves in search of a new bottle of cherry red.

I scan the shelves: maroon, burgundy, coral. Every damn shade of pink. But no cherry red. I leave the kitchen to check out front, in the café portion of my patisserie. When it’s quiet, Gracie, who covers the café side of things, sometimes mixes up frosting behind the counter for me.

She’s wiping down the inside of the window as I check her stash. No cherry red. It’s a popular color in Wintermore, and I go through it like water. Only in a Christmas-obsessed town like this would an eleven-year-old request a Santa-themed cake for her birthday in September.

None of the other reds I have will do, and there’s nothing I can mix to get the perfect shade to match the rest of the cake.

A quick glance at my phone confirms that I won’t have enough time to get to the kitchen supply store in Jackson before it closes, and this cake is being picked up first thing tomorrow morning.

In other words, I’m screwed. Unless… I peer through the gleaming window, my gaze landing on the bakery across the street. The Enchanted Bakery is bustling with customers.

The family of the owner, Noelle Whitten, is Christmas royalty in this town.

There’s no way she doesn’t keep cherry red on hand.

Unfortunately, for reasons I’ve yet to figure out, Noelle despises me.

I’ve tried to mend whatever bridge I’ve apparently burned, and I always try to talk to her when we cross paths, but nothing seems to change her feelings toward me.

And only me. As far as I can tell, Noelle is a ray of sunshine to everyone else in Wintermore.

“Gracie, would you mind going over to The Enchanted Bakery and asking if they have a bottle of cherry red food color we can borrow? I can replace it in a couple of days.”

“No can do,” Gracie replies, wrinkling her nose. “My ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend just started working there. Remember?”

Right. Nothing could have prepared me for the amount of drama I’d learn about from hiring a twenty-year-old. I’m only forty-six, but Gracie makes me feel ancient.

“But aren’t you dating her ex-boyfriend now? Surely it all cancels each other out.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

I bite my tongue and check the clock above the counter. I have a little over fifteen minutes until my meeting, which gives me just enough time to stop in across the street on the way.

“I’m heading out. I should be back in an hour, two tops,” I say, grabbing my denim jacket from the hook as I rush out the door, skipping across the street and tugging it on.

Most people would call me crazy for preferring Wyoming’s all-over-the-place weather to sunny California, but I like seeing the passage of time in the turn of the leaves.

Things fall apart, people die, and dreams fade into nothing, but the world keeps turning and the seasons keep changing. It’s comforting.

Although The Enchanted Bakery is technically a Christmas-themed bakery, Noelle has done an amazing job of making it not feel overwhelming.

There are pine boughs, holly, mistletoe, twinkling lights, and pinecones everywhere, and the place smells like apples and cinnamon, but it all comes together tastefully.

To say it’s taken off since she opened last year—on Christmas Eve, of course—would be an understatement.

I’ve had a steady stream of customers since opening épices et Sucré, but the bulk of my business comes from orders for special occasion cakes.

I’d bet money that Noelle makes just as much from her café as she does from her bakery orders.

From the second she opens the door to the second she locks it, the place is packed.

It’s busy enough that I have to take a deep breath, focusing on the gaps between customers as I weave my way to the front.

I swear she could quadruple the size of the café and still not have enough space for everyone who wants to eat in.

I hover by the end of the counter for a moment until someone comes close enough for me to speak to them.

“Hey. Bryce, right?”

Gracie’s ex’s new girlfriend raises a brow. “Yeah.”

“Shay Harland. I own épices et Sucré across the street.”

Recognition dawns on her face, but she doesn’t speak any further, so I continue.

“I was hoping you might have a bottle of cherry red MiraColor food color I could borrow.”

Bryce shrugs. “I don’t know.”

For the love of god. “Is there someone I could ask that might know?”

She points over her shoulder at a door. “You can go back.”

“Thanks.”

The kitchen door is framed with a garland of baubles, and there’s a kitschy “Santa’s Elves Only!” sign that looks hand-painted. It’s cute.

I push the door open and swallow at the sight of the bustling kitchen. It’s a world away from my quiet kitchen across the street—but somehow more organized, considering there are at least five people working in here.

No one looks up as I close the door behind me. I recognize the level of focus in the eyes of the woman piping macarons closest to the door, and I know better than to interrupt.

I peer around, looking for someone who doesn’t look like they’re in the middle of something, but there’s only one person not actively mixing, decorating, or slicing.

Noelle is standing in the back corner, flicking through some kind of paperwork. She’s not who I would have chosen to ask, but she’s my best option, so I carefully move across the kitchen and stop in front of her.

She looks up, confusion that’s quickly replaced by annoyance, flickering on her face.

“Hi!” I say brightly, but that just seems to piss her off more. “Bryce said I could come back.”

Noelle looks over my shoulder at the door, her lips in a thin line, and something tells me Bryce isn’t going to be in her good books.

“Can I help you?” she says without looking back at me.

I don’t know how old she is, but Noelle is a lot younger than me.

Yet, somehow, she makes me feel like I’m about to be scolded by a teacher or something.

I’m not sure where her family is from, but her dad and uncle both have thick southern drawls.

Noelle’s accent is deep and rich, with only a little twang now and again.

“I was wondering if you had a bottle of MiraColor cherry red I could borrow? I’ll replace it, but I spilled my last bottle, and I need it to finish a custom cake, and I have a meeting, so I can’t get to Jackson and I—” I close my mouth as Noelle turns away from me, stalking across the floor toward the cabinets lining the side of the kitchen.

She’s tall, but she still has to stand on her tiptoes to rummage around the top shelf. I take her in, dragging my eyes up the long line of her body.

In the years I’ve lived in Wintermore, Noelle must have had hair every color of the rainbow, but right now it’s a pretty purple. It makes her blue eyes pop, and her rosy cheeks somehow pinker. She’s beautiful all year, but I’ve noticed the change in her as the leaves have turned.

It’s clear she’s exhausted—there are smudges under her eyes and every bone in her body seems tense—but I see her in the morning when she steps outside and breathes in the crisp fall air.

I’ve seen how her eyes sparkle, how, for a moment, it doesn’t seem like the weight of the world is on her shoulders.

“Here you go.” She turns and thrusts a brand-new bottle of cherry red into my hand. Thank god.

“Thank you so much. You’re a lifesaver, seriously. I’ll replace it as soon as my order comes—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, quickly cutting me off. She clears her throat, crossing her arms. “I actually have to run. I have a meeting at The Frosty Bean.”

It’s clear she wants me to leave. I’m not ignorant of the fact that she doesn’t like being around me. Which is why it makes no sense for me to open my mouth and reply, “I do too! Let’s walk over together.”

Noelle isn’t an asshole. She doesn’t like me, I know that, but she’s never overtly impolite. Just a little short with me. I can’t imagine her being rude, but, for a moment, I can tell she wants to be.

The polite thing for me to do would be to make up an excuse to run back across the street, but Noelle closes her eyes and sighs before I get the chance.

“Sure. Let’s.”

I swear I can hear her gritted teeth.

She calls goodbye and leads me out the back door into a little courtyard area with trash cans, a pile of broken-down cardboard boxes, and a small shelter with chopped logs.

I’ve seen the smoke coiling from the chimney in her apartment, and I’ve spent many cold nights a little jealous.

The virtual fireplace I put on my TV sometimes doesn’t hit the same as a real one.

Noelle cuts around the side of the building and through the tight alleyway, leading us back to the main street.

“Why don’t you just go through the café?” I ask as she crosses her arms across her chest. Surely it would be faster.

“Whenever I step foot in the café, everyone wants to talk to me. To ask about my family, the toy store, if I have a girlfriend yet. Small-town shit,” she says with a shrug.