Page 7 of Spicy or Sweet (Wintermore #2)

NOELLE

There’s something about seeing my whole family crowded around my parents’ kitchen table. It’s the same one we’ve had since we moved to Wintermore, and so many memories have been made here.

Rora’s first Whitten family dinner, when she was seven and I was eight, and we already knew we were meant to find each other.

Celebratory hot chocolate after surviving our first holiday season in The Enchanted Workshop.

Being surrounded by glitter and markers, making signs when Felix and his best friend, Quinn, decided to try football one year—and hated it.

Me and Rora staying up past midnight the day after we found out we would be hundreds of miles apart for college.

Rora and Uncle Henry telling us they were having a baby.

I love it here. This town, this home, this family.

Between the movie, the café, and Shay goddamn Harland, everything feels a little out of whack right now, but being here helps.

Of course, the movie is everyone’s favorite topic of conversation tonight.

A Christmas Wish in the Mountains is, to this day, my parents’ favorite movie.

It’s not that the movie itself is any good—though, by made-for-TV Christmas movie standards, it’s not bad—but what it did for our family.

My dad says the moment he saw Wintermore on our old box TV, he knew that was where the Whitten family was meant to be. And he was right.

Needless to say, he and my mom are excited about the new movie. Technically, it’s a secret, for now, which means the whole town is pretending they don’t know about it.

“Doesn’t it feel like kismet?” my dad asks, rubbing the top of my head as he passes the table on his way to the fridge. “Our family toy store appearing in the very movie franchise that made us open it!”

“I don’t think you can call it a movie franchise with two movies, Dad,” Felix points out, but my dad is too happy to pay him any mind.

Felix didn’t protest The Enchanted Workshop’s involvement in the movie:

“Abigail says it’ll be great for social media,” he told us, and that meant he’d agreed.

Whatever Abigail says goes in The Enchanted Workshop these days.

As it should—Felix made the best decision he’s ever made in hiring his best friend’s sister.

She has a knack for business that makes me wonder how nobody noticed it earlier.

“What do you think about all of this?” I ask Rora. She’s been awfully quiet, considering how much she loathes A Christmas Wish in the Mountains, and what it did to her hometown.

Unlike my parents, Rora’s settled in Wintermore long before the movie was even thought of because they were photographers looking for a quiet, scenic place to raise their daughter.

Seven years and one movie later, Wintermore was so full of tourists that they couldn’t work here anymore.

The pressure of it all destroyed their marriage and made Rora hate all things Christmas.

Her parents are back together now, and I (unfortunately) know that she has a thing for my uncle Henry when he’s dressed up as Santa, so I assume she’s mostly over it. Still, her nose wrinkles at the question.

“I don’t know,” she says, stroking Sunny’s cheek where it rests on my uncle Henry’s shoulder.

“It kind of messes with our plans a little. We were hoping to stick around town for a while longer than we originally planned, but if it’s going to be as busy as it was when we were kids…

It’s just not how I want our kids to grow up. ”

I don’t miss the plural “kids,” and neither does my mom, if the smile she hides behind her hand is anything to go by. She knows better than to comment, but anyone with eyes could see how much they love being parents, and I’d be surprised if Rora wasn’t pregnant again before Sunny’s first birthday.

Wintermore was a great place to grow up—for nine months of the year.

It was busy, sure, but manageable. November through January, though…

Main Street was like Times Square every day for three months straight.

I love people, and I love Christmas, but even I remember the relief of days we didn’t have to leave the house.

I don’t want kids of my own, but I see Rora’s point.

“Word on the street is that you’re going to be working with Shay Harland,” my mom says.

I roll my eyes. Secrets in small towns, I swear to god.

Shay probably told Gracie, who probably told her boyfriend, who probably told his mom, and so on and so forth.

I don’t know where Shay’s from originally, but she’s probably not used to the small-town rumor mill.

She’s been here for a few years, but, as far as I can tell, she isn’t close to anyone in town.

She earned every bit of success her patisserie has had. The town didn’t show up and just hand it to her.

“Yeah, I am. They want to film in both of our places, and Shay and I are going to be baking the stuff for the baking competition in the movie.”

Rora’s eyebrows practically reach her hairline. “Together?”

Even Sunny has an expression of disbelief.

“Together,” I confirm. “Trust me, I’m as unhappy about it as you might expect.”

“I don’t know why you can’t just get along, Noelle,” my mom scolds me. “Shay’s a sweetheart, and there’s plenty of space in this town for both of you.”

“We get along fine. I don’t have to be her bestie.”

I’m well aware that “get along” is an exaggeration, and all of the effort has been on Shay’s side.

My mom isn’t wrong; there’s enough space in Wintermore for both of our businesses to thrive.

Hell, at this point, I reckon there could be a whole street of bakeries, and we’d all manage just fine.

Wintermorons (the official term, for some godforsaken reason) love their treats.

But it’s not about Shay starting her business first. Not anymore. It’s about the easy smile on her face when I see her walking out of épices et Sucré every night. It’s about the weight of the world that’s on my shoulders, not hers.

Needless to say, I’m grown enough to know it’s not about Shay. But that doesn’t mean I have to like her.

“You could say no,” Uncle Henry suggests, bouncing a cooing Sunny. “You shouldn’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

“You’d think, but apparently I have an obligation to Wintermore after all it’s done for me.”

My mom narrows her eyes. “Is that what Angela Blackwood told you?”

“It’s fine, Mom. I’ve already agreed, and she has a point. I’ll always be grateful to the movie for bringing us here, and I should do my part.”

My family doesn’t look convinced, but the last thing I want to do is worry them. I try my best not to show how much I’m struggling with the weight of everything, and how much the pressure of our family name has been more of a burden than a blessing this past year.

I am grateful, that part isn’t a lie. I’m just stretched too thin.

And I know if my family knew how much I was struggling with everything, they wouldn’t hesitate to jump in and help—just like I know that I could probably stand to outsource a chunk of my work, and set some boundaries with the townsfolk, so I could actually get in the kitchen again.

But this is everything I’ve ever wanted, and I can’t bring myself to give up any responsibility or leave anything to chance.