Page 11 of Yuletide Cookies (Christmas Card Cowboys #1)

Chapter Eleven

Each time Wyatt’s eyes closed, he was back on the Ferris wheel, Eliza’s hand in his, the town below glowing like spilled diamonds on black velvet.

For one suspended moment between earth and sky, he believed the lie that he could belong here. That wanting it so could rewrite the rules of time.

But morning came cold and honest, stripping that comfort down to truth. Wanting her was worse than foolish. It was selfish.

She lived in a world where his bones were dust. She belonged to electric lights and motor cars and a thousand miracles he would never fully understand.

And back in 1878, if time still moved there, if that world hadn’t simply frozen when he’d vanished, today was the crossing at Red Creek.

The knowledge sat in his gut like a stone.

Right now, the herd bunched at the banks, three thousand head of longhorn cattle waiting to cross on their way south to winter in a warmer climate. The fellas would be checking their ropes and calculating the swim in that tight silence before dangerous work.

His replacement might be burning the coffee or putting too much salt in the biscuits. Captain Murray would pace, wondering if his cook deserted or died.

Fifteen men waiting for food. He’d never missed a crossing. Not through lightning storms that turned the noon sky black. Not through fever that had him seeing ghosts in the dust. Not once in eight years of trail work.

Until now.

He forced the guilt down where it couldn’t choke him, got up, and went to work.

The old stove knew him now, took his coaxing like an old horse that remembered its training. Flames caught the wood with that hungry whisper sounding the same in any century.

The kitchen door swung open at 3 a.m., and Eliza stepped in, hair pinned back, apron strings knotted at her waist. She moved to the counter, washed her hands, set out a bowl, and then glanced his way.

“Morning.”

“Mornin’.” He didn’t lift his head from the dough, though his body tensed, fully aware of her.

She cracked eggs into the bowl, shells snapping neatly. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes.” The lie slid easily, though the truth of it weighed heavy in his chest. He’d stared at the rafters half the night, the memory of her hand in his burning against his brain.

“Me too,” she said, but he couldn’t help thinking she was fibbing as well.

And that was the end of their conversation. They worked together in silence until she fiddled with a box on the windowsill, and music jumped out. “Jingle Bells,” a song he knew.

She hummed along, going about her tasks. He kept sneaking sidelong glances at her, admiring her melodious voice and the lithe way she moved.

Several minutes later, she said, “I need a big batch of sugar cookies for a special order. If I showed you how to use my ovens, could you make them for me while I man the front counter when we open?”

He bobbed his head. “I’ll sure give it a try.”

“There’s not much to it. The oven will be preheated. All you have to do is pop the cookies in for ten minutes once the dough is ready.” She demonstrated how to set the timer. Then she took a recipe card from a small tin box. “Here’s the recipe.”

“I can handle it.”

“Thanks. You’re a lifesaver. Normally, I have someone running the counter while I bake, but Angie just had a baby. I would have hired a temp worker, but that bakery across the street destroyed my budget. I gotta say, Wyatt, you showed up at just the right time.”

Pride swelled in his chest. “Happy to help.”

At six a.m., it was time to open the shop. Eliza gave him a soft smile and left him alone in the kitchen to bake.

The bell rang like a church chime calling the faithful. Customers wanting biscuits and asking about her cowboy baker as if he were part of the fixtures after only two days on the job.

By durn, he was good help.

Wyatt smiled, finished up the biscuits, and moved on to the sugar cookies. With these, he felt a little less sure of himself. Oh, he knew how to make cookies, but her ovens and gadgets gave him pause.

He bent over the metal bowl of dough, stirring with a wooden spoon. The motion belonged to his muscles the way breathing did. Circle and fold. Circle and fold. The same rhythm the grandmother who raised him after Ma died had taught him.

A shuffling of feet drew his attention. A boy standing in the doorway.

Jamie. Those black cushions covered his ears, his gaze fixed on the bowl.

Wyatt loaded the spoon with dough and held it out. “Wanna taste?”

Joy came over Jamie’s face like sunrise over the plains. He took the spoon with both hands and licked it clean. “Sweet.”

“Wyatt! What on earth are you doing?”

He jerked his head up.

Eliza stood in the doorway, color draining from her face. She looked shocked, upset, but mostly angry. What on earth had he done?

She forced a tight smile and held out her hand. “Jamie, let’s get you back to your mom, sweetheart.”

Jamie handed the spoon back to Wyatt and walked over to Eliza. She guided him toward the front.

Wyatt stood frozen, the mixing bowl heavy as lead in his hands. What had he done wrong? What rule of this strange world had he broken?

Eliza came back without Jamie, the false smile falling away. “Wyatt, you can never do that again.”

Dread crawled cold up his spine. “Do what?”

“Give a child raw cookie dough.” Her hands pressed flat against the counter, fingers spread like she was trying to push through the wood.

He shook his head, confused, knowing he’d displeased her somehow. Regret tasted like bitterweed on the back of his tongue.

“Raw eggs carry salmonella. It lives in the eggs, invisible, waiting to infect people. It can put them in the hospital. Children especially.” She gulped. “Sometimes it even kills them.”

Huh? He looked at the spoon, still damp from the boy’s tongue. In his world, letting a child lick the spoon was kindness. Something his mother had done for him. Here, it was a poison he couldn’t see or smell or taste.

“I meant no harm.”

“I know.” Her voice gentled, but her eyes stayed worried. “But things work differently now. Food safety laws. Liability. One sick child, a lawsuit, and we lose everything. The bakery. Our reputation.”

Shame pressed down on him. On the trail, he kept fifteen men alive through blizzards and hot waves; through drought that cracked the earth like broken pottery; through fever and injury and hunger.

Here, he could destroy her business with one moment’s kindness, could sicken a trusting child, could ruin everything she fought to save.

He nodded as his throat closed tight as a fist.

She slipped back to the front, but the weight of his failure stayed. The bowl of cookie dough in his hands looked like something deadly now.

He retreated to the storeroom, needing the dark and quiet, needing distance from the cozy kitchen where he had no business pretending he belonged.

The painted Christmas card waited on its shelf.

He crouched before it, knees cracking, hand hovering inches from the surface. No pull. No sign it remembered bringing him here or cared about taking him back.

Jamie’s trusting face rose in his mind. Those little hands taking the spoon. The pure happiness at such a simple pleasure.

And Eliza’s face when she’d caught him.

Maybe the merciful thing was to return to where the rules made sense. Where he couldn’t hurt anyone through simple ignorance.

Nutmeg stretched on the air mattress, dropped to the floor, and padded to him on silent paws. She wound around his legs. Her purr rumbled in the quiet. He crouched down to pet her.

If the card would take him, he would leave right now, except he hadn’t told her goodbye. He promised her that he wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.

* * *

After admonishing Wyatt, Eliza went back to the storefront to apologize to Fiona.

She’d trusted Wyatt to take care of things when she shouldn’t have. Not because he wasn’t trustworthy, but because he did not know the rules of 2025. She was the negligent one. This was on her.

Jamie pressed against his mother’s side, fingers tugging the hem of her coat, his other hand pressed against his mouth.

Eliza rang up Fiona’s purchase. “I don’t want to alarm you, but Jamie got a taste of raw cookie dough in the kitchen.”

“Oh, Eliza. That boy has eaten half-mixed brownie batter, cake batter, and God knows what else from my bowls at home. His immune system could survive nuclear fallout at this point.”

The knot in Eliza’s chest loosened a fraction. “Still. It happened in my kitchen. I’m responsible.”

She handed over the paper bag, fingers lingering on the Foster’s Bakery stamp, a silhouette of wheat stalks that her grandmother designed decades ago.

“Stop.” Fiona gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Kids get into things, and your cowboy was trying to be kind. Jamie doesn’t take to many people, but he likes Wyatt.”

Your cowboy.

Warmth crawled up Eliza’s neck and burned across her cheeks. She pushed the feeling down, locking it away with all the other impossible things she couldn’t afford to feel.

“He’s not my cowboy. He’s just hired help.”

Fiona shook her head. “Eliza, whatever’s going on with you and that man, don’t let fear make your choices. He likes you, and I think you like him too.”

“There are things you don’t know about,” Eliza said. And wouldn’t understand if I told you.

“Whatever happens, I’m here for you if you want to talk.” Picking up her sack, Fiona and Jamie left the store, the bell singing goodbye.

Eliza stood in the sudden quiet, Fiona’s words echoing in her head. Outside, snowflakes drifted past the window, each one a tiny clock counting down the time she had left before everything changed.

She needed to find Wyatt and smooth over the scolding she’d given him. She’d overreacted.

The storeroom door stood ajar, a slice of shadow visible through the gap. She knocked, then pushed through.

Wyatt stood by the metal shelving, shoulders curved inward, head bent, studying his hands like they belonged to someone else. Nutmeg curled up at his feet, the cat offering silent companionship to the displaced man.

The single overhead bulb cast stark shadows across his face, highlighting the angles of his cheekbones and the furrow between his brows.

At the sound of her footsteps on the concrete, he straightened and brushed his hands down his trousers.

“I’m so sorry I hurt that boy.”

She moved closer, noting how his gaze tracked her, but his feet stayed planted. Not retreating, not advancing. Waiting. The distance between them felt like more than just physical space.

“Fiona’s not upset. Jamie will be fine.”

He searched her face with weary eyes. Eyes that had seen a world she could only imagine through history books and faded photographs.

“I messed up,” he said.

“You couldn’t have known. Everything’s different here. Raw eggs, pasteurization dates, temperature controls. You’re learning a whole new set of rules that didn’t exist in your time.”

The absurdity of their situation struck her anew. A cowboy from 1878, standing in her storeroom, worried about food safety regulations. If she hadn’t witnessed his arrival herself. The lightning flash, the heat, his disoriented stumble into her storeroom. She would never have believed it.

His jaw muscle ticked. “Seems everything I know how to do is wrong here.” The defeat in his voice reached into her chest and twisted.

“Wyatt, I need to tell you something.”

“Yes?” He studied at her with an openness that hurt. No one in 2025 looked at people like that anymore, direct, unguarded, without the protective layer of sarcasm so many seemed to wear these days.

“I’ve been over this a hundred ways, and no matter what I do, the bakery simply can’t be saved.” Her voice stalled in her throat, but she forced the words out. “Forty thousand in twelve days. It’s impossible.”

“Don’t quit, Eliza. A fight’s not over while you’re still breathing. Sometimes the miracle comes at the last minute. Sometimes what you need shows up when you’ve stopped looking.”

The words struck like ice water. Was he talking about the bakery? Or something else?

“That’s rich, Wyatt.” She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze head-on. “You were quitting yourself. Don’t think I don’t know what you were doing in here. Trying to fire up that Christmas card.”

Guilt flickered across his face. The painted card sat on the shelf, innocent as a sleeping snake.

Somewhere in the bakery, a timer shrilled. Neither of them moved. Nutmeg stretched, unconcerned with human drama.

“I have no choice. It’s out of my hands. But I won’t go out with a whimper. This Saturday is the annual Christmas showcase. I will make it Foster’s goodbye event.” She swallowed hard, memories flooding back. “But I can’t do it alone. Will you help me?”

He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. His calloused hand reached out, hesitated, then rested lightly on her shoulder, a soft touch from another time.

“I’m not going anywhere, Eliza. Not until this is done.”