Page 9 of Yuletide Cookies (Christmas Card Cowboys #1)

Chapter Nine

The chain bakery already had a line. Eight people waited bundled in scarves and puffy coats, breath clouding in the chilly air.

The corporate windows glowed with neon lighting. A banner announced: WARM UP WITH OUR SIGNATURE HOT CHOCOLATE he simply has to taste this. And I’m texting my sister.” She was already pulling out her phone. “She lives for stuff like this. Real home cooking, you know?”

The doorbell jingled.

Two construction workers who’d been heading to Sweet Delights rerouted and veered over to Foster’s.

A few minutes later, a mom with twin toddlers ordered six biscuits and let the kids make a glorious mess with honey.

Tom grabbed one on his way to work but came back for seconds, then thirds, eating it while standing at the counter.

Eliza scrambled to keep up. She fumbled the tongs, nearly dropped a tray, and burned her thumb on a hot pan.

Meanwhile, Wyatt moved with the same calm he had at 3 AM, as if a rush of customers was no different than serving a crew of drovers from his chuckwagon.

“Hold on a minute,” he said when she came into the kitchen for another tray of biscuits. “Rushing ruins the crumb. Let them cool for thirty seconds. Better to serve it right.”

Easy for him to say. It wasn’t his bakery on the line.

Back in the bakery front, she glanced across the street again. Sweet Delights’ line had dwindled to three people, and one of them was eyeballing Foster’s.

Hot dog! She was drawing customers away from the big corporate bakery that had been stealing business from her since they moved in six months ago.

“Miss?” said an older man at the counter. “My wife and I used to come here when your grandmother ran it. She baked biscuits on Saturday mornings back in the 1970s, but I don’t recall them being as good as these.”

“She did?”

“Yep. Called them ‘Saturday Socials.’ Half the town would show up. People would stay for hours, talking, arguing about football, kids running around.” He paid for four biscuits. “This is the first time it’s felt like that again.”

Wow, that’s what people were buying. Not just biscuits. That feeling. That memory of gathering around food in community.

By the end of the day, she sat at the table in back, counting the take for the third time, as if the number might magically change: $847. In one day! More than she earned all of last week.

She grabbed her calculator and ran the numbers. If she made this much every single day for the next twelve days… over ten thousand dollars.

Which was good, very good, but all that work, all those smiling faces, barely scratched the surface of the forty thousand she owed the bank by Dec. 15th.

And that was gross, not net.

“You’re doing that thing with your jaw,” Wyatt said from where he was seasoning the cast iron skillet.

“What thing?”

“Clenching it. Bad news in those numbers?”

“The best day I’ve had all year and it’s still not enough. Not even close.” She pressed her palms against her eyes. “I could work eighteen-hour days, sell everything perfectly, and still lose this place.”

“You’re carrying a mighty heavy burden, Miss Foster. You sure have my sympathy.”

Sympathy. It was kind, but it didn’t change the math. Even with lines out the door, even with Wyatt’s biscuits pulling customers from across the street, the numbers didn’t come close. Twelve days left. Forty thousand dollars due.

Hope, bright and heady an hour ago, leaked air from her lungs. They could bake every recipe both she and Wyatt knew, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

She was simply out of time.

* * *

Wyatt watched Eliza rest her hands on her hips and let out a soft sigh. When she moved past him to hang up her apron, he caught the sweet vanilla scent that belonged just to her.

Lord help him, he was done for.

“I’m too tired to cook,” she said. “How about supper in town?”

Supper .

She said it casually, like it meant nothing. But where he came from, a man taking a woman to the evening meant something.

“You asking me to escort you, Miss Foster?”

Pink bloomed across her cheeks. Beautiful. Everything about her was beautiful, from that stubborn Foster chin to the way she tucked loose hair behind her ear.

“I’m asking if you want food neither of us has to cook.”

“I’d be honored.”

She grabbed her coat but then stopped. “Hold up. We need a cover story.”

“A cover story?”

“People will ask questions about your dress.” She waved a hand at him. “Here’s the story. You’re my holiday hire since my regular counter help is out on maternity leave.”

He had no idea what that meant, but he rolled with it. “As you wish.”

“You’re dressing as a cowboy cook from 1878 as part of my new marketing campaign. We’re highlighting the origins of Foster’s. We’ve been around since 1878, and so have you. It explains your clothes, speech patterns, everything. You’re method acting, and you never break character.”

So he was to be a performance. A man pretending to be exactly what he was. Irony sat salty on his tongue, but he understood. She was protecting them both.

“Reckon I can manage that. Been playing parts my whole life. Cook, wrangler, ranch hand. What’s one more?”

Outside, he offered his arm from the manners that his grandmother had drummed into him.

Eliza hesitated a moment before slipping her arm through his. Her touch felt so good it scared him.

The place she called Zeke’s glowed with colors that shouldn’t exist. Red, blue, and green. OPEN, the sign said. He stared at it so long that Eliza tugged him forward.

“It’s just neon,” she said.

Just. Nothing was ‘just’ anything in this world.

Men sat at a long counter watching a box that showed moving pictures of other men throwing a ball. The pictures moved as smoothly as life but flat as paper. His brain kept trying to make sense of it and failing.

“We can seat ourselves,” she said and led him over to a table.

Before Eliza reached for her chair, he pulled it out for her, the motion as automatic as breathing.

“Thank you.” Her voice came out smaller and softer than usual.

He took the seat across from her, back to the wall. Old habits. In his time, you watched the door or you might not live to regret it. He cataloged the room. Two doors. Ten windows. That long counter could be vaulted. The chairs would make poor weapons, but better than nothing.

A woman appeared at their table, round and cheerful with eyes that missed nothing, and handed them menus. “Well now, who’s this handsome cowboy?”

“This is Wyatt,” Eliza said. “He’s helping out at the bakery through the holidays.”

“The biscuit man!” The woman pressed a hand to her chest like she’d seen the Second Coming. “Harold wouldn’t shut up about those biscuits. Said they beat his mama’s.” She turned her eyes on him, reminding him of a horse trader sizing up stock. “You single, cowboy?”

“I’m spoken for, ma’am.”

The words came without thought, but once said, he couldn’t take them back. Didn’t want to. Across the table, Eliza’s water glass stopped halfway to her mouth.

The serving woman cackled. “Of course. The good ones always are.” She bumped Eliza’s shoulder with her hip hard enough to rattle the table. “Smart girl, snagging this one up. I’ll give you some time to study the menu.”

“We’re not...” Eliza started, but the woman had already sailed away.

Eliza dropped her face, fighting not to look at him. He could tell by the way she studied that menu like it held universal secrets.

“You gonna correct her?” she asked.

“Are you?”

“No. It’s easier this way. If people think we’re together, other women won’t be batting their lashes at you. Less chance you’ll slip and say something that doesn’t fit the story.”

“Reckon I don’t mind if they believe it.”

The waitress returned with two glasses of water. “What’ll you have?”

Eliza ordered a turkey club.

Wyatt scanned the menu and ordered the only thing he recognized. “Chili.”

“Cornbread or crackers with that?”

“Crackers will be just fine.”

“To drink?”

“Coffee,” Wyatt said. “With sugar.”

“It comes black. You can add your own sweet.” The woman waved at some colorful paper packets in a holder on the table. She turned to Eliza. “You?”

“I’ll just have the water, thanks.”

“Got it.” The woman took their menus and went off again.

Eliza smoothed her napkin, then glanced up like she was forcing herself to fill the silence. “So do you have brothers or sisters?”

“Had a sister. Rose. Younger by five years.” His jaw tightened. “Ma died bringing her into the world. Pa never took another wife. So it was just the two of us kids, mostly, until Rose passed.”

“I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“Fever took her.”

The words landed heavy between them, and he busied himself straightening the edge of his napkin. He didn’t ask about her siblings. She’d already told him she had a brother who lived in Florida.

Eliza’s eyes softened, though she didn’t press. Just gave one quiet nod.

The food arrived, and she looked relieved to have something else to focus on besides small talk. They dove in, and for a few minutes, just ate.

“This is...” He had no words. In his time, food was fuel. You ate to keep working. This was something else entirely.

“Good?”

“It’s like someone took all the best parts of every good meal I ever ate and stacked them together.” He took another bite, unable to suppress the sound that escaped. Pure pleasure. “Reckon I could live on this.”

When the check came, it was a piece of paper with numbers that stunned his mind. Twelve whole dollars for one bowl of chili? He reached for the bills folded in his vest pocket, fretting he didn’t have nearly enough to cover it.

Eliza’s hand caught his wrist. Soft fingers, strong grip. His pulse kicked like a spooked horse. “I’ve got this one.”

“A gentleman pays for...”

She shook her head, and he got the message. Something else he didn’t understand about her world. She gave the server a shiny rectangle card that the woman took as if it were money.

Eliza lowered her voice and leaned in. “Besides, your money is from 1878. Might raise questions. Save those. They’re not spendable in this world.”

“I can’t let you pay for everything.”

“Consider it your salary. You worked hard today.” Eliza slid modern money across the table to Wyatt. “You’ll need this.”

He stared at the paper, lighter and slicker than the money he knew. Not real to him, but real enough in her time.

“Eliza, I?—”

“Please, just take it. You’re in my world now.”

Finally, he nodded and folded the bills into his vest pocket. He didn’t like it, but he was a fish out of water, and he didn’t know how to swim in her pond.