Page 14 of Sweet Christmas Wish
“Anyway, it turns out she doesn’t live in Snowy Pine Ridge anymore, but Sarah—you remember Michelle’s little sister, right?—anyway, Sarah said that Michelle’s coming back to visit for the holidays. She should be here in a week or so.”
“Of course I remember her. What’s she like these days? Is she as great as Michelle used to be?”
William became uncomfortable, although he wasn’t quite sure why.
“She’s very nice,” was all he said, although he couldn’t help picturing Sarah’s enormous brown eyes and the swish of her thick blonde ponytail.
Somehow, he’d never really noticed that about her in high school, but they were really quite charming. Not that he was interested, he reminded himself, but he couldn’t lie about having noticed them now. And it wasn’t just her looks, either. The way she acted so cheerful about being the only one to stay behind and keep the bakery running single-handedly? That showed a grit and strength of character he knew most didn’t possess. She didn’t talk about it, but if he were to guess he would think that running the business alone had to be lonely, especially when it had started out as a family affair.
“Anyway,” he continued, realizing he’d gotten lost in his thoughts. “Thanks for calling, man. Is everything good back home?”
“Yep, same as usual. You know the drill—work, eat, sleep, repeat.”
William shuddered inwardly, not ready to think about that yet. “Well, thanks for calling, like I said. Talk soon?”
“Sure thing. Bye.”
William hung up the phone, slipping it back into his pocket. As he picked up his latte and took a long sip, his thoughts returned to Sarah, although he wasn’t sure why. Despite her flustered attitude a couple of the times they’d talked, there was something endearing about her, something that attracted his attention, although he wasn’t sure why. He decided as he finished his latte and headed back out to the slopes that he wouldn’t think about it, but his mind had a hard time following his instructions the rest of the afternoon.
* * *
Some days, it seemed like everything went wrong, and it was one of those days for Sarah. Since the moment her alarm had gone off at four a.m. that morning, it had been crisis after crisis. Sure, some of them were little, like stubbing her toe so hard it brought tears to her eyes and left her hopping on one foot while getting out of the shower. That had been annoying—and painful—but it hadn’t been too bad, really. No, things had really gone downhill once she’d gotten to Sweet Thing.
As she’d hurried around the bakery’s kitchen, whipping up the day’s pastries, she’d noticed a burning smell. One of her two industrial ovens had overheated, burning a batch of cinnamon rolls to charred crisps.
She had almost cried right then and there, but she had pulled it together, gritting her teeth and reminding herself with forced cheeriness that things like this just happened sometimes, and she’d set about making another batch. She’d even managed to sing while mixing together the cinnamon and sugar for the filling, trying to pull on her reserves of inner strength and her usual optimism.
Later, though, the bakery had been unexpectedly busy. She’d spent the morning running in and out of the kitchen and the front room trying to keep the pastry case stocked and see to the rush of never-ending customers. With all the chaos and confusion, she’d mixed up more orders than she could count, and she could only hope that folks weren’t too mad about the mistakes and that they would still come back to her bakery on another day.
She couldn’t afford to lose business. To top it all off, she’d ended up running out of her signature pumpkin spice cream cheese muffins, a crowd favorite and one that always sold well. She would have made extra that morning, but she’d been too busy dealing with the cinnamon roll crisis.
By the time four p.m. rolled around, she was exhausted and feeling like she might collapse where she stood. When Tiffany came in for her shift, Sarah could have cried with relief, grateful to hand off the front counter to the high school student.
Tiffany, fresh and full of energy, began corralling the chaos that was the front counter, wiping it down, gathering scattered receipts, and restocking napkins. Seeing that Tiffany had things well in hand, Sarah stepped into the kitchen and rested her back against the wall, closing her eyes and taking a moment to simply breathe.
She didn’t have long to let herself rest, though. Opening her eyes, her gaze landed on the enormous stack of mail that had been piling up for the past couple of days. She simply hadn’t had time to get around to it, but she squared her shoulders and grabbed the stack, ready to sort through it, wishing she didn’t have to run all aspects of the business by herself.
At least the task of opening mail is easy,she reminded herself.Half of it is probably junk mail anyway.
She quickly sorted through the stack, tossing aside promotional offers for credit cards and flyers until just the important pieces remained. Grabbing the top letter, she tore it open and pulled out what she thought would be a routine bill, but her stomach dropped when she realized it was anything but.
A few months ago she’d had to take out a loan to buy a new, much-needed oven for the bakery, and this bill was telling her that the first huge payment was due. She dropped the letter and lifted a trembling hand to her forehead. She had forgotten all about the upcoming payment, what with all the chaos of running the bakery by herself. She had never been the most organized person, but that had gotten far worse since her family had left.
She stared at the bill that glared up at her, the staggering total searing itself into her brain. Her breath came in ragged, desperate gasps. She didn’t have the money in the bakery’s account to make that payment, and she had no idea how she was going to come up with the cash, either.
What am I going to do?she thought as the first tear fell, sliding down her cheek and landing squarely on the bill.
CHAPTEREIGHT
“Come on, Baxter, it’s bath time,” Derek said, kneeling to unlatch Baxter’s giant dog crate.
The enormous husky walked out, well-trained after spending years with Derek, and trailed him obediently to the washing station Derek had installed a few years back.
With so many dogs to take care of, it only made sense to install a dedicated washing station for the dogs’ baths, and Derek had more than once been grateful he’d made the decision to have it built. It made taking care of his multiple teams of dogs just a little easier—although bath time would never fully be easy, at least with the younger, more energetic pups. He’d had more than one messy bath time that ended in a fully-lathered pup running around the room, leaving a trail of soap suds and spraying water on everything.
Baxter stepped into the washing station calmly, waiting for the process of bath time to begin and Derek smiled down at him, giving him a good scratching behind his ears. He had a soft spot for Baxter, one of his team leads. He could always count on the dog to remain loyal, steadfast, and obedient.
Derek turned the water on, waiting until it came out of the shower nozzle warm before beginning to spray Baxter down. Even though bath time wasn’t his favorite chore, he wouldn’t trade his work for the world. It was his whole life, his whole purpose, apart from the woman he loved more than he had ever imagined possible.
