Holiday Reunion (Hollyberry Harbor #1)

Chapter 10

TEN

“Like your bakery?” The words seemed to have escaped James’s mouth before he had a chance to rein them in. He immediately realized his mistake and snapped his mouth shut, but the damage had been done.

Sarah frowned at him, uncertainty in her eyes and James backpedaled as quickly as he could. “I only mean to say that sometimes even businesses struggle. You can’t account for dips in the stock market or when suppliers change what they offer. It can be… frustrating… not to feel like you have perfect control over everything.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “It is.”

Relief washed over him. That had been a close call. He shouldn’t have brought up her business, not with what he knew now—not after the call from the bank he’d received.

Sarah would know soon enough if she didn’t already that her bakery was being taken from her.

He felt sick at the thought of keeping this from her. Clearly, she’d seen that he was distressed by something. It wasn’t even so much the business side of things that bothered him. He worried about how she was going to take it. Her heart would be broken into a million pieces. The bakery was her one link to the past that she had refused to give up.

Sure, there would be several festivals to come. Annually, they’d return right along with the holiday spirit. But it wouldn’t be the same. Her sense of community was so deeply interwoven with the bakery that not even the most skilled surgeon could surgically remove them from one another.

James cleared his throat then coughed at the sour taste that remained there. “I wanted to talk to you about something. It’s really important.”

She eyed him warily, skating a few inches from him, leaving him colder than he thought possible. “James,” she warned, “please don’t do this.”

Two different sides battled it out inside him. The man who loved this woman had been divided. He needed to tell her because it wasn’t healthy to run from reality. And at the same time, he couldn’t breathe a word because she’d begged him not to.

Which side was the right one?

He closed his eyes, and finally made up his mind. “We need to talk about your bakery.”

She held up both hands and shook her head. “Unless you’re wanting to know what I’m putting on the menu next week, then we’re not discussing anything.”

He sighed. “Sarah be reasonable. There won’t be a menu next week.”

Sarah stared at him with the most obvious look of betrayal she’d ever given him. Without another word, she dropped his hand and skated toward the exit.

“Sarah! Wait!” James skated after her, nearly plowing through a group of children. Thankfully, they were better skaters than he was, and they managed to dart around him. “Sarah, don’t go,” he called out.

Once she reached the edge of the ice, she was slowed down by the rubber sidewalk. She didn’t look back at him as she marched awkwardly toward the benches reserved for putting on and taking off the skates.

By the time James made it to her side, she had one skate off. He scrambled to remove his own and replace them with his snow boots. Sarah ignored every plea for her to listen to him. She turned in her boots then headed down the street. He caught her just as they left the sound of the crowd at the rink.

James grabbed onto her upper arm and pulled her to a stop. “Please talk to me.”

She wrenched her arm away from him, her eyes dark and full of fury. “You promised you wouldn’t bring up business.”

“I know, but?—”

“And you’re still talking about it.” She threw her hands into the air with exasperation. “I don’t want to discuss anything about my bakery. I don’t want to talk about the harbor. I don’t want to bring up any of it.”

“It’s who you are, Sarah. You can’t just distance yourself from it because things are falling apart.”

Her sharp gaze made it clear he’d said something wrong. She stepped into him, rage the only emotion he could read. “This is about you trying to get me to give my bakery over to you, isn’t it? That’s what this is about. If you think you can just sweet talk me into handing over my dream and let you strip it down until it no longer resembles itself, then you have another think coming. I won’t let anyone take it, not you, not anyone. I never wanted to be part of this harbor project you have going. You can drag me out of that bakery kicking and screaming.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She was delusional if she thought there was a way out of this. His frustration built along with a sliver of panic. “What are you talking about?”

She turned her scowl away from him. “Forget it.”

“ No .” He moved around so he was in front of her. “You need to talk about this. It’s clear that you’re not handling things very well.”

“I’m fine, James,” she muttered. “I’m just tired.”

“This is more than how you’re feeling. This has to do with your bakery and Lake Harbor Avenue. It has to do with the future of this part of town and you know it.”

She placed her hands over her face and shook her head. “I just wanted to have a nice night out before I had to deal with everything that’s pressing in on me from all sides. I don’t want to talk about it, not to you or anyone else.”

“You’re going to have to talk to someone .” His heart was breaking for her. He didn’t want to tell her what he’d been holding back from her all day. And yet he knew that she needed to know. Heck, she might already know what’s going on and she simply wasn’t willing to talk about it with him.

He couldn’t tell what hurt him more. The fact that she didn’t want to talk to him or her reasons for not wanting to talk. James sighed, his shoulders slumping against the weight of what he had to tell her. “You’re not going to be dragged from your bakery kicking and screaming,” he muttered.

Sarah peered up at him and for a moment he thought he might see a degree of hope. The flicker of light in her eyes was just as quickly extinguished. Her brows pulled together and her body went rigid. “What do you know about my bakery that you’re not telling me?”

James heaved a heavy breath, but it did nothing to help him feel better. He was cornered. They both were. There was no way around what he knew anyway. If she didn’t already know, then she would soon enough. He might as well be the one to break the news to her. “Your bakery… you’re way past due.”

Her face flushed. “Yeah, you said as much at the beginning of the month.”

“I mean way past due. You haven’t made a dent in that debt all month and the bank is finally ready to find someone who will.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits. “What are you saying, James?”

He lifted his shoulders and dropped them in defeat. “I got a call. They offered me to take the property for half of what I offered you in the beginning.”

Her eyes widened. If he’d thought he’d seen what utter betrayal looked on her before, he was wrong. Somehow, he knew there would be no coming back from this. He hadn’t even accepted their proposal, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to get on Sarah’s good side.

“What?” she snapped.

“I wanted to tell you before they did. I wanted to still make you an offer.”

“And offer?” Her voice rose a few pitches. “And offer for what? I don’t have anything to give you.”

“You could work for me. You could work at the café?—”

“ Café !” she shouted. “You can’t be serious. You know how I feel about that. You know that I would never turn my bakery into some quick stop shop for a muffin and a coffee. That would make me no better than a glorified Starbucks. What happened to the charm of small towns? What happened to keeping tradition alive?” She turned and paced in front of him.

His eyes followed her as she seemed to connect all the dots. She was going to be kicked out of her place. She wasn’t going to have a job and it would be sooner rather than later because the Lake Harbor project was well under way. She had lost.

And there was nothing he could offer her. His board hadn’t voted yet, but he knew them well enough to know that they wouldn’t just give her a handout. It had been hard enough to convince them to approve the offer he’d made her before.

All he wanted to do was reach out and pull her into his arms, to assure her that they’d get through this. She was strong. She’d figure out a way to accept what life had dealt her.

But he couldn’t.

James just stood there like an idiot, holding the bag like the criminal he felt he was.