Sleighed by the Farmer’s Daughter (Sweet Christmas Kisses)

Chapter Seven

Mackenzie’s eyes fluttered open to the first light of dawn, a soft glow filtering through the curtains. As she stretched and reached for her phone, a sinking feeling gripped her heart.

Text messages from the previous night littered her locked screen:

Mrs. Garrison: Power outage in Cloverdale. I can’t bake cookies for Santa’s Village.

Karen: Hi Hun, I hope you see this. We have no power. I can’t get the cookies made.

Mable: Bad news… town lost power. The entire committee will be unable to bake the cookies.

Mrs. Meade: Hello, Sweetheart. I hope you are faring well in this storm. We lost power, and baking is impossible at the moment. I will let you know if I get up and running in time to have them ready for Santa’s Village. With so much happening this year, perhaps it would be best to cancel. Everyone would understand. I’ll send Allen over to check on you as soon as it is safe. He is worried sick about you. Best regards, Margret.

She stumbled out of bed, her mind racing. What would they do? The cookies were two events in Santa’s Village. Without the gingerbread men and Santa sleighs, there would be no cookie decorating contest, which was a favorite with the families. How in the world would she be able to handle such a massive task on her own?

In the kitchen, Seth was already up, making coffee. His calm presence was a stark contrast to the storm brewing inside Mackenzie. He glanced up when she walked in, immediately noticing the worry etched on her face. “Something wrong?”

She showed him her phone. “The town’s out of power. The committee can’t bake. I have to somehow bake hundreds—literally hundreds—of cookies today. I don’t know how I’m going to manage!”

Seth’s expression softened as he stepped closer, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry. I can help.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You bake?”

He chuckled, the warm sound easing a bit of her tension. “It’s been a while, but my grandmother taught all the Stoll boys how to cook. My middle brother, Eric, was the most enthusiastic learner, but we all picked up a thing or two. I can hold my own in the kitchen.”

Mackenzie’s stress began to melt away, replaced by a flicker of hope. “Really? That would be amazing. I never expected you to be so... domesticated.”

“Surprised, huh?” Seth grinned. “Let’s get those morning chores done quickly, and then we’ll tackle the baking.”

They worked side by side, knocking out the farm chores with surprising efficiency- as if they had been a team for years, not days. Seth’s calm demeanor and quick wit made the tasks more enjoyable, and Mackenzie found herself smiling despite the looming cookie crisis.

Once the morning chores were behind them, they cleaned up and met in the kitchen. “Why don’t I whip up some sandwiches while you get yourself organized?” Seth suggested. “To pull this off, we’ll need to turn this kitchen into a well-oiled cookie-making machine.”

Seth prepared a simple but hearty lunch of sandwiches and soup, which they devoured quickly. Meanwhile, Mackenzie organized the array of baking supplies: mixing bowls, rolling pins, cookie cutters, an assortment of colorful frosting and sprinkles, and every baking pan and cooling rack her mother owned.

“All right, let’s start with the sugar cookies since that dough needs to chill before rolling,” Mackenzie said, thinking out loud. “If we each make a batch of that, then you can work on gingerbread while I keep rolling and cutting sugar cookies. One person will have to keep making dough, rolling, and cutting while the other monitors the baking, cooling, and decorating. I hope you’re ready for this because it’s going to take us forever . If we keep the oven going non-stop, maybe... twelve hours?” Mack calculated with a grimace.

“Hey, don’t worry, Mack. We’ve got this,” Seth assured her, his confidence comforting as she tried to suppress another wave of panic. “When we pull this off, it’ll be a Christmas memory for the books.”

The kitchen became a whirlwind of flour and sugar as they mixed, rolled, and cut. The first batches of gingerbread men and Santa sleighs went into the oven, filling the space with a sweet and spicy aroma. They worked silently and efficiently, each lost in the rhythm of their tasks as Christmas carols played softly in the background.

Returning from what felt like his hundredth trip to the dining room to set frosted cookies out to dry, Seth broke the silence. “Good thing your family has a dining table big enough for an army. This would be a lot less fun if we were tiptoeing around all these finished cookies. One wrong move and all that time and hard work could land on the floor.”

“Hush your mouth, Tinsel!” Mackenzie shot back with a playful glare. “Everything’s going too smoothly for you to jinx it now.”

Seth chuckled. “Yes, ma’am, Miss Peppermint. So, when did you become such a pro at this? You’ve clearly got a lot of experience.”

“Grandma taught us when we were kids. She spent the whole week before Christmas baking up a storm for Santa’s Village. The town has helped since I was a teenager, so it’s been years since I baked on this scale. I guess it’s like riding a bike—you never really forget it. What about you? Got any baking stories?”

A broad smile lit Seth’s face. “Apple pie. It was my grandpa’s favorite and, therefore, mine, too. I asked Grandma to teach me. I remember sitting at her kitchen table with a paring knife in my nine-year-old hands, watching her peel an apple in one long, thin spiral. I tried, but it was more like hacking than peeling. Eventually, she handed me a peeler and said she’d run out of fruit if I didn’t get more apple in the pie and less on the cider pile.”

Mackenzie laughed, the sound brightening the flour-dusted kitchen. “That’s a sweet memory. How did the pie turn out?”

“It would’ve been great if my brother Eric hadn’t swooped in and stolen the show. He learned how to carve from my grandpa and has always had exquisite knife skills. He walked in, grabbed an apple, and peeled it, stem and all, in one perfect spiral—even better than Grandma’s. She praised him like he’d just won a gold medal or something. The pie turned out fine, but I was too miffed at Eric to enjoy it,” Seth admitted.

“Ah, brothers and their constant need to compete. I have four, so I totally get it. Were you guys always competitors, or did you actually get along? I know of many families where the siblings are pitted against each other as rivals, and it’s sad.”

“It’s a little of both. I don’t think Eric ever did it intentionally; he is a quiet guy who keeps to himself. He’s just always had this need to be the best at things for his own satisfaction. I honestly think, looking back, that the apple peeling was more of a ‘let me see if I can do this’ and not a ‘let me prove I can do better than Seth’ type of thing, but of course, I took it badly being shown up by my younger brother.”

“Have there been many of these events? Are you close now that you are adults?”

Seth sighed, wondering if he was ready to share this side of himself with Mackenzie. Over the past two days, she had become important to him. He feared that showing this darker side of himself would ruin his chance of getting to know her better. But then his grandma’s voice echoed in his mind: “Honesty is always the best, Seth, no matter how hard it is to deliver. It will set you free in the end.”