The Christmas Crush

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

If he held his breath, Lawrence Higgins could believe this Christmas would still be perfect. When he exhaled, clouding the winter air, his worries came rushing out, but for the moment, he chose to focus on opening his bakery.

Pink dawn light tinted the cold sky as he started unloading crates from the bed of his old red truck. Glass jars of local honey rattled. He stacked the crates by the back door entrance to Sweet L’s Bakery. “You’re not gonna offer to help, Sugar?”

Sugar, a big bundle of frizzy white fluff claiming to be a dog, watched him from the warm truck cab.

“I know, I know. You don’t work until you’ve had your coffee.”

Beeps from a reversing cube van and its red brake lights broke the quiet semidarkness in the back alley. A hulking man got out and cracked his tattooed knuckles. The older man jumped out of his skin when he spotted Lawrence in the shadows. Lawrence struggled to suppress a smile.

“Whoa, man. You startled me. And I don’t startle easy,” the driver said. He consulted his clipboard. “I’m looking for Sweet L’s Bakery, but, uh, I must’ve gotten turned around.”

Lawrence loved the look on people’s faces when they learned he owned a bakery and made all the cookies himself. Sometimes, when he felt extra mischievous, he’d make them take a few guesses about his profession before the big reveal. They’d size up his broad shoulders, strong arms, and long legs and say “firefighter” or “construction foreman.” One time someone even guessed “Navy SEAL,” which he had to admit still made him proud. No one ever suspected that strapping Lawrence kept his arms toned by hand-mixing all his doughs.

“Where do you think you are?” Lawrence asked, keeping his voice low and gravelly to mess with the guy. “I’ve got private business in this alley.”

The driver visibly gulped and took a step back toward his van, right as Lawrence burst out laughing.

“I’m kidding, pal. I’m Lawrence, Sweet L himself. You must have my flour.”

The delivery driver’s shoulders dropped as he sighed with relief. “You got me, brother.”

Lawrence and the driver made amicable small talk while they carried heavy flour bags into the kitchen. After setting his last bag down with a thwack, Lawrence grabbed a leftover chocolate chip cookie and gave it to the driver. “Here, dude, this is for being a good sport.”

“Thanks!” The driver smiled, shook his head. “You had me going there. For a second I thought I stumbled on a Mafia enforcer about to burn down a business that owed money.”

Still chuckling at his own prank after the driver left, Lawrence flipped on the bright overhead lights, turned on the radio, then grabbed a ball of gingerbread dough from the cooler. He set the oven to preheat.

Moments later, fragrant dough, sweet with brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, and ginger, became a smooth sheet under his pin. Even before he baked it off, the dough smelled so mouthwatering, so much like Christmas itself, he wanted to sneak a bite. But he knew it would taste best fresh from the oven. He used all his self-control to resist temptation. Good things were worth the wait.

After the dough reached a perfect, even one-quarter inch, he took out his box of cookie cutters. Rattling away, he dug past stars, angels, and stockings until he located the trusty gingerbread man cutter. The copper cutter used to belong to his nana, but since it was his favorite, she’d given it to him when he turned seven. At that age other kids didn’t understand why he wanted to spend every Saturday afternoon baking at his grandma’s little house on the edge of town. Most kids in New Hope, Pennsylvania, preferred riding bikes down the tree-lined streets or skipping stones across the creek.

Lawrence used to feel quirky—even strange—for loving to bake, but he had lived for Saturday afternoons at Nana’s and always chose them over more typical pastimes. Back then, Nana would take down her recipe binder and let him pick anything he wanted to bake. Now he didn’t need to follow a recipe; he had them all memorized.

Whistling along to the carol playing over the bakery’s speakers, he stamped out gingerbread men, then placed them in neat rows on parchment paper–lined pans. Sure, the bakery didn’t open for an hour and there were no customers to enjoy the seasonal music yet, but it felt wrong to bake gingerbread while listening to the news.

He popped three pans of the cookies into his large commercial oven—the one that cost a fortune—and set a timer to rotate the racks so the cookies would brown evenly. “That’s the secret, Sugar,” he said to the dog, who’d curled up like a croissant next to the warm oven. “You can’t just stick them in there for ten minutes and forget about them. They need to be babied, cared for, spoiled. Like you.”

Sugar raised her head and gave him a skeptical look. “Don’t believe me? You know there’s nothing worse than cookies that are overbaked on one side of the pan and half-raw on the other.”

“Talking to the dog again, boss?” Carmen Garcia asked as she hurried into the kitchen, tying her red apron strings as she strode toward him.

Lawrence didn’t need to look at the clock to know Carmen was running late, but he also didn’t have the heart to nag her about it. He knew his assistant’s mornings were pure chaos, since she was the primary babysitter to a bundle of grandchildren. Plus, Carmen reminded him of Nana.

“You were probably getting lonely since I’m late. Again.” She popped on her Sweet L’s Bakery baseball cap to keep her short, steel-gray hair covered while she worked.

“Don’t worry about it, Carm, they’ll be on winter break soon, and then you’ll really be late.” He laughed to put her at ease, and also to cover his own anxiety. Worries came creeping back. His chest tightened. Fear that Carmen would retire to babysit full-time set his teeth on edge, especially this close to the holidays. Without his assistant, the workload would quickly overwhelm him. Running a small business required him to wear many hats, but he couldn’t wear them all and keep his sanity.

“Maybe you’re trying to stay on my good side since I haven’t reported you for letting Sugar sneak in here.” Carmen loved teasing him about Sugar, even though she knew he never let the dog near the ingredients. He prided himself on running a spotless shop. No one had ever complained of finding white fur on a cookie, and they never would. Sugar followed the rules in exchange for fresh-baked peanut-butter doggie treats.

“You heard the lady, Sugar. Back to the office with you.”

With an exasperated sigh, Sugar rose and made her way to the office, toenails clicking across the white tile floor as she went. She might act put out, but soon she’d be snoozing in the nice patch of sunlight from the window that looked out on the corner of Main and Liberty.

The timer rang, drowning out the carol.

“Smells incredible as always, boss.” Gingerbread sent waves of deliciousness through the kitchen when he opened the oven door.

“It’s that fresh ground cinnamon,” he said, gesturing to the stainless-steel electric grinder. Another pricy appliance, but one he believed set his cookies apart from the mass-produced junk at chain bakeries. Thinking of chain bakeries made him even more anxious than Carmen retiring. Chain bakeries could destroy his independent business. A stress ball formed in his middle as he imagined Nana’s sadness if Sweet L’s failed. “Did you have time for breakfast, Carm?”

“Well, no, now that you mention it, I don’t think I did. I forgot about it in the morning rush.” Carmen sighed heavily. “Then I took a little detour.”

“To where?” he asked, even though he had a sinking feeling he already knew the answer.

“I know you said it’s not going to be a problem for us, but I couldn’t resist driving past the Sparkle Cookie site.”

“And?” he prompted after a long pause while Carmen stared at her red Converse sneakers, part of the informal Sweet L’s Bakery uniform.

“Just to take a quick peek.” Carmen’s eyes shifted behind her glasses. “They updated the sign.”

Again she paused. The information she hesitated to reveal hung heavy between them. Lawrence rapped his knuckles on the cold stainless-steel workbench, looked at his own red Converse, currently flecked with flour.

“Looks like it’s opening on Christmas Eve,” she said at last.

That news sent his nerves straight to the roof. Sparked a few shallow breaths. Somehow he’d tricked himself into believing the mass-market cookie bakery wouldn’t really open, that New Hope would keep its quaint charm. That his would always be the best bakery in town. The only bakery.

He muscled past the bad news, quickly changed the subject so he didn’t have to dwell. “We gotta get you fed. You start the coffee, then plate the Swedish butter cookies. I’ll whip you up a little something.”

The best way to deal with stress was to avoid it, and the best way to avoid it was to bake. Carmen shrugged her shoulders, then went to fiddle with their temperamental coffeemaker. He took the gingerbread out of the oven, slid the pans onto a rolling cooling cart, then grabbed a few eggs from the refrigerator. Even though he only served cookies at the bakery, he could still bake anything someone might crave.

He whisked the eggs with some vanilla extract, milk, and honey, trying to focus on getting the perfect consistency instead of the fact that Sparkle also served only cookies. Sparkle was a social media sensation thanks to a clever marketing campaign that encouraged the hashtag iSparkle . People loved filming themselves standing in long lines at the chain’s countless bakeries, fighting over the last of the double-fudge brownie cookies he strongly suspected came from a boxed mix.

He’d seen the photos posted online, and he had to admit the oversized cookies looked great in their pale-purple, glittery boxes. Eye-catching. Women wearing trendy clothes posed with cookies in their hands, showing off the latest flavors to millions of followers.

But how could cookies that had to taste exactly the same across a hundred stores possibly compete with cookies made by hand, in small batches, by someone who sourced each ingredient himself? The obvious answer was they couldn’t. He believed his cookies were better. But would people still prefer the flashy, photogenic Sparkle cookies to his homemade creations? Would they be able to taste the care he put into each cookie?

Now he’d started overbeating the egg mixture, his speed matching his whirring thoughts. He forced his hand to slow.

He got worked up because cookies were much more than a sweet treat. Edible art, a gesture of hospitality, the perfect gift. In the two years his bakery had been open, people had turned to him for first birthday cookie cakes, colorful cookie bouquets to cheer sick friends, and beautifully arranged cookie platters to serve at their holiday gatherings. He’d even helped his old high school pal, Trey, propose to his sweetheart by piping Will you marry me? onto a dozen heart-shaped pink sugar cookies.

He weighed a scoop of oats on his kitchen scale, folded them into the eggs. Added a handful of chopped pecans and some frozen blueberries. Sparkle couldn’t recreate his relationship with his neighbors in New Hope. Many of them knew the Christmas cookies were made with Nana’s old cookie cutter and loved the stories he told about baking with her.

But as much as they cared about him as a friend, they might still get caught up in the excitement of a new thing. And the tourists who came to New Hope to look at the Christmas decorations in shop windows or attend the tree-lighting ceremony at the gazebo? They might go for the popular brand name they knew over the local guy.

Even a small decline in business could be fatal for a little shop like his. The commercial oven, the grinder, the quality ingredients, the great location on Main, it all came with a major price tag. He could pay his bills at the moment, but it was a house of cards. Pull out enough regular customers and he’d be in trouble.

Nana insisted the seed money she’d given him to start Sweet L’s was a gift, yet his biggest dream remained paying it all back, with interest. Success meant showing Nana that she’d been right to believe in him.

“Are you making my favorite baked oatmeal?” Carmen asked, peeking into the bowl. He grinned and nodded, then poured the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

“Give this about half an hour and you’ll have yourself a nice, filling meal.”

Crinkles sprouted around her dark eyes as she smiled back at him. “I owe you one!”

Remembering the delivery driver’s comment about Mafia enforcers, he said, “Want to help me burn down the Sparkle Cookie bakery?”

“I can make it look like an accident,” she replied without hesitation, a seriousness in her voice that made him laugh despite his fears.

He put his arm around her, and she gave him a squeeze in return. Of course, he could never really commit arson, so he’d have to find some other way to stop the rival bakery from opening. And he’d have to come up with a solution in the next few weeks.