Page 4 of His Big Holiday Firefighter
I picked up a cookie and bit into it. The flavor hit me like a physical blow, in a good way. Childhood and home all at once. Each bite was a memory: me standing on a step stool beside Nai Nai, learning to measure spices, the way she’d always sneak me an extra cookie when my parents weren’t looking.
“These are perfect,” I said softly, awkwardly aware that my voice was rough with emotion.
If Noah noticed, he didn’t mention it.
“Really?” He stepped closer, eyes bright with hope. “I’ve been practicing for years, but I never thought…”
Our eyes met, and suddenly I was very aware of how close we were standing. That faint scent of cinnamon and wood smoke really seemed to follow him everywhere. It would be so easy to lean just slightly forward, to taste the spice on his lips.
The timer on my phone blared, making us both jump. There was a schedule to keep.
“Right.” I stepped back and tried to ignore the chill in the air without Noah’s warmth nearby. “We should get started. The competition’s just around the corner, and I want to win this... for Nai Nai.”
But as we began gathering ingredients, I noticed how naturally we moved around each other in the kitchen, like a dance we somehow already knew the steps to. He seemed to anticipate my needs before I voiced them, appearing with ingredients just as I reached for them.
I had to admit, there might be something to this partnership after all.
CHAPTER THREE
The next morning,sitting at the back of the shop, I sorted through a box of my grandmother’s recipe cards.
I’d arrived early, after a fitful night’s sleep in my bed at the Pine Ridge Inn. I told myself it was to prep the space properly, but I found myself drawn to the familiar handwriting—Chinese characters mixed with English notes, decades of baking wisdom recorded in fading ink. Each card was worn at the edges from years of use, some spotted with butter stains or dusted with permanent traces of flour.
“Add more ginger when moon is full,” I read aloud, smiling despite myself. “Cardamom cookies need happy thoughts to bake properly.”
Nai Nai had always insisted certain recipes only worked under specific conditions. I’d dismissed it as superstition once I got to culinary school. But holding these cards in the quiet morning light, I wondered if I’d been too quick to choose technical precision over whatever magic she had woven into her baking.
The bell chimed, and I quickly tucked the cards away. Noah stood in the doorway that separated the front of the shop from the kitchen. Silhouetted by the morning sun, his firefighter’sjacket was thrown over one arm and a paper bag was in his other hand. The winter light caught his hair, turning it to burnished copper, and I had to remind myself to breathe.
“You’re early.” I tried to make my voice sound professional rather than caught off-guard by how good he looked in a simple henley and well-worn jeans.
“Brought breakfast.” Noah held up the bag, his smile warm enough to chase away the morning chill. “Mrs. Wu’s morning buns. She still makes them every day, even though they’re not as good as—” He stopped, looking apologetic. “Sorry. I know it must be weird, hearing about your grandmother from...”
“No, it’s...” I accepted the bag, our fingers brushing. “Thank you.”
I placed the food on the desk, out of the way. We set up the rest of his supplies in a comfortable silence. The equipment found natural homes on the counters as if it had always belonged there. I tried not to notice how domestic it felt, or how easily Noah seemed to fit into the space. Even his ancient KitchenAid looked right at home, its scratched surface somehow perfect against the worn wooden countertops of Lee’s Family Bakery.
Noah rolled up his sleeves. His forearms were powerful and marked with a few small scars that I definitely wasn’t staring at. “So, what are we making today?”
I pulled out my notebook. “I thought we could try something traditional with a twist. My grandmother had this orange-cardamom shortbread?—”
“The one with the brown butter?” His eyes lit up with recognition. “She used to make those at Christmas. Said the secret was browning the butter exactly three and a half minutes.”
I stared at him, something between jealousy and regret twisting in my chest. “She never shared that recipe with anyone.”
Noah’s cheeks pinked, making his freckles stand out. “She, uh, used to let me help sometimes. After my mom got sick. SaidI had good instincts for butter.” He shrugged, a nervous gesture that shouldn’t have been as endearing as it was. “I think she just knew I needed somewhere to be that wasn’t a hospital room.”
Something warm and uncomfortable flooded through me. I pictured Noah here in this kitchen with my grandmother, Nai Nai Lee, learning her secrets while I’d been busy building a career across the country. It wasn’t jealousy. It was guilt. I should have been the one by her side, learning the cherished baking secrets she held so dear.
“Here,” I snapped, pulling out ingredients with more force than necessary. “Show me your technique.”
Noah quirked an eyebrow at the mild double entendre.
How was I ever going to survive working with this burly firefighter? He undoubtedly had plenty of techniques I was more than willing to explore, but I couldn’t fixate on that now.
He moved to the stove with a surprising grace for someone his size, handling the butter with confident ease. His hands were steady and sure, and I found myself watching them instead of the skillet.
“The key is listening.” Noah's eyes focused on the melting butter. “There’s this moment when the sound changes, just before—” He tilted the pan slightly, the golden liquid swirling. “The bubbling gets quieter, and you can smell when it’s ready. Like toasted hazelnuts, but lighter. There.”
