Page 30 of Sweet Christmas Comeback
“It makes sense,” Jade continued, desperate to make him understand, to find some comfort in his practical perspective. “Cut our losses before they get worse. Mabel could retire with dignity instead of watching the place fall apart around her.”
“Right,” Leo said. “Makes sense.”
But he’d stepped back from her, putting the width of the stall between them. His hands were busy with unnecessary adjustments to Vixen’s halter, his attention focused anywhere but on her face.
“Leo?” she said uncertainly.
“So you’ll be heading back to Boston then,” he said, still not looking at her. “Once the sale goes through.”
“I... I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Haven’t you?” Now he did look at her, and his brown eyes held a distance that made her stomach clench. “This was always temporary, right? Just until you figured out what’s next.”
“That’s not...” Jade struggled to find words for the hurt in his voice, the sudden coldness that seemed to come from nowhere. “Leo, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, turning back to Vixen. “You’re making the smart choice. This place was never going to be enough for someone like you, anyway.”
The words hit like a slap. “Someone like me?”
“Someone with ambition. Someone who belongs in the city, not stuck in a small town running a failing bakery.”
“That’s not fair,” Jade said, anger flaring to life in her chest. “I’ve worked my butt off for this place. I’ve cared about it, about Mabel, about?—”
“About what?” Leo’s voice was sharp now, all pretense of casual conversation abandoned. “About playing small-town baker until something better comes along?”
“About you,” she said quietly, the words escaping before she could stop them. “I’ve cared about you.”
Leo’s hands stilled completely, but he didn’t turn around. The silence stretched between them, charged with everything they’d been building toward and everything that was suddenly crumbling.
“Yeah, well,” he said finally, his voice rough. “Caring doesn’t pay electrical bills.”
The casual dismissal of everything that had been growing between them—the almost-kiss in the woods, the partnership, the way he’d looked at her like she mattered—cut deeper than any financial crisis.
“You’re right,” Jade said, her own voice going cold. “It doesn’t.”
She looked at his face, at the hard set of his jaw and the ice in his eyes, and she saw a stranger. The man who had held her in his arms, the man whose quiet strength had been her anchor, was gone. In his place was a judge who had delivered his sentence.
So she turned.
And she walked away.
She didn't run. She walked back into the bakery, each step a monumental effort. She walked past the non-compliant oven and the useless heating element. She walked past the counter still dusted with the flour of her failure. The happy, festive lights flickered, and for a second she thought they might go out for good.
But as she reached the kitchen, something shifted inside her. The hurt was still there, raw and bleeding, but underneath it, something else was building. Something hotter. Angrier.
Like her.That's what he'd said. As if she was just someone who ran at every opportunity. As if leaving for college at eighteen made her some kind of flight risk for life. As if coming back here, fighting tooth and nail for this place, meant nothing.
The anger hit her like a physical force, burning away the tears that had been threatening. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
How dare he. How dare he reduce her to some cardboard cutout from his own fears. She wasn't the girl who'd left ten years ago. She'd built a life, made mistakes, learned hard lessons, and come home because this mattered. Because Mabel mattered. Because sometimes the most important battles were the ones that seemed impossible to win.
She found Mabel in the back office, sitting at the small, cluttered desk, staring at a stack of unpaid bills. Her aunt looked up as she entered, taking one look at Jade's face and straightening in her chair.
"We're not selling," Jade announced, her voice ringing with steel.
Mabel blinked in surprise. "Honey, I heard what Dave said about the wiring?—"
"I don't care about the wiring. I don't care about Cecily or the inspector or Leo Carter's opinions about who I am." Jade moved to the desk, her movements sharp with purpose. "We're going tomake this festival spectacular. We're going to show this entire town what Sugar Pine Sweets is really about. And if we have to close after that, at least we'll close fighting."
