A Gingerbread Romance

by Lacey Baker

  “Well, today’s your lucky day. Brooke and I love to go ice skating. Come on, let’s go,” he said.

  But when Taylor didn’t move, he chuckled and stood up. Instead, he moved to stand in front of her as if maneuvering himself on those blades was the easiest thing in the world. He extended both his hands to her. Taylor moved slowly, skeptically, but eventually put her hands in his. Adam pulled her up off the bench. Her legs wobbled and he wrapped one arm around her waist.

  “I got you,” he said. “You’re steadier on this floor mat than you’ll be on the ice, so get acclimated to the skates right here.”

  Again, easier said than done. But Taylor gave it a good, honest try. She didn’t fall because Adam had his arm tightly around her, and after a few steps she did feel steadier. That is, until they stepped onto the ice.

  “Seriously, I can’t believe you’ve never skated,” he said when she stood perfectly still on the ice.

  “Let’s just say it’s been a couple of decades. If I’m trying to forget about cracking gingerbread, the last thing I should be doing is skating on thin ice,” Taylor quipped.

  What she needed to focus on was not falling and cracking some important body parts.

  “It’s not thin, it’s normal ice.”

  “Oh and I should trust you on this?”

  He gave her an offended look.

  “Okay. Fine! Fine. Let’s do it!”

  She really could trust him because Adam was not letting her go. He had one arm at her waist and another held her arm while she wobbled and took a half-step at a time.

  “You want to push up with each foot,” he instructed.

  Taylor took a deep breath and did as he said. When she didn’t immediately fall on her face, she tried again. Her ankle wobbled.

  “Oooh, I don’t know. This might be a bit too advanced for me.”

  He wasn’t wobbling at all. He moved and talked and held her up as easily as if he were walking in the park.

  “How are you so good at this?”

  “We had a skating rink in our backyard as kids,” he answered while they eased a few inches further toward the center of the rink.

  It looked safer for her there. People didn’t seem to be skating as fast in that area. Around the sides they were whizzing past her every few seconds.

  “And every winter we’d lay out the 4x4 and a liner and turn the hose on. The next morning, bingo! Mini ice skating rink. Although—”

  “Although what?”

  “Ah, one winter I left the hose on.”

  Taylor cringed at the thought. “Oh no, your poor parents.”

  Adam shrugged. “My mom took it in stride. But um, she invited all the kids in the neighborhood down to our winter wonderland. She even made gingerbread cookies.”

  “Aww, your mom sounds like a lot of fun.” His childhood sounded like fun, and he was giving Brooke the same experience. He was such a great dad. An awesome baker. And now, a good teacher.

  “What about you? What did you do for fun when you were growing up?”

  He must have thought if he kept talking and kept easing her over this ice that Taylor would stop being scared to death that she was going to face-plant on the cold hard surface. It was kinda working.

  “I always liked to draw,” she told him. “I guess because I was an only child and moving around meant making new friends in each new location, I got used to entertaining myself.”

  “That makes sense. But don’t tell me all you enjoyed doing was designing houses way back then too? ” He laughed at the thought.

  She didn’t tell him how close to being right he really was.

  “I drew people too,” she admitted. “And I’d always draw a picture of me and my parents wherever we were located at the time. I guess you could say I made my own postcards.”

  Adam laughed. “Always about business, Taylor.”

  She chuckled too. “Well, it’s in my blood.”

  They’d been easing along the ice and she just noticed she hadn’t wobbled in a few minutes.

  “So, if I let go, are you gonna be okay?” Adam asked.

  “Ah, no, no, no. Nope. I don’t think I’m ready.” She was talking but she knew she was still moving. His hand was still on her back and her arm.

  “Really? Then why are you doing it?” One minute she was listening to his words and the next she realized his hands really had eased away from her body.

  “What?” She hadn’t stopped moving. Her feet were still gliding—albeit it very slowly—over the ice. Was it really possible she was doing this on her own? Triumph pulsed through her encouraging more tentative movements.

  “You’re skating! Look!”

  Taylor peeked over her shoulder to see that he was a couple steps behind her and she was still inching her feet along the ice.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m doing it!”

  With confidence brewing she tried to go just a little faster so she didn’t look like a total newbie. Excitement bubbled in the pit of her stomach when she still remained upright.

  “And don’t think about it too much,” he warned.

  “Okay.” She tried to continue but of course since he’d said that she couldn’t help but think about the possibility of fall—

  One of her feet slipped in the wrong direction and bumped into the other. She stumbled and…Adam was right there to catch her.

  His arms went around her, tighter than before, and her arms found their way around his neck. To keep from falling she reminded herself. But the embrace felt…good.

  “Okay,” he whispered after a prolonged few seconds.

  “Yeah, um, I’m okay,” she replied. The way her heart was hammering in her chest was a clear indication she was anything but okay. But Taylor knew that had nothing to do with the ice or these dang skates.

  Adam stood her up straight and went back to having his stabilizing arm around her waist. Even that felt different now. Taylor cleared her throat and focused on moving her feet in the right direction this time.

  “So, ah, did the skating make you come up with any new ideas?” Adam asked.

  She frowned. Skating with Adam had actually brought on more ideas that Taylor knew were bad. For her. For him and for Brooke.

  “Um, I’m still stumped about my design, but this was fun. And I did forget about our problems for a while,” she admitted.

  “I know your boss wants you to come up with this cutting-edge idea, but maybe the new cutting edge could be tradition.”

  Adam was tradition. At first she’d simply thought he was a broken record, but after spending these last few days with him and Brooke, she knew it was embedded in him. From his parents and now to his child, Christmas traditions meant everything to him.

  “Hmmm, I hate to admit it, but I think you might be on to something,” Taylor told him. “You’ve been talking about tradition since day one, and I was starting to think you were a broken record. But after spending these last few days with you and Brooke, I realize tradition has been bred into you by your parents and all they did for you and your siblings while you were growing up. And now, you’re doing the same for Brooke. It’s a great thing to see.”

  There were a few quiet moments where he just looked at her and she looked at him. A cool breeze from the other skaters moving quickly around them touched her cheeks that remained flushed from Adam’s intense gaze. What was happening to her?

  “Score one for me!” He announced after the silence threatened to fill with longings she’d been trying valiantly to keep at bay.

  Later that night, Taylor still hadn’t found the time to go to the grocery store. But after Adam’s remark about her cup of noodles the other day, she’d decided to improvise. It had taken her twenty minutes to familiarize herself with an app and put in an order for groceries. She’d done that this morning before she’d gone to the Marketplace, and they’d be
en delivered ten minutes after Adam dropped her off from the skating rink.

  She’d been thinking about what Adam said, that maybe the new cutting edge was actually traditional. With that in mind Taylor turned on the Christmas music but this time she’d specifically searched for traditional Christmas carols. Nat King Cole’s “O Tannenbaum” was playing. When she’d stored the groceries in the cabinets she’d put on a pot of milk and turned the stove on low so that it would warm. She walked back into the kitchen and was just in time to add the cocoa, a bit of sugar and vanilla. When the mixture was smoking, she poured it into a German beer mug she’d picked up while she was in Frankfurt. She didn’t drink beer but she’d liked the colors on the mug. Now, she was putting it to good use.

  Walking back into the living room with her mug and a plate full of store-bought chocolate chip cookies, Taylor sat on the couch and put her dinner/dessert on the coffee table in front of her. She’d already gathered her trace paper and the pilot point pen she preferred to draw with and set them on the table. Now she sat back on the couch to think.

  How could she build a modern, cutting-edge gingerbread house that wouldn’t crack under pressure?

  Or…

  How could she blend Adam’s traditional style with the modern, cutting-edge design to use the thicker gingerbread he suggested?

  She ate a cookie, then two, and thought some more. Bing Crosby’s White Christmas came on, and she sang along thinking of snow falling on the gingerbread house just like it did at the end of the White Christmas movie. Picking up her pen she sketched the thought forming in her mind, snow on the roof of the house. Adam’s traditional roof? Hmmmm, she ate another cookie, took a sip of hot chocolate and sketched some more.

  When her phone rang she frowned because she’d planned to spend the night thinking this through. She didn’t have a lot of time for anything else.

  Taylor picked up the phone and looked down at the screen. “Hi, Josephine,” she answered.

  “Hi, Taylor. Just checking on you. Any new ideas?”

  Taylor sighed. “Not really. And I am so stressed out,” she admitted. The music, hot cocoa and the lights from her tree were relaxing her though.

  “But I thought things were going great,” Josephine said.

  Taylor tapped her pen on the table while she talked. “Well, I’m not so sure that the modern design is the way to go. Time is running out and we’re back to the drawing board. I’m afraid Linda won’t be happy.”

  “Stop thinking about Linda and Paris and just do what you do,” Josephine said.

  “How am I supposed to do that when those are the two driving forces behind this project. I mean, without Paris this project would not be an issue for me,” Taylor admitted.

  “And without this project you wouldn’t have met the handsome baker and his cutie-pie daughter.”

  That was very true. “Adam is very handsome and Brooke is very cute. I like them both. But right now I need to focus.”

  “Maybe you’re focusing on the wrong thing.”

  Taylor rolled her eyes and was glad nobody was there with her to see her doing it. “I’m focusing on the job at hand. What do you suggest I focus on?”

  “How about what Christmas means to you or, no, because you’ll take it back to work. What does Christmas mean for Adam and Brooke?”

  “This isn’t about them, Jos. It’s about winning this competition.”

  “The competition that they’re a part of,” Josephine told her. “Look, you’re in charge so I know you’ll figure it out. You’re you.”

  That was a nice thing for her to say in the midst of her trying to insinuate that there was something more between Taylor and Adam. Jos had been on that kick for a few days now, and Taylor didn’t want to hear any more of it. Especially since there was a tiny part of her that knew it was true.

  “Thanks for checking on me, Jos. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

  “Bye.”

  When Taylor put the phone down Josephine’s words played in her mind. They layered everything Taylor had already been thinking and more importantly feeling. This project started off being about Ogilvy’s public image, Linda impressing the mayor and Taylor impressing the board so she could get a promotion. But it had quickly morphed into something else.

  Standing from the couch, she went with those thoughts, letting the truth of every word settle in. This gingerbread house was now about Adam and the dough he’d lovingly prepared from a mixture of his talent, schooling and his mother’s kind heart. Every decoration that they’d purchased for the gingerbread house was about Brooke and the twinkle in her eyes when she’d put this very bulb on Taylor’s tree.

  Without realizing it she’d moved to her tree, touching that white frosted bulb that Brooke had found so beautiful. Taylor recalled being around Brooke’s age and admiring a bulb in the same way. Reaching out a hand she touched the bulb not really remembering the last time she’d hung it on a tree herself. She’d also never strung popcorn to hang on the tree, but looking at the festive strands now she knew she’d never have another tree without it. They’d created a tradition—her, Adam and Brooke.

  Sentiment filled her heart and in a flash a picture came to her mind.

  With that thought Taylor went into her dining room stopping at the antique wood cabinet her parents had given her three years ago. Pullling out the top drawer she fished out her old scrapbook and sat down to open it. Her mother had started the book when she was just a little girl, adding photos of Taylor in all the places they traveled. After a while Taylor began adding the pictures she drew of her parents and the scenery to the album as well. She turned one page after another smiling with the memories that came flooding back.

  Surfing in Hawaii. It had been her first time and in the picture her father held onto her and the board so she wouldn’t fall. They both grinned at her mother who’d snapped the picture. They’d spent the whole day together and each part of the day had made Taylor feel cherished and loved. That same feeling swelled in her now, filling her until tears brimmed her eyes.

  Taylor flipped to another page tickled by the thick coats with fur hoods she and her parents wore in the picture taken in Alaska. She grinned at the huge birthday cake with twelve purple candles, a photo taken on the patio of the villa where they’d stayed while in Sicily. The warm hug of nostalgia hesitated when she turned the next page.

  Her fingers moved slowly over the edges of the picture in the center. It was a drawing of a house with a shingled roof and Santa on top, a snowman doorknocker and a Christmas tree visible through the window. Standing in front of that house was a father, mother and daughter. Warmth, happiness, comfort and excitement all swirled like a funnel cloud inside her and Taylor smiled.

  This was it!

  She went back to the table, carrying the picture with her, and sipped her now lukewarm hot chocolate. She’d forgotten the marshmallows but that didn’t matter, she had a great idea!

  After working for she didn’t know how long, Taylor picked up her phone and sent a text message.

  Got an idea! Think you’ll love it. Includes thicker brick-like gingerbread. She added a smiley emoji.

  She hit send before noticing how late it was and sat back on the couch with the phone in her hand. Music was still playing and the lights on her tree were still twinkling but Taylor felt so much better than she had when she’d first come home.

  The sound of her phone dinging with a new text message startled her. She hadn’t really

  expected Adam to be awake this late.

  Adam’s text read, Why are you up this time of night thinking about gingerbread?

  She grinned and answered. What else would I be thinking about?

  Perhaps what Santa’s going to bring you for Christmas. He punctuated this with a Christmas tree emoji.

  I don’t want anything.

  Sure you do, Adam countered. If you could ask him
for one thing, what would it be?

  Taylor immediately thought of Paris, then as if it was calling to her, her gaze moved past the phone in her hand to the picture she’d propped up against her mug on the table. That house she’d drawn so many years ago now made her think of Brooke and Adam.

  She answered, Ice skates!

  He responded with a laughing emoji. I’ve created a monster.

  Meet you at the bakery early tomorrow morning, Taylor typed.

  He replied, I’ll be there.

  And he would be there. Adam would be at the bakery doing what he loved to do most in this world. And where would Taylor be? Where could she do what she loved most and be the happiest she’d ever been?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three Days Until Judging

  Adam was at the bakery by 4 a.m. It hadn’t been any hardship to him, because he hadn’t been able to sleep, anyway.

  After putting Brooke to bed, he’d gone to his room and thought about the gingerbread house and, of course, Taylor. He wondered what she’d been thinking—modern, cutting edge. Of course.

  Even though he disagreed with the idea, the thought made Adam smile as he lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling. Everything about her made him smile.

  He couldn’t believe she didn’t know how to ice skate or how good teaching her had made him feel. Fearless, that’s what she was. Whatever she decided to do, she did it. She traveled the world doing the job that made her feel alive and successful. He worked at a bakery and hadn’t been farther than North Carolina where they used to go for a week every summer for his father’s family reunion. That thought sobered him.

  What was he doing with his life?

  Sure, he was taking care of his daughter that was his job, but was that all he was meant to do? Brooke and Jenny would give a resounding “no” to that question. Even Taylor had told him it wasn’t too late to go for his dream. Maybe she was right. Maybe they’d all been right.

  Just when he’d decided it was time to at least try and get some sleep, his phone buzzed with a message. His first instinct was to think something was wrong with Jenny. So he was relieved to see it was a text from Taylor. Relieved and surprised. The message made him smile and so did the rest of the conversation, so that by the time it was over he’d been wide awake and ready to get started.