People would nod, but I didn’t think anyone really believed me since they hadn’t been to west Texas.
My sister, Kimber, was waiting for me outside when I pulled up to her brand-spanking-new house. She placed a hand on her swollen prego belly, and her four-year-old daughter, Lilyanne, ran around her ankles.
I put my car in park and jumped out in a hurry to scoop up my little niece. “Hey, Lily Bug,” I said, twirling her in a circle before swinging her onto my hip.
“Lilies aren’t bugs, Auntie Em. Lilies are flowers!”
“That, they are, smarty-pants.”
“Hey, Em,” Kimber said, pulling me in for a hug.
“Hey, Kimmy.”
“Rough day?” she asked.
“You could say that.”
I dropped Lilyanne back onto her feet and opened the trunk. Kimber hoisted the smaller suitcase out of the trunk, and I wheeled the larger one into her ginormous house.
“Em! Do you want to see my new dress? It has dinosaurs on it. Dinosaurs say rawr!” Lilyanne said.
“Not now, Lily. We have to get Emery into the guest room. Can you show her where to go?” Kimber asked.
Lilyanne’s eyes lit up, and she raced for the stairs at lightning speed. “Come on, Auntie Em. I know the way.”
Kimber sighed, exhausted. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me, too. She’s a handful. But it’s good to have her. How else would I be able to find my way around here?” I joked as we made our way up the stairs after Lilyanne. “Seriously, are we in Beauty and the Beast? Is there a west wing I should avoid?” I gasped.
Kimber snorted and rolled her eyes. “It’s not that big.”
“Never too big for a library with ladders, of course.”
“Of course. We might have one of those.”
“I knew it! Please tell me all the dirty romance novels we read in high school are proudly on display now.”
Kimber dropped my suitcase in the guest bedroom, which was approximately the same size as my loft back in Austin. “Noah would kill me,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Most of those books are on my iPad now anyway. I’ve converted to e-books.”
“Fancy,” I said, fluttering my fingers at her. “I could use an iPad. Just throwing that out there in case Noah needs gift ideas for Christmas.”
Kimber laughed. “God, I’ve missed you.”
I grinned devilishly. Noah worked at the Texas Tech Medical Center. He worked long, long hours and made Scrooge McDuck–level dollar bills. He and Kimber were high school sweethearts and possibly the disgustingly cutest couple I’d ever encountered.
“Come on, Lilyanne,” Kimber called. “We have cookies in the oven.”
“Cookies?” I asked, my eyes lighting up. “Mom’s recipe?”
“Of course. Are you going to go see her?” Kimber asked, as if she didn’t care. But I saw her glance nervously in my direction.
It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with my mother. It was more like…we were the exact same person. So, when we were together, our stubborn heads butted, and everyone ran for the hills. But there weren’t hills in Lubbock.
“Yeah…probably.”
“Did you even let her know you were coming into town?”
Kimber picked Lilyanne up and dropped her down into a seat by the sprinkles. The timer dinged for the cookies, and Kimber pulled them out of the oven. Fluffy golden brown Christmas cookies, just the way we liked them.
I shot Kimber a sheepish look. “No, but…”
“Gah, Emery! She’s going to kill me if you stay here without telling her you’re in town. I do not want to deal with that while I’m pregnant.”
“I’m going to tell her!” I said, reaching for a cookie.
Kimber slapped my fingers with the spatula. “Those are too hot. Wait for them to cool.”
“You don’t want a boo-boo,” Lilyanne said.
I sucked my finger into my mouth and made a face at my sister. “Fine.”
Kimber dropped the subject, and we spent the rest of the afternoon making cookies. Lilyanne and I got to cut out the shapes with Kimber’s cookie cutters, and then she placed them on the tray and into the oven. Once they cooled, we iced and added Christmas sprinkles on top of them.
By the time Noah was home, earlier than usual for him, we were covered in flour with sugary-sweet hangovers. It was a welcome relief from the drama I’d endured with Mitch. It was a known fact that Kimber’s cookies cured heartaches.
I pulled Noah in for a big hug. “Missed you.”
“You, too, Em. I heard you were having some trouble.”
My nose wrinkled. “Yeah. Thanks for letting me stay while I figure things out.”
“You’re always welcome here. It’ll be good to have you around for Kimber, too. She’s home a lot with this one, and I know she’s ready to get back to work.”
My sister owned a kick-ass bakery right off of campus called Death by Chocolate that made the best cookies, cupcakes, and doughnuts in town. But, with the new baby on the way, she’d taken a step back and turned more to management, so she could work from home. But her true passion was baking, and I knew she’d love to get back into the thick of things as soon as she could.
“Thanks Noah.”
When it was Lilyanne’s bedtime, I finally left their house and went to meet my best friend out for a drink.
When I pulled up to Flips, I was shaking from the bitter December cold that had sprung up out of nowhere. I rummaged through my backseat, extracted a black leather jacket, and then dashed across the parking lot.
I handed the bouncer my ID and then pushed through the hipster crowd to the back of the bar. As expected, I found Heidi leaning over a pool table and making eyes at a guy who thought he was going to make some easy money on a game against a chick. His friends stood around with smirks on their face, as they drank Bud Light. Lubbock was big enough that there were still enough idiots for Heidi to hustle, but the regulars steered clear.
“Em!” Heidi called, jumping up and down at my appearance.
“Hey, babe,” I said with a wink.