No, not even close.

  Lena had clearly felt awkward talking about her food and serving it, and she couldn’t possibly have missed the way everyone picked at her offerings, then devoured every crumb of Devin’s desserts, but she had gone through the evening with what seemed to be a genuine smile on her face. She had talked easily with her teenage waitstaff and had been enthusiastic in her praise of Devin’s food, even though the tarts had managed to make the rest of the dinner seem even worse in comparison.

  She seemed to have an underlying confidence and self-deprecating good humor that had let her make it through a bad night without needing to sulk or tear Devin down in an attempt to make herself feel better. And that kind of attitude was too damned sexy for Devin’s comfort. So, of course, instead of leaving like a sensible person and vowing to let her dad or Shay deliver the desserts to Haus Bavaria for the rest of the season, she was hanging out after the party with Lena and her aunt like she was one of the family.

  The three of them stood just inside the kitchen door and surveyed the disaster zone. Even though Devin had stayed this long because she was having a difficult time pulling herself out of Lena’s compelling orbit, she knew she couldn’t just walk away now and leave the other two to deal with this gravy-bedecked room alone. Naturally, the staff wouldn’t be expected to clean up after a chef’s tasting, since they were considered honored guests at the event, but Cheryl had wisely kept them from even walking into the kitchen for any reason at all. If they had seen what was left in the wake of Lena’s cooking, Devin would guarantee that less than half of them would show up on opening night.

  Lena turned her back on the mess and faced Devin and Cheryl. “All right,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and then uncrossing them and putting her hands on her hips instead, as if unsure what to do with her limbs. “No sugarcoating. Tell me honestly how that went.” She held up her hands, palms facing out, as if to hold off the criticism a moment longer. “Obviously, I know it was an awful meal. But was it awful with a scrawny little possibility that I could make it better, or awful with absolutely no chance that I can make edible meals for the public, and I should just go back to Portland right now?”

  She heaved a big sigh, as if mentally preparing herself for the worst, and dropped her hands to her sides. Devin and Cheryl looked at each other, and Lena’s aunt gestured for her to go first. Devin knew she wouldn’t be doing Lena or the restaurant any favors by holding back her suggestions, but still, she led with the most positive comments that came to mind.

  “Your flavor profiles are very good,” she said, meeting Lena’s gaze so she knew Devin wasn’t lying. “And you’ve come up with some nice, basic German-style dishes that will be appealing to a lot of people, especially tourists who want a meal that complements the town itself.”

  “But…” Lena prompted, although Devin thought she seemed to relax a fraction at her words.

  Devin shrugged. “But your timing is off. Parts of the meal were cold, parts were warm but dried out from sitting too long. That’s fixable.”

  “Okay,” Lena said with a nod. “Timing. That sounds like something I can handle. Cher…Aunt Cheryl?”

  “Well, the schnitzel was tasty, but very greasy.”

  “Your oil probably wasn’t hot enough,” Devin added. “When that happens, the food cooks too slowly and absorbs too much of the grease.”

  Cheryl nodded in agreement. “That sounds right.” She paused and looked around. “And I know you meant for more of this gravy to be on the food than splattered on the walls, but you really need to have different sauces and gravies for each dish, not just one type poured over everything.”

  “Oh, and the cabbage,” Devin said, remembering the shock of her first bite, when copious amounts of sugar and vinegar went to war in her mouth. “I’m sure it will be delicious tomorrow, but the flavors were too strong since it didn’t have time to mellow.”

  “I’m afraid that’s my fault,” Cheryl admitted. “She had less than a day’s notice about the tasting.”

  “Anything else?” Lena asked, looking between the two of them.

  “I loved the potato salad,” Devin said, and Cheryl nodded in agreement. “But if you’re talking to customers,” she continued, “don’t say things like Really, it’s supposed to be warm. That isn’t a mistake. That just makes it sound like it really was a mistake, and you forgot to put it in the fridge or something.”

  Cheryl laughed. “Luckily, I wrote the descriptions for the menu and didn’t leave that to her.”

  “That was smart of you,” Devin said, joining in her laughter. Cheryl seemed much more relaxed about the fiasco of a tasting than Lena was, which was surprising since it was apparently her business. Maybe she just had an abundance of faith in her niece’s abilities. Devin deepened her voice, as if she was narrating an imaginary menu. “The schnitzel is coated in panko and topped with a delicious gravy, but dammit, sometimes I forget to add the mushrooms.”

  “The sauerbraten is usually served in a generous portion and covered in a special sauce…but not tonight,” Cheryl said, matching Devin’s menu-narrating voice.

  Lena took a towel off the counter behind her and swatted playfully at the two of them. “All right, that’s enough,” she said. “But seriously, thank you for the feedback. I can work on those things, and I’ll try again this weekend. But Cheryl, if it isn’t any better than tonight, then I’m done, okay?”

  “Okay,” Cheryl repeated, her voice subdued. “I won’t ask more than that.”

  Lena just shook her head, and Devin wondered if she thought Cheryl had already asked an excessive amount from someone who wasn’t a chef—and who, even though she honestly seemed determined to improve, didn’t act like someone who even wanted to be a chef.

  “Now I need to get this kitchen clean so you two can go get some rest.” She turned to survey the mess, and Devin and Cheryl exchanged another glance behind her back.

  “Do you really believe I’m going to go upstairs and leave you alone with this, Lena?” Cheryl asked, and Devin heard something indefinable in her voice. Hurt? Surprise? “Devin dear, you’ve done more than enough to help tonight, so please don’t think we expect you to stay.”

  Devin had just been handed the opportunity to get away from Lena and the complications she embodied, but she shrugged it off. “It’s really not as bad as it looks,” she said. “A few loads of dishes and a little wall scrubbing. With the three of us working, it’ll be done in no time.”

  Lena sagged against the counter, looking relieved, as if she had truly thought they were going to walk away without helping. “Thank you, again,” she said, with an audible sigh. “I’ll do the walls, since they’re the worst of it.”

  “There’s a stepladder in the walk-in pantry,” Cheryl said. “Let me get that for you.”

  “I suppose this is yet another thing I need to improve,” Lena said with a forced-sounding laugh. “Managing to cook without completely destroying the kitchen each time.”

  Devin was surprised by her unexpected desire to reach out to Lena. To rub her shoulders, or to brush her fingers over Lena’s forehead and help to ease the visible tension in her. She went over to the dishwasher and turned the machine on, hoping it would start producing enough steam to hide her suddenly warm cheeks.

  “Well, yes, especially since you’re having two seatings. You won’t have time to do a major overhaul like this in between. But it’s something every cook or baker struggles with,” she added quickly, when Lena seemed to deflate at the reminder of what a dinner service would be like. “You should have seen our kitchen when I was done with the tarts.”

  Lena laughed again, but more real this time. “Was it spotless and shiny, and you were sitting at the counter sipping a nice cup of tea?”

  “No,” Devin said, with unconvincing indignation. She had learned from the start to clean as she baked, and she hadn’t left a mess in the kitchen since she was ten. Of course, her parents—and now just her dad—always seemed to be magically on hand to help her with dishes and other tasks. She gave Lena a guilty grin. “I was sitting at the counter eating the leftover ganache out of the bowl.”

  Cheryl returned with the ladder and a bucket that she filled with soapy water at the sink, and then Lena got to work on the dried-on gravy while Devin and Cheryl started sending trays full of pans and plates through the industrial dishwasher. Cheryl changed the subject to Leavenworth, asking Devin about local attractions and activities and occasionally attempting to draw Lena into the conversation. Devin talked about summer hikes in the wine country near Peshastin while taking the opportunity to observe the dynamic between aunt and niece.

  Lena was attacking the walls with focus and determination, even though she seemed interested in Devin’s stories and asked questions now and then about local wildlife and geology, while Cheryl was more sporadic in her attention—not to Devin, which was unwavering and felt genuine, but to the cleaning itself. She would load half a tray of dishes, then notice a counter that needed cleaning and go start that job, and then take an armload of towels to the laundry basket. She worked hard, and if left alone would probably have gotten the kitchen just as clean as any of them, but she took a haphazard approach. She zigzagged toward their goal, while Lena worked methodically from one wall segment to the next and seemed to get annoyed every time her aunt switched tasks.

  Devin couldn’t help but compare the two of them with her and her dad. Where the two of them easily switched between conversation and comfortable silence while they worked together, Lena and Cheryl carried a tension between them. It was obvious in the way Cheryl’s voice changed from normal when addressing Devin to a forced cheerfulness when she spoke to Lena. Lena did the same thing, but something far different from cheerfulness seeped in when she talked to her aunt. Devin thought she heard irritation, or maybe even disdain, creeping in around the edges, although Lena was unfailingly polite to Cheryl. Polite, but distant.

  She wondered what a stressful season of working side by side would bring for the two of them. A new closeness that didn’t seem to be present at the moment? Or a family rift that would take years to mend, if it ever did?

  Still, even though their working styles were different—or maybe because they were—they had the kitchen back to what Devin presumed was its baseline appearance in less than two hours. She had borne most of the conversational burden since she wasn’t emotionally invested in whatever tense dynamic was simmering between Lena and her aunt, so she had mentally walked them through most of the hikes within a few hours’ drive from Leavenworth. Once she had gotten started on the topic, she found she had more to say about it than she ever would have guessed. Although she had returned to Leavenworth for nearly every holiday season since she had left home, she had rarely come back during the other three seasons. She had forgotten how much she loved being surrounded by the beauty of the mountains and lakes, and she hadn’t realized how much she missed being in touch with nature in that way. She rarely saw more than cultivated parks in the city these days.

  She might have felt guilty monopolizing the conversation, but both Lena and Cheryl had seemed intrigued by her stories, interjecting relevant questions now and again. Whenever Devin paused, giving one of them a chance to change the topic, they remained in a silence that was, while not necessarily hostile, also not companionable.

  But eventually the final pan had been tucked into its cupboard, and the last of the leftovers were wrapped and stowed in the fridge—Devin’s, at least, since Lena had dumped her own food in the compost bin. Lena stuffed a couple of large, illustrated cookbooks into a canvas satchel and slung it over her arm.

  “Come on, Dev,” she said, with a familiarity that just felt right to Devin, which ironically made it disconcerting. “I’ll walk you home on the way back to my hotel.”

  “Remember that Kirby and Layla will be here tomorrow for training,” Cheryl said, following them through the empty dining room and to the front door. “And thank you, Devin, for helping clean and for the lovely desserts.”

  Cheryl squished Devin into a really nice hug as they left, but she and Lena sort of waved good-bye at each other from just a few feet away. Devin shivered as they went outside and into a light snowfall, and she tugged her fleece-lined hood over her hair. Lena left hers down, turning her face toward the sky and letting the tiny flakes settle in her hair, where they sparkled like glitter under the old-fashioned streetlamps.

  Devin licked her lips and faced forward again, watching for icy patches on the sidewalk, not wanting to trip and fall, either physically or romantically. Not only was Lena a temporary fixture in town, but she was also working through challenges in the restaurant and likely with her aunt. Definitely not relationship material, especially since Devin herself had too much going on at the moment to devote herself to romantic fancy.

  “You’re staying in a hotel?” she asked as they walked along the nearly empty sidewalks. In a couple of weeks, people wouldn’t be able to walk side by side and carry on a conversation on Front Street, but instead they would shuffle along through the crowds in single file.

  Lena sighed audibly. “Just for the week. I couldn’t get a reservation anywhere after that, plus I suppose it’ll make more sense for me to be at the restaurant once we open.”

  “So, you and your aunt aren’t close?”

  Lena laughed, her breath making a cloudy puff in the cold. “That’s a tactful way to put it. No, we’re not.” She looked over at Devin, her hazel eyes warm with concern. “I’m sorry if it seemed tense between us. The last thing I’d want to do is make you feel uncomfortable.”

  Devin shook her head, lost for a moment in those eyes. “I didn’t. You were both friendly toward me, but just…careful, I suppose, with each other.”

  Lena shrugged. “We never really spent much time together. When I was growing up, Cheryl would come visit every once in a while, but she spent most of her time flitting from job to job, starting businesses and then selling them. She never seemed to be in one place for very long, and when she was, it wasn’t anywhere near Portland. I really can’t believe how different she is from my dad, her brother. From all of us, really. We’re all driven and focused, and all of us work in the medical profession.” She laughed, but with a hint of bitterness. “Except me, in a way. I’m seen by my family as sort of medical-adjacent since I design electronic records platforms for clinics and health care systems. I never could stand the sight of blood, and I’m the only one who didn’t go to medical school. Anyway, I suppose that if it wasn’t for Cheryl, I would have been considered the family eccentric, so I should be grateful to her for making me seem normal to them by comparison.”

  She gently nudged Devin with her shoulder. “You must understand the type of people we are, even though your career is so different. You’re just as focused and single-minded about chocolate as they are about blood.”

  Devin heard the unspoken words she had lived with all her life. The expectation that she would follow in the family’s footsteps and take over the shop, just one more in a long line of chocolatiers. Living her life based on the choice someone else had made generations ago.

  “I work in the finance department of a telecommunications company,” she said. It never sounded as intriguing as saying even the simple sentence I make chocolates for a living. “I only come here during the Christmas season when I can, to help my dad with the shop.” She hesitated, never comfortable voicing the words even though she knew the time was right for the action behind them.

  “This is my last season, too. My dad is selling the shop.”

  “No! Really?” Lena said, looking as forlorn as if she had just been told that Santa didn’t exist. “I mean, I hope you’re happy at your job, but it is a crime against humanity that you’re not devoting every minute of your life to creating your chocolate masterpieces. But selling the—oh, wait. I’ve seen this movie. Is it an evil developer, coming to Leavenworth to build a resort where the beloved candy shop used to be? If someone is blackmailing your dad and forcing him to sell, I’ll help somehow.”

  Devin laughed at the dramatic scene Lena was envisioning as they stopped in front of the shop. The store was closed, but still brightly lit, and the cases glimpsed through the windows were filled with decorated chocolates that glistened as if they were gemstones.

  “The potential buyers are empty-nesters who want to run the store as it is. Besides, this would be the tiniest resort ever,” Devin said, gesturing at the shop’s miniscule footprint. “And there are strict building codes here, to keep evil developers at bay. Thank you for the offer, though. Out of curiosity, what were you planning to do to fight them?”

  Lena shrugged. “I didn’t have time to work out details, but it would have something to do with my food. I’d either throw it at them or make them eat it.”

  Devin laughed, ignoring the opening to tease Lena about her cooking. “After a couple of weeks, your cooking will be so great, it will no longer be able to be weaponized. From the way you described your family, I’ll bet you see this as a challenge you need to overcome. I have a feeling you can do anything once you put your mind to it.”

  Lena smiled and reached out to touch Devin on the shoulder. “Thank you. You’re right, too. Not that I’m superwoman and can do anything, but that once I start a project, I won’t let go until I’ve accomplished it or knocked myself out trying. It’s the competitive drive in the Preiss genes, I guess.” She paused and frowned. “I think that’s why I was a little angry with Cheryl tonight. I can feel myself starting to get invested in this restaurant, even though it was never my dream, and I honestly never cared if I became a great chef or not. But now that I’ve started, and failed, I know I’m going to do whatever it takes to succeed.”

  Devin wondered if it was Lena’s genes, or the messages she had gotten from the rest of her family about what success really meant. “Sometimes conquering a goal isn’t the important part. It’s the people you meet and the things you learn along the way. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised by the way you feel when you start getting more comfortable in the kitchen.”