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Superintendent Patrick had asked Milli for her number again at Ben Wallace’s funeral. Milli had been frozen in place for a moment with Emily on her hip, looking for Aunt Elizabeth. She had handed over one of the Wild Anemones business cards without hesitation and agreed to make 1000 simple vanilla cupcakes and a specialty cake for a raffle.

It had taken her two days of baking in her oversized double oven, in the oven of the single bedroom cottages and the oven in the Anemone. Running between the four buildings in the wind and snow was annoying and cold. Now, she had only to decorate the last of them and deliver them today.

While her mixers hummed, making more buttercream frosting, Milli rolled out fondant and stamp-cut hearts out of the sheets. Each heart made her think of Lloyd’s tattoo. She groaned in her head; she liked him a lot, but obviously, the feeling wasn’t mutual. He made her feel things she didn’t understand, things different from wh