Chapter 16: The Cookie Swap

Joanna's POV

The cookie swap filled the whole church hall, sixty people and a table for every kind of sugar.

I had baked from my mother's recipe cards the night before, with Emmett holding the tray and offering opinions I did not need.

The cookies were in a white box tied with green ribbon, and the tag on the lid was blank.

I carried it in with both hands.

Emmett came in behind me in a clean jacket, and the room noticed.

Conversations went down a row at a time, and then they started again lower.

By the coffee urn the old man in the brown cardigan lifted his chin at him.

Emmett lifted his back.

I could see the corner of the envelope in his inside pocket every time he moved.

"Jo!"

Milo came through the crowd at a run, with Zoey behind him pretending she wasn't running.

Bryce stood by the coat rack, in a tie, looking like a man at his own sentencing.

"Are you gonna swap?" Milo asked.

"I'm going to trade one thing," I said.

"What?"

"You'll see."

Zoey looked at the box and then at my face.

She had texted me every day for nine days, and she had kept her promise.

"Grandma's been practicing a speech," she murmured. "In the mirror. I heard her."

"Thank you for telling me."

"Don't let her be nice to you."

At seven o'clock Dorothea tapped a spoon against a cup.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Five of Us at Christmas, But They Only Got Four Cookies from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.