The Holiday Swap(11)

“I will be. I think. But I need you.” Her voice sounded shaky, uncertain—and very un-Charlie-like. Suddenly her messy evening with Brett was the last thing in the world that mattered to Cass.

“Of course. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

“Come to L.A.”

“What? But, Charlie, this time of year is imposs—”

“I know, I know. The holidays are the busiest time for the bakery and Mom and Dad aren’t around this year and under normal circumstances you would never leave—but it would just be for a few days.”

“How many?”

A pause.

“Ten.”

Cass knew she couldn’t abandon the bakery for the remaining days left until Christmas—and yet, all at once, the idea of temporarily leaving her problems behind was tempting. “Believe me, I would love to get out of town, but I can’t just drop everything. The Starlight Bread orders alone . . . Plus, Brett just told me a Makewell’s is thinking of moving in. I feel like everything is falling apart. I have to be here to keep it together.” Cass thought about the dough she’d abandoned, and the stack of unfulfilled orders back at the bakery. Her parents were trusting her to run the show while they were gone, and she needed them to believe she was up for the task of taking over the bakery, a lifelong dream. Except, as she looked around at the familiar streets of her hometown now, her dream suddenly felt small and suffocating.

“No one is neglecting the bakery. I’ll take your place. We’ll switch, like we used to do when we were kids, remember? You come to L.A., I come home. It will be fun.” But there was nothing in Charlie’s voice that indicated this was going to be fun. Charlie loved her life in L.A., which, from Cass’s perspective, was full of glamor and adventure, and could not be more different than life in Starlight Peak. The last time Charlie had come home she had seemed distracted, restless. Why would she want to come back here so badly?

“What exactly is going on, Charlie?”

“I hit my head at work . . . a little concussion, apparently—” At this Cass instantly understood why her own head had been hurting so much. The twins had always been connected like this—if one got hurt, the other felt her pain. When fifteen-year-old Cass broke her wrist snowboarding, Charlie’s arm inexplicably ached for a week; when Charlie caught a bad flu not long after arriving in L.A., Cass spiked a fever.

“Charlie!”

“I’m okay, Cass. It’s not that serious. Except one of the temporary symptoms is I can’t taste or smell anything—”

“That sounds very serious to me! Did you go to the hospital?”

“I did, and I checked out fine. This tiny little injury is going to resolve itself. Just not fast enough. The Sweet and Salty Christmas special is in the middle of a tight taping schedule for our lead-up to the holidays. And I’m useless on set if I can’t actually taste the recipes I’m judging—or smell what’s cooking. Which is where you come in. All you have to do is pretend to be me. You’re already a baking and pastry expert, so it’s not a huge stretch. A lot of it is scripted, and you’ll just have to go along with the preplanned stuff—like my recipes, which are all set. You’ll follow my blueprints and then use your own expertise when it comes to the judging part. I’ve FaceTimed you from the set, so you know what it all looks like.”

“I’ve never been on camera. I’d have no idea what I was doing.”

“All you have to do is pretend the cameras aren’t there, be yourself—while pretending to be me, of course. Meanwhile, the bakery will be fine! I know what I’m doing. Even Mom and Dad don’t have to know we’ve swapped.”

“But if you can’t taste or smell anything, how can you manage things at the bakery?”

“I know the Woodburn recipes like the back of my hand. I’ll take care of everything. No one will know you aren’t me, and I’m not you. And then, when the holidays are over, we’ll switch back.”

It was crazy to consider—reckless even, for a million reasons. Yet, as Cass stood on the sidewalk of her tiny town, a town that had started to feel incredibly claustrophobic tonight, the idea of creating some distance between her and Brett was very appealing.

“If I do this, I’ll need a favor from you, too.”

“Anything. Name it.”

“Things with Brett are a mess. I tried to tell him it was over tonight, and instead he told me he’d bought a house for us to live in when we get married! So . . . maybe while you’re here you could pretend to be me in every area of my life, including this? Tell him it’s over on my behalf. You’re so much better at dealing with conflict than I am.”

“Keep the bakery going, handle Brett. Got it. So, do we have a deal?”

Cass paused, but then felt relief course through her—and something else, too: a surge of exhilaration at the idea of getting out of Starlight Peak. She felt the tension from the night draining away. She had wished for an escape, and now Charlie was offering her one. “Deal.”

“Really? Okay. Thank you. How about first thing in the morning? Can you make it for four? That should give us enough time.”

“In Upland, at the Flying J station just off the San Bernardino freeway,” Cass said, amazed at how easily she was going along with this, but too caught up in the moment to slow herself down. “You know the one?”