“Cass, hold that thought, okay?” her sister said. “I need your help with something. I know it’s going to be the very last thing in the world you want to do, and will push you way outside your comfort zone, but I need you to think about how much you love me and how you’d do anything for me and how much I need this. My career depends on it.”
This made Cass stop in the middle of the sidewalk and press the phone tighter to her ear. “Depends on what? Charlie, are you okay? What’s going on?”
“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.”