Mrs. Gowdy smiled and waved off his apology. “It’s all right, honey. Y’all were havin’ the cutest sweethearts’ spat and I didn’t wanna interrupt.” She nodded at Arthur. “Love the sweater.” Smiled sweetly at me. “Good to see ya, Finley. Hope your folks work things out. It’d be a real shame if they split up.” Then she continued merrily on her way, the damage done before either Arthur or I could stammer out the requisite dating denials, though I managed to register the full implication of the town’s awareness about my parents’ marital woes.

We were left with awkward silence.

Arthur cleared his throat. “Aisle three?”

I nodded. And we headed in that direction.

Thirteen

Twenty-five minutes later, we were waiting for Mitzi to retrieve the pies Grandma Jo ordered for today’s lunch and dinner meals from the back of the Gingerbread Café. Which looked exactly like a giant gingerbread house, inside and out. Of all the places in town to embrace the Christmas theme, the blatantly tacky really worked here, inching very close to endearing.

But what truly drew people were the baked goods. The owner, Mitzi, was our town’s version of Ina Garten and the pre-diabetic Paula Deen. Grandma Jo had long ago wisely handed over the creation of the inn’s dessert options to Mitzi.

I glanced at Arthur, who was waiting with his hands linked behind his back, investigating the trays of Mitzi-created cakes, cookies, and slices of pies lined up in the glass-covered display case, and I felt a squeeze in my heart. Even before he spied something in the case and his eyes brightened.

“Jammie Dodgers!” he exclaimed with a level of unbridled joy I’d never before seen from him.

But I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

“What’s a Jammie Dodger?” I asked, thinking this was a perfectly reasonable question, but the look of stupefaction he directed at me made me reconsider.

“You’ve never had a Jammie Dodger?”

“Big ‘nope’ on that.”

“They’re only the world’s greatest biscuit.”

I’d watched enough British TV shows on Netflix to know he meant cookie. Sure enough, when he pointed into the display case and I saw a tray of round shortbread cookie sandwiches with a reddish substance I recognized was raspberry jam visible in the heart-shaped cutout in the center. Mitzi had labeled them—

“Christmas Jammies,” I said, since that’s how I always knew them. While I didn’t know diddly about Jammie Dodgers, these cookies were freakin’ delicious.

“A blatant appropriation of an English staple,” he said. “But I don’t give a stuff. I’ve not had them in months.”

His longing was so acute it gave me insight as to what Young Arthur must have been like. Which was adorable.