Clark didn’t speak right away. He went into a cabinet and found an apron of his own. As he pulled it over his head and rolled up the sleeves of his blue collared shirt, Kate stopped herself from breathing too loud. She’d thought he was handsome since she met him, but this was something else. The clash of the domestic apron with his strong, exposed forearms, his willingness to open up and be sensitive around her… Her cheeks flushed, and it had nothing to do with the blazing oven. When Clark returned, he spoke again.

“I haven’t had a real Christmas since I was nine years old. If I ever did make cookies, it was so long ago it’s impossible to remember if I did.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He clearly thought that would be the end of it. Holding up the star ornament, he stared at Kate through its negative space like a rich man assessing a stranger through a monocle. “Now, what do I do with this?”

On the marble countertops before them, Kate set up their station. A frozen pad of cookie dough waited on the floured countertop and a greased cookie sheet waited for the cut-out cookies. She demonstrated the method, every so often glancing at Clark to gauge his reaction.

“You just sprinkle some flour on it and press it in. Like so.”

“I don’t know.” He hesitated over the preparations, suddenly skittish. “I don’t want to ruin it.”

“You can’t ruin it. Just press in…” She demonstrated again, “And pull it out.”

Clark breathed in deep, as though he were diffusing a bomb instead of cutting out cookies. It was a cute image, in a way. He’d been out of practice in having fun for so long, he couldn’t even take something as simple as cutting out cookies any less seriously than negotiating a huge business deal. He laid the makeshift cookie-cutter into the dough, pulled it out, and fumbled to pick the newly made star up. There weren’t many ways to mess up using a cookie-cutter, so Clark’s clumsy attempt came out fairly neat. Two of the star’s points were lopsided and inconsistent with the rest. Clark deflated.

“I messed up the ends. What do I do now?”

“Just put it on the tray and try again with another one,” Kate said, obviously.

“But—”

“Not everything’s a disaster, Clark. You can always try again.”

“I can’t—”