Holly Jolly Cowboy (The Wyoming Cowboy #7)(65)

“Why not?”

She turned and gave him an exasperated look. “You know why not.”

“I don’t, actually. I thought making cakes was what you wanted to do. That you love baking more than anything.” He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. She automatically handed him a fresh towel and they dried off, standing together. It was an oddly cozy moment, and one that he kinda liked sharing with her. Funny how he’d never thought that watching his lover towel her skin off could make him so damn happy, but it did. He just liked watching her. Liked being near her.

Holly shook her head at him, wrapping the towel around her body. “I choke when there’s too much on the line. I can’t risk making a cake for someone and having it turn into absolute garbage. I’d be so embarrassed I’d never be able to show my face in town ever again. Tell him to ask the bakery. Maybe Geraldine can whip up something for him. Or tell him to go to the grocery store in Casper.”

It made no sense. Surely she didn’t doubt herself that much after that stupid baking contest? “But you make cakes for me. All the time. Amazing cakes.”

“Why are you pushing this so hard? Adam, I can’t, okay?” She frowned at him, her pretty features full of frustration. “I humiliated myself with the cake contest at the Winter Festival. Everyone in town laughed at me. The dumb dropout waitress trying to compete with legit bakers. And look what I turned in.” She shook her head again. “If I keep shoving terrible cakes at everyone, my dream will never happen. Tell him I appreciate the pity order, but no, thank you.”

He stared at Holly. She really thought it was a pity order? She thought Caleb and Amy wanted a cake because they felt sorry for her? Hadn’t Becca gushed over Holly’s baking for the party? Hell, hadn’t he told her how incredible each treat she baked was? He’d probably put on ten pounds in the last two weeks because of her delicious food, and he didn’t care. It was amazing, and he was going to be sad when Sage came back and started cooking for them again. It wouldn’t be the same.

Did she not understand just how good she was at this?

“Carson’s daughter loved your cookies, didn’t she? And your sister, she asked you to bake more for her, didn’t she? You told me that,” Adam argued.

“Adam, I can’t!” Holly sounded distressed, her eyes full of frustration. “You don’t understand. No one thinks I’m anything in this town. I can’t afford to mess up again or they’ll never see me as anything at all.”

“This is all over that damn cake in the cooking competition?”

“Everyone in town laughed at me,” Holly insisted, her eyes shiny. “They laughed at me. I thought I was good at something and the universe just proved me wrong all over again.”

Ah, hell. This was over that damned cake. He wished he’d never touched it. He’d had no idea how much it had meant to her, and now he was going to have to confess his shitty actions because she needed to know the truth. It was long past the time that he needed to tell her, and he wanted to come clean. More than that, he wanted her to stop doubting herself so much. It wounded him to see her so miserable. “They weren’t laughing at you,” he insisted. “It was just a mistake.”

“It wasn’t—”

“There was nothing wrong with your cake, Holly.” He tried again. “I swear there wasn’t.”

She shook her head. “You don’t get it. The judges spit it out. People refused to taste it. I tried it and it was nothing but salt when it was in my mouth.” Her expression grew heartbroken. “It was my big chance to make something of myself and I must have mixed up the ingredients. I just—”

“It wasn’t you,” he said again. “You weren’t the problem.”

“Well, no one else baked my cake,” she retorted, irritated. “You can call it what you want, but I’m still the fuck-up.”

“It wasn’t you,” Adam said calmly. “It was me.”

She opened her mouth to protest and then paused. Tilted her head and studied him, and then frowned, as if she couldn’t quite figure him out. “What are you talking about?”

“You weren’t at fault. I was mad at you after the whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich thing and I came into the kitchen and saw you had all the ingredients in bowls in the fridge. And I might have made a few . . .” He rubbed his forehead. “Creative additions to your recipe.”

Holly blinked.

Stared at him.

He watched as her eyes widened in horror as she realized what he’d done. Her mouth opened, her jaw dropping. “You sabotaged me?” she whispered.

God, now he felt like the biggest jerk in the world. The look of hurt and betrayal on her face was killing him. “It was childish. I know. I was just . . . mad and not thinking. I figured you were making the cake for Carson. It was petty, I know.” The more he talked about it, the stupider he felt. What kind of grown man sabotaged a cake? Him, apparently. “I thought you were playing games with us, trying to make me feel bad, like my ex did. I didn’t know you were entering it into the contest until you showed up with it the next day and then I just couldn’t say anything.”

“You fucked me over?”

“I didn’t know!”

“And you still let me enter it? You couldn’t have warned me?” She put her hands to her forehead. “You couldn’t have had your giggle otherwise? You let me present that cake like a smug asshole to everyone in the town so they could laugh at me!”