Holly Jolly Cowboy (The Wyoming Cowboy #7)(67)

Which was why she was baking it for Adam.

Was it passive-aggressive of her? Sure. So were the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches she was going to flood him with for the next while. Since she was hired to make dinners, she was going to make dinners, of course. She was trying to think of the least appetizing things she could possibly make him. Liver and onions? Olive loaf? Something loaf for sure, she decided. With Brussels sprouts.

And beets. Definitely something with beets. Beet loaf?

She snorted with amusement and punched the dough again. The bread she was making was for her, because when she needed to let out her aggressions, baking was the way to go. Baking always made her feel better, and after days of abstaining because she felt so low and worthless, it was good to have projects in the kitchen again. Her sourdough starter was showing signs of life, she had a cake—however fruity—in the oven, and dough under her hands.

She’d get through this. She would.

It freaking hurt, though. Every time she thought about Adam, she felt a fresh wave of betrayal. She imagined his face, smug with amusement, as she brought the world’s worst cake to a damn bake-off. He’d known it was awful and he’d said nothing, just driven her into town without a peep. And then he’d had the nerve to be nice to her. And he was her date at Becca’s party.

And damn it, she’d fallen for him.

That felt like the biggest betrayal of all. If he’d just been regular jerk Adam and had sabotaged her cake, she wouldn’t care nearly as much. She’d be angry and humiliated, of course, but not surprised. But because she’d fallen for him—and fallen into bed with him—she felt betrayed. And sad. Really, really sad.

For the first time since Polly had left—maybe even earlier, to before, when her parents were alive—Holly hadn’t felt alone. She’d felt like she had a companion, a partner, someone that understood her and listened to her. Someone that rubbed her feet and made stupid jokes when she was having a bad day. Someone that taste tested all her recipes and watched out for her when she got drunk. Someone that had her back.

Maybe that was what hurt the most. Holly had thought Adam had her back, and instead, he was just laughing behind her back.

Hot tears threatened to roll down her face again and she paused, wiping her face on her shoulder. She wasn’t going to cry over Adam Calhoun. She wasn’t. She was going to think about those one-dollar tips and not the way he smiled at her when she woke up, like she was perfection. She wasn’t going to think about the way he always put her feet in his lap as if she was the only one that had had a long day. She wasn’t going to think about his laugh, or the way his breath hitched when she touched him.

Holly was never going to touch the bastard again.

She punched her fist into the dough once more. He’d let her doubt herself for weeks. He’d let her cry over that cake repeatedly. He’d let her feel stupid and useless and made her question her skills, and the entire time, he’d known there was nothing wrong with her ability to bake. Nothing at all.

And now that she knew the truth . . . she still worried about whether she was any good or not, and wasn’t that the freaking saddest thing of all? That Holly still had no confidence in herself?

She needed to stop this shit. Today. She wasn’t the type to mope. She was the type to pick herself up and move on, because the world wouldn’t allow her a chance to wallow . . . even if she very much wanted to wallow. She glanced around at the kitchen, at the variety of baking projects in various stages of completion.

Yeah, she wasn’t going to save these for Adam. Fuck Adam.

And then she burst into tears again, because fucking Adam was part of the problem, wasn’t it? Adam had been wonderful up until last night, when he’d shown his true colors. She should have known it was too good to be true between them.

A few hours later, Holly had her freshly baked bread wrapped up in cheesecloth and two delicately iced loaves of fruitcake boxed up. She’d contemplated leaving the fruitcake for him and then figured he didn’t even deserve that. With her luck, he’d be the one person in the world that loved fruitcake. So she packed up her baked goods, put a sweater on her fluffy little dog, and drove into town.

Immediately, it felt like a bad idea. There was an enormous, charred hole in the cluster of buildings downtown, right where Wade’s saloon should have been. Seeing it made her feel worse, and Holly parked her car and stared morosely at the burned-out ruin for a long moment before forcing herself to get out. With Pumpkin tucked under one arm, she picked up one of the cakes with her other and crossed the street, heading for Becca’s salon.

Her friend was inside, which wasn’t much of a surprise—Becca was always inside, working. She was just as much a workaholic as Holly was, but Becca ran her own salon and loved to sit and just talk for hours with her customers. Today, someone was seated getting her ends trimmed. She had dark hair and a full figure. Holly had seen her around town but never ran into her much—the local accountant. Not that Holly ever had enough money to need an accountant.

But Becca beamed a wide smile at Holly. “Well, hey there! Happy holidays to you!”

“Happy holidays,” called the woman in the chair, her hands moving under the bright pink cape.

“I thought I’d bring you a present to say thank you for inviting me to the party the other day,” Holly lied. I mean, as excuses went, it was a perfect one, wasn’t it? It made a lot more sense than “rage baking.” “If you don’t like fruitcake, I’ve got a loaf of cinnamon bread out in the car.”