A Snowball Falls Mini-Rom-Com
Welcome back to Snowball Falls, where even gingerbread houses can suffer structural failure, and the grumpiest mechanic in town may be the only man qualified to save Christmas snack architecture.
Noelle Santos brought the gingerbread house to Ellison’s Auto because desperate women made strange choices.
She stood in the middle of his garage with powdered sugar on her neon green elf coat, royal icing on one sleeve, and a gingerbread roof sliding slowly across his metal workbench.
Jack stared at it. Noelle waited, while trying her best not to breathe in the smell of motor oil.
At last, Jack folded his arms. “That’s not a house.”
Noelle pressed a frosting-covered hand to her chest. “How dare you?”
“That’s a liability.”
“It’s a winter wonderland.”
“It’s leaning.”
“It’s doing its best.”
The left side of the roof shifted another inch.
Noelle caught it with two fingers and smiled brightly. “I have twenty-two second-graders expecting a magical gingerbread village tomorrow morning.”
“I fix cars,” Jack said.
“This is fixing.”
“It’s a cookie.”
“It has structural failure.”
“It has gumdrops.”
“It needs you.”
That did something. Jack Ellison wasn’t the type to melt. He was far too stubborn for that. Still, his gaze moved from the roof to Noelle’s face, then back again.
From under the open hood of Mrs. Halverson’s ancient station wagon, Tucker Blodgett rolled out on a creeper, holding a wrench and wearing the thrilled expression of a teenager who had found entertainment.
“Mr. E, we could jack it up.”
“No,” Jack said.
“Not high. Just enough to level the foundation.”
“No.”
Jack pointed at the station wagon. “Back to work.”
Tucker didn’t move.
A small voice came from behind the counter. “It needs a stronger wall.”
Everyone turned.
Maisie Ellison stood with her spiral notebook hugged to her chest, her owl hat pulled low over her forehead. She had been so still that Noelle had almost forgotten she was there. The child noticed everything. Wrong notes, missing buttons, adults pretending not to feel things.
Jack looked at his daughter. “You’re supposed to be doing your spelling words.”
“I finished them.”
“Every single one?”
“And I drew a diagram.”
“Of your spelling words?”
“Of the gingerbread house.”
Maisie climbed onto the old stool by the workbench and opened her notebook. The page showed a surprisingly detailed sketch of Noelle’s collapsing gingerbread village. One corner was labelled sad wall.
Noelle leaned closer. “Maisie, sweetheart, this is brilliant.”
Maisie’s cheeks turned pink beneath the owl hat. “The roof is too heavy.”
Jack rubbed a hand over his face.
Maisie tapped the roof on her drawing. “I think it needs marshmallow snow.”
“On the roof?”
“It looks bare.”
“You want to put roof snow on a failing structure?”
“It’s pretty, Dad.”
Jack stared at her. She grinned back. He looked away first.
Victory.
Jack dragged a clean rag from the drawer, wiped a space on the workbench, and stepped closer. “Move the gumdrops.”
Noelle clutched the piping bag to her chest. “Does that mean you’ll help?”
“It means I don’t want twenty-two second-graders blaming my garage when your roof caves in.”
“That sounds like helping.”
“It sounds like risk management.”
“You’re very romantic.”
“I’m not being romantic.”
“Not with that attitude.”
Jack held out one hand. “Piping bag.”
He squeezed, and a blob of icing shot out and splatted onto the workbench.
Maisie giggled and wrote something in her notebook.
Jack looked at her. “Don’t record that.”
“It’s data.”
“It’s not data.”
Laughter snorted through Noelle’s nose. Jack pointed the piping bag at Noelle. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m helping emotionally.”
“You’re making it worse emotionally.”
“I have that effect on men who pretend not to enjoy Christmas.”
Jack’s gaze lifted to hers. For one second, the chilly garage seemed much smaller, then the gingerbread roof slid again. Noelle yelped and grabbed the left wall. Jack caught the right. Their hands bumped. His fingers were cold from the garage and rough from work. Noelle’s pulse behaved in a way she intended to ignore until later, preferably with cocoa.
“Hold that,” Jack said.
“I am holding that.”
“Hold it straighter.”
“I’m holding a baked good under pressure.”
“You brought it to a mechanic.”
“You answered the call.”
“I deeply regret answering the call.”
“No, you don’t.”
He didn’t answer, but reached for a socket wrench and propped it against the side wall.
Noelle blinked. “Is that sanitary?”
“It’s clean.”
“It was beside an oil filter.”
“It’s cleaner than whatever happened to that gumdrop.”
Noelle inspected the fluff-covered gumdrop he was pointing at. She removed it with dignity. “That gumdrop gave its life for the cause.”
Jack added a thick line of icing along the inside gap. He concentrated harder. Noelle had seen that expression once before, when Maisie’s bike chain jammed during the Snowball Spectacular and Jack fixed it in under a minute while three children shouted advice. He was working with the same careful patience now on a cookie.
Noelle smiled. “Thank you,” she said.
“It’s not fixed yet.”
“I’m thanking you because you’re repairing a gingerbread house after closing time.”
His mouth tightened. “It’s Maisie’s class too.”
Maisie bent over her notebook, but the tips of her ears had turned pink.
Noelle kept her voice bright. “True. This is a parent-teacher emergency.”
The gingerbread house shifted inward. Noelle lunged.
Jack caught the roof.
Maisie grabbed the peppermint chimney.
Jess shouted, “Brace the gumdrop side.”
Tucker rolled out from under the car. “I’ve got clamps.”
“No clamps,” Noelle and Jack said together. They both froze and looked at each other.
Tucker whispered, “Holy snow, they’re synchronized.”
Jess whispered back, “Romance is disgusting.”
Maisie whispered, “I like Miss Santos.”
The garage went quiet. Maisie’s eyes widened. Noelle gulped.
Jack’s expression changed before he controlled it. Only a flicker, but Noelle saw the fear and tenderness. That careful look he got whenever Maisie said something that mattered too much.
Maisie hugged the peppermint chimney to her coat. “I mean, she has glitter glue.”
Noelle crouched a little. “That is one of my finest qualities.”
Maisie nodded. “And you don’t talk to me like I’m little.”
“No. I talk to you like you’re a person with excellent engineering instincts.”
Maisie looked down at her boots. “The house still needs a wall.”
Jack cleared his throat. His voice came out rougher than before. “Then we give it a wall.”
He picked up one of the spare gingerbread panels, trimmed it with the plastic butter knife from Noelle’s frosting kit, and fitted it inside the house.
“That knife is useless,” he muttered.
“It came with the kit.”
Noelle snorted.
Jack held the panel while she piped icing along the base. Her first line was wavy.
“Don’t,” she warned.
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You breathed critically.”
“I breathed normally.”
“You have judgmental lungs.”
Maisie giggled.
Noelle panicked at the sweetness of that sound and squeezed the piping bag too hard.
Icing shot across Jack’s knuckles.
A white streak covered his hand from thumb to wrist.
Nobody moved.
Tucker’s eyes went huge. Behind him, Jess pressed both hands over her mouth.
Maisie’s pencil hovered above the notebook.
Noelle stared at Jack’s hand. “I can explain.”
Jack examined the icing. Then he looked at her.
“You attacked me with frosting.”
“It was accidental.”
“You’re armed.”
“It’s royal icing. Historically, royalty has caused worse trouble.”
Tucker made a tiny wheezing noise.
Jack’s mouth twitched.
Noelle pointed at him. “Was that a smile?”
“No.”
“It was nearly a smile.”
“It was muscle fatigue.”
“Your face is exhausted from pretending you’re not enjoying this.”
Jack stepped closer, held up his frosted hand, then lifted his clean hand and tapped one finger gently against the tip of her nose.
Cool icing stuck to her skin.
“There,” he said.
Noelle crossed her eyes trying to see it. “Did you just frost me?”
“You started it.”
Maisie squealed and Tucker started laughing under the station wagon, which made Jess laugh, which made Maisie laugh harder, which made Noelle laugh so much she had to grip the workbench.
Jack didn’t laugh properly, but he smiled. A real one this time. Noelle saw it. So did Maisie.
Jack looked down at the gingerbread house. “Roof’s holding.”
Noelle turned.
The roof was, against all odds and several laws of baking, holding.
The spare gingerbread wall held. The socket wrench brace kept the left side in place. The peppermint chimney leaned, but charmingly.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
Jack gave the house a doubtful look. “It’s upright.”
“Beautifully upright.”
“It needs fifteen minutes before you can move it.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
“Garage is closed.”
Maisie slid off the stool. “We have cocoa packets in Dad’s office.”
Jack frowned. “We have old cocoa packets.”
“The good ones behind the invoices.”
Jack gave his daughter a betrayed look. “You’re not supposed to tell people where I hide things.”
Maisie shrugged. “Miss Santos is helping with the structure.”
Jack muttered, “The structure is going to be the death of me.”
But he reached behind the invoices for the good cocoa.
And on the workbench behind them, the gingerbread house stayed mostly standing. Which, in Snowball Falls, absolutely counted as a Christmas miracle.