Bad Boy Valentine by Sylvia Pierce

it that way—Kate slammed Gran’s big metal mixing bowl onto the counter and dumped in the flour and baking powder. Even after all this time, she didn’t need to measure anything; she could make the recipe in her sleep and blindfolded.
    They’d always been Jagger’s favorite, her Chai Spice Love Bites. The ones he’d asked about tonight and she’d deflected, pretending to be clueless. But what could she have said? No, I haven’t made them since you left. They reminded me too much of you, of everything we lost. I can’t even make a chai latte for a customer without thinking of you.
    The night he got arrested, she’d stayed up past sunrise making batch after batch, passing the time as she waited for his return, ignorant to his plight. Even after his uncle showed up later that morning with the news—Jagger was in jail, didn’t want to see her—she still held out hope. But then he’d refused to see her, refused to even glance her way at the arraignment. After his sentencing, after he’d been shipped off, she’d tried to visit him in prison, and still he refused her. She held out hope anyway, telling herself he just needed time. Space. Weeks turned to months turned to years, and Kate kept on baking those damn chai cookies. It was as if she thought they’d somehow magically reach him, bring him back to her—like he’d just walk through the door one day, gather her into his arms, and ask if the cookies were still warm.
    But as it turned out, the cookies weren’t so magical after all, and every single batch had ended up in the garbage; eating them would’ve been too painful.
    By the third year, long after she’d moved back in with her grandmother, long after she’d lost contact with Jagger’s uncle, she finally stopped making those godforsaken cookies.
    Until tonight.
    She didn’t know what strange, mysterious force had called her to make them now, but she went with it, creaming the butter and sugars, adding in the spice mixture. The comforting scents of cardamom, ginger, clove, and cinnamon calmed her, and soon she settled into the familiar rhythm of mixing, scraping, stirring, shaping. By the time she put the first batch on the baking stones in the oven, she was done crying. Second batch, she was even humming a little tune. And by the time all of the cookies were out on the cooling racks, the whole kitchen smelled like chai tea, and Kate was feeling okay again.
    Baking had always been her elixir, her cure-all.
    Just like it had been for her grandmother.
    She thought of Gran now, of all the heartache the woman had endured—losing her husband to cancer at a young age. Losing her daughter to addiction. Raising a granddaughter who didn’t want to be tamed as a teenager, and then later, taking her in once again as an adult, after her life with Jagger had fallen apart.
    Gran had picked Kate up off the floor and dusted her off more times than she could count. She’d taught her how to be strong. How to be independent. And she’d taught her how to bake.
    “Sometimes you need a good cry,” Gran used to say. “And sometimes you just need to put a damn cake in the oven and get over it.”
    It was good advice, and in the years since Jagger had left, it had helped save Kate from the worst of her heartache and despair. Eventually, it led her to launch her dream business, saving her from a meaningless, passionless career.
    But anger? Nothing could’ve saved her from that.
    Jagger had made her angry all over again tonight—infuriated her. His words still twisted in her gut, making her feel hot and itchy, pathetic. She knew it was ridiculous, but seeing Jagger shut down and pull away so quickly, hearing him voice his doubts so soon after what they’d done together… God, it was awful. It felt like losing him all over again. Like he’d decided, once again, she wasn’t good enough. Not for him. Not for the truth.
    It brought back all the old feelings, the very bedrock of her anger.
    Of course she was livid with him