Gingerbread Dreams by K.L. Noone
For the Awesome Husband,
who watches all the baking shows with me.
Chapter 1: Round One
“They’re nervous.” Marcus LeGrand crossed arms, watching computer monitors. On them, the holiday baking show contestants entered the kitchen set for the first time; wide-eyed, drinking in gold-striped candles and spruce branches and shiny pots at clean new workstations, they wandered and milled and bunched together and eddied apart, talking and gesturing. Cameras assiduously captured every drop of footage, ready for editing and trimming later. “I hope they know what they’re in for.”
“They’ll be fine.” Miranda Flowers, fellow judge and motherly host of Miranda’s Kitchen on GourmetTV, their television channel home, smiled sunnily at him. “They always are. Don’t be a g
