Page 34 of The Gingerbread Bakery
‘Mac.’
He tugged a little on her wrist and to his surprise she leaned into him, her cheek pressed right over his heart.
‘Your heart is beating really fast,’ she whispered.
‘I know.’
Still, she didn’t move. For one agonizingly perfect minute, she didn’t move. She just pressed her face against him and let him twine his fingers with hers. Her breathing slowed and her body relaxed against his. He took a risk and planted a chaste kiss on the top of her head. The soft sigh she let out at the contact was everything he’d dreamed about in the past eleven years.
But like everything else with Annie, it didn’t last.
‘I’m sorry I hurt you,’ he murmured.
Annie pulled away. ‘You didn’t hurt me.’
‘Christ, Annie, will you just accept my apology? I fucked up, okay? We had one perfect month together and then I ruined it. Can we move on, please?’
She was fumbling for the doorknob again.
‘I don’t need your apology, Mac. Because I’m fine. We hung out for one month like a million years ago and it really doesn’t matter to me anymore. Where the hell is the doorknob?’ She groaned in frustration.
‘If it doesn’t matter, then why are you pissed at me all the time?’
‘Did it ever occur to you that I simply don’t like you?’
‘Ha! Okay, sure, darling. You and I and everyone else in this town know the way you look at me.’
‘Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.’ She punctuated each word with a kick to the door.
Mac sighed and turned the knob. Annie spilled out, almost landing face-down on the hallway floor. As he blinked in the suddenly bright light, she glared up at him from the carpet. He reached out a hand to help her up, but she ignored it.
‘I will find Estelle myself,’ she said, getting upright and storming down the hallway.
‘Annie, wait.’ He followed her long strides.
‘You know what, Mac?’ She spun to face him. ‘It wasn’tthatperfect of a month.’
‘Oh, really? That isn’t what you said at the time.’
‘Well, I faked a lot of things at the time.’
Mac froze. She could not mean what he thought she meant.
‘What are you talking about?’
Annie raised her eyebrows. ‘I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.’
‘But we… but you… I thought…’
She gave him a smug smile. ‘You thought wrong. Bye, Mac.’ She spun on her heel and left him there gaping after her, reassessing everything he thought he knew about Annie. About that December. About women in general.
Mac hadn’t felt this punched in the face since he was actually punched in the face during a bar fight in Tulsa that he’d got in the middle of by accident.
But that blow hurt much less than this one.
* * *
‘What the hell, Annie?’
