Page 45 of The Gingerbread Bakery
‘Great. I’ll text you later. Good night, Annabelle,’ he said, turning and leaving her so stunned that she forgot to tell him not to call her that. She’d just had the best kiss of her life with the boy she thought she hated. What was she supposed to do now? She turned back toward the house to find the smug, grinning faces of her sisters watching from the window. They’d seen the whole show and were never going to let her live this down. She put up the hood on her onesie and trudged back into the house. And even though she knew she would spend the rest of the night being tormented by Maddie and Charlotte, she couldn’t seem to keep the smile off her face.
ChapterSixteen
Now
Damn snow, damn royal icing that wouldn’t harden, damn best friend who decided to get married in the middle of freaking December!
Damn George for getting the flu and not being here to help her.
Annie took a deep breath, the snowflakes swirling in front of her as she stood in the open door of her bakery. The snow had been coming down hard for nearly an hour. The light flurry from earlier had turned from scenic to a mess. It was dark already, which seemed impossible because she had only stayed a little late to put the finishing touches on the gingerbread house she was making in lieu of a wedding cake for Logan and Jeanie—and now, somehow, it was very late. And dark. And snowy.
It had been hours since Mac left her at the spa, hours after theincident. The orgasm admission had been a low blow. She knew that but he deserved it. She didn’t need his half-assed apologies, and she certainly didn’t need him knowing how much he had hurt her back then or how much it still hurt now. She didn’t need anyone knowing that. It was far too humiliating that as a fully grown adult she was still devastated by something that happened when they were teenagers.
After she hadn’t answered his texts and got a ride from Hazel instead, Annie hadn’t heard from him. She was assuming he hadn’t found Nana, either. And that was the real problem here, not Mac and his apologies but the still-missing Nana and her possible accomplice, Aunt Dot. Annie had searched all the favorite senior locations in town and the ladies had been at none of them; and now she really didn't know what to do.
And she had to get this damn gingerbread house up to Kira’s farm. She’d promised she'd help with the set-up at the barn tonight.
She took another deep breath.
Annie was not going to panic because Annie was a competent and successful businesswoman perfectly capable of balancing her bakery and her friendships and her need to be perfect.
She slammed the door and stormed back into the warmth of the shop. She could do this. She could very carefully carry this monstrosity of a gingerbread house out to her delivery van and not slip and fall on her ass and then she could just as carefully drive it up to Kira’s farm on roads that were probably not at all treacherous and potentially deadly.
It was fine.
All she needed was a teensy, weensy Christmas miracle.
She circled the house where it sat on her worktable in the back of the bakery. She’d built the house on a wooden platform so she could lift it and move it wherever it needed to go, but it was clearly a two-person job. She made another circle. This house was huge. An exact replica of Logan’s farmhouse made from gingerbread and royal icing. How in the hell was she going to carry it on her own? And in the snow?
The gingerbread-cookie versions of Jeanie and Logan looked at her with skeptical expressions.
‘I can do it,’ she told them. ‘I just need to figure out the right angle.’ And yes, it was normal for bakers to speak to their creations. Perfectly normal.
‘I just need to…’ Annie was about to attempt to wrap her arms around the house without knocking off a roof piece when a bang on her front window startled her out of her concentration.
‘What the hell was that?’ She sighed and stomped back to the front of the store. Her windows were fogged over from the heat of the ovens and the cold outside, so all she could see beyond the glass was a dark figure.
‘Oh good, a mysterious stranger, just what I need.’ She used her hand to clear a small circle on the glass. The dark figure was much worse than a mysterious stranger.
It was a very familiar pain in her ass.
Mac smirked at her through the glass.
So much for Christmas miracles! Annie stalked to the bakery door and flung it open.
‘Did you find her?’
‘Unfortunately, no. I stopped up at Logan’s farm to talk to Henry. He seemed to think Nana and Dot had gone to visit a cousin or something. But with this snow I don't think they’re coming back tonight.’
Annie blew out a frustrated breath. She had no idea what Estelle and Dot were up to, but unfortunately Mac was right. With this snow, nothing was getting accomplished until the roads were cleared.
‘Then what the hell are you doing here?’
‘I was leaving the pub, and I saw your lights were still on.’
‘So?’
‘So, the whole rest of the street has closed up shop.’
