Page 109 of The Gingerbread Bakery
‘Merry Christmas?! Is setting the house on fire your big surprise?’
He took her in, barely dressed and with the cats in her arms and let out a laugh.
‘What? I was ready to evacuate,’ she said, putting the cats down. They quickly scampered over to their food dish which luckily was not on fire.
‘What were you doing down here?’ she asked, coming further into the kitchen now that she was reasonably sure it was safe. Laid out on the counter were what looked to be several batches of burnt, deformed, or undercooked Christmas cookies.
Mac sighed. ‘I was trying to make you a Christmas present.’
‘You were making me a Christmas present?’ she said, her voice getting all high-pitched and sappy like when she talked to the kittens.
‘Don’t look at me like that.’ Mac narrowed his eyes at her in mock anger.
‘Like what?’ Annie teased.
‘Like I'm some sort of injured puppy.’
Annie laughed. ‘Sorry, it’s nice of you to try but this is clearly a disaster.’ She gestured to the dozens of inedible cookies. Maybe the birds would eat them?
Mac hung his head in shame, even as his shoulders shook with laughter.
‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ he said. ‘I thought about how you’re always making cookies for everyone else, so maybe I should make some for you. But it turns out cooking and baking are two very different skills. One I can do, and one I definitely can’t.’
Annie walked across the kitchen and wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘This was a very sweet effort,’ she said, reaching up to kiss him. He tasted like coffee and sugar-cookie dough. ‘But there’s no way I'm eating these cookies.’
Mac laughed, kissing her back. ‘Oh God, no.’
Annie glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of Mr. Prescott through the kitchen window. ‘The mailman still lives next door?!’ she gasped, scooting out of his line of sight.
‘Yep,’ said Mac, amusement written across his face at her attempts at hiding. ‘You know everyone is finding out today.’
‘I know.’
‘And then there’s no turning back. You’re stuck with me,’ he said, standing in front of her, crowding her against the counter.
‘And you’re stuck with me.’ Her arms were around his neck, playing with the short hair at the back of his head. She couldn’t seem to get enough of touching him. For years, she’d resisted it and now she wanted to have her hands on him all the time. Luckily, Mac seemed to feel the same way.
Mac kissed her slow and deep and not at all appropriately for the mailman to witness. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her up onto the counter, keeping his body between her legs.
‘Stuck with you is exactly where I want to be,’ he said with a grin.
‘I got you a present, too,’ she said, and Mac’s eyebrows rose.
‘Really?’
‘Of course. You thought I wasn’t going to get you a Christmas present?’ she teased.
‘I honestly wasn’t sure.’ And it hit her again how new this all still was. Sometimes it felt like they were rushing into everything and then other times it felt like they had been slowly inching toward this for so long that she was more than happy to jump right into the middle of a serious relationship. But they clearly hadn’t worked out all the details yet.
She hopped down from the counter and went to get the gift she'd been hiding upstairs. She brought it into the kitchen hidden behind her back, suddenly nervous to give it to him.
‘It’s not much,’ she said.
‘I got you a bunch of burnt cookies, so I think you’re going to come out ahead on this one,’ Mac said with a laugh.
Annie quickly handed him the gift before she chickened out.
‘A postcard?’
