Page 51 of The Gingerbread Bakery
The lights from the farmhouse appeared ahead on the dark road and Mac let out a sigh of relief. At least they weren't going to die on the side of the road sexually frustrated. That would be a tragedy. He pulled the Bronco up the driveway to the barn. Annie hissed as they went over each and every bump.
She gasped after they went over a particularly big rut. ‘The gingerbread house!’ she squeaked.
‘I’m going as carefully as I can.’ Mac assured her. ‘It’ll be fine.’
They hit another dip in the road and Annie gripped tight to his forearm.
‘Careful!’ she gasped, her fingers digging into his flesh.
Mac kept the truck at a slow crawl all the way down the road to the barn. Annie didn’t take her fingers off his arm until they pulled up safely in front of the barn doors. It made him wish the road was longer.
She immediately hopped out into the snow and ran around to the back to check on the house. They’d buffered it on all sides to keep it from sliding around and it was at least relatively in the same place they’d left it. Annie let out a sigh of relief.
‘It might have a few cracks,’ she said when he joined her behind the truck. ‘But it looks like it survived.’
‘Good,’ Mac said, relieved that he hadn’t let her down for once.
She looked at him in the dim light from the trunk. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Yeah, no problem.’
‘No, really. Thank you. As much as it pains me to say it, you were probably right about the whole me-ending-up-in-a-ditch thing, so I really appreciate the ride.’
The snow swirled in between them, and Annie’s cheeks were red with the cold. Mac ran a hand down the side of her face.
‘You drive me nuts, but I don’t want you dead in a ditch.’
Annie’s lips tipped into a begrudging smile. ‘That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.’
It wasn’t. He’d said plenty of sweet things eleven years ago. Or maybe he’d misremembered that too.
‘I could probably come up with some other things if you want me to.’
There were a million things he could think to say about Annie. He could tell her how much he admired her or how proud he was of what she’d accomplished. He could tell her how gorgeous she was and how over the years he’d compared every other woman to her. He could tell her that she felt like home, even after all this time. Or he could tell her he was dying to know what she tasted like between her thighs and that he regretted not finding out when he’d had the chance. Mac could go on and on if she’d let him.
Annie’s full smile was a lovely and rare thing in the cold night. It reminded Mac of the night he first kissed her, and he wished he could do it again. She’d liked him that night. She still thought he was cute and charming. He’d made her laugh. He hadn’t broken her heart yet.
‘Remember when we made gingerbread cookies together?’ he asked. And he knew he was grasping at straws, looking for any evidence that they’d had the same experience.
‘I do,’ she said. ‘I remember you ate about a dozen in one sitting.’
‘They were small!’
Annie laughed, the sound so bright and beautiful that Mac could hardly believe she was letting him hear it.
‘They weren’tthatsmall and that was after half a bag of sour cream-and-onion chips.’
‘Well, we had worked up an appetite.’
Annie’s cheeks flushed a deeper red and Mac felt vindicated. She did remember. And she felt it, too. The pull of that time, the need to find out if it was still there, that thing between them. If he kissed her right now, what would she do? Would it feel like the first time? Better? God, he wanted to find out.
He wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck, his fingers putting pressure on the tension there. Annie’s eyes fluttered closed. He leaned forward and she didn’t stop him, didn’t knee him in the groin. He tightened his grip, just a little, just enough to have Annie melting toward him, her lips a hair’s-breadth from his.
‘Annie, is that you?’ Kira called from the barn.
Annie’s eyes flew open, but she stayed frozen in place. He could still kiss her, but it would have to be rushed, and the next time he kissed Annie, he sure as hell wasn’t going to rush. Not after waiting over a decade.
He dropped his hand from her neck. ‘Next time,’ he whispered.
