Page 94 of The Gingerbread Bakery
‘Don’t you dare,’ she said.
He held her gaze for a second before turning his eyes back to the road. ‘Oh, that’s right. I forgot I gave you one more day.’
‘One more day for what?’ Estelle piped up.
‘One more day to keep pretending there's nothing going on between us,’ he said, and Annie smacked him hard on the shoulder.
‘Oops,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Did I say too much?’
‘I knew it,’ Dot said triumphantly, sitting back in her seat. ‘I can always sense these things.’ Annie wanted to point out that the woman hadn’t known when one of her employees had had a decades-long crush on her, but unfortunately, she’d been taught to respect her elders.
‘Wait, did I win the bet or not?’ Estelle asked.
‘You didn’t win,’ Annie said, eyes straight ahead on the road. ‘Nobody won.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Mac muttered from beside her.
And at this point Annie didn’t know what winning looked like anymore.
ChapterThirty-Five
Now
The Wedding
Mac had never been the kind of person to fantasize about his wedding day, but he’d be a liar if he said it didn’t do something to him to see Annie walking down the aisle toward him. In a different world, a parallel universe, this could betheirwedding. She could be walking tohim.
Her gaze held his and everyone else in the room disappeared. Some part of his brain knew that he stood between Noah and Bennett, all in their dark-gray suits, a sprig of holly tucked in their lapels. He knew Logan waited at the altar for Jeanie. He knew the trees he’d helped Bennett string lights on were lit up and that the whole barn was twinkling with white Christmas lights and candles. Heknew that Estelle and Henry sat in the front row with Jeanie’s parents as though Estelle hadn't been missing for the past twenty-four hours. He knew that Annie had played a big role in making this whole day perfect.
But as he watched Annie walk down the aisle,shewas the only thing he knew, the only thing he saw, the only thing that mattered.
The bridesmaids wore deep-crimson dresses or, at least he assumed they all did. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Annie long enough to confirm that, but he knew that her dress had long sleeves and a high neckline in the front, and it scooped low in the back. He imagined dancing with her later, pressing his hand to her bare skin. If she let him. Her blonde hair was in satiny curls over one shoulder and when he looked at her face she had tears in her eyes.
And it hit him again that she was so much better than the fantasy.
She reached the front and arranged herself next to Hazel and Kira. The music changed and the guests’ attention turned to the bride. Annie’s eyes stayed on him for a beat longer and he winked at her, expecting a scowl in return. Instead, he got a gentle smile before she turned her gaze to the bride.
Bennett nudged him from the side. ‘Is that why we haven’t seen you all day?’ he whispered.
‘What are you talking about?’
Noah blew out a disbelieving breath. ‘You two were totally eye-fucking each other that whole walk down the aisle.’
‘We were not.’Had they been? Had he just eye-fucked Annie in front of the whole town?!
One glance at Jacob’s huge grin from the third row confirmed it. When the man started making kissy faces and drawing hearts in the air with his fingers, Mac had to look away.
Bennett chuckled. ‘You absolutely were, but you can tell us all about it later.’
‘I’m not telling you two anything.’
‘She went from looking at you like she wanted to kill you tothatover the course of a weekend. We definitely need to hear the story,’ Noah whispered before turning back to Logan to hand him a handkerchief. The big guy had big tears rolling down his face at the sight of his soon-to-be wife.
It was sweet, really, and Mac tried to focus on the wedding ceremony instead of on Annie and what she might say after today was over. He hadn’t meant to give her an ultimatum, and he didn’t even expect her to have an answer for him. He only wanted her totalkto him. He was tired of the silence between them, the half-truths.
‘We are gathered here today,’ Mayor Kelly began, ‘to marry two of our own, two people who this town holds very dear.’ He smiled at both of them, and Jeanie reached forward to wipe a tear from Logan’s cheek. She looked beautiful in sparkly white lace, like a fairy you would find in a frost-covered forest somewhere, and Mac knew if he were Logan he would be crying, too.
‘Jeanie,’ Mayor Kelly said, turning toward the bride, ‘ever since you moved to town, we all knew you were special, and we knew that you were just the one to take care of our Logan.’
