Page 13 of You Were Invited
She glanced over to the pristine glass case by the register.
It was loaded with confections. Chocolate cake. Delicate cupcakes. Pies piped with soft peaks of cream, drizzled with chocolate and glistening strawberry syrups. Fine almond slivers decorated the banana cream, which was half gone.
She’d be a liar to not admit they made her drool a little bit just then.
Annie looked back up at Teagan. “I’ll take banana cream.”
He nodded and smiled. “You got it.”
Stuffed and feeling half-way happier after lunch, Annie drove to a crossroad and came to a stop. She glanced around while she waited for a car to pass and noticed that at the very end of the street was a truck trailer loaded with firewood. She squinted. A sign said FOR SALE. She bit her lip and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. She was reminded of Molly’s request.
Just in case the cabin is totally out of wood. A fire sounds amazing.
A man wearing overalls greeted her as she got out. He stood up from his spot where he was leaning against his truck. “Hi, there.”
“Hello,” she said, pulling out her wallet. When she looked up, she saw that it was the same man she’d bumped into at Buckeye’s.
Oh God, don’t blush! How embarrassing!
She tapped her foot as she decided how much wood to buy. He didn’t have much left– a couple bundles of kindling, small split campfire logs, and a couple half-cylinders that looked far too heavy to carry.
She cleared her throat. “C-can I get a kindling bundle and one of the small ones, please?”
“You betcha.”
She opened her wallet and pulled out a few tens. He took her cash and counted it before he gave a weak smile and jerked a nod at the woodpile.
“Would you like me to put it in your car?”
“Yeah. That’d be great.”
She stuck her key into the trunk. It was stiff as she jiggled the mechanism. “Sorry, it’s finicky.”Of course it does this now...She tried again.
Nothing.
Now she was really blushing. First she was in his way at the store. Now her car was misbehaving.
“Maybe we can put it in the backseat?”I’ll haveta knock down my seats to get all my stuff outta the trunk.
He took a step back and waited for her to open the door. He set the firewood on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
“Ellie has banana cream today? Nice.”
Annie raised a brow. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, uh... at the diner. You have pie. It normally sells out too fast. I almost always lose out.” He smiled. “Ellie owns the place.”
Hands in her pockets, Annie waited while he loaded the rest of the wood. “One of the waiters talked me into it. I needed a pick-me-up, I guess”
“Don’t we all need one of those every once in a while?”
“It looked like they had at least a couple pieces still left?”
He hefted the bundle. “Yeah? I’ll haveta go grab one when I’m done today. Banana cream is my favorite.”
She smiled. “Mine, too.”
He smiled back at her, and this time it reached his light blue eyes. He placed the second wood bundle in her car. “Is that all you needed, miss?”
