The Gingerbread Bakery (Dream Harbor, #5)(36)

It had been hours since Mac left her at the spa, hours after the incident. 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.’

‘Well, thank you for the local business report, but I already knew they’d closed up.’ Leaning in the open doorway, she crossed her arms over her flour-covered apron. Mac stood in the glow of the streetlight, the snow dusting his dark hair and broad shoulders.

He tried to peer past her. ‘What are you doing in there that’s so important?’

‘Bakery stuff.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Bakery stuff?’

‘Yes. This is a bakery.’

His laugh sent a puff of breath into the cold air. She was not going to invite him in. She’d been doing too much of that already, letting Mac get close to her again. She had to draw the line somewhere: it might as well be the threshold of her bakery.

‘I like the name-change by the way,’ he said, gesturing up to the new sign.

Annie gave him a begrudging thank you. The bakery had gone through many changes over the years; the new name was the most recent one. She’d gone from her little table at the Christmas market to an online shop, sharing the kitchen with her parents and siblings and still managing to get her orders filled. When she got approved for the loan to lease this shop five years ago it had been one of the best days of her life. But Mac wasn’t here for any of that.

She wasn’t about to discuss with him why she thought The Gingerbread Bakery was a better name for her business.

‘What’s so important that you’re here late on the night before your best-friend’s wedding?’

‘Well, we were kinda busy all day, remember? And besides, it’s for the wedding.’

‘The cake?’ he asked, his interest piqued. Annie had kept her plans for this house completely under wraps. Only the bride knew that they’d replaced the cake with a gingerbread house, a gift for the groom, who had an aversion to frosting.