The Gingerbread Bakery (Dream Harbor, #5)(44)

‘I don't know if you’re going to find what you’re looking for in there,’ Mac said with a laugh. She felt him come up behind her, his head joining hers inside the freezer. ‘I’m pretty sure we don’t keep the baking supplies in here.’

‘It was worth a look,’ Annie said. ‘And I was feeling a bit overheated,’ she admitted.

‘Did you try thinking about dead rodents in your breakfast?’

She grimaced. ‘I most certainly did not. And I will be spending a lot of time erasing that image from my mind, actually.’

Mac laughed as they both exited the freezer, closing it behind them. ‘That image has saved me from a lot of embarrassing moments,’ he said, stooping down to rummage in some of the bottom cabinets. Annie forced herself to not check out his ass as he did so or think about the embarrassing moments he was talking about it.

‘Bingo!’ he said, holding up a cookie sheet in one hand and a big metal bowl in the other.

‘Great! Now we just need ingredients.’

‘That one, I know.’ He got up from his crouch and opened a door beside the refrigerator, revealing a small pantry. He pulled out flour, salt and sugar and then looked to Annie for guidance. Lucky for him, she happened to have her gingerbread-cookie recipe memorized and his mom had a well-stocked pantry. Before long, they had everything they needed laid out on the counter and were working side by side to measure and mix.

It was nice, peaceful even, except for when Mac’s arm would brush against hers, sending electricity tingling through her body all over again, but other than that disconcerting side effect, baking cookies with Mac was fun.

‘You’ve really never made gingerbread men before?’

‘No, my mom’s not much of a baker and my dad pretty much never comes in here unless it's to eat. I used to bake with my grandfather sometimes. Actually,’ he said, his voice suddenly dipping quieter. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

‘You two were close?’

‘Yeah, he lived with us for a bit before he…’ Mac cleared his throat, ‘before he died.’

Annie let her shoulder brush his and kept it pressed to his side. It felt like she'd done the right thing when Mac leaned back against her.

‘My grandpa was one of my first customers,’ she said.

‘You charged your grandfather for cookies? That’s pretty ruthless, Annabelle,’ he said with a smile in his voice.

‘He insisted! He loved my thumbprint cookies and told me I should sell them. So I did, and he was the first person to come to the little stand I had set up in front of our house.’ It was the first time she had felt like she was really good at something, and it was the first time she’d made someone else feel good by making them something. She’d loved the feeling. It snowballed from there. She begged her mother to let her bake any chance she got. She worked hard at it, wanting to give her family and friends the best. She still did.

‘He gave me twenty dollars for that first cookie.’

‘Damn.’

‘I know, he really set my expectations for the profits I could make far too high,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Okay, now we add the most important ingredient.’

‘Love?’ Mac asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Annie shook her head in amusement. ‘No! Ginger.’

‘Right, of course that makes more sense.’

He dumped in the spice and mixed per Annie's instructions.

‘Your grandpa’s gone too?’ he asked as the dough came together.

‘Yeah, for a few years now.’

‘That sucks,’ Mac said, and oddly it was the most comforting thing anyone had said to her about the death of her grandpa. It did suck.

Annie dumped the dough out onto the counter and started rolling. ‘It does,’ she said. ‘He was one of the few people who really got me, you know?’

‘All those siblings, and your grandpa was the only one who got you?’

‘That's the thing,’ Annie said, handing Mac a cookie cutter. They were making gingerbread hearts and stars because those were the only cookie cutters they could find. ‘There’s so many of us. You kind of get pigeonholed. Like we each get our one thing that defines us, and no one really focuses on anything else.’

‘That makes sense,’ Mac said, pressing hearts into the dough. ‘What’s your one thing?’

Annie shrugged. ‘Somewhere along the line, I became the smart one, I guess. The one who was good at school. Maddie’s the athlete, Charlotte’s the baby, Brian’s the only boy. Evelyn’s the oldest, so she gets to be the leader, and Natalie is the musician, the sensitive one.’

‘Being good at school is not the worst thing.’

‘It’s not a bad thing at all, but it’s not the only thing and, I don’t know, my grandpa was the one who paid attention to the other stuff like baking.’

At least he was until Annie took over her parents’ kitchen. There was no ignoring her baking anymore. Her grandpa’s joy over her cookies had started her down this road but it was all Annie now. She was determined to be the best baker in town.

Mac nudged her shoulder and this time Annie leaned into him.

‘Okay, what now?’ Mac said, assessing all the hearts and stars filling the cookie sheet.