Page 6 of The Gingerbread Bakery (Dream Harbor #5)

Chapter Six

Then

‘H ow can you possibly be this excited? You know you can just drive past any of these houses on your own.’ Mac breathed into his hands in an unsuccessful attempt to warm his frozen fingers.

‘How could you not be excited?’ Annie was standing next to him on the lawn in front of the town hall, bundled up in a puffy coat, knit hat and mittens that he was frankly jealous of.

Her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes were lit up in anticipation, and it suddenly seemed like a real oversight that he’d never noticed how cute she was.

Although, to be fair, she was much cuter when she wasn’t scowling at him.

Apologizing to her friend had really gone a long way. He knew now that messing with anyone Annie loved was a dealbreaker. And he also knew the girl could hold a grudge.

‘I don’t think I’ve done this since I was ten.’

‘You’ve been missing out. The Dream Harbor Christmas Lights Tour is one of my favorite holiday traditions.’

They were waiting for one of the school-bus-turned-tour-buses to return to pick up the next load of passengers.

It would then drive them around the Dream Harbor neighborhoods to admire the light displays.

The crowd was almost entirely old folks discussing who they thought would have the best set-up this year and small children running in circles while their parents tried in vain to get them to calm down.

The consumption of candy canes and hot chocolate while they waited probably wasn’t helping.

Mac blew into his hands again. Annie watched him with a small smile.

‘You’re cold?’

‘Not too bad.’

‘Why do guys do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Pretend they’re never cold. Do they revoke your man card if you admit to being chilly?’

Mac huffed a laugh, his breath clouding in front of him. ‘I’m fine.’ He stamped his feet a little to get feeling back into his toes. Probably shouldn’t have worn sneakers.

Annie raised an amused eyebrow. ‘You’d rather freeze to death than wear a hat?’

He looked terrible in hats, so yes, he’d rather die than wear one in front of a cute girl. But he was not about to admit that level of fragility. ‘I didn’t think it was this cold out. It hasn’t even snowed yet.’

Annie rolled her eyes and made a point of tugging her hat down over her ears. It looked soft and cozy. Damn it, he was an idiot. He wished he had a hat. And mittens. And lined boots.

‘Where’s this bus, anyway?’ he muttered, rubbing his hands together until Annie finally took pity on him.

‘Stop.’ She took his hands between her mittened ones, enclosing him in her warmth. ‘Better?’

So much better, but it wasn’t only because of his hands.

Annie was close to him now and all the things he’d never noticed about her were right there.

Her cute little upturned nose, the dip in her full upper lip, the slight flush on her cheeks.

A few wisps of blonde hair had escaped her hat, and he had the bizarre urge to tuck them behind her ear.

Annie was pretty.

Like, really pretty.

What the hell was wrong with him? How do you look at someone for thirteen years and not realize they’re actually beautiful ?

This gorgeous girl had been in front of him his whole life and, somehow, he was only now noticing?!

As he stood there staring at Annie’s lips—had they always been so pink?

—another inconvenient truth revealed itself.

Mac wanted to kiss her. Like, he really wanted to kiss her.

He wanted to kiss that mouth that used to do nothing but frown at him, the mouth that now looked so appealing and sweet, tipped up slightly in the corner like she was amused by him.

‘Mac? Do your hands feel better?’

Oh, shit. He’d been standing here staring at her like an idiot.

‘Much.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Much better, thanks.’

Annie smiled, rubbing her hands over his. ‘Good. Can’t have you losing any fingers and ruining the tour.’

‘So glad you were worried about my wellbeing.’

Annie laughed. ‘Nope. Just the Christmas lights.’

He laughed, too, because suddenly he was having fun at this stupid town tradition that he’d written off as childish; because Annie liked it, because maybe Annie liked him.

Or she at least didn’t hate him anymore.

But leaning down to kiss her right now was probably a bad idea. Right?

Right. They were only hanging out because no one else was in town and they’d agreed they were both bored. Nothing about that was grounds for suddenly kissing someone.

Except for the fact that, the way Annie was looking at him right now, he thought maybe she wouldn’t mind. Maybe he could. Maybe she wanted him to.

While Mac wondered if Annie was the kind of girl that wanted to be asked first or if he should just go for it, the bus pulled up, the screech and hiss of the brakes fully ruining the moment anyway.

‘Let’s go!’ Annie dropped his hands and quickly joined the line of people slowly making their way onto the bus. He followed her up the steps and was greeted by his kindergarten teacher in a Santa hat sitting in the driver seat.

‘Merry Christmas,’ Nancy greeted each passenger.

‘Merry Christmas, Ms. DeMarco!’

‘Well, if it isn’t two of my favorite students.’

That was certainly a lie. Mac had spent a considerable amount of time in the ‘cozy corner’ taking a ‘break’ when he was in Ms. DeMarco's classroom. His ‘listening ears’ and ‘gentle hands’ never seemed to be working right, and he’d had to spend a lot of time thinking about that.

He really had been a little shit back then.

Annie beamed at their former teacher.

‘Have you been good this year, Macaulay?’ Nancy peered at him from under her Santa hat.

‘I… uh…’

‘He’s working on it,’ Annie said before they were forced to move on to allow more people onto the bus. They dropped into a seat in the back of the bus. He breathed out a sigh of relief as he sat and found Annie grinning at him.

‘Worried you were going to have to stay in for recess?’ she asked between giggles.

‘Don’t mock my trauma,’ he said, causing Annie to laugh harder.

‘Are you saying you were unfairly targeted?’

‘Oh no, I definitely deserved it,’ he said with a grin. ‘But I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. I don’t need people reminding you of my dark past.’

‘So dark,’ she said with a giggle. ‘It’s amazing you’ve been able to put it all behind you.’

As long as she had put it behind her, that was all he really cared about.

Annie pulled off her hat, shaking her hair free. While it had been freezing outside, the bus was uncomfortably warm. The windows were already fogged over. She took off her mittens and wriggled out of her coat and then sat back in the seat with a dramatic gasp.

‘Phew! That’s better.’

It was better, because now he could see all that golden hair he used to stare at instead of focusing on word problems and he could see the snug sweater Annie had been wearing under her coat.

Annie was hot .

Again, he wondered what the hell he had been doing his whole life not paying attention to this beautiful girl; all because what, she didn’t come to his lacrosse games? Stupid. But he was here now, crammed into a school-bus seat with her, and this time he was not going to hesitate.

He casually slung an arm around Annie’s shoulder, snuggling in closer so he could look out the window with her.

‘All right,’ he said with a smile, his lips dangerously close to Annie’s ear. ‘Let’s see some lights.’

* * *

Annie plucked Mac’s arm from her shoulder and wriggled out of his grasp.

‘You’re kidding, right?’

He grinned. ‘Worth a shot.’

Annie rolled her eyes and turned her attention back out the window even as her cheeks heated at the way Mac was looking at her.

What the hell did this guy think he was doing, anyway?

Putting his arm around her like they were dating or something, when she knew for a fact he was outta here after the New Year. She’d helped him plan the damn route.

Not to mention, she’d never live it down if Hazel and Logan found out she was hooking up with Mac, of all people. After she’d done nothing but malign his character for the past thirteen years, there was no way her friends would let it go.

She shuddered at the thought.

‘You can’t possibly be cold,’ Mac said, misinterpreting her shiver.

‘It’s like eight hundred degrees on this bus.

’ He leaned across her to wipe the condensation from the window, forcing her to be subjected to his arms again.

Strong arms. Muscular arms. And his warm, spiced scent washed over her, making her close her eyes and breathe deep.

Okay, so Annie hadn’t exactly made dating a priority in high school. In fact, she may have forgotten to do it at all. But who had the time, really? Between student council and her AP classes, Annie barely had time to see her friends.

But now, with Mac so close and oozing his unique brand of masculinity all over her, she thought that not dating may have been an oversight. She hadn’t had the chance to become immune to things like strong arms and whatever it was that made Mac smell so good.

Unless you counted Logan, which she one hundred percent did not, Annie hadn’t spent much time around teenage boys.

Sure, she’d slow-danced with Aiden Smith at the ninth-grade winter formal, and there had been that underwhelming make-out session with Seth Bates after she kicked his butt at mock trial.

But, in general, she had never seen the appeal of adolescent males until right now.

Annie nudged Mac back onto his half of the seat in a desperate attempt to get her head on straight.

His proximity was doing weird things to her judgement.

‘Not cold. Just excited to see the lights,’ she lied.

The bus was slowly trundling down Main Street, Christmas music playing over the speakers, and she tried to focus on that instead of Mac’s newly uncovered charms.

Annie had a life-plan to manage, a cookie empire to build. She did not have time for distractions. She’d only agreed to this second meet-up—she would not call it a date—because she wanted to see the lights and her sisters were all refusing to come this year.

She dug into her oversized purse and pulled out a bag of freshly baked sugar cookies she’d made for the occasion.

She held them out to Mac and the sound he made when he bit into one was so obscene that the older couple in the seat next to them turned in shock, as though they thought something untoward was happening over here. Annie felt her cheeks go up in flames.

‘Damn, Annie. You really know what you’re doing with these cookies,’ he said, eyes closed, head leaning back on the seat.

‘Of course I do.’

Mac’s lips tipped into a smirk even as his eyes remained closed. ‘I should have known.’

‘Known what?’

He opened his eyes and rolled his head to face her. ‘That you would be good at anything you tried.’

Annie swallowed hard. ‘I’m definitely not.’

Mac shrugged. ‘Well, you’re good at cookie-baking.’

‘Thanks.’ Had it gotten even warmer in here?

Why had Mac’s words had such an effect on her?

She knew she was good at baking. But she also knew that she’d tossed three imperfect batches of those same cookies into the trash today and these were the only ones that made the cut and that sometimes she wondered how she would put this crazy dream of hers into action.

What if she worked hard and it still didn’t happen? What if she tried and failed?

‘What’s the matter? You look like I just told you your dog died instead of complimenting you.’

‘I don’t have a dog,’ she said weakly, trying to avoid the topic of her paralyzing fear of failure. She forced a smile. ‘I’m fine. I’m glad you like the cookies.’

Mac looked at her like he wasn’t totally buying that, but they’d turned down a side street and slowed down so that passengers could admire the first row of lit-up houses.

‘If you look to your left,’ Nancy’s voice came over the speaker as the whole bus turned their attention to the lefthand side, ‘we have Mr. and Mrs. Harris’s home, which has the county’s biggest display of nutcrackers.

’ The crowd dutifully oohed and ahhed at the army of nutcrackers displayed on the lawn.

‘To your right, is the first of many nativity scenes on our route, this one with life-size figures.’

‘Jesus,’ Mac breathed.

‘Exactly,’ Annie quipped, and he laughed, his warm breath brushing her ear again since they’d both turned to look out the window. Another shiver ran through her.

‘I’m surprised they don’t have a live camel,’ he said.

‘Just wait until we get up to the Christmas Tree Farm. It’s the last stop, but I hear the owner, Edwin, rented a real camel and several sheep this year.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yep.’

Mac was encroaching onto her side of the seat again and she should really push him away. She had no business with a guy like Mac, and he was obviously just passing the time until his friends came home. They both were.

But then she remembered the sound he made when he bit into the sugar cookie and the way he’d looked at her as she warmed his frozen hands, and she thought maybe she could take a small detour from her grand plans. Just for the next few weeks. Just until life returned to normal after the holidays.

They turned a sharp corner, and she nearly fell into Mac’s lap and the universe settled things for her. When he wrapped his arm around her again, Annie didn’t push him away.

‘This okay?’ he whispered in her ear. She nodded and snuggled in closer as the lit-up houses passed by the window.

‘Yeah, it’s okay.’ It was perfectly okay that she was cuddled up with the one boy she’d claimed to hate while secretly harboring a crush on him that she never would have admitted even under threat of torture, but his arms felt so nice and it was her favorite time of year and the bus was so cozy with its twinkle lights and Christmas music…

It was perfectly okay.

She leaned back on Mac as through the window the light displays got more and more dramatic.

She smiled as he gasped at the giant house on the end of Elm Street that had a full-size sleigh on the roof pulled by eight lit-up reindeer and, by the time he was enumerating his reasons for preferring multicolored lights over white ones, she knew she’d officially sold him on the Dream Harbor Lights Tour.

When they got off the bus and Mac was still holding her hand as they walked back to his car, she wasn’t sure what else she’d sold him on. Or if she was buying into whatever was happening here. But when Mac said he didn’t want the night to be over yet, she said she didn’t either.

And when he invited her to his place, she said yes.