Lette Mae got the paying customer’s attention. “Your change, Jeff. Tell the twins I said hi. Merry Christmas.”
Jeff nodded. “Merry Christmas.” But instead of leaving, he moved to the back of the room, standing awkwardly behind a couple eating their breakfast at one of the small café tables, and turned back to watch whatever unfolded.
Lette Mae sighed. “Number twenty-seven.”
Mark watched Riley step up to the register. He hadn’t seen her since the day of the unveiling, and there had only been one text from her letting him know she’d nearly finished the nativity and would tell him when he could pick it up.
After his trip to the bridge, he’d seen the messages from the dialysis center about Carmen. He called to check, and they’d said Riley had taken care of it. He hadn’t known what to think. It had been easy not to see her all this time. He’d just stayed up at the house and shoveled snow, chopped charred apple trees down to nothing, hauled loads of salvageable wood away to people who needed it. Anything. Everything.
So maybe not so easy.
Then his dad had made him come here to pick up pies.
“Here are Yvette’s cookies, already paid for.” Lette Mae passed over a pastry box to Riley. “And two cream bollen for you. That’ll be $5.86, darlin’.” Lette Mae glanced in Mark’s direction.
So did everyone else.
He could leave. He could turn around and leave the bakery and nobody would think the worse of him. There would be plenty of pies at the dance. But then he remembered his wish. He sighed. “A person can get their pastries without being stared at, can’t they?” he said to the crowd.
“Y’all can look at me,” said Freya Hines toward the front. “I just got my hair done for the firemen’s ball tonight.”
“Save me a dance,” Bill Bushman called out from the back.
“Oh, Bill,” Freya said. “You can’t be asking a girl to a dance from the back of a bakery.”
“Can I ask her to the dance from the front of the bakery?”
“You could try,” Freya answered.
The room shook with laughter.
Mark turned away, relieved to have the prying eyes elsewhere, just as Riley’s shoulder brushed against his arm as she attempted to exit the bakery. The simple touch sent shock waves through his body. He knew that coat, the give of it around her as he’d held her close. Her scent and the way her hair parted through his fingers. Her determined kiss on his mouth . . .
His jaw clenched as Riley slipped out the door. He caught Lette Mae’s eye. She lifted her brow and motioned him to go.
Everyone watched. Again.
He rolled his eyes and pushed through the door; it closed on a loud cheer that went up as he left.
He may or may not have growled.
His feet were bricks as he followed Riley, who was already in her car by the time he spotted her.
Why was he following her if she was in such a hurry to get away from him? Because a roomful of people buying sweets said he should?
Riley was backing her car out of her parking space when he reached her spot.
“Wait,” he called. “Just wait.”
Whether she heard him or saw him he didn’t know. What he did know was that she was rolling down her window and he didn’t know what to say next.
She spoke first. “I should have said hi to you in there. I didn’t know—I don’t know if you want me to—”
“Can I see the nativity today sometime?”
She looked up at him, squinting from the sun. “Oh. Yes. Of course. It’s yours, after all.” She paused as if waiting for him to say something more. When he didn’t, she nodded. “I’ll see you later, then.” She started rolling up the window.
“Wait. Riley—” He took another step toward the car.
She rolled down her window again, her expression pained. “If I give you a bollen will you let me go?”
He paused, uncertain if she was serious or not.
“I bought two because, honestly, buying one seemed pathetic, but now that I think about it, buying two was even more pathetic, especially since I only bought two because I wanted one so desperately and I didn’t want to look desperate.”
He paused again, still uncertain. “Are you bribing me to go away,” he said carefully, “with bollen?”
She grimaced. “That’s what it sounded like, didn’t it? I’m sorry.” She leaned forward and put her head on the steering wheel. “This is all my fault.”
Mark took a few steps closer to her car. “If you want to throw blame around, throw it at Gainer. He’s a manipulator.” He shrugged. “We’ve all got voices talking at us. Sometimes it’s hard to hear who’s talking truth.”
He glanced behind him. “On the other hand, I’ve got a whole bakery full of people watching out the windows, and I need to go back in because if I come home without Lette Mae’s pies, my dad’s going to know something’s up and I really need a few hours of peace and quiet. So who am I to talk about throwing off manipulation?”
He didn’t really know what more to say. His toes started to freeze in the cold. “I understand if you want to roll that window up and get going, so I’ll just back off now.” He took a step back.
“Wait,” she said, and he halted.
That dimple had appeared next to her mouth. The one that meant he was making her head spin.
“It would be good to just . . .” She bit her lip, as if searching for the right words.
“Get past this?” he offered.
She nodded.
He shoved his hand forward. “Friends.”
Slowly she took his hand, her gaze on his compression sleeve, her grip firm. She lifted her eyes. “Friends.”
He couldn’t help feeling both relieved and disappointed by how easily she’d accepted him back in that capacity. He let go of her hand.
“I’ll come by at three?” he said.
“Okay. Oh—” She rummaged next to
