by Lexi Ryan
Chapter Fourteen
“Has anyone ever told you that you work too much?” Max asks as the front door swings closed behind him.
I hand Mrs. Oaks her non-fat cappuccino and smile for her benefit as I say, “Takes one to know one.”
She smiles back. “Could I also have the rest of your cheese Danishes, sweetheart?”
“Of course!” I grab a box off the shelf behind me and fill it.
“I’m going to surprise the ladies at Bible study with them,” Mrs. Oaks says as I ring her up. “I brought them chocolate croissants last week, and you’d have thought I brought them each a piece of the moon.”
“You’re too sweet!”
“It’s all true.” She pays and tucks the box under her arm. “You two have a lovely day. Tell your mom I said hi, Hanna.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Max steps behind the counter as the woman leaves. We’re alone in the front, only us and the sounds of Drew doing cleanup in the kitchen. He slips his hands under my shirt from behind me and draws me against him.
I tense.
Nuzzling the side of my neck, he takes a long, deep breath. “You smell like clean sheets and flowers,” he murmurs. “I just want to breathe you in for days.”
The heat of his mouth against the side of my neck should be sweet and delicious, but instead it makes my stomach hurt. “You’re distracting me,” I protest lamely.
“Mission accomplished.” His hand moves farther north and cups my breast, and even as part of my body reacts, warming and purring for more, another part of me is thinking about Nate. The way his whispers sent an electric buzz of pleasure through my veins last night. The regret in his eyes as he pulled away.
Max must sense something, because his hands still and he takes his mouth off my neck. “Are we okay?”
Three words. A simple question. My throat grows thick. “I didn’t like the way you ran off to be with Meredith last night. It hurt me.”
He withdraws, pulls his hands out from under my shirt, and steps back. “I didn’t go off to be with her. It’s not like that.”
I set my jaw and cross my arms over my chest. I don’t want to know his reasons or what kind of emergency she had. “It made me feel like I was less important to you than she is.”
He exhales heavily and drags a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry you felt that way.”
“That’s not an apology.” I spin and push into the kitchen. All my life I’ve struggled with telling people when their actions hurt me, and all too often it meant being used and trampled. The reason my twin sister is my closest friend is because she doesn’t need to be told when I hurt. She can tell without me saying it.
I grab a tray and fill it with snickerdoodles from the cooling rack.
“I was just about to do that,” Drew says, hands on her hips. She took the early baking shift this morning—thank God, since it was after two when I finally got to bed.
“I got it,” I mutter.
“Don’t let your shitty mood ruin my hard work,” she grouses.
“Drew,” I hear Max say, “can you cover the front so I can talk to Hanna?”
“Trouble in paradise?” she asks, but when I glare at her, she throws up her hands and scurries to the front.
“Did I miss something?” he asks. He crosses to me and turns me to face him.
Instead of meeting his eyes, I stare at his cheesy gym logo on his chest: Hallowell Health Club, Fitness to the Max.
“What’s really going on here?”
I close my eyes. I feel so childish, like the teenager who throws a fit when she sees her boyfriend talking to another girl. “I remembered Valentine’s Day,” I admit.
“Valentine’s Day?” He looks lost.
“You left to help Meredith.” I shake my head. “I understand that I might seem irrationally jealous, but trust takes time to build. You have almost nine months of our relationship to lean on when you have a bad day. I have two weeks and a handful of memories. Last night made me feel unimportant, and I didn’t like that.”
His hard jaw softens. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not saying you can’t help out a friend, but I need to know—I need to believe—I matter.”
“Of course you do.” He runs his finger over my cheek. “You’re my life, Hanna. My future. You matter.”
When he lowers his lips to mine, my anger has melted into a puddle at my feet. Maybe this shouldn’t be the end of this fight. Maybe I should press the issue. But I’m so confused after last night that I just want the security of his touch. I let him kiss me and I kiss him back until the last of my hurt has evaporated into the sweet, sugar-scented air of the kitchen.
“You love birds can’t keep your hands off each other, can you?”
The sound of my mother’s voice has me breaking the kiss and backing away. She’s already sipping a cup of coffee, her Bible tucked under her arm.
“Good morning, Mom. How was church?”
“Wonderful. Just wonderful. I wanted to invite you and Max to Sunday brunch. Max, a few of the ladies from the New Hope Restoration Council will be there. Don’t get me wrong, I think we’re going to get you that grant for your gym—I’ve really been pulling for you—but it couldn’t hurt to schmooze. A little insurance, you know.”
This is the first I’ve heard of Max applying for a grant with the city restoration group, but I’m not surprised. Mom sits on the board, and it makes sense that they would give one of their grants to a business like Max’s.
“I can’t, Mom. I have too much to do here.”
“You work too much,” she says.
Max grins and winks at me. “That’s what I keep telling her.”
“Max, why don’t you go without me? Mom’s right. It certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea to get some face time.”
He nods and steals a cookie off the tray. “I can come by for a bit.”
Mom brightens. “Wonderful! While you’re there, I’ll introduce you to Fred Wellings. He’s the contractor who built my house. Built William Bailey’s too. You can talk to him about building you and Hanna a house after your wedding.”
Max lowers the cookie that was halfway to his mouth, cutting his eyes to me and then back to Mom. “Mrs. Thompson, Hanna and I both have new businesses. We’re really not going to be in a position to build a house for quite a while.”
“Balderdash,” Mom says, waving her hand. “Hanna will get her trust fund once she’s married. There’s plenty there to build a home and have a little nest egg.”
Poor Max looks so uncomfortable.
“We’re going to live in my apartment for a while,” I say.
“That will be great for while you’re building, of course, but you can’t raise my grandbabies in a tiny apartment above your bakery.”
Max and I exchange and glance. “We’ll talk about it,” I promise.
She looks at her watch and squeaks. “I need to get going. Max, I’ll see you at the house later.”
When she’s finally gone, I turn to him and wince. “I’m sorry. She totally blindsided me with that, but that’s pretty much Mom’s MO.”
He takes my hands and squeezes my fingers. “It’s okay. Maybe we’ll talk about it later.”
I nod. “I never really think about my trust fund. That’s money from Daddy’s insurance. If he hadn’t died so young, it wouldn’t be nearly what it is, so it’s not really something I like to think about. She’s right, though. There’s enough there for us to build a nice house if that’s what we want to do.”
“Well.” He tilts his head, his eyes searching my face. “I guess it all depends on how soon you want to give her those grandbabies she’s talking about.”
“I—oh, um… I’m not sure I’m ready to be a mom yet. I mean, we’re young still, right? And…” And if I get pregnant, I’m going to get fat again, and what if you don’t want me anymore?
“Okay.” He squeezes my hands again, but the gesture isn’t reassuring when everything about his expression tel
ls me I didn’t give him the answer he was hoping for.
