“Not the way I recall it.” His expression grew more serious, making her heart beat faster.
Her eyes stole over him. All of him.
Damn, but he looked better than ever in a pair of jeans.
“What I meant was—”
“I know what you meant.” Mack turned to face her on the path to the barn. “And you’re right. The apartment is cramped.”
Nina folded her arms across a white eyelet tank top. The tank and cutoffs had been comfortable this morning, but suddenly she felt severely underdressed. Then again, she could be wearing riot gear and still feel twitchy and breathless around Mack.
“I just don’t want you to get the impression that I’m flirting with you. Because that comment just leaped out without me even thinking it through.” She wanted to be very clear on that point. She had no intention of getting in the way of Mack’s future.
“Yes, I remember that impulsive streak.” One dark eyebrow arched as he gave her an assessing look. “Remember when you freed the Death Row Chickens on the Johnson farm that first summer you came here?”
“I’m still not sorry about that.” Being a city girl, she’d assumed the chickens were behind bars as a form of punishment, their death imminent. She’d raised a neighborhood campaign to save them, not knowing they were on the farm to give eggs. “Mr. Johnson could have explained about the eggs instead of laughing at me.”
“In all fairness, I don’t think he realized who he was dealing with.” Mack’s eyes met hers. Held.
Her mouth went so dry she had to lick her lips. “Too bad those chickens had no idea what to do with their freedom.”
She forced herself to keep walking. To keep moving. Standing still with Mack this close would be dangerous.
“Mrs. Johnson wasn’t happy to find them roosting in her flower beds after the big jailbreak.” Mack lifted a low-hanging branch on a pine tree, clearing the way for her to walk without ducking.
“You were pretty entertained by the whole thing, though.” Mack had insisted on bringing her back to the Johnson house the next morning where—from the safety of the bushes—she could witness the results of her elaborate plan to set the birds free.
Mack had showed her where to stand so they wouldn’t get caught, keeping an arm around her shoulders to prevent her from running after the chickens and smuggling them off the property.
“Somebody had to keep you safe from trouble.”
“You were always looking out for people.” She’d benefitted from that quality in him for a long time.
Until the day when he’d had others to take care of besides her. His mother. His best friend’s grieving girlfriend. Now, it was his brother. A better woman would have admired him all the more for that. But to Nina, it felt like others had always come first. Maybe she’d been too needy because of the way she’d been brought up. But when she’d fallen for Mack, she’d been all in. He was everything to her. So when she’d learned her spot on his priority list, she’d been deeply hurt.
Mack said nothing while she retrieved the key to the barn and popped the padlock. When she opened the clasp and slid the heavy door aside on the track, she noticed Mack staring back down the hill toward the moving van. The delivery guys dragged a dining room set into the barn.
“You’re moving a lot of things home for someone who is only going to be in town for a few weeks.” He leaned against a pole support in front of the barn. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
Grief and frustration over her career battled with embarrassment at her failure. But the details of the scandal were a Google search away. It’s not as if the locals wouldn’t find out about it. Maybe it would be better if he heard her side first. She couldn’t help feeling defensive about how the whole thing shook down.
“My business partner drained the funds from our bakery’s business account and then eloped with one of our clients the night before a wedding we’d been hired to cater.”
How could she have failed—the business, her clients, herself—so miserably? She’d developed her business because she’d loved seeing other people’s happily-ever-afters take shape. But she’d had to cancel over a dozen orders for other weddings this fall, leaving brides scrambling to find other confections for their special day.
“Have you talked to your partner since she left? Do you know where she is now?” Mack squinted in the bright sun, the day growing hotter by the minute.
“No. She left me a note with her apology and some garbage about true love not always being ‘convenient.’” Nina had discovered the note perched in front of the cupcake tower that would have paid the next month’s rent on their costly storefront on the Upper West Side. But with no wedding and a jilted bride in tears, Nina couldn’t exactly collect on the wedding cake. “Olivia—my partner—was always adventurous, and she loved the romance of our business. Little did I know, she would find romance in our client list with a well-known hotel magnate.”
Mack gave a low whistle and shook his head. “Wow. She sounds...immature.”
“Yes. But she’s also creative and energetic. Her father fronted us the money for the shop to begin with, and her wealthy friends helped to spread the word about us while we grew our reputation. I never could have gone into business without her. I really thought we were going to turn a corner this fall and start operating in the black, but...” Nina’s heart still hurt to think about all the people she’d let down by closing up shop. How could she ever go back now? “Anyway, Gram has been battling some health problems, so this was a good time to come home and check on her. I’ll go to New York and settle things there as soon as I regroup and figure out what to do next.”
“Because you still want to bake.” Mack seemed to weigh this. “And get back to the city?”
Maybe.
“That’s what I’ve always wanted,” she dodged, not quite ready to tackle the question for herself, let alone him. “Sooner or later, I’ll need an income source again. If not through the cupcake bakery, then through some other business.”
She could always apply to a restaurant as a dessert chef. The idea didn’t hold much appeal after all the creative independence she’d had at Cupcake Romance.
“Just making sure.” He nodded. Then, pivoting toward her, he gestured to a couple of old hay bales. “Do you have a minute? I’ve got a proposition that might help us both.”
The hay bales looked far too comfortable for her to share one with Mack. A bed of nails, perhaps.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” She remained standing.
She could pretend he didn’t affect her all she wanted, but she wasn’t going to test her restraint that way. Mack had called it when he’d said she had an impulsive streak. And her tendency to leap before she looked usually led her into trouble. She’d shot her mouth off at Vince and he’d died.
“Okay. So just listen.” Straightening, he stalked closer.
She held her breath.
“You need to generate some income while figuring out what to do with your business.” He studied her with serious eyes. “And I have a festival to oversee from the ground up so I can free my brother to work on his marriage. Why don’t we help each other?”
“I don’t understand. How?”
“Traditionally, the fee for renting a vendor booth at the festival is waived for subcommittee chairs. So take over the food management subcommittee for me. That way, you’ll get a booth for free to sell all the cupcakes you like.”
He was offering her a spot on the festival planning committee? It wouldn’t be so ludicrous except that Mack was at the helm.