SWNOVELS Irresistible: Chapter 4
“Hi, Winnie!” I gave her a smile, my heart thumping hard at the sight of Mack holding his little girl’s mittened hand as they walked through the lobby. “How was school?”
“Good,” she said.
“My goodness, you’re getting big.” My mother shook her head as Mack brought his daughter around the desk. “You’re going to be as tall as Frannie soon!”
I groaned. “She probably will. Millie only has another couple inches to go.”
“Good things come in small packages.” Mack winked at me, and my belly fluttered. He had the most beautiful deep blue eyes.
“Would you like to come up to my apartment for lunch, Winnie?” I asked.
“Sure!” She grinned happily.
“Great. You can help me make it.” I held out my hand and she dropped her dad’s to take mine. Then I looked at Mack. “Can I bring you something? A sandwich? Soup?”
He looked guilty. “I’ll probably work through lunch.”
“You shouldn’t work through lunch,” my mother scolded. “Let Frannie bring you something.”
“That’s okay.” He gave me a tired smile and put a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks, though. For everything. You’re an angel.”
He was touching me. He’d called me an angel. I could hardly speak. “You’re welcome.”
Quickly, I turned and led Winnie out from behind the desk and across the lobby toward the stairs to my suite, so he wouldn’t see the goofy grin on my face.
I lived above the inn’s garage in an apartment my mother liked to refer to as the “old carriage house,” which made it sound bigger and fancier than it was. “Did you hear Mrs. Ingersoll broke her leg?” I asked Winnie.
“Yes,” she said, trudging up the stairs next to me. “What does it feel like to break your leg?”
“I don’t know.” I unlocked my door and pushed it open. “I’ve never had any broken bones.”
“Me neither,” she said as we went in.
My place wasn’t very big, but it was enough room for me. My bedroom and bathroom were off to the right, and the kitchen was open to the living room. I did have a tiny fireplace, which I loved, and my oversized couch was crazy comfortable.
“Need to use the bathroom?” I asked Winnie.
She shrugged off her backpack and dropped it to the floor. “No. Is this where you live?”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
She nodded. “It’s like a doll house.”
I laughed. “It is kind of like a doll house. A little bigger, maybe, but not much. Are you hungry?
“Yes.”
“Me too. Let’s see what we can find.”
In the kitchen, Winnie and I opened my fridge and took out a big container of chicken noodle soup I’d made over the weekend. In my tiny pantry, she found some Ritz crackers, and counted out four for each of us while I rinsed and sliced an apple.
When everything was ready, we sat at the counter next to each other. While we ate, I asked Winnie about school, about her sisters, and as usual, I snuck in a question or two about her dad. That was how I’d learned that he wasn’t a very good cook and they were used to eating a lot of chicken nuggets and fish sticks for dinner, that he never got mad when Winnie wet the bed, and that he was okay at brushing hair but terrible at styling it. Today I learned that over the weekend, he’d accidentally turned everyone’s white socks pink, even his own.
I laughed. “Did something red get in the white load of laundry?”
She slurped her soup. “I don’t know.”
After lunch, I asked Winnie if she’d ever had a macaron.
“What are those?” she asked, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.
I gasped in mock horror as I stood, collecting our bowls. “What are those? You mean you’ve never had a macaron?”
“No.” She smiled and asked hopefully, “Is it a treat?”
“It’s only the most beautiful, most fancy treat ever!” I carried our dishes to the sink and grabbed the bakery box sitting on the counter. Inside were a few macarons I’d set aside Saturday when preparing for the Radley wedding. I had hazelnut, white chocolate malt, and rosewater cream. “Peek into this box.”
I set it in front of her and she leaned over to look inside. “Ooooh! Can I have one?”
“Sure. Which one would you like?”
“The pink,” she said, pointing at the rosewater cream.
“Good choice.” I took one from the box and put it on a plate for her, along with a white chocolate malt for me.
“Did you make them?” Winnie asked.
“I sure did. I can make about twenty different colors and flavors, and I’m always testing out new ones.”
“Really? Can you make a gold one? That’s the Hufflepuff color.” She tucked her legs underneath her on the stool and picked up the pink macaron.
“Yes. It’s lemon chiffon, another one of my favorites.” I took a tiny bite of the white chocolate malt, thinking again about what Mrs. Radley had said to me Saturday night about my own business. Since then, her offer to discuss the possibility had crossed my mind a hundred times. I hoped she’d get in touch.
Winnie gobbled hers up and licked her fingers. “Mmmm. Can you teach me how to make them?”
“Well, they’re a little complicated and take a lot of practice. But we can work on it. Tell you what—if you’re a good girl and take a little rest now that you’re done with your treat, we’ll make some lemon chiffon macarons at your house this afternoon when your sisters get home, okay?”
She nodded eagerly, her mouth full. “Can I watch Sofia the First when I rest?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll find it on my TV for you. And I have this really fluffy blanket you can use. It’s so soft, it feels like a cloud.”
Her face lit up. “Okay.”
A few minutes later, she was snuggled up in my white faux fur blanket, her eyes drifting shut almost immediately. I sat at the other end of the couch with my phone and posted a few things on Cloverleigh’s social media—a graphic on Facebook advertising an upcoming wine dinner that Chloe and Henry DeSantis had organized, a photo on Instagram I’d snapped of the macarons on the dessert table at the weekend’s wedding, and a tweet congratulating Mr. and Mrs. Radley along with a picture from their ceremony.
Finally, I returned direct messages from a few brides, answering their questions if I could, and forwarding April’s information if they’d requested specifics on availability or pricing. I was just finishing up when I got a text from Mack.
How’s it going?
Great. She’s sound asleep on my couch.
I snapped a quick picture of her and sent it to him.
Awesome. I’m jealous.
I smiled, imagining him all wrapped up in that fluffy white blanket stretched out on my couch. Then my stomach whooshed—what would it be like to lie with him like that on a cold winter afternoon, his arms around me, snow falling softly outside the windows, the heat between our bodies keeping us warm …
Omigod. Stop it.
I forced myself to calm down and type something more acceptable.
Did you get some lunch?
Not yet.
I’ve got homemade chicken soup if you want some. Come on up.
The three dots appeared, and as they faded in and out, I held my breath. I was always offering to make dinner on Thursdays and Fridays when I watched the kids, but he never took me up on the offer, so I figured he’d turn down lunch, too.
That sounds really good, but I’m swamped.
I’ll heat some up in a container.
You can take it with you.
You are tempting me …
LOL ask my mom how to get up here. I’ll heat the soup!
It took him a minute to reply, but when he did, he said okay.
I almost squealed. He was coming up to my apartment! He’d never done that before! Setting my phone aside, I hurried into the kitchen, ladled some soup into a plastic container, and stuck it in the microwave. Then I ran into the bathroom and looked in the mirror over the sink. I was still wearing my work clothes, a dark green Cloverleigh collared shirt and black pants. Nothing I could do about that now, but I fussed with my hair and put on another coat of mascara. At the last second, I gave one wrist a spritz of perfume and rubbed it against the other.
You are tempting me …
If only! God, what I wouldn’t give to be the kind of woman who could really tempt him.
The microwave beeped and I went back to the kitchen, took the soup out, stirred it up, then pressed the lid into place. In a second little container, I placed some crackers and a couple macarons, then tucked everything into a brown paper bag with a spoon and a couple napkins.
A minute later, there were three soft knocks at my door, echoed by three hard ones in my chest. Inhaling and exhaling slowly, I put my hand on the knob and pulled.
“Hi,” he said quietly, a sheepish half-grin on his face. “I heard you’re feeding the hungry today.”
I smiled, positive he could hear my heart thwacking against my ribs. “Come on in.”
He entered my suite and glanced around, sticking his hands in his pockets. “This is nice.”
“Thanks. It’s small, but it suits me. Winnie’s on the couch if you want to peek at her.” I nodded over my shoulder.
“Okay.” While he wandered toward the couch, I took the brown bag with his lunch in it off the kitchen counter. After a quick look at her, he turned around smiling. “If only they were always so sweet, right?”
“Your girls are pretty sweet all the time.” I handed him the bag, one hand on the bottom, one holding the handles. “Here you go. Careful.”
“Thanks.” He took it from me, and both our hands touched. “I appreciate this.”
“No problem. If you like it, I can give you the recipe. It’s easy.”
He shook his head. “You don’t know who you’re talking to. Ask my kids what a terrible cook I am.”
I couldn’t hide a smile. “They’ve already volunteered that info.”
“Did they?” He chuckled. “Little shits.”
“Don’t feel bad. If I were as busy as you, I probably wouldn’t know how to cook either.”
“I keep thinking I’ll learn, but I suppose I should actually make an effort at it,” he said with a sigh. “Thanks again for everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I mean that.”
“No problem.” I followed him to the door. I felt like skipping. “I’ll head over to your house when she wakes up.”
“Perfect. God, this smells good.” He sniffed the bag. “You better be careful not to spoil me, or I’ll be hanging around your door like a stray dog all the time.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t mind.”
He gave me a rueful, boyish grin that made my insides melt and disappeared down the hall.
Twenty minutes later, my heart was still pounding.
“What’s got you so smiley?” my mother asked when Winnie and I came downstairs to say goodbye.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said airily, watching the little girl dart down the hall toward her dad’s office.
“Frannie Sawyer, you’re a terrible liar.” She crossed her arms. “What’s in that head of yours?”
I could hardly tell her how happy it had made me to pack a lunch for Mack, so I decided to confide in her about Mrs. Radley’s suggestion.
“You know the bride from last weekend? She had an idea for me.” Thirty seconds into the story, I was sorry.
“I don’t know, Frannie,” my mother fretted, shaking her head. Then she hurled a million questions at me without giving me a chance to answer them. “A bakery? Where would it be? Who would run it?”
“I would.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Running a business would be much too hard and stressful for you. You don’t know anything about it.”
“I could learn,” I bristled.
“But why would you need to? You already have a job here. And your macarons are so popular for weddings.”
“It would be nice to have my own thing for once, Mom,” I said testily. “Do you have to shoot this down before we even talk it over? Just like you shoot down everything I’ve asked to do on my own?”
She looked offended. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s the same old thing. I don’t know why I even bothered to think you’d be excited for me.”
“Frannie!”
“It’s the truth, Mom. I wanted to do all the things my sisters did, but the answer was always no. Play sports. Go away to college. Backpack through Europe. I’ve never even been out of the country!”
She looked around to make sure no guests heard me shout, then lifted her chin. “You can’t compare yourself to your sisters. You were different, Frannie. Special. There were limits to what your heart could handle.”
“Not anymore.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” she said, her eyes welling up. “We only worry so much because we love you, honey. You’re still our baby, and—”
I groaned, holding up one hand and pulling open the door with the other. “Enough. I’m sorry I even brought it up. I need to go get Winnie.”
Simmering with anger, I moved down the hall toward Mack’s office.