The Gingerbread Bakery (Dream Harbor, #5)

by Laurie Gilmore

The pride in Bennett’s voice was obvious. It made Mac think of how he’d talk about Annie’s bakery, if she would let him. How he sometimes did when she wasn’t around. She’d come so far from the little table at the Christmas market eleven years ago.

Mac didn’t hear most of the run through of the ceremony. He was too busy thinking about a different Christmas season. The one, and only one, when Annie had let him hold her. When she’d smiled at him like he wasn’t the bane of her existence. His favorite Christmas, if he was being honest.

messing with my head like you did after Hazel’s thirtieth.’

Annie had a life-plan to manage, a cookie empire to build. She did not have time for distractions.

What was it about making grown men cry that was so damn satisfying?

‘But lucky for you, I’m just as stubborn. And I haven’t given up yet. Your little admission earlier today gave me even more motivation. I’m not nineteen anymore, Annie, and I don’t leave women unsatisfied.’

all Annie wanted to do when they were together was fight. He wasn’t sure how he would convince her that what they really needed was to fuck.

Daisy from the flower shop

lol idk why this made me laugh

‘There’s so many of us. You kind of get pigeonholed. Like we each get our one thing that defines us, and no one really focuses on anything else.’

she would never get her fill because somehow the boy she’d thought was just a dumb jock was actually a sweet man who could make her laugh and who loved his mom and memories of baking with his grandpa and who still had a stuffed polar bear on his bed.

Daisy sighed. ‘He really is. But that's the sort of look that's gotten me into trouble twice already. If I was you, I’d look away.’

UH OH???

‘My attempts at love have hurt not only my heart but my business, so I’m done trying,’ Daisy said, thumping another arrangement of flowers on the table.

I am absolutely gagged at this set-up for the next book

Maybe Annie didn't need him anymore.

She literally just propositioned him for sex lol

‘Okay, biggest fear,’ he asked instead. ‘That I like this a little too much,’ she admitted, and hope flared in Mac’s chest. ‘What about you? Biggest fear?’ ‘That you’ll never forgive me.’

The Annie he’d known all those years ago was gone. This Annie wasn’t his anymore. This was the Annie he’d hurt. Now he had to figure out how to live in the same town as her and not lose his mind pining after her. Because while Annie wasn’t his anymore, he would always be hers.

‘No.’ Dot shook her head. ‘Something’s definitely different.’ Her eyes lit up. ‘You two finally had sex, didn't you?’ ‘Thank God,’ Estelle said, rolling her eyes. ‘Wait. What day is it? I might have won the pool.’

The way I actually cackled

‘Love is a funny thing,’ the mayor went on. ‘It's not always big or loud or over the top. Most of the time, it’s quiet and unassuming. It’s a shared cup of coffee on a rainy day or reading side by side together every night. It’s finding the person who gets you. The person who will have your back through it all.

Mac was here in Dream Harbor again. He had set up his life here and he wanted her. All she had to do was say yes.

‘Who even is that?’ Daisy asked and Annie looked at the man in question. ‘That's Elliot, the new architect. He’s working on the inn,’ she said.