Revealing Annie - Freya Barker Page 0,77
of course, you didn’t mean it.”
When I lift my head I see mischief in her eyes.
“Now you’re challenging me,” I accuse her, and she shrugs her shoulders with a grin.
“Hey, if you—”
I don’t let her finish the words as I hook my hand behind her neck, pull her close, and cover her mouth with mine in a claiming kiss.
“I’m in love with you, Annie-chan.”
I watch as she licks her still kiss-swollen lips before I lift my gaze to her eyes. I can see the truth in their depths but I still want to hear the words.
Instead she asks, “What does that mean?”
“That means I want you to stay—here—with Bryce and me. It means I want to walk into the kitchen, and still be able to smell whatever it was you baked last. It means I’m flying blind and I can’t make any guarantees I won’t fuck up along the way—according to Blue it’s a given, because…testosterone—but I’m asking you to give me a chance.”
She slides a hand along my jaw and brushes her thumb over my cheekbone.
“I’ll stay, and I’ll bake, and I’ll give you that chance, but I want to pay my own way.”
I can feel my jaw clench. The disparity between what I bring in and however much she has amassed in her career feels like a giant divide and I’m not quite sure how to bridge it, but I want to try.
“It’s important to me that I provide my family with the safety and security of a home,” I start, and feel immediate relief when her eyes soften, encouraging me to go on. “I’ll probably want to pay if we go out for dinner as well, but I’m willing to negotiate on that,” I concede. “Everything else is fair game I guess.”
“So I can give gifts?”
I can tell from the smirk on her face this is probably a trick question, but that doesn’t stop me from telling her, “I guess.”
“Excellent.” She leans forward and presses her lips to mine. “And for the record, I think I was in love with you the first time you sat down on the concrete floor at the shelter and started reading to the dogs.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhmmm,” she hums, getting to her feet and pulling me up. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“Picking up a gift for Daisy,” she says with a chuckle.
I knew it.
26
Sumo
“This is so cool.”
Annie twists in her seat to look at Bryce sitting next to Hunter in the back seat. In the mirror I can see both are grinning. I never believed a dog could actually smile until I met Hunter; he is absolutely the happiest dog I’ve ever seen.
“Dee is gonna go through the roof,” he adds, and I can’t hold back the snort.
We’d gone straight to Arrow’s Edge—after officially adopting Hunter—to pick up my son, whose face broke into a huge smile when he spotted the dog in the back seat.
I’m not an idiot, I know full well I’ve been conned, but I’ll be honest; I couldn’t care less. Even Margaret’s cackle and whispered, “Sucker,” when we walked out of the shelter with Hunter couldn’t kill my happy buzz.
I may have to eat some crow to let Blue know she was right; it absolutely pays to talk about shit instead of stewing on it. The proof is sitting in the seat beside me, happily gabbing with my son in the back while I drive us home.
“Oh, Kyle?” I glance over at Annie. “Do you think we could stop at the City Market? I never made it in there yesterday, and I want to let my boss know I won’t be back.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah. I was hiding. I’m done with that. I’d like to stay on at the shelter, though, but I need some time to get my life sorted, you know? I’d rather get that done before I think about what else I might wanna do with my life.”
“You mean aside from keeping us supplied with pastries?”
“Hell, yeah,” Bryce pipes up from the back seat, making me chuckle.
“Is that all I am to you guys? Your personal baker?” she asks with mock indignation.
“Nah, you’re nice to have around, right, Son?” I give her knee a squeeze.
“She’s all right,” he says in his typical understated way, but I can hear the smile in his voice.
So can Annie, who rolls her eyes, but then spends the rest of the drive to the grocery store softly smiling out the window.
“Bud, you okay staying in the truck with the dog? I’m