Tick Tock Goes the Baby Clock by Julianna Morris

Author:Julianna Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

“Do you really think so?” Annie asked, distracted by Max’s certainty that both the sheriff and coach wanted to date her. It was one thing to think so herself, another to have someone else think so, too.

“Yes.” Max still looked like a thundercloud, but Annie decided to ignore it. He’d always been hard to understand, and lately he was downright confounding.

“I thought they were…it’s just hard to be sure.”

“You’re a beautiful woman, why wouldn’t you be sure?” Max asked, his tone softer now, more curious.

“You know.” She shrugged and smoothed a lock of hair at her temple. No matter how many times she’d admitted her lack of experience to Max, she found it hard to say. “I know the clothes make me look okay, but—”

“Not the clothes, Annie.” He gave her a steady look. “You’ve always been beautiful. The clothes just make a nicer frame, that’s all. You were hiding before. Now you aren’t.”

Wistfully Annie wondered if that was true.

She supposed she ought to be insulted that Josh Kendrick and Parker McConnell had only taken a fancy to her now that she’d changed her appearance, but she wasn’t.

At least…not much.

She had been hiding, not knowing how to dress right and afraid of looking silly. There must be a thousand tiny signals men and women sent to each other, saying they were interested or available, but she’d never been tuned in enough to send or receive them. She couldn’t blame the two men for not seeing something she couldn’t see herself.

But thanks to Max’s help, she was learning. Which meant she shouldn’t get so annoyed with him, even if she didn’t always agree with what he thought was best.

She smiled brightly, trying to focus on her plan instead of Max. “You’re right. I guess today went pretty well. Josh did ask if he could call me.”

“It was okay.” Max looked at her cautiously.

“I asked Grace over for lunch. Do you want to stay, too?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he muttered. He didn’t look happy, but Max looking unhappy was a common occurrence these days.

“All right.” Annie hesitated, then edged away. There wasn’t anything she could do to put things back to where they’d been…the place where they didn’t talk about anything important except his grandmother.

Annie joined the other women as they cleaned up from the ice-cream social, responding to the familiar chatter with only half her attention. The self-recrimination in Max’s eyes when he’d talked about her father’s death still haunted her.

Somehow she’d never expected him to recognize the limits of their friendship, and now she wondered if it had been a mistake to guard her tongue whenever they were together…a mistake not to expect more from him. She’d just always respected the limits Max set down, knowing you couldn’t change someone who didn’t want to change.

“You sure drew some attention this morning,” teased Eva Sanderson as they gathered the soiled dish towels for washing. “Nothing like a pretty girl to get a man active in the church. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of those two gentlemen in the future.

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