The Secret (Winslow Brothers 3)

I agree silently, grabbing both the muffin and cookie trays and shoving the swinging door with my foot to head back out front. My sister is fielding even more rabid red velvet customers, so I set the tray right in front of her and then head to the other end of the glass counter to put the chocolate chip almond cookies in their spot. I’m just settling them into place when a deep, playful voice weaves its way from the other side of the counter to my ears.

“I believe those are for me.”

I look up, a smart answer just on the tip of my tongue—something Lydia has repeatedly asked me to curtail, by the way—but stop short when I see a very specific set of blue eyes staring back at me.

“Ty?”

He looks startled too, his smile jumping off his face, only to be replaced by shock and disbelief. But ultimately, he pulls it together and slides the easy grin back into place. “Hey, Rachel.”

“How was the baby shower?” I ask, and he just keeps grinning, like he’s not the least bit affected by me.

“It was good.”

Sure, we texted off and on yesterday, mostly about test questions and a baby shower gift, but now that he’s here in person, it’s almost a disappointment to watch him pull it together so effortlessly after having a literal front-row seat to seeing him so flustered at school.

The power I felt with that kind of control was…invigorating.

But it seems his effort to avoid me for the rest of the week, only allowing a text exchange yesterday, didn’t go without benefits for him. He’s had time to recover.

This is the Ty Winslow of old. The Ty Winslow of legend. The Ty Winslow of cocky confidence.

Immediately, I have the urge to break all those men into a thousand tiny, scattered, floundering pieces.

So much so that before I even know what I’m doing, I tease, “That’s good to hear. And, wow. I’m flattered…I guess.”

He furrows his brow. “Flattered?”

“Yeah. That you missed me so much, you felt you had to track me down at my sister’s bakery.”

I know it kind of makes me an asshole to want to watch him suffer, but I know, without a doubt, he feels the same way about me. And if I’m not the first to strike, he’ll have me pinned before I know it. That’s how wrestling works.

And we all know how much Rachel Rose hates to find herself pinned under the weight of a man’s thumb, even if it’s all in good fun.

“What?” he snaps, a modicum of panic creeping into the edges of his otherwise powerful smile. “No, no. I…I didn’t track you down. I come to Little Rose every Sunday. I live in the neighborhood.”

I laugh, waving it off as I spin around to grab an empty box from the back shelf. “Listen, it’s fine. It’s not, like, full-blown stalking.”

“No, no,” he bumbles, his poised façade slipping even more. “No stalking at all. If I’m stalking anything, it’s cookies. A dozen chocolate chip almond cookies, in fact. I have an account all set up and everything.”

“Stalking chocolate chip almond cookies?” I say with a fair amount of suspicion—geared toward making him uncomfortable, of course. “That sounds like a cop-out, but I guess, if you need it that much, I’ll let you have it.”

“I don’t need a cop-out,” he says defensively, his back going straight.

“So, you did come here for me?” I assert with a lift of just one eyebrow.

“That’s not what I said.” The corners of his mouth are somehow completely straight. No smile, no frown, he’s in the middle of an emotional onslaught he can’t make sense of yet.

“Listen, it’s okay. Really. I understand.”

“Rachel, I didn’t come here for you,” he says without room for error or creative interpretation. It’s a challenge to my original plan, but I’m not new to the game. I’m a wild child. I know how to pivot.

“Aw, that’s a pity. I figured maybe, if you really wanted to see me that bad, that it’d be the least I could do to show some effort too.”

“Effort?” He jerks his head back. “What kind of effort?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I purposely lean over the counter and whisper, “Maybe I could show you what my underwear looks like today? Let you try to put them on again?” I shake my head and laugh. “But that’s okay. Hell, I don’t even know that I remembered to put any on today. It’s just been so busy,” I murmur seductively, before leaving him standing there with a slack jaw to gather his cookie order.

I stack a dozen chocolate chip almond cookies inside one of the hot-pink boxes my sister and Lou had custom made with their logo on the side and turn back around to face him.

He’s still just standing there, trying to make sense of the situation.