He stood abruptly. “I’ve got to go,” he muttered, and stalked from the room and out the front door before anyone could argue.

Angi followed him, and he held up a hand as she caught up to him halfway to his car. “No more family dinners,” he said, grounding out the words and hoping she couldn’t hear the emotion behind them.

“Okay,” she agreed immediately. “Although you did pretty well—better than me—up until the last few minutes. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like Christmas,” he said without thinking.

“Yet you didn’t walk away from the festival cochair role even though it meant working with me.”

“I wanted to piss you off.”

“How’s that working for you?”

He glanced toward her as he reached the truck. “I’m the one who’s pissed off.”

“Give me a minute,” she promised, squeezing shut her eyes with a grimace. “I can conjure anger with the best of them.”

He didn’t want that. He liked seeing her smile, making her smile. The fact of it pissed him off even more.

After a moment she opened her eyes again. “Thank you for coming over tonight.”

“You don’t sound angry.” He didn’t bother to hide the accusation in his tone.

“I hide it better than you,” she admitted.

“That’s the problem,” he told her as he climbed into his truck. “I’m not good at pretending.”

He started the engine and drove away before she saw what he needed to hide most of all. The fact that he’d never stopped wanting her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ANGI FOLLOWED HER mother into the Shady Acres later that week, thinking that Gabe would have been thrilled with her current mood. Anger, frustration, self-pity—a veritable cocktail of negativity poured through her.

“Mom, I think you can handle a dance class on your own,” she said as they stopped in the lobby to sign in. The woman at the reception desk greeted her mother like a long-lost friend.

“I want you here with me,” Bianca said with a sweet smile. “This is the first class I’ve gone to since the heart attack. What if it’s too taxing?”

“It’s ballroom dancing for seniors,” Angi pointed out. “How taxing can it be?”

“The restaurant is slow this time of day, and Andrew won’t be finished with school for a couple of hours. You have nothing else to do, right?”

“Right.” Actually, Angi should be at the Wildflower Inn, prepping for a Rotary Club luncheon they were hosting the following day, and she was fairly certain her mother knew it. She’d seen Bianca glancing at Angi’s phone when a text came through from Emma about a produce delivery that had arrived at the inn.

Her mom had denied reading anything when asked about it, but she’d suddenly become adamant that Angi go with her to the dance class.

Angi wasn’t about to reveal her commitment to helping Emma through to the end of the year, not after she’d promised her mom that she was going to give up the partnership.