He understood the first shot and was letting it go.

If the old man took another hit at him, because he hadn’t apologized to his granddaughter yet, then he’d be forced to restrain him, take him to the ground and promise the old bastard that he would apologize to her the next time that he saw her.

“You stay the hell away from my little girl,” Mr. Dixon said, stepping closer to get in Duncan’s face.

“As soon as I apologize, I plan on leaving her alone,” he reassured the old man, but that wasn’t good enough for Mr. Dixon apparently, because he simply shook his head and said, “Stay away from her.”

And not apologize to her like some fucking coward?

Never fucking happening.

He took a step closer to Mr. Dixon, getting back in the older man’s face as he made things clear. “After I apologize to her.”

“Leave her alone. She doesn’t want anything to do with you,” Mr. Dixon said firmly.

“Bullshit,” he said, wondering why he was arguing with the man when he didn’t need his permission to talk to Necie and explain just how badly he’d fucked up and promised that with time and space, she’d be able to move on one day and find a guy that returned her feelings.

He just wasn’t the guy, he reminded himself as his eyes narrowed on the old man that he suddenly wanted to take a swing at while he ground his teeth together. He didn’t want to be that guy, the one that got to hold her at night, tease her, make love to her and get to know the real Necie, because he fucking knew without a doubt that the nervous, shy Necie that he’d seen over the past year wasn’t the real Necie.

No, that wasn’t the real Necie at all and he knew that because he’d held the real one in his arms last night and had seen the fire in her eye when he was purposely pissing her off to get a rise out of her. That was the real Necie, the one that some fucking asshole was going to get and not appreciate one day.

“Just leave my granddaughter alone,” Mr. Dixon said firmly, glaring up at him through those cold gray eyes that had terrified lesser men.

“I will, but only after I apologize to her,” he said, because if there was one thing that he was sure about, it was that he was not the type of asshole to treat a woman like shit on accident and not man up and make it up to her.

Mr. Dixon smiled that cold smile of his, the one that sent chills down Duncan’s spine as he backed up towards the door. “You’re going to stay away from granddaughter and that’s final,” Mr. Dixon made the mistake of saying, because if there was one thing that galled a Bradford more than a buffet running out of food, it was being told what to do.

Chapter 18

“Are you still pouting in there?” her grandfather demanded, sounding grumpy and making her feel kind of bad about ditching him after her, umm, minor breakdown, running to her room, locking the door behind her, crying in the shower for an hour, which had been followed by a pity party for herself on the bed where the theme of the party was her glaring at the wall, giving herself a headache as she tried to figure out the secrets to time travel so that she could go back in time and change the past forty-eight hours.

Once she’d accepted that her plan would never work simply because she’d failed tenth grade physics, she’d popped a few Advil, crawled back into bed and resumed her pity party, which was going well now.

Very well.

“I’ll go to The Cabin!” he threatened from the other side of the door, earning a definite eye roll, because The Cabin and she had an understanding. They don’t supply her grandfather with any food that would lead to a trip to the ICU and she would continue to supply them with buttery dinner rolls, cakes, pies and those little cheesecakes that their customers seemed to love so much. So, she wasn’t all that worried about her grandfather getting his hands on something delicious.

“Fine!” she yelled back, not really caring if he spent the next five hours hopping from restaurant to restaurant, trying to get something delicious in his stomach, because she had connections everywhere.

The only thing that he was getting tonight was most likely that oversized salad that she’d made after she’d accepted that she’d never be able to build that time machine. At least with him out of the house she could relax, figure out how to play it cool when she saw Duncan and if that didn’t work, maybe she’d just move.

It was the simplest solution.

Unfortunately that would mean leaving her grandfather and she just wasn’t sure that she could do that. Then again, she could always move away from this part of town, move closer to the bakery and hope that her grandfather took it upon himself to ban Duncan from the bakery so that she never had to deal with him again.

A girl could hope after all, she thought with a wistful sigh as she heard the comforting sound of her grandfather’s truck starting and listened and he backed out of the drive away and headed towards a night of disappointments and garden salads.

Giving up on sleep, she looked at the clock and sighed. It was almost ten o’clock at night, which meant that it wouldn’t take her grandfather long to figure out what she’d set up behind his back. She really didn’t feel like being here when he returned so she climbed out of bed, grabbed a pair of warm, clean clothes and got dressed.

She had absolutely no idea where she was going to go since her options were even more limited, with not having a car and everything. It was freezing out, but at least the walkways had been cleaned and salted so she could take a stroll around the neighborhood until the freezing cold temperatures forced her to return home, drink a gallon of hot cocoa, enjoy a hot bath and hopefully that would be enough to lull her into a deep, dreamless sleep where she’d get to forget about everything for just a few hours.

Then, she would get up before the crack of dawn, catch a ride with her grandfather, who would probably still be pouting, and go to work. Then again, she might just say the hell with it and walk to the bakery. It was only two miles away.