by C. P. Rider
"Again, with you, right?" Lucas snapped.
Julio ground his teeth together. "Yes."
"If I'm not mistaken, and I'm not, the last time you opened your mouth, you set into motion the conditions under which your fiancé had to leave town and a whole bunch of shifters were murdered—including José Costa."
"You son of a—"
"Bring it." Lucas's eyes flashed gold.
"Hey, let's take it easy." I faced Lucas, splayed my hands on his abdomen, and gave him a little push. "Could you give Julio and me a moment alone, please?"
"No."
"Lucas," I hiss-whispered. "I'm okay. Go upstairs and wait for me. I'll be there in a minute."
"I'm a shifter. I can still hear you two upstairs."
"Yes, I know you'll be able to hear us. I'm asking you not to listen, and trusting you to do what I'm asking."
"Fine."
He was gone faster than my eyes could track.
Clasping my hands together, I faced Julio. "Thank you for the pizza and the groceries. It was thoughtful of you, and I appreciate it. But there's nothing you can say to me that would make me leave Sundance."
"Because you're fucking Blacke?"
All the hair on my neck stood on end. In that moment, Julio reminded me so much of his older brother that bile rose in my throat and my hands shook.
Upstairs, there was a burst of static, and then the opening strains of Air Supply's "All Out of Love" floated down. Lucas had put on our sex theme. Used my speaker instead of the headphones, too.
My throat settled. My hands calmed. I fought the urge to grin.
Julio's eyes were a brilliant shade of orange, indicating his wolf was in the room with us.
"You don't get to talk to me about my personal life because you aren't a part of it anymore. I don't blame you for what Saul did, but you know what? I do blame you for trusting him over me. For telling him I was a spiker when I expressly asked you not to. For choosing the pack over the life we were building together."
"Neely…" Julio's voice broke.
"As his brother, you were the one person who could have defied him when he commanded you. You made your choice, and now you have to live with the consequences." I picked up the pizza box and cleared the table. Carried everything into the kitchen. "I know you think you still have feelings for me, but I'm not the same person I was when we were together. I couldn't be her again if I tried. And I don't want to try."
"She was amazing."
"She was weak. Scared. Always running and hiding." I set the box on the kitchen worktable. "I don't like who I was back then." I met his gaze. "I don't like who I was when I was with you."
"You can't mean that." He stepped into my space but didn't embrace me. "We were in love. We were going to be married. Start a family."
I shook my head. "You were always going to put your pack and your brother first. My uncle saw it, and I had started to see it, too."
Julio thrust his arm out, pointed upstairs. "And you think that guy wouldn't choose his group over you? He's an alpha leader. He'll choose them every time. He's doing it now by keeping you here in this town, where you're in danger, and you're too blinded by him to see it."
He brushed past me and stomped out of the bakery.
Slowly, I followed the music upstairs. Lucas had kicked off his sneakers and was lying on my bed reading one of my romance books, a paranormal mystery. I turned down the speaker to a more comfortable level.
"I've got a John D. MacDonald in the bookcase, you know. Darker Than Amber."
"I saw it. I want to read this one."
He looked so pleased with himself I wanted to smack him. He also looked so sweet and sexy and welcoming I wanted to fall into his arms and stay there forever.
I perched on the edge of the bed by his thigh.
Lucas switched off the music. Set the book on my nightstand. "Are you okay?"
"No. Julio says that I should leave Sundance. That you won't put me first in your life, that you'll always choose your shifters over me." I wrung my hands in my lap. "I didn't tell him we weren't serious like that. That it was friendship and sex and that it didn't matter what you chose, because I didn't think he deserved to know. But maybe he isn't wrong. Maybe staying here isn't the best thing in the world for me. Maybe I should—"
Lucas popped up on the bed and wrapped both arms around me. Rested his chin on my shoulder. All the worry, all the anxiety churning in my head, just … lessened.
"Have you noticed that you're the only one who says we aren't serious? You say what's between us is about sex. Friendship." He drew my hair to the side and kissed my throat until I relaxed against him. "And it is about those things." His voice slid into my ears, a low warm growl that prickled my flesh with goosebumps. "But if you honestly think that what's between us isn't serious, then sugar cookie, you haven't caught up to me yet."
Chapter Eleven
The next few days passed in a blur.
I spent nights at Lucas's place since that was the only way to make sure he didn't put one of his shifters on guard duty. It might also have been because I liked being able to reach over to feel him next to me in the darkness, to thread my fingers through his, wind my arms and legs around him, press my face into the warmth of his chest.
We hadn't discussed what he'd said about me not being caught up with him in the "serious about our relationship" department. I wasn't quite ready to face that head on, either with him or myself.
At noon on Monday, Julio showed up again.
Although I'd kept the bakery open until three, business was light after ten a.m., so I'd taken to spending most of my working hours in the kitchen, learning more of my uncle's recipes. I kept the radio volume low so that I could hear the Costa family bell when someone entered. It always clanked against the glass when someone opened the door—unless that someone was an alpha shifter who didn't want to be heard, like Lucas, or Chandra, or, apparently, Julio Roso.
"Neely?"
"What the hell?" I yelled when he strolled through the doorway separating the café from the kitchen. I jumped back from the worktable, flinging an unopened bag of candied pineapple onto the floor. "Julio?"
He held up his hands as if in surrender. "Hey, sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."
"Startle, not scare," I snapped. "Why didn't you let the bell ring? You know we hated when shifters did that on purpose when we worked at the bakery."
He grinned, and a spark of the young man I used to love came back into his eyes. "I wanted to see if I could do it."
"Well, now you know. Don't do it again."
"Why are you so grumpy?" He swiped the pineapple bag off the floor and set it on the counter away from the prep area as he walked farther into the kitchen. "Also, why are you making Rosca de Reyes? It's October. El Día de Reyes is in January."
"Because if I wait until Three Kings' Day to make it, I'll be even more screwed than I am now." I poked my finger through the side of the filled, wreath-shaped bread. "I can't get it to taste like my tío's. I'm following his recipe to the letter. Do you have any idea what's missing? You made it with him, too."
Julio went to the sink and washed his hands, then returned to the worktable. He picked up a knife and held it above the bread ring. "Where's the baby Jesus?"
I gave him a smug look. "Not telling. There's a thimble and a ring in there somewhere, too, so watch out."
"I don't need the thimble, as I'm already single, but the ring wouldn't be so bad." He said this while looking at the bread, not me, but I knew he was directing the comment my way.
"If you get the baby Jesus, you have to make tamales and throw a party in February, but you probably wouldn't mind. You used to love parties."
Julio gently sank the knife into the sweet bread and cut himself a slice. "You remember that?"
"Of course."
"It's only that it seemed like maybe you were more interested in forgetting about me than remembering." He examined the piece of bread, seeming satisfied that there was nothing
non-edible in it, and popped it into his mouth.
"Just because I've moved on in my life doesn't mean I don't remember. Some of the memories of our time together were bad. Some of them were good."
Julio chewed the bread, swallowed. "Us together doesn't have to be a memory."
"Yes, it does."
"Because of Blacke?" His mouth screwed into a harsh frown, a look I'd seen often on his brother's face, but never before on his. He had changed.
We both had.
"No. Not because of Lucas, because of me."
"I'm not sure I like the new Neely." He backed up slowly to the open doorway leading into the café. "But I'm also not sure I like the new Julio."
I didn't have a response. I wasn't sure I liked him either.
"It's been good seeing you," he said, "even if things didn't work out the way I wanted them to."
I'd had such an odd feeling about seeing Julio that I wasn't sure saying it was good to see him was the right response. I did it anyway, though. It felt unnecessarily cruel to say it had been awkward and painful to see him. "It was good to see you, too. I like knowing you're all right."
"All right might be a stretch. But I'm hanging in there." He spun around and headed for the front door. "Anise," he called out.
"Huh?"
"What's wrong with the bread. It's anise. It was in José's version, but I'm not tasting it in yours. Bye, Neels—uh, Neely."
"Bye, Julio."
He walked out and I returned to the kitchen.
"Anise?" I glared at the ceiling. "You didn't write anise on the recipe, Tío. I swear, I'm going to hire a medium to track you down beyond the veil and get the correct recipes from you."
"You talkin' to yourself?"
For the second time this afternoon, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I wiped a trickle of sweat off my cheek and whirled around to face the doorway yet again. "Earp, why didn't you let the bell hit the glass?"
"It did hit. Guess you weren't paying attention. You look flustered. Is that Roso guy bothering you? Because it ain't a thing to me to go up and bite him. In fact, it would be a pleasure." Jedidiah Earp stood in the doorway in a battered brown cowboy hat, timeworn jeans, dusty old boots, and a beer logo T-shirt.
"Thanks, but it's okay. Julio is harmless."
"Nope, he's not, but I don't imagine you'll believe me." He swiped off his hat and fanned himself. "Lord, it's hot in here."
"I've been running the ovens." Though they had been off for a while, so it should have been cooler instead of hotter, but even I was starting to feel the heat. Maybe it was time for a break. "Go ahead and prop open the back, uh, door for me, if you don't mind. We'll get a little air flow in here."
He did as I asked. "Got anything good cooking? I hear you've been making some kind of Christmas bread."
"Rosca de Reyes. It's more like after-Christmas bread. You eat it on Three Kings' Day in January. How did you know I was making it? I didn't tell Lucas."
"Because I was eavesdropping on you and the wolf." His eyes widened at the look on my face. "What? Why'd you think I came in? I told you, I was keeping an eye out. You should have known that meant I'd be doing anything and everything I can to keep you safe."
It was really hard to be angry with someone who only wanted you to be safe. Well, it wasn't hard to be mad at Lucas, but Earp was different. He was sweet, in a loveable, curmudgeonly way. "I appreciate your concern, but please don't eavesdrop on my personal conversations."
"Jeez Louise, you're really tying my hands here." Sweat streamed from his hairline to his chin. He waved his hat in front of his face. "What temperature do you have those ovens set on? Summer on Mercury? I'm sweating like a senator in Sunday school."
"They're off. They should be cooling down." Sweat poured over my back and face. My ears popped, and suddenly it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. "I think something is wro—"
Earp grabbed me around the waist and slingshotted me to the open back door. He followed close behind and shoved me straight through it, sending me skidding on the gravel. A second later, he jumped on top of me, crushing me into the loose rocks and dirt.
A second after that, there was a muted whomp, and every window in my bakery shattered.
Brakes screeched in the rear parking lot, loose gravel pinging against the outside of the bakery. A door slammed and footfalls crunched through the rocks.
"Neely?" Lucas's frantic call rang through the bakery. "Where are you?"
"In here." I stood in the café doorway, my arms wrapped around myself, surveying the damage. As I was wearing canvas sneakers and a sundress, I didn't think it would be smart to wade through the glass covering the tile floor. I'd need to go to my uncle's house for some heavy boots. They would be too big, but it wouldn't matter. I also needed jeans and thick glov—
"Neely." Lucas bounded from the back doorway to where I was standing and swept me into his arms. "Thank God." He hugged me tighter. "Earp scared the hell out of me. He said there was an explosion. Where is he?"
"Upstairs. He tried to tell you we were all right, but he said you panicked and hung up the phone. What's your deal with cell phones? How can you hate them when you used to work for a telecommunications company?" My voice was muffled against his dress shirt. Dress shirt? I pushed away to get a better look at him. Sure enough, he wore a charcoal jacket and trousers, a pale gray shirt, and a black-striped tie. His hair was slicked with gel and he wore a cologne I'd never smelled before. "Why are you all dressed up?"
"I had a business meeting in San Diego this morning."
I regarded him through narrowed eyes. "With whom?"
"Why?" One corner of his mouth lifted. "Jealous because I look so hot?"
"No." I stuck my tongue out at him. "Maybe."
He yanked me against him, sighed. "With my solar company investors. We meet quarterly to approve reports, discuss projects, and about a dozen other things that could be dealt with in an email. These frigging people. You know I hate suits." He curled his arm around me, took both my hands in his. "Hey, you're shaking. Are you sure you're okay?"
"No." It was the truth. I wasn't okay and I wasn't going to pretend I was. "Damn it, I was just getting settled. Starting to claim the bakery as my own. And now this."
"Ah, sugar cookie. It sucks, I know. I'll fix it, okay?"
"Nope. Nope. Nope." I jabbed my index finger into his chest. "You won't fix it. I'll fix it. It's my mess and my problem."
Instead of arguing, he hugged me closer. It should have annoyed me, the way he kept placating me, putting me off with physical affection, but it made me feel better. Calmer. In fact, I'd been perched on the edge of tears since the windows had blown out, and now I was feeling steadier. Steady and angry.
"How dare someone attack my home and business. I'm going to find out who it was and spike them to kingdom come."
"Good to hear." Lucas picked up a piece of Rosca de Reyes bread and popped it into his mouth. "Mmm. Did something happen before this? Anyone come in who might be a threat?"
"No. Yes. Well, I mean, not a threat per se…"
A muscle pulsed in Lucas's cheek. "Goddamn Roso."
"Yeah."
"Let me guess. He was trying to get you to leave town with him. What a—" Crunch. Lucas stuck two fingers into his mouth and pulled out a mangled band of gold. "It was in the bread."
"First off, you shouldn't be eating anything in my bakery right now. There's glass everywhere."
"Not in here. Even the windows are intact. What is this?"
I sighed. "The ring."
"Why did you put a ring in the bread?"
"It's symbolic. There's always a baby Jesus, but sometimes you bake a thimble and a ring in it, too. If you get the thimble, it means you'll be single for another year. The ring means you'll be married by year's end. At least, that's what my uncle always said."
I'd thought Lucas would panic at the idea of being married by the end of the year, but he had the opposite reaction. His eyes lit up and a slow
grin swept across his lips.
"I was practicing." I picked at the bread. "Tío had a tendency to leave things out of his recipes and I didn't want to be surprised at the last minute. Julio told me I was missing the anise. He's right. I didn't put it in because my uncle didn't write it down."
"How nice of Julio." He wrinkled his nose. "What a help-y little helper he is."
"Jealous?"
"No. Maybe." He scowled. "I don't like him here when you're alone. Actually, I don't like him here at all, but I really dislike it when you're alone."
"If it makes you feel better, we weren't exactly alone. Earp eavesdropped on our conversation."
"That does make me feel better." He looked around, winced. "Better get this place secured, at least. Earp and I'll head into La Paloma. You'll need plywood for the windows. Chandra's already on her way here to stay with you in case whoever did this returns. King told me he plans to keep a closer eye on your place. He called my cell to report the windows, but Earp had already told me.
"Odd thing is, King said he never heard a thing. He happened to glance at the camera monitor on his way out of the garage and saw the windows. Ears of a lion and he didn't hear that much glass breaking?" Lucas frowned. "Maybe he had a loud tool going or something."
"It wasn't King's ears. The glass didn't make much noise when it broke."
"Right. Every window in the building shatters and there's no sound."
"I know it's unlikely, but it's true. Ask Earp. When whatever it was hit, there was a softened boom that sort of reminded me of cupped hands applauding. As in, there was sound, but it wasn't nearly as loud as it should have been." I pulled away from him and walked to the café. All the windows were gone, the display cases were destroyed—even the blender carafe had cracked. "What could do something like this?"
Lucas came up behind me. He didn't pull me into his embrace again, only stood there, a warm, solid source of support. "No idea."
"Whoever it was is trying to ruin my life here." I spun around and stomped to the back-door closet for the broom. I was furious and sad, and so filled with rage that I could have spiked the culprit dead and not felt a pang of guilt about it.