Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
DAHLIA
Two days after Cal bled on her couch, Dahlia still couldn’t stop thinking about his hands.
It was ridiculous. The man had shown up at her door wrapped in a tarp, covered in wounds that should have killed a lesser shifter, and what her treacherous brain kept circling back to was the way his fingers had felt threading through her hair.
The calluses on his palms. The gentle strength when he’d cupped her face and kissed her like she was his anchor in a storm.
She was in trouble. Deep, irreversible, absolutely-no-going-back trouble.
The afternoon rush had finally slowed, leaving the bakery in that peaceful lull between the lunch crowd and the after-school cookie hunters. Dahlia wiped down the display case without thinking about it, her thoughts wandering to places they had no business going during business hours.
Cal had spent the past two days recovering at Bran’s cabin, under the watchful eye of his aunt Margot and the local shifter healer.
Dahlia had visited once—a brief, awkward encounter where they’d both been excruciatingly aware of Margot’s sharp gaze and the sleeping grandfather in the next room.
They’d exchanged polite conversation about his healing progress and the upcoming council hearing, carefully avoiding any mention of the night he’d slept in her bed.
But his eyes had tracked her every movement. And when she’d turned to leave, his hand had caught hers for a moment—a brief, burning point of contact that had sent heat flooding through her entire body.
The bell above the door chimed.
Dahlia looked up, and there he was.
“Hey.” His voice was more strained than usual. His gaze swept the empty bakery before finding hers with an intensity that made her stomach flip.
“Hey, yourself.” She set down the cleaning cloth. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“I’ve been resting for two days.” He crossed to the counter in three long strides. “If Margot tries to force one more cup of bone broth on me, I’m going to stage a rebellion.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “Bone broth is good for healing.”
“Bone broth tastes like someone boiled a cemetery.” He leaned against the counter, and suddenly he was very close—close enough that she could smell the soap on his skin, the faint musk of bear beneath it. “I needed to see you.”
The words were simple. Direct. So painfully honest that Dahlia felt them land in her chest.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she managed. “When you showed up covered in blood—”
“I know.” His hand found hers on the counter, fingers intertwining with casual intimacy. “I keep thinking about that night. About you.”
Marzipan made a sound of feline disgust. Some of us are trying to nap.
Dahlia laughed—a startled, genuine sound that broke the charged tension. “She’s been impossible to live with since you left. I think she missed having someone to judge.”
“I’m honored.” Cal’s thumb traced slow circles on the back of her hand. The touch was innocent enough, but it sent sparks racing up her arm. “I came to ask you a thing.”
“Oh?”
“Have dinner with me.” His gaze found hers, earnest and uncertain in equal measure. “Tonight. Somewhere that isn’t my grandfather’s cabin or a war council at the brewery.”
Dahlia considered him—this man who’d fought three bears to protect her bakery, who’d stumbled to her door because his bear needed to be near her, who looked at her like she was the answer to a question he’d been asking his whole life.
And she thought about the secret she’d been keeping. The ritual she’d never shared with anyone. The part of herself she kept locked away, safe from judgment and expectation.
“I have a better idea.”