Chapter 4
Ovens And Old Wounds
~HAZEL~
October in Oakridge has teeth.
The afternoon air bites through my flour-dusted cardigan as I step outside Holloway Bakery, needing a moment away from the suffocating heat of my dying oven. The sun sits low and mean, painting Main Street in shades of amber and rust that make everything look like it's bleeding.
I squint against the light, and that's when I see it—a banner stretched across the firehouse entrance like a declaration of war:
"OAKRIDGE FIRE & MADDOX RANCH CHARITY PARTNERSHIP"
Of course. Of fucking course.
Workers swarm the firehouse lawn like industrious ants, erecting white tents that'll probably smell like testosterone and good intentions by tomorrow. Tables materialize from truck beds. Someone's stringing lights between poles, creating a constellation of future humiliation opportunities.
A charity event. With both the fire department AND the ranch. Because the universe isn't satisfied with my current level of suffering.
My fingers find the edge of my apron, twisting the fabric until it might tear. The cinnamon and vanilla that perpetually clings to my skin can't mask the sudden spike of anxiety-sweat. They're planning something. Alphas don't partner up unless they're hunting.
The bakery bell chimes behind me like a funeral toll.
I don't need to turn around. My body knows before my brain catches up—every hair standing at attention, spine going rigid, that sick-sweet drop in my stomach that says predator.
Cedar smoke and bourbon vanilla flood the doorway before he even speaks.
"Hazel."
Rowan Cambridge fits in my bakery like a wolf in a dollhouse.
Six-foot-six of barely domesticated Alpha fills my doorway, shoulders brushing both sides of the frame. The afternoon light backlights him into something mythic and terrible—all sharp edges and controlled power wrapped in worn denim and a henley that's seen better decades.
He has to duck slightly to enter. The bell tangles in his hair—dark chestnut with that silver streak that wasn't there three years ago. Time I wasn't there for. Time that's none of my business.
"I need to apologize," he says immediately, and the words hit like cold water.
Alphas don't apologize. It's against their religion.
His amber eyes—fractured gold with those dark veins that make them look broken and beautiful—lock onto mine with uncomfortable sincerity. He steps fully inside, and suddenly my bakery shrinks to the size of a matchbox.
"About the Book & Bake night," he continues, voice low and rough like he's been gargling gravel. "The coffee thing was—I didn't mean to startle you."
Startle. Like I'm a fucking deer.
"You didn't—" I start, but my voice cracks. Clear my throat, try again. "It was my fault. I'm the one who threw coffee at you like some kind of deranged barista."
The corner of his mouth twitches—that almost-smile that makes my omega instincts purr even while my logical brain screams warnings.
"Your pastries were incredible, though." He takes another step closer, and I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "Best thing about the whole night. Well, aside from the impromptu shower."
Is he... attempting humor? Rowan Cambridge, the Alpha who once went three months without smiling?
"Glad my emotional breakdown came with baked goods," I mutter, fingers attacking my apron strings with renewed violence. "Really sells the whole 'stable business owner' image I'm going for."
He actually laughs—just a low rumble in his chest, but it changes his whole face. Makes him look younger, less like he's carrying the world's entire supply of guilt on those ridiculous shoulders.
Don't notice his shoulders. Don't notice how his henley stretches across his chest. Don't notice anything.
"About as stable as that oven, from the sound of it," he says, and I realize he's been here long enough to hear my ancient appliance's death rattles from the kitchen.
"It's fine," I lie automatically. "Just temperamental. Like everything else in this place."
"Including the owner?"
Did he just—
"Excuse me?" I bristle, but there's something warm in his eyes that takes the sting out of it.
"Just saying, I remember you throwing a rolling pin at someone once."
He remembers.
"That was different," I snap, hating how my cheeks heat. "Korrin Delacroix tried to Alpha-order me to add nuts to his girlfriend's pastry when she was allergic. He deserved it."
"He did," Rowan agrees easily. Too easily. His gaze drops to where I'm strangling my apron strings. "You're going to need those fingers if you plan to keep baking."
I force my hands to still. "They're fine."
"Like the oven's fine?"
"Are you always this irritating, or is today special?"
"Usually worse," he admits, then tilts his head toward the kitchen. "Let me look at it."
"What?"
"The oven. Let me take a look." He rolls his shoulders, and his henley does interesting things that I absolutely don't notice. "Fixed plenty of industrial appliances at the firehouse. Probably just needs—"
"No."
The word comes out harder than intended, sharp enough to cut. His eyebrows raise slightly.
"I don't need an Alpha's help," I say, chin lifting. "Especially not—"
Especially not yours. Especially not from someone who knew him, who stood by while—
"It's just mechanical repair, Hazel." His voice gentles in a way that makes my teeth ache. "Not a claiming bite."
The words hang between us like a challenge. Or a promise. I can't tell which is worse.
My oven chooses that moment to emit a sound like a dying moose giving birth to a chainsaw. Black smoke wisps from the kitchen doorway, carrying the distinct aroma of "expensive repair bill."
Fuck my entire life.
"Jesus," Rowan mutters, already moving toward the kitchen. "That's not temperamental, that's possessed."
"Don't—" But he's already halfway there, and I scramble after him because the last thing I need is Rowan Cambridge taking over my space like he has the right.
The kitchen looks like a crime scene where flour is the victim. Every surface bears the evidence of my morning's frantic baking—handprints in white powder, cinnamon dusting the air like fairy dust's evil cousin, mixing bowls stacked in precarious towers.
And in the corner, my oven continues its death song.
Rowan stops so suddenly I nearly slam into his back. Mistake. This close, his scent is overwhelming—cedar smoke mixing with the sweetness of my bakery, creating something that makes my hindbrain whimper.
"When's the last time someone serviced this thing?" He crouches in front of the oven, all six-plus feet of him folding with surprising grace.
"Define 'serviced.'"
He throws me a look over his shoulder. "Hazel."
"I don't know, okay? Maybe... two years ago?"
"Two—" He cuts himself off, jaw working. "You've been running a bakery on an oven that hasn't been serviced in two years?"
"I've been running a bakery on spite and stubbornness," I correct. "The oven's just along for the ride."
He makes a sound that might be frustration or amusement. His hands—large, capable, marked with small scars from fires fought—move over the oven's controls with practiced ease.
"I need tools," he says. "Wrench, screwdriver, possibly an exorcist."
"Top drawer by the sink. Except for the exorcist. Fresh out."
"Shame. Could use one for your attitude too."
"My attitude is the only thing keeping this place running."
"Your attitude is probably what broke the oven."
The audacity.
I grab the tools, maybe slam the drawer a little harder than necessary. When I turn back, he's shed his henley, leaving him in a white undershirt that should be illegal. The fabric clings to every line of muscle as he works, shoulder blades shifting under cotton like tectonic plates.
Don't look. Don't you dare look.
I look.
Sue me, I'm weak and he's... that. All controlled power and competent hands, fixing my oven like it's the most natural thing in the world. Like he belongs in my kitchen, taking up space, making me notice things like the way his forearms flex when he turns a wrench.
"Pass me that smaller screwdriver," he says without looking back.
I grab it, lean forward to hand it to him, and that's when everything goes sideways.
My foot catches on a bag of flour I'd forgotten about. I pitch forward with all the grace of a drunk giraffe on roller skates. The screwdriver goes flying. My hands shoot out for balance and find—
Oh no.
—Rowan's shoulders.
He rocks forward from my weight, his head colliding with the oven's upper panel with a metallic THONG that reverberates through the kitchen.
"Fuck!" He jerks back, which throws me further off balance.
I try to correct, overcorrect, and somehow end up sprawled across his back like the world's most embarrassing Alpha-climbing accident. My face is pressed against his shoulder blade, nose full of cedar smoke and laundry detergent and male, and I want to die. Just spontaneously combust right here.
"Hazel," he says, very carefully, "are you okay?"
Am I okay? I'm literally draped over him like a flour-covered blanket.
"Peachy," I squeak into his shirt. "This is exactly where I planned to be."
"Good to know you're finally following a plan."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't." He shifts slightly, and I can feel him trying not to laugh. His back vibrates with suppressed amusement. "You going to get off me, or is this your new business model? Oven repair and Alpha jungle gym?"
Murder. I'm going to murder him.
I scramble backward, nearly taking out another bag of flour in my haste. My face burns hotter than my broken oven ever could. When I'm finally vertical and a safe distance away, I see the red mark forming on his forehead where he hit the oven.
"You're bleeding," I say, because apparently, I can't stop making things worse.
He touches his forehead, fingers coming away with a small smear of red. "It's fine."
"It's not fine. I just gave you a concussion via flour bag."
"Takes more than that to damage this thick skull." He grins—full, real, devastating. "Though explain this to the guys at the firehouse should be interesting."
"Don't you dare—"
"'Hey Chief, how'd you get that mark?' 'Oh, you know, Hazel Holloway tackled me in her kitchen. Standard Tuesday.'"
I grab a clean towel, run it under cold water, and throw it at his stupid face. He catches it one-handed because of course he does.
"You're insufferable," I inform him.
"You're dangerous," he counters, pressing the towel to his forehead. "First coffee, now attempted murder by baking supplies."
"Maybe you should stay away from my shop then."
His expression shifts, becomes something more serious. "Maybe I should."
The words hang between us, heavy with three years of history, with things unsaid, with the ghost of a pack that broke and an Omega who ran.
"But I'm not going to," he adds quietly. "Not this time."
This time.
Before I can process that, he turns back to the oven. "Found your problem. Heating element's shot, and the temperature regulator's hanging on by spite alone."
"Sounds about right."
"I can fix it temporarily, but you need a new oven, Hazel."
"I need a lot of things," I mutter. "Doesn't mean I can afford them."
He stands, unfolding to his full height, and I'm reminded again of how big he is. How much space he takes up. How the kitchen feels smaller but somehow more complete with him in it.
"The charity event," he says suddenly. "We're looking for vendors. Paid vendors. Good money for a day's work."
There it is. The trap.
"Let me guess—you, the twins, the entire fire department, and whoever else wants to watch the divorced Omega perform?"
His jaw tightens. "It's not like that."
"It's always like that."
"Hazel—"
"I'll think about it," I say, which we both know means no.
He studies me for a long moment, those amber eyes seeing too much. Then he nods, picks up his henley from where he'd draped it over a chair.
"Oven should hold for a few more days," he says. "Try not to assault any other Alphas with kitchen equipment in the meantime."
"No promises."
He heads for the door, pauses at the threshold. The afternoon light makes him look like something out of a fantasy novel—all golden edges and impossible shoulders.
"Your ex was an idiot," he says suddenly, quietly. "For what it's worth."
Then he's gone, leaving only cedar smoke and the lingering warmth of fixed ovens and complicated history.
I stand in my kitchen, surrounded by flour and the ghost of his presence, and try not to think about how he said this time.
Try not to think about how my traitorous body had catalogued every point of contact when I'd fallen on him—the heat of his skin through cotton, the solid strength of his shoulders, the way he'd stayed perfectly still like he was afraid of spooking me.
My oven purrs contentedly for the first time in weeks.
Traitor. Everything in this place is a traitor.
Outside, workers continue setting up for the charity event. The banner flaps in the October wind like a flag of surrender.
Or maybe a battle standard.
With Alphas, it's hard to tell the difference.