Chapter 8
“I’m just about to make another pot of coffee, Chief.” Melissa poked her head in his office and held her empty mug aloft. “You need a refill?”
“No, I’m good. Thank you.” He’d been so focused on the file he was working on, and it’d given him a brief respite from his own problems. His mate was so close, yet she might as well be on the other side of the world, seeing how difficult it would be for them to be together.
He also had a basement full of dragons, which most people didn’t believe existed.
“You sure?” Melissa stepped forward and leaned on the doorway, studying him with her eyes narrowed again. “You look like you could use a cup or six.”
“Thank you for telling me I look like hell,” he grunted. Cole glanced at the clock. “And isn’t it a little late for another pot?”
“Maybe for some of us.” She tapped her fingers on her mug.
“Something’s up with you. You’ve got dark circles under your eyes.
You’re not sitting ramrod straight in your chair like you usually do.
You put off meeting with the mayor until next week instead of talking with him right away and getting it over with. What’s going on?”
He pulled his hands off the keyboard. “If you want to work your way up to detective, I’m sure we can find something much more useful for you to investigate.”
Melissa laughed. “I’m just nosey, but I’ll take that snide remark as a compliment anyway. I can’t help you fix whatever’s wrong if you don’t tell me what it is. I can, however, make a lot of coffee.”
“First of all, nothing’s wrong,” he insisted.
Not as far as his job was concerned, at least. No one in the precinct needed to know about his love life—or lack thereof—even if some of them enjoyed speculating about it.
They certainly didn’t need to know about the dragons.
The officers, dispatchers, and detectives were a mix of humans and shifters, so pack business didn’t belong at the office.
Cole rose from his desk and straightened his uniform.
“Second, the soft opening of The Cozy Crumb is today. I plan to go over there and see how Brianna is doing before she closes. If I need any more coffee, I’ll just get it there.
” He didn’t say anything about Nia, but his wolf was thinking about her regardless.
It knew precisely where she was, and it wanted to be there.
But his visit was about his daughter. That was it. Cole was a supportive dad who wanted to show up for his daughter on her big day.
“Oh, that’s right!” Melissa enthused. “Why didn’t you just pop over there first thing? I’m sure whatever kind of coffee they make is far better than the cheap grounds we get around here.” She gave him a pointed look.
“No one ever promised gourmet drinks as a benefit,” he returned.
“And I wanted to give them some time to work out any kinks. Brianna is a very strong-willed woman, and she doesn’t want me standing there pointing out anything that needs to be changed or fixed.
And if I go now, I can ask her how the day went. ”
“Aw, that’s sweet. You’re such a good dad.”
Was he? A couple of weeks ago, he would’ve agreed with that.
But the feelings he was having toward his daughter’s best friend and business partner made him wonder.
It wasn’t anything he’d done on purpose, but deep down, he knew how much it would hurt Brianna if he pursued this.
“Thanks,” he murmured as he stepped past Melissa.
“Tell her I said congrats,” Melissa called after him. “And hey, maybe bring some leftovers to the office tomorrow!”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He headed outside and got in his car.
To his surprise, the small parking lot next to the building was almost full.
Cole slipped his squad car into the last spot.
It was still light outside, but the glow from the windows was warm and friendly.
The scent of baking bread hit him as he approached the door, which he held for a young couple on their way out.
They thanked him, and he nodded, noting the bright smiles on their faces and the way the woman held her to-go cup tightly. They looked like happy customers.
Inside, soft music filtered through the air. A man sat at a table by himself, working away on a laptop. He didn’t look up, even when taking a sip of his tea. A trio of young women shared a plate of goodies, while another couple had a serious conversation over muffins.
Brianna was behind the counter. “Dad!” she exclaimed when she saw him. She came around to give him a hug. “What do you think?”
“It looks great, and it seems like I’m not the only one who thinks so.
” He hugged her back. There were fewer and fewer of those hugs now that she was grown, but he still cherished them.
She had her college degree, her own place, and a business, but she was still his little girl.
“What I really want to know is what you think. How has it been going?”
“Pretty great.” Brianna went back around the counter while he took a seat on one of the stools. “I’m still figuring out exactly how much of each item I need to make for the day. I completely ran out of huckleberry muffins almost instantly.”
“You’ll get that figured out,” he told her. “If you have any leftovers, Melissa is already asking for them.”
Brianna laughed. “I knew she would! That’s exactly why I’ve got a box ready to go to the station with you tomorrow morning. If I could pack up Nia’s coffee and send it with you, I’d do that.”
At that moment, Nia emerged from the kitchen carrying a steaming mug. She stopped when she saw Cole at the counter, sending a drip of coffee over the side. “Oh. Hello.”
His wolf had already been thrumming, knowing she was there. It could sense her, but seeing her made it hard to control. His muscles twitched against the impulse to launch himself over the counter, toss the mug out of her hands, and pull her into his arms.
Instead, he lifted a finger from the counter and gave her a polite nod.
Nia moved out to the dining floor to deliver the drink. Cole remained aware of her presence, her exact distance from him, even with his back turned.
He forced himself to return his attention to what his true reason for being there should have been. “It looks like you’ve got quite a few customers, especially for a soft opening. And they’re staying right up until closing time.”
Brianna grinned and nodded at Nia as she came back behind the counter. “That’s all her.”
“What is?” Nia asked.
“The marketing you’ve been doing for us!” Brianna replied. She turned back to Cole. “I brought her here to make coffee. I didn’t know she was a marketing genius.”
“I didn’t know I was, either.” Nia pushed a stray wisp of hair away from her face and smiled. “I just put up some stuff on our social media feeds, that’s all.”
“Show him,” Brianna encouraged. “He’s an old fart, so I’m sure he hasn’t seen any of it yet. I’m going to get everything else boxed up.”
“I’ll have you know we look through social media accounts all the time at work when we’re trying to solve cases,” Cole reminded her.
Sometimes, they needed to see what a person’s state of mind was like or where they’d been in the time leading up to a crime.
Granted, it was usually one of his tech specialists who did that part of the job, but Cole wasn’t completely unaware of how these things worked.
Nia pulled her phone from her pocket, tapping the screen a few times before setting it on the table in front of him. The scent of her sweet perfume blended with freshly roasted coffee beans. If it could curl a beckoning finger at him like in the old cartoons, it would have.
“Our Facebook page has been getting a lot of followers over the past couple of weeks,” she explained as she scrolled through a few posts.
There were photos of pastries and coffee drinks, and others showed Nia and Brianna with smudges of green paint on their faces.
One featured the sunset over the building.
“You’ve even got your menu on here,” Cole noted. “So much for the element of surprise, hm?”
“People like to know what they’re coming in for these days,” Brianna told him as she grabbed a broom.
The couple and the threesome of girls were getting up to leave, and she waved to them.
“They don’t want to have to stand here and decide while everyone else is waiting for them. Show him the videos!”
Nia flipped over to Instagram. Short videos featured Brianna pulling a tray of buns out of the oven, Nia whipping up a coffee drink, and even a time-lapse of the two of them painting one wall.
“How do you have time to film all this?” he asked. “You two have been busy enough just getting the place ready.”
“It’s just a matter of putting one of our phones on a tripod now and then,” Nia replied.
“It’s more than that,” Brianna countered as she set a plate with a cranberry walnut scone in front of him. “It’s the idea behind it, and Nia is great at it. I can’t wait to see how we do tomorrow, but I’m dead on my feet.”
“Go on home,” Nia told her. “I can finish cleaning up.”
“I can’t leave you to do that,” Brianna argued. “We’re a team.”
“Yes, but you’ve worked your ass off today. These pastries take a lot of physical effort,” Nia told her.
“And it certainly pays off,” Cole noted, holding up his scone with a big bite taken out of it. “You’re going to make me gain weight.”
“That’s the whole reason I opened the place, you know,” Brianna teased. She turned her head as the man with the laptop set his dishes on the counter and left. “Come back soon!”
“Go,” Nia encouraged. “I’ve got this.”
Cole slid off the stool. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Thanks for coming by,” Brianna said as they stepped out into the parking lot.
“Of course. I’m glad to see you’re doing so well.” He walked with her to her car. “You just need to make sure you don’t burn yourself out.”
“I won’t,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ve just overdone it the last couple of days because I’m so excited. But I’m fine.”