Chapter 8 #2
I grab my phone, look up the number for the community center, and quickly dial it. When the secretary answers, I tell her to throw away any brownies that Dale put out. I don’t let her ask questions. I just repeat the order, hang up, and lock the bakery down again.
I’ll give Gus a little credit. By the time I’m behind the counter, he’s carrying an empty trash bag in his muzzle. He’s tripping over it, the black bag trailing behind him, but he thump-thump-thumps forward until he can drop the bag at my boot.
“Thanks,” I say, snatching the bag and throwing out every single brownie left in this batch.
Both Ash and Gus follow me as I tie a knot in the bag and march toward the kitchen. I don’t stop there. I keep going until I’m outside, tossing the brownies in the dumpster.
Back inside the kitchen, I notice that Ash is watching me with a wistful expression. For a second, I think it’s because he’s remembering how he was tossed in the trash. And then—
“Did you really have to throw them all out?”
Honestly? “Yeah. I did.”
“I know. Some magic is too powerful to play with, but… I would’ve liked to try one.”
My heart skips a beat. “You’re a ghost.” Or something similar. “I didn’t think you could eat.”
“I can’t. I don’t do anything that a living creature does.
I don’t breathe, I can’t really sleep, and there’s no need to use the restroom.
But I didn’t mean that because I’m hungry.
It’s just… I’ve been searching for my mate for a long time.
” His laugh is more hollow than I’ve ever heard it.
“Since I was eighteen, actually, so about eleven, twelve years. If a brownie could help me find her, I’d have a nibble.
” The way he looks at me, it’s like I’m the ghost because, I swear, he can see right through me. “Wouldn’t you?”
No need. I’ve found him.
He just hasn’t found me.
I’m no quitter. Sure, I might’ve single-handedly turned Moonburrow into an orgy if more supes ate the brownies and had a similar reaction as Hudson and Tina, but I wasted six dozen of those suckers. To make up for it, I need to sell something.
Grandma Jean’s recipe book? I opened up a cabinet and tossed that thing inside.
Grabbing my phone instead, I looked up a recipe for something that was one hundred percent magic-free.
Basic vanilla cupcakes with a whipped cream frosting.
There. I even spruced them up by adding sprinkles because, welp, who can be mad at anything that has sprinkles on it?
I only made twenty-four. Once they’re sold, I might just retire from baking. I know I promised Honey, but hell. I told her I’d find a way to fuck this up. And, oh, did I fuck it up.
How do I know that? Because, almost immediately after I make the mistake of unlocking the door again, the bell jingles, the glass shakes, and Riordan Lobo comes storming into the bakery wearing such a furious expression, I swallow my smart-ass greeting and settle on waving at him.
“You,” he snarls.
I go for innocent. “Hello, Chief Deputy Lobo. Can I interest you in a cupcake?”
His golden eyes narrow. “We need to talk.”
No, thank you. “Oh. I would if I could… what’s that, Ash? You need my help with something?”
Next to me, Ash’s expression is one of befuddlement and amusement. “I didn’t say anything.”
Yeah, but Riordan doesn’t know that.
Or maybe he does.
“The ghost can wait, Roxy. We need to talk about the reports the sheriff’s office has been getting all afternoon.”
I wince. “Ooh… that tone says ‘you’re having a bad day’. You’re sure you don’t want a cupcake?”
At Riordan’s low growl, Ash turns away from the counter, his see-through shoulders shaking suspiciously.
That traitor. It doesn’t help that Gus is suddenly missing, too.
I lift my chin. “It was just a recipe I found in an old book.”
“Whose book?”
Maybe if Honey wasn’t his mate-in-law—or if Sheriff Lobo hadn’t had to deal with the fallout from the Can’t Resist Cupcakes—I could pretend that he didn’t know about Grandma Jean’s recipe book.
When I don’t answer, he scrubs a big hand down his face. “Three separate fated mate pairs recognized each other today. Two others decided they were chosen mates.”
“That sounds like good news—”
“One of them was just arrested for public indecency outside the butcher shop.”
How much do I want to bet that’s Tina and Hudson?
“Oh.”
“Another pair locked themselves inside the movie theater.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Creative.”
Maybe that was Tina and Hudson. Hey. Better the movies than Dough You Believe in Magic’s kitchen…
“And,” Riordan continues in the sort of dangerously calm voice predators use right before they exploded into violence, “a spurned arranged mate arrived at the borders of Moonburrow ten minutes ago demanding the right to challenge the wolf who ‘stole his future mate.’”
Okay. That can’t be Tina since her mate is in Georgia, but I know she’s not the only one who promised herself to someone else in Mooburrow.
“Whoops.”
Riordan’s gaze lands squarely on me. “We’ve traced this entire disaster back to your bakery.”
“You guys are some great detectives. I only sold the last batch about an hour ago.”
“Roxy…”
Riordan growls.
Actually growls.
Damn it. Forgetting he can’t, Ash is trying hard not to let the Beta see that he’s laughing, Gus is MIA, and my raccoon has just perked up in delighted interest to see this side of Riordan Lobo.
Because apparently my survival instincts are broken, and the path from my brain to my mouth is, too…
“There he is,” I say brightly. “I was starting to think you didn’t know how to be a wolf.”
His eyes flash molten gold. “Roxy.”
“What?” I shrug. “It’s healthy to express emotions instead of keeping them all bottled up inside.”
A claw shoots out of his fingertip as he points accusingly at me. “You drugged half of the town with magical aphrodisiacs!”
“It couldn’t possibly be half the town. We only made, like, a hundred brownies total.”
Riordan’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head at my flippant response.
Ash loses the battle against laughter completely behind me. Lucky for him, I’m the only one who knows, and I’m much better at keeping a straight face than he is.
It takes a moment for the Beta to recover. “Do you still have more of them?”
I jerk my thumb behind me. “Dumpster.”
Obviously.
His jaw tightens. “You threw enchanted brownies into a public dumpster?”
What? That’s a bad thing?
Oh. Wait. I might be the only raccoon in town, but that doesn’t mean that the Dough You Believe In Magic’s dumpster is safe. After all, didn’t someone use it for attempted body disposal only yesterday?
“Well, when you say it like that—”
“Go get them.”
“Sure. I can do that.” I brace my fingers lightly against the counter as though my raccoon doesn’t have a lick of fear when it comes to the dominant wolf. “You want me to save you one? Maybe if we can find you your mate, you can get laid and finally pull that stick out of your ass.”
Hey. He told me he doesn’t lick his balls. Maybe I got the names reversed. Right now, he’s definitely acting more like a Chief Deputy Stick-Up-His-Furry-Ass than our vacationing sheriff.
And… I think I might’ve pushed him too far.
Fangs punch out, and I get my first real glimpse of the wolf that Riordan would be if it wasn’t for the curse that controls him. I see it, and my raccoon hides deep down inside of me, leaving me to face his glare alone.
“Destroy. Them,” he bites out around his fangs.
I gulp. “You got it.”
“Good.”
For one terrifying second, Riordan genuinely looks like he might climb over the counter and throttle me. It’s only for a second, though, as if his wolf gauges my answer and decides that I’ve stopped being a brat.
He exhales sharply through his nose. “The cursebreaker arrives in a few days. Penelope Willows is one of the most respected witches in the American covens. Try not to charm anyone else before then.”
I think of the recipe book I banished.
“I promise.”
Riordan purses his lips together. He doesn’t say anything else right away, and when he does, he’s back to his careful drawl. “How’s he doing?”
The question catches me off guard. “Ashton?”
He nods.
“He’s still here.” I gesture in the direction of Ash who, no longer laughing, is obviously listening with everything he has. “Still haunting us. He’s… okay.”
“Tell him to hang on. We’re getting help as soon as we can.”
I nod, and with one last warning not to start any more trouble that he and his wolves have to clean up, Riordan leaves.
Using the excuse that I’d rather not have to face any other disgruntled customers, I box up the cupcakes, lock the door, and turn off the lights. Gus pokes his head out of the kitchen as I do, and I tell the males that we’re done for the day.
I normally would take longer to clean up, but since I had time to do most of that while the cupcakes were baking, I’m done in fifteen minutes.
Ash ghosts behind me the entire time, quiet as the grave.
Gus fell asleep in the industrial mixer, only waking up when I pronounced we were done and Ash scooped him out of the mixing bowl.
He settles Gus on his shoulder. The opossum yawns, then leans against Ash’s faded neck as I heft up the double box of cupcakes. Two minutes of stomping on a bag of brownies in my steel-toe boots later and we’re heading out.
The community center is on the way to my shop.
With a seemingly floating Gus and an invisible Ash as my shadows, I pop my head in, offering the cupcakes as a replacement for the brownies that I told them to throw away.
I take the trash bag with me on the way out so I can destroy them, too, and I only hope that no one snuck one or two out of the bag in the meantime.