Chapter Four
Birch
The new restaurant was doing well, with reservations booked out for days, and I felt like I’d proven myself.
To me. There was never a question about needing approbation from other people.
I’d grown up in a supportive pack, with parents who encouraged my dreams and those of all their young.
Idyllic, really, and sometimes I questioned moving so far from home.
It meant visits were rare, and I often wondered what everyone at home was doing.
When I told my father I wanted to be a chef, he wasn’t surprised. I’d been an avid cook from the time I could climb up on a stool at the counter and stir the cake batter. But he did object to my plan to learn on the job.
“You’ll go to the best cooking school we can find,” he announced. “We have been saving for your education or start in business since you were born.”
He would have no argument when I protested that it was too expensive, that they needed to keep the money for themselves and their old age. “We are fine here on the lands with everything we could possibly need. You are young and need to be able to learn what you can do, so, Paris?”
I had been looking at a particular famous Parisian cooking school online since I was five. Ridiculously young, but the photos of what they cooked inspired me to make some truly awful food for my family.
Yes, I did improve. A lot. But I held my family’s tolerance for my early experiments largely responsible for my current success.
I never heard of another kid from a wolf pack in the sticks whose parents and pack sent them to France to fulfill their heart’s desire.
Even with all my parents saved, it wasn’t quite enough, and the pack made up the difference, a debt I would soon be able to repay.
Not that they asked me to.
So many people I’d met since striking out on my own had not had the great childhood and youth I’d been granted, and I often wondered whether that was why I had one big hole in my life. Perhaps Fate had bestowed enough upon me, and asking more would be greedy.
When I found this small place to set up shop, I hesitated because it lay so far from home.
But I’d been traveling for years, first to school and then gaining experience in some of the finest restaurants in the US and Europe.
I missed them all, but I could visit—once I could take some time away from the business.
Months of research had landed me here, and from our soft opening, we’d been booked solid with reservations, and the online reviews were better than I could have dreamed.
My mentor at culinary school had reiterated that no matter how great the cuisine, how skilled the staff, without a perfect location, the chef might as well just flush money down the les toilettes.
This town certainly had welcomed us with open arms.
I’d never have met my mate back home where I knew everyone, but despite my desire not to over-ask, I still had a hope that one might be in the offing. There were many shifters locally, including most of my staff, but so far, no sign of someone Fate meant for me.
Could I go through the rest of my life with friends and a job I loved? Absolutely.
But I still found myself peeking out of the kitchen at the patrons and wondering if one night my mate would stroll in for a meal.
On this particular night, I’d been out for a good part of the evening meeting with a company who planned to rent out the restaurant on the night we were normally dark, for an employee event.
I’d gone to their offices, and due to a number of issues they couldn’t have foreseen, been stuck much longer than anticipated.
They were apologetic and we did manage to set up the event, but I tried to always be on-site during the dinner rush, so I was in a less-than cheerful mood when I came in the rear entrance into a kitchen running mostly smoothly.
Mostly was not good enough, and we would discuss the issues I observed at our pre-service meeting the next day. For now, I rolled up my sleeves and showed them what I wanted by example, getting everything back on track in just a few minutes.
There weren’t many diners left by then, anyway, and I settled at my desk to look over the night’s receipts and work on the next day’s menu.
It felt good to be back in the restaurant.
Having to put myself out there like I’d done tonight was tiring, a necessary evil.
I much preferred the coziness of my kitchen and the somewhat-chaotic-but-organized noise of the staff winding down the night before going home to their loved ones or maybe out on the town with friends.
Yawning, I shut down the laptop and picked up my phone to check messages before heading to my quiet house.
Most of the time, it didn’t bother me at all, but I was feeling more vulnerable for some reason tonight.
An ad popped up for something called Mail-Order Matings.
It wasn’t the first one I’d seen, but previously I’d just clicked it away.
I’d always thought online dating was about quick hookups or desperation, but how far was I from the latter? If my fated mate was in this town, I hadn’t met them. And if there wasn’t one at all for me, why not see if a chosen mate could be a good fit?
It might be the long day talking, but why the heck not?