Page 30 of Renaissance Bear

"What circumstances? The one where I maybe accidentally helped save the Faire?" Alis smiled.

"Um." Jon squinted. "Yeah, we'll go with that for the moment. I meant to explain something to you, but?—"

"Jon!" Laurie's tenor bellowed through the house. "If you don't get out here I'm gonna eat all these cinnamon rolls!"

"Oh, he didn't." Jon's eyes widened hopefully and tugged Alis toward the door. As soon as it opened, the scent of cinnamon and sweet frosting rolled into the room. Alis's stomach grumbled and Jon flashed her a grin. "You have no idea. You'll be glad you're a two-breakfast kind of woman."

Alis gave a laugh of dismay as she scurried up the stairs after Jon. Maybe she could explain she only ate two peoples' worthof breakfast once a week. For some reason she didn't want to disappoint him.

It was a nice house, split-level entry, bedrooms to the left upstairs and to the right downstairs, with upstairs and downstairs living rooms on opposite sides, and the kitchen/dining room off the upstairs living room. Alis had only gotten a glimpse of it last night, and now that she was seeing it more clearly, she still thought it had been decorated by Jon's mom: it didn't look like a bachelor pad at all.

And the box of enormous cinnamon rolls on the dining room table didn't look like they were homemade, but they did look absolutely delicious. Alis considered the possibility shecouldeat two peoples' worth of breakfast. "Oh my God. Those are huge."

"Literally as big as your face," Laurie said as he got milk and juice out of the fridge. He looked perky, like he'd been up a while, and also terribly pleased with himself.

"Sometimes," Jon informed his brother, "you don't suck."

"That's a terrible way to say thank you." Laurie sniffed.

Alis, enthusiastically, said, "Thankyou, Laurie. Where did you get these?"

"The bakery I was going to take you to." Jon held Alis's chair for her, which was a cute, funny, charming, old-fashioned thing to do, especially at his own breakfast table. "You have to get there early to get them, though. They usually sell out before ten."

"Which," Laurie said modestly, "is why I went to get some at eight. They should still be warm."

"They must be," Alis said. "They smell incredible."

Jon served one to her, which was a polite way of saying he shoveled it onto the plate, but with the amount of brown-sugar caramel and cream cheese frosting dripping from it, 'shovel' was the only way it was going to get from the box into her belly. Alis immediately tore a piece off with her fingers, ate it, and groaned."Oh, that's amazing. Oh my God. That does it, I'm moving to Renaissance. Do you need school teachers?"

Laurie shot Jon aLook, and Jon shot him a clearly warning one back. Alis had no idea what that byplay was about, but as long as she had the cinnamon roll, she didn't care. She spent a few happy minutes stuffing her face, only slowing down as she reached the center of the roll, which was still hot enough to scorch her fingers. She licked them, but wasn't about to let a little heat keep her from finishing the best cinnamon roll of her life. "On second thought, I'd never stop eating these if I lived here. You guys must live at that bakery."

"We usually do a Sunday morning breakfast at the pub," Jon admitted. "However much of the family wants to show up, does, and we eat these things and catch up on the gossip for the week."

"Aw. That sounds great!"

"It is. And it keeps us from eating our body weights in cinnamon rolls the rest of the week, because we know we've got them to look forward to."

"Says you," Laurie objected.

"Okay, it keepsmostof us from eating our body weight in cinnamon rolls the rest of the week. What'd you guys decide last night after we left? Did we miss anything?"

Laurie shook his head while Alis nabbed a second cinnamon roll. She couldn't possibly eat it all, but she was by god going to try. "Well, we got a hit this morning. Do you know the mayor?"

"I've met him. Why? Wait, no way. Is he behind this?"

"Looks like maybe, yeah. I think Jon and I were going to go pay him a visit this morning. Did you want to come along? Actually, no, what am I thinking. It would make way more sense for you two to go see him while I go home and get ready for Faire. For a minute I forgot this isn't actually my business." Another pang of longing struck Alis, but she took a deep breath, trying to chase it away.

She thought Jon looked sad for a moment, but then he smiled reassuringly. "That sounds like it might be a plan. Ow!" The last part was because Laurie had clearly kicked him under the table. Jon glared at his brother. "It's aplan, Laurie."

Alis grimaced, not knowing what she'd gotten in between, then offered an awkward smile. "Know what, I think I'll call a taxi to to bring me back to the fairgrounds. Seems like there's a lot for you guys to do, and the faire does still open at eleven this morning, after all."

She grabbed her cinnamon roll and fled.

Chapter 14

"Dude! What'd you let her go for? Haven't you told her about being mates yet? This is all her business! Everything in Renaissan—ow!" Laurie pulled his leg up, looking injured as Jon glared at him across the table.

"I haven't told her anything."

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