Page 83 of The Alpha and the Baker
“Can I help you?” I asked, mentally going over all my safety measures. I had pepper gel connected to my water canteen and an invisible alarm behind the counter. I had a baseball bat under the register and my cellphone in my pocket.
And yet somehow, it didn’t feel like enough.
“This your bakery?” the man in the center asked. He was tall, not quite as tall as Cas, and relatively built. There was a seriousness baked into his tan features that told me I had to be cautious around him.
“Hello, yes. I’m the owner of this bakery,” I said, smile still on my face even though I was going through dozens of mental calculations. “Can I help you with something?”
“Word on the street is that you’re sponsoring a team for the community bake-off,” he said, each word deliberate. “We just came to check it out.”
Ah. If I had to hazard a guess, I was pretty sure I was now facing down several members of the Ramirez pack.
All this over some baked goods?
“No, not sponsoring,” I corrected. “I’m competing. With the McCallisters.”
I noticed that a good number of the group stiffened, but to his credit, their mouthpiece didn’t so much as bat an eye.
“There are some things you don’t know about that family,” the man hedged. “Perhaps it would be better for your business if you sat this one out.”
He trailed his finger along the top of my glass case. I couldn’t help but feel like I was in some sort of mob shakedown. Except I wasn’t a bootlegger, nor did I run a speakeasy. I was just a baker helping my boyfriend with the sugary situation he’d gotten into.
“No, I’m all right, thank you.”
He took a step toward me, hands still in his pockets. “I appreciate that you think you’re fine, but trust me, this shit is bigger than you and some cakes. It really would be better if you backed out with grace.”
I rolled my eyes, over all the bravado. I had too much to do on my busiest day of the week to be bothered by whatever failed shakedown was going on.
“What, you mean like them being shifters? Been there, learned that.” I couldn’t lie, I really enjoyed the way all their eyes went wide.
Except one of them didn’t take the surprise well and lurched forward, his face beginning to shift and distend, his teeth growing longer, his muzzle lengthening, and fur beginning to grow down from his hairline.
It was fascinating. I’d gotten to see a lot of very light pre-shifting, as the teens had called it, during my smaller dinner with Cas’s family, but none of them had progressed so far into the transformation.
But, like so many things in my life, there was a time and a place for such things, and the front of my bakery wasn’t a place for shifters to gallivant around.
“You stop that,” I said, reacting without thinking by grabbing the spray bottle I kept behind the counter to clean my displaycase and spritzing the shifter in the face. “You put your face right before you give one of my lovely regulars a heart attack when they come in for their scones!”
Ill advised, that was for certain, and yet it seemed to be the right thing to do. The man was so surprised that his face zipped back to normal like some sort of reversed time lapse.
Why had I sprayed him in the face?
Their leader broke the silence, his laughter suddenly filling the air. It took a few more beats, but eventually everyone except the shifter I’d sprayed joined in.
“It’s not funny,” he grumbled, crossing his massive arms.
“Actually, it is pretty funny,” another countered. “She sprayed you like a cat on the counter!”
God, I really had. Between dating a shifter and super-soaking one, I was beginning to wonder about my survival instincts.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” their leader said, cutting off any follow-up the sprayed shifter had. “I thought you were a human who got tricked into a situation bigger than yourself. But if you know what’s what, then all’s fair in love and war.”
“And baking,” I added, relaxing a bit. The guy could be lying, but I didn’t get that vibe off him.
“I’m Salvador, but you can call me Sal. I believe I’m your competition for the bake-off.”
“You’re competing against me,” I said, feeling far more brazen than I probably should. “But it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be actual competition.”
Another laugh out of him. “Oh, I see. Is that how it is?”
