Page 81 of Not Your Average Vixen
There was more to this couple than two people on the prowl for sugar cookies.
11
Soren
No!
It couldn’t be!
Had he lost his mind?
It sure as hell felt like it.
Bridget Dasher and those damned brown eyes of hers were driving him insane. That had to be it. The pendulum swinging between wanting to throttle her while simultaneously having every cell in his body screaming to hold her in his arms and never let her go had turned out to be the precursor to a one-way ticket straight to a padded cell.
His gaze bounced between her petal-soft lips and the couple who sauntered in off the street, like ghosts of his not-so-distant past.
He blinked. At least he had control of his eyelids.
Had he accidentally eaten those damned pot gummy bears?
Was he straight-up stoned? Was he about to start conversing with eggs like his baked vixen had last night?
No, he’d thrown the gummy bears into the trash after they’d returned to the mountain house. As of right now, aside from feeling drunk off a misplaced Bridget Dasher momentary fascination, he was completely sober. And that’s never a good thing when you’re ninety-nine percent sure you’re hallucinating.
“Wait a second,” Bridget said as she broke away from him and headed toward the couple. “I recognize you two. It’s an honor to meet you,” she added, hurrying around the counter to the front of the shop to greet the couple.
Not just any couple.
Agnes and Ernie Angel, whose acquaintance he’d made only a handful of days ago when he’d thought more about banging their attorney than bailing out their business.
The couple whose livelihood he was in the process of liquidating.
And then it hit him.
He owned Cupid Bakery.
He’d never thought of his acquisitions as anything more than assets. It never occurred to him to visit or even think about a purchase as something tangible. To him, they were simply line items on a spreadsheet.
But through some insane Christmas plot twist, the Angels had landed literally on his doorstep.
“Everyone, these lovely people are Agnes and Ernie Angel. They’re the owners of the Cupid Bakery chain—the bakery we’re making cookies in right now,” Bridget said to the group with a wide grin.
Ernie shook his head. “That’s not quite accurate, miss.”
Bridget frowned. “It’s not?”
“No, dear, that gentleman over there in the apron owns the bakeries now,” Agnes said, throwing him the sweetest of smiles as she pointed a gloved finger at him.
“What are they talking about, Scooter?” Scott asked.
Soren scanned the room and found all eyes on him.
“About that,” he began, only to have Tom’s sister cut him off.
“You must be mistaken. Scooter’s a businessman. He doesn’t own a string of bakeries, do you?” Denise asked, pinning him with her hawkish gaze.
He cleared his throat as he descended into holiday-scented hell.
