Page 6 of The Pumpkin Spice Romance
“It’s my café, so absolutely!” He rounded the table and pulled the chair out, then looked over at Lara who flashed him her tightest-lipped café manager look and pointed her nose at the kitchen. Hayden sighed. “On second thought, I better not. We’re down two people today, and if I stick my sister with all the front-work, she’ll come over and murder me in my sleep. Of course, that won’t solve the staffing problem, but you know . . .”
“I didn’t even recognise Lara,” Leonie marvelled. “She looks great too. And is that little Mackenzie in the kitchen? He’s huge now!”
Hayden swallowed, suddenly lightheaded at seeing her astonished smile. His heart raced and he pictured himself just going back to work, as if this lucky meeting was just a blip in an ordinary week, and they’d drift out of each others’ lives for another twenty years, or possibly forever. That wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all.
“Um, hey, Lee, if you’re not leaving in a hurry, we start closing in a couple of hours. I’d love to catch up some more if you’re still around then. Or anytime, if you don’t feel like waiting around. I mean, anytime but right this minute, of course.” He wiped his hands on his apron, a flush sweeping through him. “I’m gonna stop talking now,” he added with an awkward grin.He could never play it cool around her, and it seemed twenty years apart didn’t change that.
“Aw, Furball.” Leonie laughed. Hayden’s ears pricked and heated at his old nickname. “I’d love to hang around, if you guys don’t mind me here.”
He watched her while he worked. Not in a weirdo staring way, he assured himself, just in a from-time-to-time way, making sure she was all right the way a good friend would. He ignored the looks from Lara and Mackie, who’d almost certainly mention it to Deanne and Lupe later, and all four of them would corner him at dinner for the goss.
When the café quietens, Hayden offered Leonie another hot chocolate and something more substantial to eat—on the house since the only reason she was here was to wait for him. When she had to step out, he wheeled her suitcase into the back office for safe keeping, batting away his little brother who sniffed at it, trying to profile her by perfume.L’Eau d’Issey? Fussy and organised. Jo Malone Bluebells? Stuffy and conservative. Oh, but that’s Molecule 01. What a hipster!
Leonie returned with a big rectangular something in an Officeworks bag, then returned to the back corner table. She opened the box and pulled out a brand hew laptop, reminding Hayden about when Deanne had left her own deadbeat husband, sealing the deal with a new phone and a fresh haircut. Looks like he really had run into her in the midst of a mess.
Soon, Mackie swept through the seating area for his pack-down, wiping tables and stacking chairs. Despite Hayden’s offer of the snug café office, Leonie favoured outside, drawn by thegolden-hour sunshine that filled the back alley at closing time. She stashed her laptop with her suitcase and settled on the old milk crates stacked by the door.
Hayden packed down the kitchen, double-checking against Lara’s meticulous cleaning instructions, breezing through Deanne’s daily stocktake, and sent Mackie back out to water Lupe’s plants. The one task that wouldn’t happen tonight this week was those plants following them home. A few nights without their greenhouse light wouldn’t kill them, and it was times like these that Hayden felt proud and relieved at being a shifter family.
That they recovered more quickly from human illness meant staffing issues during winter were usually short-lived. He spared a thought for the shifter-hating humans running the Orange Bar café down the street. Those ignorant folks put themselves on the back foot, not to mention their food wasn’t as good as this one-hundred percent shifter-run family business could make it. Love was a core ingredient, and it certainly helped to have a shifter’s sense of taste.
Hayden turned to the door and dropped an armload of baking pans. The scent of stale sweat and hostility drifted in from outside, and his ears twitched at the sound of aggression. His mind fully inhabited his body so suddenly, he had to shake himself back to his thinking senses.
Leonie!He bounded out into the alley, barely registering Lara’s boots squeaking on tile as she burst out of the office, and wood crashing against wood as Mackie sprang into action inside the café.
The alley was bereft of people, save for two—Leonie and some guy with bloodshot eyes and the reek of bad intentions. Hayden growled, deep and menacing, hackles raised and the skin of his muzzle wrinkled as he bared his teeth. The guy stomped a foot his way and yelled for him to get out, a gesture that might have scared away an ordinary dog, even one the size of Hayden’s wolf.
But Hayden was no ordinary dog, and neither were the two coming through the kitchen behind him. His packmates had his back.
And when the guy finally realised Leonie had three large canines coming to her aid, he blanched and back off, spat a curse, then turned tail and ran. Verging on feral, Mackie gave chase after him.
“Easy,” Lara muttered under her breath, warning him against taking things too far. But Mackie shifted back to human form just before the end of the alley, then peered around the corner, kicking up his right leg in a dainty fashion. He chuckled and sauntered back to the café, giving the all clear.
Even back in human form, Hayden’s heart pounded. “You all right, Lee?” he asked, holding an arm out in case she needed reassurance.
Instead of answering, she just hugged him. Her heart pounded too, a rhythmic tremor that rumbled both of them, his senses still raw from the shift. He put his arms around her, telling himself off for enjoying what it felt like to hold her—this wasn’t the time or place toenjoy things, not after what just happened.
Then, she let out a tiny sob, and he tightened his embrace, recalling all the old feelings he’d pushed away over the years. Yes, he could enjoy this, being next to her again. Finally, after all this time, after he’d given up hope, he had his best friend back, even if only for right now. She was back. She wasback! Just seeing her again made him want to run and do flips in the air. And if a wolf couldn’t enjoy something like this, then what was the point of anything?
4
Leonie sat with Hayden on upturned milk crates, so close their knees almost touched. After hearing what happened—that some random guy had asked for money, then got aggressive when Leonie said she had no cash—Hayden’s older sister scowled.
“Probably still pinging from some bender,” she muttered, darkly. “Perth’s drug problem ain’t improving.” Then she stopped herself and, with a determined nod, insisted on making hot chocolate for everyone to help calm things down.
Leonie wasn’t shaken by the incident. Both the guy’s hands were empty, and it wasn’t like she couldn’t run into the café or screamed for help or, if it came down to it, smack the guy in the face with one of the milk crates. But he’d caught her off-guard, and she was exhausted. This was the last thing she needed after everything that got her here.
So when Lara handed over a thick ceramic mug swaddled in a tea towel, her hands took it gratefully, and she savoured the warm, rich chocolate liquid with a hint of sweet fruit.
“I have so many questions,” she confessed to Hayden, practically glowing with the warm drink in her and the joy of seeing her long-lost friend again.
“Me too.” He seemed to glow back at her. There was something so inviting about his smile, though she couldn’tplace what it was. His teeth weren’t pearly white, nor painfully straight, nor anything her training had taught her to value. They were just so, she figured, shaped by smiling and tinted by a love for life and good food. Of course, she couldn’t know that for sure about him, but nonetheless, seeing his smile made her feel good, an interesting kind of good on top of feeling happy and relieved to have run into him.
Silence followed for a long moment, one that seemed loaded with uncertainty and yet bathed in hope and comfort. A fat raven landed roughy on a roof nearby. Its loud appreciation of the afternoon sunshine broke the silence. Leonie wiped a bit of chocolate from her lip and nodded to Hayden. “You first,” she said.
“Where did you go?” he blurted, as if he’d been waiting all these years for the chance to ask. The look in his eyes when he said it cracked Leonie’s heart.
“We moved south of the river,” she replied. “I didn’t know until the last minute. That last day of term, the day before you left for music camp, I got home to a bunch of boxes and the house already half-packed.”
