Point, West Caldwell.
“Tell you what.” I grabbed the printed pages off the counter, scanning over the inventory list I’d been neglecting all day. “I’m on pit duty tonight, but first thing tomorrow, I’ll head over to the ranch and check things out.”
There was a pause, and then—
“So look. About Ethan—”
“For the love of all that is fanged and holy, can we drop this?”
“It’s been three weeks. Even by middle school girl standards, you’re both being total drama queens.”
“Okay, first? I’ve been busy. Some of us actually have businesses to run—”
“Right. Because I didn’t just spend my Friday night up to my ass in papers to grade.”
“—and second, we both know he’s the one who made this personal.”
“He screwed up.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
West ignored that one. “I mean, I think he gets it. Now, at least.”
I scoffed. “He actually said that?”
“You know E’s not exactly a talker. It’s one reason this mating with Hayden has been so good for him. He’s even been going to a therapist, trying to work through some of the stuff that happened before he came to live with us.”
“Are you seriously going to defend him?”
“Not defend. Total Switzerland here.” There was a pause. “But everyone makes mistakes.”
And there it was.
“Because I’m one to talk, right?”
“Dally, c’mon. You know that’s not what I meant.”
Except it was. And both of us knew it.
I let my head thump back against the cool metal industrial refrigerator, staring at the employee schedule taped up on the wall. Not that I needed to. Third week in November. Nine years ago, tonight.
As pretty much anyone in town could have told you, I got banished to the foothills of the Canadian Rockies outside cold, snowy Calgary the fall of my senior year. What almost no one knew was the truth. Suffice it to say the details included stupid as hell seventeen-year-old thinking, a party, way too many wine coolers, and a night in the back of my truck I would have given my right nut to take back.
And Lacey Blair.
There’s no excuse for what I did that night. Let’s just get that out of the way. It’s easy to get twisted up in a cascade of bad decisions, so much so that you’ll tell yourself just about anything to justify your own reckless behavior. You grow so desperate to believe your own lies that eventually they start sounding like truth.
Until you don’t realize you’ve become the villain in your own story.
Lacey Blair stormed into my life on a cold January day in zero-hour athletics. I noticed her the second I stalked out to the track, not only because with her long dark hair tied up in a high ponytail and her lean runner’s build, she was undeniably gorgeous, but mostly because she was hopping around on one foot in a pair of purple Nikes, trying to stretch out her quads while texting one-handed.
Or hell, maybe it was because as a werewolf I’d been subliminally conditioned by years of bedtime stories to fall all over myself at the sight of a girl in a sour-cherry red hoodie. All those fairy tales couldn’t be wrong.
I hopped up onto the track. Pale gray eyes the color of that endless January sky caught mine. I sucked in a breath, feeling like I’d just been punched in the sternum.
“Must be a pretty intense status update.”
A faint flush of color rose on her cheeks, and I took note of a tiny constellation of freckles just below her left eye. “That your best line?”
“You’d prefer the one where I offered to help you stretch?”
She smirked. “Okay. Except can I record this? I love being mansplained to by a guy I’ve just met whose gym shirt is on inside out.”
Beside me, West choked back a laugh. Flipping him off, I stole a glance at hoodie-girl’s screen.
“Little early for strawberry lemonade cupcakes.”
She scowled, clutching the phone to her chest. “Nosy much?”
“Because something they sell downtown at Blair’s is a state secret?”
“Don’t you have any other girls to annoy this morning?”
A smile twitched at the corner of my mouth. “Just you.”
“My aunt’s giving me an after school job. I baked these for her over the weekend and she said we could try selling a dozen this morning, see if they have any takers.”
“What kind of frosting?”
“Excuse me?”
“Frosting, Blair. Try to keep up. It goes on top of the—”
She bared her teeth, looking like she wanted to bite me, and damn, if that didn’t send tingles exploding across every inch of my skin. My wolf arched within my bones, desperate to get out. Closing my eyes, I dug my fingernails into my palms until I smelled blood.
“Strawberry. You didn’t get that from the pink?”
“Buttercream? Cream cheese? Royal icing?”
“You wouldn’t use royal icing on a cupcake.”
I tapped the end of her nose. “Just checking.”
That earned me another growl. I took a delicate sniff to make sure she wasn’t part werewolf.
“You bake?” she asked disdainfully.
“Don’t sound so surprised, sweetheart. Having a dick doesn’t mean I can’t figure out the temperature controls on an oven.”
“Pretty sure there’s something wrong with introducing your dick into a conversation before your name.”
“Dallas Caldwell.”
When I raised an eyebrow, her eyes narrowed. But instead of giving me her name, she crossed her arms. “Lightning round. Ten seconds. Top three cupcake flavors.”
“Damn, sweetheart. Will I need to fight off a dragon or make a party dress out of trash bags during the commercial break?”
“Only if you behave yourself.” She didn’t even blink. And fuck, I was so in trouble. “No chocolate. No fruit.”
“Hard core from a girl who got strawberries and lemons.”
“Only way I roll, Caldwell.”
So here’s the thing. I’d been whipping up pancakes since before I could see over a counter. My mom swore my first word after the usual babbling all little kids do was cilantro. According to my dad, I had more recipes in my head than common sense.
I so had this.
“Maple bacon with a hazelnut frosting,” I ticked off on my fingers, eyes locked with Cupcake Girl’s. “Vanilla bean with an espresso buttercream.”
“Five seconds,” West announced, clearly enjoying this far too much.
“—and a zucchini tomato bread spice cake with a cream cheese frosting.”
The entire track team burst out in applause. Coach blew the whistle, shouting at us to move our asses and stop acting like idiots.
Cupcake Girl glanced my way. “Wow. I’m kind of fangirling a little. You actually can cook.”
“So do I get your name?”
I glanced over to West, whose expression had changed from amusement to wariness. He was right, of course. No way could this happen. She was human and I was a shifter, which meant she was off-limits, for my protection, but mostly for hers.
Completely oblivious, she smirked, taking off around the track. “One small problem, Caldwell. Check your biology textbook. Tomatoes?”