Page 1 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

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MARISA

Late afternoon, early winter wedding

The sky rips open and the mountains breathe steam.

One moment the pines stand still and solemn like a chapel choir, and the next the first hard sheet of rain turns the world to wet paper and snow threatens.

Gravel sticks to my dress shoes.

My hair glues itself to my cheeks.

The pastry crates slip and wobble in my arms as I climb the slippery slope toward a set of white tents battling from being swallowed by the storm.

I keep telling myself this was supposed to be my break, the job that would make a friend of a friend say, “Her name is Marisa, she is young, she is good, she makes a lemon bar that steadies a person’s heart.”

The more I say it, the more my throat tightens because nothing about this looks like a break.

I’ll be cursed to cook for someone else forever, even if my boss is nice.

The DJ has cocooned his speakers under a tarp that sags with brown rainwater and cold slush.

The cake tent smells of bourbon and damp linen.

Somewhere a bridesmaid is crying quietly, the kind of cry that keeps makeup intact.

Someone else hiccups with the soft rhythm of a person who is drunk before the vows.

I can almost hear the delicate edges of my sugar roses sigh as they wilt.

Three hundred tea pastries blink up at me like brave little soldiers at the wrong battle.

The lemon bars are sweating.

The panna cotta trembles in its cups, a prayer away from becoming milk.

I set the first crate down, breathe through the sting in my palms, and tell myself I will not cry before going out to get the next lot of desserts inside from the lodge to the tent.

“Hold on. Let me help with those.”

The voice is deep and quiet, but there’s a lift at the end like he’s already a little amused by me.

I turn and find a man in black, rain running off him as if the storm has agreed to stop just long enough to admire him.

His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, forearms a shade darker from summers spent under the sun.

There’s a rosary tattoo peeking from the open collar of his shirt like something private he has no intention of explaining.

“You’re going to drop that,” he adds, nodding to the crate wobbling in my arms.

“I’m not,” I insist, even though my grip is slipping and my shoes are making sad little squelching noises in the mud.

His mouth curves like he’s heard that kind of stubborn before. “Want to bet?”

“I don’t gamble.”

“Good. Then I win.”