Page 140 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

Cara swats his hand when he reaches for a spoon before dinner and he pretends to be chastened, badly.

We eat. We pass bread. We tell Isla the kind of story where the dragon decides to open a bakery and everyone loves him because he keeps the ovens perfectly hot.

Luca bangs a spoon like he is keeping a beat only he can hear.

Gabe steals a carrot out of my bowl, tastes it, and grants me a solemn nod of approval.

Marisa laughs until her shoulders drop and the corners of her mouth go soft. The sound threads the rafters like ribbon.

The lodge is not a church.

The bakery is not a cathedral.

But the hearth is an altar when children sleep upstairs and the table is full and the door is locked and the wolves are busy somewhere else being hungry without us.

Breakfast is a sacrament we make again every morning.

Love is a ritual written in espresso shots and warm scones and the quiet way a man checks the back door one more time for no reason except that he promised someone once that he would.

Later, when the boys finally surrender and we lay them in their ship-berth bed, when Isla drapes her new napkin rose on the nightstand beside her book and whispers goodnight to the llama, when the oven cools and the windows go clear and the ridge leans in to listen, I stand in the doorway and let the day settle on my shoulders like a blanket. “Tomorrow?” Marisa says behind me, voice sleepy and bright.

“Tomorrow,” I say, and I mean all of it.

EPILOGUE: LUCA

A FEW YEARS LATER

Gabe wakes up first because he says his brain is faster.

I say it is because he is a grumpy oatmeal monster who hears the spoon in his sleep.

“I am not a grumpy oatmeal monster,” Gabe says from the top bunk in his serious voice. “I am a morning scientist.”

“Scientists love oatmeal,” I say back from the bottom bunk. “And arguing.”

We argue for five whole minutes about whether oatmeal needs raisins to be legally oatmeal.

Then we stop at the same time because we remember what day it is.

“Bakery Day,” we whisper together, and it feels like lighting a candle.

We jump.

The floor thumps.

The dog, who is named Churro even though he was almost named Motorcycle, lifts his head and gives us the kind of look that means do not run in the hall unless you are bringing me toast.

We do not bring him toast.

We bring him pats, which he accepts like toast.

Our matching aprons hang on the hook, small and perfect, with tiny motorcycles on the pockets and a smear of old icing that never wanted to leave.

We tie the strings in front because Mama taught us the double-knot that only unknots if you tell it a secret.

We whisper our secret into the bows: Please let there be frosting before breakfast.

Mama is already downstairs singing in Italian.