Page 52 of The Alpha and the Baker

Castiel

Dessert Day

The day of the bake-off had arrived.

Where had the time gone? I couldn’t understand it. One day I was organizing a surprise delivery to Felicia’s shop, the next I was driving Gammy McCallister and my mother to the market well before dawn.

“We’re going to do great,” my mother said from the passenger seat, resting her hand on top of mine.

Even after thirty years, I didn’t think I would ever take the gentle comfort of her voice for granted.

We’d been through a lot, me and her. From being just members of the pack until I hit puberty and was revealed to have the same alpha gene as my father, to my father challenging Barris, to being the lead family of the pack.

It had been one transition after another, and yet she’d always been a stalwart force in my life.

I really needed to visit her more often. Sometimes I got so caught up in the tussle between being an alpha and having a personal life that it was easy to let time slip by.

Like, for example, the two weeks before the bake-off.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, trying to project coolness and confidence.

Easier said than done. Tensions were high for pretty much everyone involved except Felicia.

Maybe it was just in my head, but it felt like something had changed since she’d baked for the Ramirez party.

Despite wanting to give her privacy as well as prove to her that I trusted her, I’d asked her a lot of questions.

She told me she’d had a wonderful time, and brought in a massive tray of food from her car, half of it being dessert.

She called it “research”, and the two of us ended up devouring all of it that night.

It was eye- opening, that was for sure. Sal and everyone else was right to brag about their dishes.

The food was just as good as what could be found at any of our parties, and certainly had a lot of different flavors that we didn’t use.

Especially the flan.

I’d always liked the custardy dessert, but the moment I bit into the slice Felicia had brought home, it was like an entirely new world opened up to me.

Whoa, boy.

“Are we gonna lose?” I remembered asking her with wide eyes.

Felicia just laughed, patted my shoulder, and told me everything would be fine.

I supposed I should be grateful for her preternatural calm, but it made me feel like there was something I wasn’t getting. Whenever I tried to broach the topic with any clarifying questions, Felicia said she had complete confidence in what we were planning.

So, that was good. Right?

I tried to convince myself I was just unsettled because of the crazy situation I had gotten us into.

Somehow, buying a few pounds of dates for the woman I was falling in love with had turned into a culinary challenge where me getting in trouble with the fairies was on the line.

I wasn’t an idiot. I had no idea how Sal had found out about Felicia so quickly, but him knowing that I had revealed this to a human gave him even more ammunition to get me in trouble with the fairies.

All in all, the circumstances were less than ideal. I supposed I just had to try to have the same faith that Felicia seemed to have.

We arrived at the public market without incident, and I helped Gammy McCallister out of the car.

With her hand looped through my elbow, we slowly made our way to the long tent that had been set up in what was normally the picnic and activity area.

It was enormous—enough to hold one of our reunions—and there were multiple kitchenette stations set up throughout it.

“Isn’t this fancy?” my mother said, holding a tray of her beef wellington.

The final touches were still required, but she, Felicia, and everyone else on our team had worked out the perfect timing for when each dish needed to go in the oven.

I was truly impressed at the level of coordination, but that was clearly the perk of having a professional.

“It’s certainly nice,” I said, looking around for the others. Chris was driving his family, Jason was bringing Auntie Letitia, Melodie, and Auntie Beverly, while Polly and Penny were bringing their families. I was sure others would show up to support us as well.

I scanned the crowd again, hoping to spot Felicia.

I’d wanted to spend the night with her, then come to the event together, but given my mother and Gammy needed a ride and Felicia insisted she needed solitude to do “something special”, we’d decided to come separately.

I was anxious to see her. Had everything gone all right? I hoped so.

Because there was still one thing I hadn’t told her, and the guilt in the back of my mind made it hard not to worry.

My pack and the Ramirezes were breaking some major rules by directly interfering with a human event.

It was a big no-no, and why I’d been surprised the alpha had agreed in the first place.

Then again, maybe like me, he’d figured the powerful fairies were too busy to interfere with something as silly as a community bake-off held in a public market.

“Ayo, ready to lose there, gringo ?”

I wasn’t exactly surprised to hear an accented voice taunting me.

I looked down toward the middle of the tent to see a group of three large men already fully setting up their cooking stations in a kitchenette.

Damn it. I’d hoped to get the drop on the Ramirez pack, but it seemed they’d gotten there first.

“Keep telling yourself that,” I called back, trying to sound effortlessly confident and not like I wanted to shift and tear into them.

I ignored their mutterings in several languages and started doing whatever my mom and Gammy McCallister needed to get settled. I would have loved to start setting up the kitchenette assigned to us as well, but I knew better than to do that without Felicia.

Thankfully, she showed up ten minutes later, parking in the closest spot left in the area specifically marked off for contestants. I was a jumble of nerves as I walked toward her. Felicia shot me a relaxed smile, then threw her arms around my neck in a hug.

God, I needed that. The soft, coolness of her body was such a balm to the storm brewing inside of me, soothing the more jagged pieces of my mood.

“Good morning,” she said in a sing-song voice. “Did you sleep well?”

“Not really, did you?”

“Better than expected, actually. All the crazy running around I did this week helped.”

Guilt prickled at me again. Yes, I knew Felicia was the ace in my pocket, but I felt guilty that I had added more to her already loaded plate.

At least I could take solace in the fact that she’d had fun in planning things with our team.

I’d been worried I’d ruined it all when I’d told her about the fairies and the heavier consequences of the event, but she’d taken it all in stride.

I was beginning to think that she was just like that. Unflappable in a way I strove to be. It wasn’t exactly surprising, given her background, but it was no less admirable.

“Anything I can help with?”

“Yeah, actually. I have a buttload of supplies I need your help with. Just leave the small red box in there, that’s for a client later in the week. I forgot to take it inside, so I don’t want it getting mixed up in this stuff.”

“No touching the red box,” I repeated with a nod. “Got it.”

She stood up on her tippy toes and pressed a kiss to my cheek, gripping my forearm for stability. “Thank you, babe.”

As usual, my entire body responded to her, but I left it at that. If we won, then we could explore that feeling and celebrate all we wanted to. For now, it was all business.

I was so focused that I hadn’t realized an entire hour had passed until more people started to filter into the event.

I didn’t notice at first because I was loading up the kitchenette with everything Felicia told me to, but when I took a break to go to the bathroom, I realized the fold-out bleachers they’d set up in the activity area were nearly full.

Huh. Maybe the event was a bigger deal than I thought.

Or maybe our packs were way more competitive than the usual contestants at the bake-off.

It really was too bad that we couldn’t interact with human events more often.

I felt like it caused such an artificial and unnecessary rift between us Wild Folk and humans.

While I understood there needed to be at least some distance to protect ourselves from being discovered, but did that really mean total social isolation from each other?

That was something I’d worry about when I had less cataclysmic things hanging over my head. Like, say, a certain bake-off.

“I’m sorry, mija , where did you say the water was?”

The loud, rather boisterous voice drew my attention, and I saw an elderly, tiny woman dressed in nearly all the colors of the rainbow half-shouting at one of the staff members. It didn’t come across as aggressive, but rather like she was somewhat deaf, not unlike Gammy McCallister.

“Uh, ma’am, there are fountains right in front of the bathroom.”

“ Fountains? Those foul-tasting things? I could have sworn I was told there would be actual… Hmm, did I get confused?”

It didn’t take a detective to guess that the woman was from the Ramirez pack—I could smell her ancient wolf.

Concern instantly lanced through me. Was she on her own in human territory?

Not that I thought she was incapable, but it could be an awfully overwhelming assault on the senses for a shifter, even if those senses were worn from age.

“I know what you’re talking about,” I said, cutting over to them. The bathroom could wait. “I’m also thirsty. If you don’t mind, I’ll take you over to the water.”