Page 7 of The Alpha and the Baker

Naturally, once I was about three minutes out, I had to turn down the radio so I could see the road signs better—when there were road signs at all.

I was half expecting to end up at some sort of nature park or public area, but once I turned onto the final gravel road, I realized it was more of a commune than anything else.

“Dear Lord, I hope this isn’t a cult,” I muttered under my breath as I rolled up.

A thick line of trees connected to the forests that had lined the highway leading up to the backroads, but they quickly opened into wide open fields.

The fields on my right were planted with some sort of crop or being prepped to be planted when things were a little warmer, but to my left was a massive field where a party was most definitely going down.

“Now I know why he needed three cakes.” I marveled at the sheer number of people I was already seeing.

There was a grill area with twenty or so people chatting while they plated up huge platters of food that were then run over to a truly massive party tent with nearly a dozen tables set up under it.

When the wind changed direction, the scent of it all drifted over to me, and my mouth instantly started watering.

Had I remembered to eat today? No. I was pretty hungry—all I had in my stomach were the tiny tastes I had taken while making the cakes to make sure everything was balanced and delicious.

The tent and the grill area weren’t the only populated parts of the massive field.

There was a play area with lots of games set up where at least two dozen kids and young people were frolicking about, and plenty of people carrying more things out from various houses to place them on tables under the tent, all laughing and chatting with each other.

There were folding chairs, camping chairs, and even long benches dotted around as well, some with their own smaller tables or even arranged around a stump, as if anyone who needed a break from heavy socialization could just sit and still enjoy their food without fully exiling themselves.

Wow.

What a setup.

It was mind-boggling to me, since the only family I’d had on the continent was my mother.

I literally could not imagine what it was like to have so much family that it looked like a small town when they all gathered together.

Perhaps they’d all pitched in for the rescue cakes, and that’s how they’d been able to afford to pay me double.

Yeah, they definitely loved that niece.

“Lucky girl,” I mused. I wasn’t jealous; if anything, I thought it was incredibly sweet. But I couldn’t deny I felt a bit melancholy. It seemed like a lovely thing to experience, but something I would never have.

Oh well. I still wouldn’t trade the life I’d had with my mother for anything. Would it have been nice if my father hadn’t died so young? Of course. But I didn’t have a time machine to go back and warn him not to return to Malaysia, so there was no changing that part of my history.

Finally, I reached an area where a bunch of cars were parked—probably relatives who had to travel and didn’t live in the clusters of houses I could see across what looked like a main dirt walkway—and pulled my van up.

I thought about calling Cas, but figured I might as well unpack my stabilizing case and get everything ready to be carried over to the dessert table I could see from where I was standing.

I had plenty of pep in my step as I went around to the back of my van.

I was really excited to get paid, but it was more than that.

It was hard not to smile when I was surrounded by delicious food and so much laughter and happy chatter.

Sometimes cooking and kitchens were far too serious, so I enjoyed true levity when I encountered it.

I opened the door, then my stabilizing case.

It wasn’t anything super special, just something I’d jimmied together with wood and the help of an online tutorial.

It wouldn’t win any awards, but it stopped my cakes from sliding or mashing the top of their frosting against anything, and really, that was all a girl could ask for.

By the time I got the first cake out, I nearly dropped it when I turned around to see two middle-aged women standing beside my van.

“Would you look at that? Cas did manage to get a replacement cake,” the woman said, clapping her hands in delight.

She had a generous smattering of freckles across her pleasant features, the same auburn hair as Cas, and pretty, blue eyes.

She was pleasantly plump in a stereotypical, Midwestern-mom kind of way, and something told me she gave amazing hugs.

“He managed to get three cakes, actually,” I said with a grin, setting the tray down on a small rack I had right at the edge of the van. I clambered down before picking it up again. “Where would you like me to put them?”

“Three?” the other woman said, her twang much stronger than her auburn-haired counterpart. “He only left here this morning! Did you manage to do all that today, or did you have a client cancel on you last minute and it all happened to work out?”

“No, no other clients,” I said brightly.

I didn’t know these women, but they seemed so genuinely delighted to see me that it was hard not to feel a little bit like a rock star.

“Made these specially for you. Even included your family’s rhubarb jam and sweet cream.

It was impressively thick for being in a jar and all the travel it had to do! ”

The dark-haired woman grabbed the other’s arm. “Did you hear that, Polly? She used Auntie Letitia’s jam! Oh, I don’t know you, baker lady, but I do know you’re an angel!”

That startled a laugh out of me, and I felt myself blush. I liked the attention, but I didn’t feel that I’d done quite enough to earn it. After all, baking was my literal job, and they were paying me nearly double what I usually charged.

“Now you’ve gone and embarrassed her, Penny!”

Penny and Polly? Of course. How perfectly Americana.

“You ignore her, sweetie. Here, I’ll show you where you can set those beautiful creations of yours. Penny, you make sure to ward off any interlopers who would try to steal a slice.”

Penny gave a salute, and the three of us set off over to the field and the dessert table.

Well, one of the many dessert tables. I’d worked for a couple of catering companies in my life, and I doubted I’d ever seen so much food in one spot.

It was hard to believe the cakes would have been missed—except that nearly everyone we passed made a comment, no matter what their age.

“Ooh! We have a cake, after all?”

“Hey, where did you get that?”

“Goodness gracious, that looks delightful!”

“Yoooo, where’d we get cakes?”

“I thought those were burned!”

“What smells like cake?”

“Now that you know where to put it, we’ll go ahead and get out of your hair,” Penny said, smiling brightly as I set the cake down. “Do you want us to send some lads to help you unload?”

I ignored the flicker of disappointment that it wouldn’t be Cas helping me, but that was probably for the best.

“No, I’ll be fine. But if you wouldn’t mind getting Castiel so he can approve the final payment, I would be most grateful.”

Technically, I already had his card information saved from the deposit, which was an agreement to be automatically charged upon delivery, but I’d learned from the tried and true CYOA—or as my more-PG mother used to say: “watch thine own booty”—method that it made things much easier if I got a signature upon delivery confirming everything was in order.

I’d only had two fraudulent chargebacks in my entire professional baking career, and while the first one had me out of sixty dollars in supplies and six hours of my time, the second one I’d been prepared for with a signature upon delivery and photos.

Not that I thought Cas would try to scam me. He didn’t really seem like the type. But sometimes wolves really wore sheep’s clothing, so I wasn’t about to risk it.

“Oh, of course! We’ll go hunt him down. He tends to run around like a chicken with his head cut off before these events!”

“Only because everyone and their mom needs something from him,” Polly interrupted, almost sounding defensive for the guy. “But I suppose that’s part and parcel with being an al—uh, all-around good guy.” She cleared her throat as if she had said something embarrassing. “We’ll be off now!”

“Sounds good,” I said, tipping my head before returning to my van. Yeah, maybe it would have been easier to have an extra set of hands, so I didn’t have to make three trips, but I wasn’t exactly gunning to rush off. And I figured since I was waiting for Cas’s signature, I had time to burn.

So, I enjoyed the fresh spring air and the warm sun shining down on me while I hauled a second cake, then the third.

Thankfully, most of the questions had died down, which was good because I no longer had Polly and Penny to field them for me.

I truly was amazed at just how many different faces there were.

It seemed less like a family and more like a community get-together.

As I was setting down the third cake, I felt a tug on my shirt. I whirled in surprise, only to see an older woman in a wheelchair, her eyes a bit cloudy but a gentle smile on her face.

“There you are, sweetheart. I’ve been looking for you!”

“For me?” I questioned, but when the elderly woman tilted her head to the side, I cleared my throat and spoke up a bit. “ For me ?” I repeated. While everyone had been quite friendly so far, it was another thing entirely to be so warmly greeted by someone’s grandma.

“Of course! You know I love to hear about baking adventures. Why don’t you wheel an old lady over to the tent and tell me about your morning before it gets too loud?”

Now there was friendly, and then there was…

whatever this was. It puzzled the hell out of me, but at the same time, I’d never met any of my grandparents.

My father had been an orphan, and my mother’s parents died soon after him of the same sickness.

Maybe this was completely normal. It wasn’t like I was an expert or anything.

“Are you sure you mean me?”

“Girlie, I may be half blind and deaf, but this ol’ wolf still has her nose on her!

I’d smell that jam and sweet cream anywhere.

” Her tone became contemplative and a little sad.

“Unless you need to be elsewhere. I know a young lady like yourself has better things to do than indulge Gammy McCallister.”

Oh no, I was not about to upset a sweet old lady.

“Don’t be silly,” I said quickly. “There’s nothing I’d like to do more. Let’s get you into the tent, shall we? And maybe then I can get you a drink and tell you everything you wanna know about making the cakes.”

“What was that?”

I repeated myself just a bit slower and louder.

“Oh lovely! You’ve made an old woman’s day, you know.”

I smiled softly to myself. Man, this day had turned out nothing like I had expected, but maybe that was a good thing.

“All right then, let’s roll!”