Page 35 of Sebastian

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, your suppliers are in the habit of just dropping off your order outside your shop, without ever coming in to talk to you?”

When he put it like that, her stomach dropped. “No, I guess they aren’t.”

“Good. So I’ll call Stone over here to watch you and open it up across the street.”

“Gunner, don’t be ridiculous. We’ll just go back to my office for a minute. You can open it up there, and when it’s the new piping tips I ordered last week, we can just laugh and move on with our day.”

“This isn’t a laughing matter, Emma.”

She rolled her eyes. “I doubt there’s anything in the world that you would laugh at, Mr. Serious. But let’s go before the morning rush pops in here and I’m stuck waiting until this afternoon to find out what’s inside.”

“Fine.”

Emma led Gunner into her office, and the space felt even smaller than usual. The grumpy guy’s attitude filled up the whole space, suffocating her with nervous energy.

“Stand in the doorway with your back turned to me,” he ordered.

“Yeah, no.”

“If you want me to open this box here, then you’ll do as I say.”

“Fine,” she grumbled as she turned her back to her office. “Happy now?”

“No.”

She heard the sound of a knife cutting into the cardboard and couldn’t help but hold her breath as her heart pounded in her ears.

“Okay, you can come look.” She turned and slowly walked to her desk, peeking over the edge of the box. Her breath caught in her throat. “I’m assuming this is something you ordered.”

Emma pulled the deck of tarot cards out of the box. They were moon-themed, and her heart felt like it had forgotten how to beat. She opened the deck, and flipped over the top card.

Death.

The next card.

Death.

Every. Single. Card.

Death.

“Hey, did you not order these?” Gunner asked, now standing so close she could feel the anger radiating off of him.

“Of course I did,” she answered, shoving the cards back into the cardboard box and placing it on top of her filing cabinet. “How anticlimactic.” Emma turned to leave the office, but Gunner’s hand landed on her arm, stopping her from moving.

“Emma, stop. If you ordered those, why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

She sighed. “I was worked up thinking something bad could be in there, that’s all. You had me all freaked out. Now that we know it’s nothing, can I get back to work?”

He nodded, holding her arm for another second before letting her go.

Once she returned to the front of the bakery, the morning quickly got away from her as half the town seemed to want to gossip about the murder in sleepy Lark Lake. It felt like everyone and their mother found their way to Emma’s.

Around noon, Gunner left and Stone took over babysitting duties. To be honest, it was a bit of a relief. Gunner was the only guy from Seb’s team that she couldn’t crack, and spending time with him was tough. He just seemed to always put her on edge. She had been a bit of a people-pleaser growing up, so it felt uncomfortable for him to always remain so cold towards her.

Now, her feet ached from the extra rush of customers over the past few hours and her head swam a bit as she walked up to Stone’s table, where Gage was sitting with him. Both men were talking low, as if they didn’t want anyone around them to hear what was going on.

“Hey, guys. Can I get you a refill on anything?”

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