Page 35 of Baked

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hunter had finallyconvinced Rachel to take a day off. It had taken sexual blackmail, which would have likely hurt him more than her, but it’d worked, and she’d agreed to let Jared run the bakery for the day. He helped out on weekends, so he already knew the ins and outs of everything, meaning she could hopefully relax a little.

“One more time?” Rachel asked.

He glanced over at Rachel to see the clear skepticism on her pretty face. “It’s just a normal hike,” Hunter repeated as his eyes went back to the road ahead of them. Just five more minutes and they’d be there.

“But with llamas?”

“Yeah, with llamas.”

“I don’t get it.”

He felt a grin forming. “You don’t have to get it, honeybun, you just have to enjoy it.’

He’d read somewhere that llamas were calming animals and, right now, he’d take as much calm as he could get. They’d still not tracked down the guys who’d broken into Rachel’s apartment, and the fact they’d not made another move was making Hunter restless.

What were they waiting for?

It’s not that he wanted them to come near his woman—he definitely didn’t. But if they did, then at least he’d be there to protect her and make sure they left in handcuffs. He wanted this over with.

With every day that passed, he could see Rachel growing more and more anxious. Every sudden noise was making her visibly flinch. And that was not okay.

That’s where today came in. And the llamas. Hopefully it would help take her mind off everything that was going on.

“You’ll like it, I promise,” Hunter said when she didn’t reply. “I wanted to take you somewhere different. To do something you wouldn’t usually do.”

God, how could he be fucking this up already? He just wanted to do something nice for her. Take her on a date. Their first one hadn’t exactly ended on a high, and he wanted to make it up to her. But now he was questioning himself. Maybe he should’ve taken her to a fancy restaurant instead of on a llama trail.

No shit?

He felt Rachel shuffle closer and lay a hand on his thigh. “Thank you.”

Huh?

He snuck another look at his fairy. She was beaming up at him like he’d just given her the world.

“What?”

“Thank you,” she repeated. “For everything. For looking after me. For convincing me to take a day off. For arranging this day out for us. I really appreciate it.”

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

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