Page 51 of Ash

When they broke apart, she grinned. "You are!"

Suzannah reached up to the hook inside the door and picked up the apron that was there. "Maybe there is something to it. I feel like I'm at home here."

Hetty clapped her hands. "Of course you are! This is your home. It's where you always should have been and now that we have you here, you're not allowed to leave."

Suzannah tied on the apron and looked up at Hetty. "Yesterday you told Ash that there you didn't have any honey bread? Did I hear that right?"

"That's right." Hetty preceded her into the kitchen and took some of the pastry dough they'd made the night before and set it on the table. "After Ash's parents passed a few years ago, he stopped coming down the mountain to visit us."

She peeled back the plastic wrap over the top of the oversized bowl and sprinkled flour onto the surface of the table before she flipped the bowl over on top of it.

"When they did come to the bakery, honey bread was his favorite. His mother used to make it for the family, but later in her life, her hands weren't as nimble as they were when she was younger."

Suzannah prepared the other table the same way that Hetty had and tipped a bowl of dough onto her table as well. "Were both of his parents shapeshifters like he is?"

Hetty put some flour on her hands and started to knead the dough. "No. His father was, but his mother was like you. A human who Ash's father recognized as his mate."

Hetty's voice sounded wistful, and her face held a gentle smile.

"You knew them well?"

Suzannah was copying Hetty's movements as they both worked on the dough.

"Very well." She gestured at the bakery room at the front. "His mother would come down with Ash when he was younger, and he'd sit down with us while we visited with Leni."

"I wish I had been able to meet his mother- Well, his parents, but I mostly I would have loved to meet her. He's so gentle with me and patient."

Hetty grinned and nodded her head. "He's a product of both of his parents. And while I didn't know Anton as well as we knew Leni, I can tell you one thing for certain about him."

Suzannah crossed the room to get some of the baking trays from the stack they'd built up the night before. "What's that?"

"There's two, actually." Hetty pointed at the ends of both tables and Suzannah placed them down. "First. Anton was a grumpy gus whenever I talked to him, he didn't believe in small talk with anyone."

Suzannah nodded, listening to Hetty's voice as they started on the rolls for the oven. Cinnamon rolls on her table and cinnamon and raisin rolls on Hetty's.

"And second, Anton loved Leni as if he was born to do it." She paused and smiled at her thoughts. "I guess he was, given that they were mates. True love we humans call it."

True love.

The thought was as comforting as it was scary.

"And you're human like me."

Hetty bobbed her head. "Yes." She sighed. "We can't all be perfect." Then she grinned at Suzannah, and they laughed as they worked. "Betty was too."

Suzannah worked on, visiting with her thoughts for a bit before she realized that she'd gone silent.

Realizing that she hadn't been holding up her end of the conversation, Suzannah apologized.

Hetty waved off her apology, creating a light cloud of flour in the air above her table. "Really, my dear. There's no need to apologize. You're playing catch up to the rest of us. Getting a crash course in Mystic Mountain history. It can't be easy, but it sounds like it's... exhilarating."

Suzannah remembered the kisses from Ash the night before.

And the way he'd described what their mating would be like.

She'd slept after that, but while she slept, she'd had dreams about Ash.

About the things that they could do together.

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