Page 2 of Spark
"Chris!" she exclaimed. "You made this for me?"
Chris had graduated from culinary academy while Sophie had been in Todos Santos. Upon his return to Bearpaw Ridge, his Uncle Daniel, who was the restaurant's owner and executive chef, had hired Chris as his assistant pastry chef.
When Sophie heard the news, she had wondered whether all those summers spent working at Annabeth Swanson's Cinnamon + Sugar Café-Bakery had finally paid off for her friend.
"I sure did," he said, his smile widening into the wide, cocky grin that she remembered. "I remembered that you're not a big fan of cake."
Not only that, he'd remembered that chocolate-dipped strawberries were her absolute favorite treat.
These looked utterly amazing, some of them decorated with intricate patterns in dark, milk, and white chocolate, and others rolled in a variety of sprinkles, crushed candies, fancy colored sugar, and cookie crumbs.
They looked like they had taken Chris hours to create.
Sophie managed to restrain herself until he'd placed the dessert on the table. Mom and Mitya were both beaming, and she wondered if they'd known about this in advance.
She hastily scooted off the leather banquette and hugged him. "I missed you so much!"
He hugged her back with the same wiry strength that she remembered.
"Uncle Dan told me that Mitya made a reservation tonight for your birthday dinner. When did you get back home?" he inquired.
His breath stirred her hair and the top of her ear, raising a pleasant shiver. She suddenly wondered what it would be like to kiss him, and tried to quash the thought.
We're friends, that's all, she reminded herself. That was all they'd ever been. Chris had made it abundantly clear that he preferred pretty, athletic girls, and back in high school, he'd dated a couple of the school's track team members, who had also been wolf and jaguar shifters.
A lot of the girls—and a couple of the boys—had been attracted to Chris in high school, because he'd been outgoing, confident, and athletic. Plus, he was interesting, with a father who had been the town's most notorious bad guy for many years, a war hero uncle, and a dramatic past that included two abduction attempts by ruthless sabertooth shifters.
Sophie, on the other hand, had always been acutely aware of how completely ordinary she was. She wasn't a shapeshifter like most of the other kids and teachers at the Bearpaw Ridge High School, and she wasn't pretty or athletic, either.
On top of all that—or maybe because of it—she had to constantly battle painful shyness around everyone, except her friends from the Swanson's Grizzly Creek Ranch. It was just easier and less stressful if she buried herself in her books and let everyone ignore her. It was lonely, too, yet that felt like an acceptable price to pay.
"My plane landed about ten o'clock last night," she told him, her cheek pressed into Chris's white coat. "I'm sorry I didn't text you and Matt when I got in, but it was a really long flight. Thirty-six hours and I had to change planes four times! I was pretty much dead on my feet by the time the plane landed in Missoula. But I swear I was going to text you guys first thing tomorrow!"
"Hey, no problem. We really missed you while you were gone." He sounded like he meant it, too. "How was Todos Santos, really?"
She felt bad that she had been out of touch most of the time, but it couldn't be helped.
Emerging from the throes of a long and brutal civil war that destroyed most of its infrastructure, including cell towers, hospitals and clinics, Internet access in Todos Santos had been extremely spotty, even in the capital, where the power might only be on for an hour or two every day.
Forget getting any kind of cell signal in the countryside, where she'd spent most of her time working out of one of AIMM's mobile clinics, which were built inside old shipping containers and carted around on sturdy ex-military trucks.
In the end, she had resorted to writing old-fashioned snail-mail letters and postcards to her mom and friends, correspondence that sometimes took weeks to arrive.
"It was rough, but not as bad as the news reports made it out to be," she told him. "The actual fighting was confined to just a couple of towns on the southern border. The roads and Internet access sucked, but the people were great—really warm, really friendly, and ready to share everything they had, even if it was just some coffee or beer."
"Well, I'm really glad you're back, safe and sound." He squeezed her even tighter, and she was uncomfortably aware of the hard planes of his chest as her squishy bits, well, squished against him.
Chris smelled of warm chocolate, ripe strawberries, and vanilla…probably from making her special birthday dessert.
The temptation returned, stronger than ever, to go up on her tiptoes and kiss him…maybe just his cheek, that wouldn't be too weird, would it?
Her calf muscles tensed as she decided to go for it.
Then she caught a glimpse of something disturbing out of the corner of her eye.
Wait, what the hell is that?
She pushed away from his embrace and whipped her head around.
