Page 10 of Roman
I shook my head. He came closer, and the tingles in my body started up again. I tried to look around him because I knew he wasn’t my mate. He obviously already had one—he was holding a toddler.
“Anything else?” I asked as I put four cupcakes in a box. Elias handed me a box, and I looked at him in question.
“They’re Philip’s donuts.”
I nodded. “Can the little ones have treats?” I asked them.
“They can,” the short blond said. I didn’t know who he was exactly, but I turned around and grabbed three more cookies and handed them over after passing the boxes off to one of the gargoyles.
“Can we get another cookie? Knox is outside with Madelyn because she was fussy.”
“Of course.” I turned and grabbed another cookie. I handed it across the counter, and after it was passed off to someone else, I tried to offer a smile. My body was vibrating now, and that meant my mate was somewhere nearby, but I didn’t know where. There were at least twenty people waiting near thecabinets, and I wanted to cry because I absolutely did not have time to search for my mate at the moment.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
Several glances were exchanged, and I smiled at them. “Konrad will check you out down that end,” I told them.
The group moved away from the front of the cabinets, and I had assumed that my mate would move closer, but the vibrations coursing through my body didn’t increase; they started to soften again. That was odd.
I looked back at the group that was now chatting with Konrad, and I found blue eyes staring intently at me. That was so incredibly odd.
“Can I get some of those cookies you were passing out?”
It took a moment for me to break the penetrating stare of those blue eyes, but when I looked at the customer that was across from me, I smiled. “Hey, Lukan. Those are for the little ones, sorry. They all get a special treat today.”
“Seriously, Beau? That’s just not right.”
I chuckled before shrugging. “Kids only,” I told him.
Lukan sighed. “Fine. What do you have that’s chocolate? Lots of chocolate.”
I chuckled again as I reached into the cabinet for the double fudge brownies. They were the most chocolate thing we had on the menu today.
“Beau?” I turned my head and looked at Konrad. “Are you going to the cookout?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Evan is going to meet me outside when we close up, and we’re going to go check it out.”
“We’ve already secured an area for all of us,” Lukan added. I smiled at the fae enforcer.
“Is that needed?” I asked him.
Lukan shrugged. “Not sure, but we claimed a spot. Lots of people are. We picked one that was away from the bouncy houses and slides.”
I frowned. Why would they do that? Both of those sounded like lots of fun.
“Konrad will check you out if there’s nothing else.”
Lukan took his brownies and started eating one before he even made it to Konrad. I shook my head at the enforcer before looking out toward the still-long line. It wasn’t looking like we were going to be able to close up at six like we were supposed to. I had to wonder: would it always be this busy?
I noticed the tingling in my body had softened even more. What did that mean? Had my mate been here and left and I’d not even gotten the chance to meet him? I sighed. Oh well. I’d get to meet him when the time was right, and obviously, now wasn’t the correct time.
Chapter 5
Roman
Ihad worked with fae before in the council’s store. There were several here on Treasure Ridge and others down off the mountain. I knew that despite the fact the one behind the counter looked barely legal, he was most likely in his twenties at the minimum. He had to be because otherwise, the council wouldn’t have him working at the bakery. No, he was the one that was going to be running the bakery, I told myself.
The real issue was that my tiger was upset because we were leaving our mate behind without so much as talking to him. My mate. I thought about the beautiful fae who was passing out baked goods. He absolutely wasn’t expected, but I wasn’t going to be upset about finding my mate. I had hoped I would one day find my mate, but I never thought he would be here in Montana. And thanks to Konrad, I knew his name was Beau.
