Page 34 of Bear in a Bakery
“Dad? Are you well enough to be out of bed?”
Dad?
Allie gaped at the older man, who was virtually a spitting image of Dax. The younger man next to him had raven-black hair, a bushy beard, and swarthy skin, so unlike Dax, though their features were eerily similar.
The older man stood beside Dax and crossed his hands together. Her pulse raced at his intimidating stature. He was inches taller than Dax and bigger through the chest, with arms that could probably break a tree clear in half. Despite his obvious strength, lines of fatigue were etched around his eyes and a pale tint colored his face.
He raised greying eyebrows and pierced Allie with a stare.
“Is this her?”
Dax cleared his throat as if he were annoyed. “Here I thought you came in for sticky buns.”
“I did. But this first. Is she?”
Dax turned to her. “Allie, my father Rowan.”
A small muscle jumped in the side of Dax’s cheek as he clenched his jaw. So, he’d told his father about her. She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or irritated that his family already thought... well, whatever they thought about their relationship.
“Yes.”
“We have a problem.”
Allie pulled away from Dax. She was curious what this was all about, but the sinking feeling inside said she might be better off not knowing. She tried to untangle her fingers from his, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“What problem?”
Rowan’s expression was equally hard and fatigued. Allie got the sense that when he was done with this conversation, he’d grab some sticky buns and take a nap.
“I got a call from Marybeth. Seems you had a misunderstanding with one of her fancy guests for her party— Blake something or other.”
Allie put a hand below her ribs. That was the connection between them. She’d been confused when Blake had brought up MB, but now it seemed the two were cozy in some way. Blake never could let go of an insult to his pride. He held a grudge, a big one, until he felt he got even. Nothing had changed in the time they’d been apart.
Dax mimicked his father’s authoritative stance. “I should have beat the life out of him for speaking to Allie the way he did. What’s going on?”
“He said you chocked him by his car.”
“What?” Allie turned to Dax.
He made an unapologetic, so-what expression. “Way less than what he deserved.”
The younger man pushed his way forward, hands in the front pockets of his jeans as he glanced around the store. Stopping in front of Allie, he offered her a rugged hand. She took it on rote.
“Jett Mitchell, Dax’s brother. Nice to meet you. The problem is that Marybeth is so pissed over my brother’s behavior, she’s threatening to shut your bakery down if you continue to, as she put it, “fraternize with that brute.”
Allie’s face felt numb. “Shut me down? On what grounds?”
Jett shrugged. “Something about a rodent problem.”
“Rodent problem? It was one raccoon!”
Allie put a hand to her forehead. Marybeth would not settle with a single raccoon but would use her shitty ability to fabricate a different story. One that likely involved an infestation of rats and rare but deadly Guatemalan cockroaches or something. And she’d spin it so expertly that the entire town of Estes Park would believe it... and she’d be ruined.
“Oh,” Jett said nonchalantly. “She’ll also pull her order and giving it to Bella Blu if you don’t comply. She wants your answer tonight.”
Feeling as if the breath had been knocked out of her, Allie pulled up a stool from the coffee counter and plopped down on it. Dax was immediately at her side, his hand on her shoulder. There was little comfort in it. It wasn’t that she needed Marybeth’s massive order, or that she’d already purchased the bulk ingredients and gotten things started. With the order cancellation would come a pointed and poisonous slander of how Allie couldn’t hold up her end of the deal. Of how Marybeth was slighted and forced to take her business elsewhere.
It was another form of ruin—delay, at the very least— that could do long term damage.
