Page 19 of Knot Baked Out For This
CHAPTER 3
Spilled Coffee On The Past
~HAZEL~
They should put warning labels on small-town book events: May cause severe psychological trauma, complete loss of dignity, and unwanted Alpha attention.
The Book Nook reeks of desperation masked as festivity. Fake spider webs drape from every surface like the aftermath of a craft store massacre, foam bats dangle overhead in what can only be described as Halloween's death throes, and the orange-and-black crepe streamers might as well be police tape marking off a crime scene.
The air is thick—pumpkin clove candle fighting a losing battle against the acrid scent of my own fear-sweat soaking through my sleeves.Pathetic. Three years and you still can't control your own fucking pheromones.
Miss Bea, the Beta widow who runs this literary purgatory, has transformed every flat surface into a shrine to seasonal consumerism. Horror novels stack like tombstones, haunted rom-coms promise love after death, and those glossy "Pumpkin Thrills" magazines look like soft-core porn for the harvest-obsessed.
Why am I here?
Because Reverie Bell commanded it, and when she dangles the promise of exposure for my struggling bakery business, I jump like the well-trained Omega I've always been.Good girl, Hazel. Perform for your treats.
My table squats beneath jack-o'-lantern lights that flicker with manic energy, casting shadows that dance across my "Hazel's Hearth & Home" sign. The wire pumpkin basket already lists to one side, overloaded with cinnamon rolls that smell like everything I'm trying to forget.
My hands shake as I arrange the treats—a parade of sugar-coated lies. Pumpkin crème cookies with their perfect maple swirls mock me with their stability. The Cinnamon Soul Cookies look innocent, but the dough is loaded with enough smoked cinnamon and brown sugar to mask any Omega's distress signals. Miniature pumpkin muffins, because apparently I need everyone to consume my anxiety in bite-sized portions. And the cinnamon rolls—obscene in their sticky sweetness, glazed to the point of indecency.
If I drop anything, I'll shatter. Right here. Into flour and shame and whatever's left of my pride.
My trembling isn't nervousness—it's cellular memory. My body remembers what happens when you let your guard down around Alphas. The internal monologue screams over the Halloween playlist (fucking "Thriller," because subtlety is dead):
Don't let them see. Don't let them smell your fear. Bake your treats, keep your mouth shut, and for the love of all that's holy, don't let anyone get close enough to notice the scars.
The coffee carafe hisses when I pour—the Book Nook's "autumn blend," which is just regular coffee violated by an entire cinnamon shaker. Steam rises like incense at a funeral for my composure. I cradle the mug with both hands because apparently, my motor functions have regressed to infant-level incompetence.
The scent hits hard—pumpkin spice sharpened by burned sugar and fermented hope, with enough caffeine to resurrect the dead or at least keep me vertical through this nightmare.
For one treacherous second, in the amber glow of fake candles and the warbling of some vintage Halloween ballad, my body almost unclenches.This could be okay. I could pretend to be normal. Just Hazel the baker, not Hazel the cautionary tale, not Hazel the Omega who?—
The universe, in its infinite cruelty, sends me Rowan Cambridge.
No. No, no, no?—
He materializes from the stacks like every nightmare I've had for three years made flesh. Six feet and six inches of Alpha dominance wrapped in barely civilized packaging. He doesn't walk—he prowls, liquid violence barely contained by social convention.
Run. Run now. He saw what happened. He knows what you let happen.
But my feet are rooted, my spine locked in prey-response as those amber eyes—caramel set on fire—lock onto mine. They're not just gold; they're fractured honey with dark veins running through, like someone took beauty and broke it on purpose just to see what would happen.
The airbends. Physics stops making sense when Rowan Cambridge enters a room. My body betrays me instantly, every nerve ending lighting up with cellular recognition. Cedar floods my senses—real cedar, not the synthetic shit, mixed with smoke and something darker, something that makes my hindbrain scream bothdangerandsafetyin the same breath.
He touched you once. Just your temple. Three years ago. Your body still remembers.
It's not fair. Nothing about Rowan has ever been fair. Not the way he carries his firefighter authority like a second skin, notthe way he refuses to make himself smaller for anyone's comfort, not the way my omega instincts still catalogue him asprotectiveeven though I know better.
He shouldn't be here. He should be wrestling wildfires into submission or pulling people from burning buildings or doing whatever it is that lets Alphas sleep at night knowing they didn't stop the real monsters.
Instead, he's here. At my table. Looking at me like I'm a math problem he's been trying to solve for three years.
My hands—finally steady, finally mine—immediately betray me. The muffin tray tips, sending a pumpkin projectile rolling toward disaster. I catch it, but not before the humiliation registers in every cell.
His eyebrow twitches. Not a smile—Rowan doesn't smile. He does this thing with the corner of his mouth that makes you think you're safe right before he reminds you that Alpha promises are written in water.
He's not here for pastries.
