Page 12 of Ride the Wind (Devil's Knights 2nd Generation 8)

Blain turned from the oven and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Which one?”

“The one for twelve loaves of brioche and ten dozen croissants.” I walked over to the board where all of the orders were pinned. The board was divided into seven columns from Monday through Sunday. I grabbed a blue push pin and pinned the order under Sunday.”

“You mean the one you just put up there?” he laughed.

I nodded and folded my arms over my chest. “That would be the one.”

Blain moved next to me and tipped his head back to look at the board. “You remember when I started here, and it was a big damn deal when we had one order a week?”

I chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, I more than remember that. Now we have at least four special orders daily, and our weekends are packed with cakes and pastries on order.”

Blain bumped me with his shoulder. “That’s because you’re killing the baking game here, sweetheart.”

Blain was the sweetheart.

He had walked into Layers Bakery the second day I had opened, and he hadn’t left since.

It had been Blain, Kerry, and me for a long time. Blain was a literal godsend when I first opened Layers.

He was in his late fifties and had been married for twenty-seven years. Jill, his wife, was one of the sweetest people I had ever met, and she always came in with their two wiener dogs every Saturday and Thursday. Thaddeus and Tanner were the cutest dogs I had ever met.

“Is Jill coming in today?” I asked.

“Are you asking because you want to see her or because you want to see the boys?”

Busted. “Both?” I laughed. “I might have whipped up a couple of doggie treats for the boys when I made the last batch of snickerdoodles yesterday.” And also decorated them with each of the boys' names.

“And I know they’ll both love them.” Blain looked at the clock above the order board. “Are we going to talk about the fact that Kerry didn’t come in today?” he asked quietly.

I sighed and shrugged. “I mean, I’m not really surprised. We went out last night.”

Blain reared back. “You went out with Kerry last night?”

Unfortunately. “Yeah. It started out okay, but it did not end great.” I pursed my lips. “At least for me, it didn’t.”

“You wanna tell me what happened?”

Not really, but I knew Blain wouldn’t let me not tell him.

“Can I just hit the main points?”

Blain chuckled. “Sure, but I might need more details.”

I tipped my head to the side. “We went to the Sons of Sin clubhouse for a party. Kerry had been seeing some guy named Brain. We were hanging out on the patio. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, Kerry was off somewhere with Brain. She left me there with some guy I didn’t know. He ended up taking me home, and I haven’t talked to Kerry since.”

Blain’s jaw had dropped with each word I said.

“I did not expect one single word you just said.”

Yeah, it was all still pretty shocking to me, too, and I was the one it had happened to. “Well, that’s what happened. And since it is almost two hours after the time she was supposed to be here, I’m assuming she’s still occupied with Brain.”

“Is that what we are going to assume?” Blain asked. “We both know that Kerry likes to have a good time, but she never misses work. At least not without telling you that she isn’t going to be in.”

Blain was right, but I was still mad she had left me last night. “I’m sure she’ll call any minute and apologize up and down about missing work.”

The bell sounded over the door out front. “You need help out there?” Blain asked.

I should have been in the back with him while Kerry took care of the counter, but I had been working on cakes between customers. Rue had worked from seven to eleven to help with the church rush, but she was long gone. “Are you done baking?”

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