Then something changed. Luke never spoke of it, and she never asked. It was his secret if he chose to share it with her. Now he was enrolled at the college again and pursuing a second degree.
“I look like this because I usually refrain from eating most of the delicious shit we make in here. And because I hit the gym.” He shrugged. “And to be honest? Your ass isn’t fat at all. You look great and Chief Montgomery would agree.
It didn’t take long to pack up a generous portion of cobbler for Maddie, Dean, Emma, and Griff. Then they had their fill of what remained and waited for Ellie’s equipment order. Business was booming in the other half of the shop, about a half-dozen people settled around for croissandwiches and the soup of the day.
A trio of teens arrived on bicycles, parked their rides on the sidewalk, and entered with wadded up bills. She served them, then inwardly cheered when a nurse arrived with a stack of credit cards and a list of orders.
Next her order from the restaurant equipment supplier arrived, and Ellie truly became giddy. Of all the recent investments made into the business, the refrigerated display had been one of the priciest. Thousands of dollars, but worthwhile if it meant customers could select premade sandwiches and desserts from the shelves.
“Where do you want it, ma’am?” asked the deliverymen.
“Right here. I want it on this wall,” she explained, overcome with excitement.
Tomorrow, they’d stock that baby for the first time.
“Congratulations,” a voice called from the bakery’s entrance.
Ellie turned to see Chad Brunswick standing there, a tight pink polo shirt stretched taut over a muscular chest and a dad bod gut. Big and blond, he’d been a star football player of both the town’s high school and the nearby university, a well-known frat boy a couple of years ahead of Ellie when she and Maddie were enrolled at the school.
And she hated the sight of his smug face and his beady brown eyes.
“Gotta say, you’ve done way more with this strip than I would have done. I’m glad ol’ Bertha wouldn’t sell it to me.”
Putting on a polite smile took most of her willpower. “I am too,” she said in a measured tone. “What can I do for you, Chad?”
He smiled. “Since you wouldn’t let me purchase this place or buy you out, I actually hoped you’d entertain another idea I had.”
“I’m listening.”
“Madeleine Dubois teaches painting and other artistic skills across the street. Would you be open to instructing an unfortunate soul like me in the fine skills of baking?”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Lessons would cut into her time, of which she’d just cleared a large amount into her schedule. She hesitated. On one hand, Ellie loved money. On the other, the idea of opening her calendar—and her food preparation space—to strangers, did not appeal. “I don’t think so, Chad. Why do you ask?”
“Selfish reasons. I kinda hoped you’d be open to giving me some pointers. I can’t bake a cake to save my life.”
“It just takes practice. You follow a recipe and you’ll get the results you want.”
“Ha! Trust me, Ellie, I’ve tried. None of what I make is what you’d call palatable. Dry as hell and kind of like sawdust.” He smiled at her. “If not a baking workshop, what do you say to a private lesson?”
And that’s enough of that, Ellie thought. Her fragile smile faded. She knew from her last experiences with Chad that the man could be damned persistent, and persuasive, even if his efforts had been unsuccessful in the end.
“Ellie, it’s about time for you to get going,” Luke’s voice echoed from the rear of the bakery.
“Oh, wow, it is! Sorry, Chad. I have to go pick up Emma.” She hurried behind the counter, plucked up the tins of peach cobbler, and grabbed her purse. “We’ll talk some other time.”
The corners of Chad’s mouth turned down briefly. “Oh. All right then. Take care, Ellie. We’ll chat about this again.”
We most certainly will not, she thought, breezing past him and sprinting to her car.
8
An invitation to join Ellie and Emma for supper awaited Griffin when he stepped out of the shower. He’d been on duty since early that morning and planned to order Thai takeout, but a dinner made by his favorite lady beat that any day.
Griffin: Sure. What time?
Ellie: Swing by at five.
Griffin: See you then.
Then he noticed a message from his sister. Brunch Sunday?
Griffin: You finally back in the area?
Charlotte: Yup. Missing my baby brother.
Griffin: We’re twins, Char. Neither of us can be the baby. We were born on the same day.
A line of laughing emoticons preceded her next response. I was born nine minutes before you. That makes you the baby.
Griffin: Kiss my ass. I’ll meet you, but you’re paying. Usual place?
Charlotte: Yes. And you can tell me all about your new love.
Shit. How did she know? Although he kept in contact with Charlotte, he hadn’t uttered a word about Ellie. He didn’t know why. Everything about the woman was fucking perfection, from her compassionate demeanor to her gorgeous smile.
When Kelly left him, Griff hadn’t thought he would ever marry again. He’d gone from fighting foreign threats across the ocean to battling heartache. Despite doing everything he could to make his ex-wife happy, he hadn’t been enough for her.
And Charlotte had hated her, wanting to beat her ass on principle for stringing him along.
“She knew we were shifters before she married you, Griff,” his twin had ranted while he lay on the couch half-drunk in a house Kelly’s moving company emptied on his dime. She hadn’t wanted the sofa. “You deserved better than this. That lying cun—”
“Don’t call her that!”
“That’s what she is.”
“I scared her.”
“Scared her, Griff? That’s a goddamned lie. She hid her bigotry just fine, spending your money while you were away and blowing through your inheritance. I just thank God I had a lawyer draw up a prenuptial agreement or she’d have walked away with everything you own!”
“She wouldn’t have done that to me.”
“You give her too much credit. Just like you gave her everything she asked for. She used you, and now you’re laying here drinking yourself sick every day.”
Hindsight was a bitch. He’d known even then that Char was right, but he’d been living in denial.
Supporting his weight on both palms, Griffin leaned against the bathroom counter and eyed his reflection. His roots were showing again. He wasn’t ashamed of being a shifter, but it was habit these days. Chestnut hadn’t been his natural hair color since high school when he and Charlotte both started going white.
Kelly had hated it. Said it made him look like an old man.
Frankly, it was about time he stopped doing shit to please a woman who hadn’t deserved him. He plucked a box of hair color from beside the sink and chucked it into the bathroom trash bin.
When he reached Ellie’s place, Emma was in the driveway beside her mother’s car with a bucket of sidewalk chalk.
“Hi, Chief Griffin!”
“How ya doin’, sweetie?”
“Fiiiiine,” she drawled out.
“Your mom inside?”
“Uh huh. She said to send you in when you got here.”
He followed the girl’s instructions and made his way through the house. It had taken help from most of the neighborhood, but it looked like a home again. Pictures once again hung in frames on walls, a new television gleamed from its wall-mount, and the owner of the town’s only furniture store had donated a new sectional to Ellie.
Crisis was the kind of town that pulled together during times of…well, crisis.
Griff found Ellie in the kitchen placing a lasagna on the stove, and he felt bad that she’d ended a day working hard in a bakery by slaving for him in the kitchen. “Maybe I shoulda cooked for you.”
“You cook?�
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He slipped his arms around her waist when she turned to face him. She laced her fingers behind his neck. “I eat dinner at the Chugga Chugga every day out of convenience, baby. You pay Lottie seven bucks, you get a good dinner in fifteen minutes. Can’t beat that.”
They hadn’t had much time to be together since the break-in, and he’d felt awful about having nothing to report. Sometimes, when a burglary happened, the suspects weren’t ever busted until they were caught ripping off another victim.
He hoped someone tried to pawn Ellie’s wedding set, but most likely it was beyond state lines by now.
“Mmhmm, well, I think I can beat it. How about…you come eat dinner with us each day instead?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Why not? Save you some money. I mean, sometimes we’re not eating at home—we’re over at Maddie’s instead. If that’s okay with you.”
He kissed her first, slanting his mouth over Ellie’s lips. They parted with the first press of his tongue, and she met him stroke for stroke. When having his tongue in her mouth wasn’t enough, he nudged forward with his hips and slid one hand around to squeeze a palmful of her ass.
The front door banged open. They broke apart quickly and took up innocent positions in the kitchen, Ellie fumbling a spatula from the overhead utensil rack.
“Mommy, I’m hungry!”
“Dinner’s coming. Go wash your hands and get ready.”
“Okay!”
Griffin laughed the moment Emma was out of sight. “Sorry.”
After dinner, when a couple of Emma’s friends came around asking if she could come out to play, Ellie and Griffin wandered onto the rear patio to sip wine and chat. Her herb garden sweetened the air with the fragrances of fresh basil, mint, and thyme. Early strawberries grew lush and ripe and full, overflowing from a couple large hanging planters. Every once in a while, one of the girls came running up to take a few, then they’d dash away again.
“I don’t think I’ve said it yet, but thanks for feeding me.”
“You’re welcome. I kinda had a selfish motivation since it meant seeing you again. I’m so sorry life has been…hectic. I really enjoyed myself that night. I wish it didn’t end the way it did.”
“Not your fault, remember? Some asshole violated your safe place. I’m happy to wait as long as you need me to while you sort out your life.”
Ellie reached over to him from her lawn chair and took his hand. “Thanks.”
“Mommy!” Emma called, bounding up to them with her pals in tow. She clutched a square of brown and white down in her arms, its dimensions much smaller than a lap blanket.
“Yes, baby?”
“Can I shift and go fishing? Look, they’re jumping! We want to go fishing.”
“You just had dinner.”
“We don’t want to eat them. We wanna practice.”
Ellie laughed. “Okay, fine. Who’s going out on the lake with you girls?”
“Um…”
“Let me guess. You hoped I would.”
“Please? Oh, oh, oh. Can Chief Griffin come with us?” A pair of big blue eyes turned on Griffin, sparkling with interest. The other girls were standing nearby in their swimsuits, each holding a small shawl of white feathers speckled with brown down. “What kinda shifter are you? Are you a swan, too? Maddie told Mommy you’re a shifter.”
* * *
“What did I tell you about eavesdropping on grown-up conversations?” Ellie demanded, setting down her drink. Her gaze flit to Griffin to find him staring, wide-eyed at the trio of little girls all gazing up at him with wonder and curiosity.
Ellie held her breath. She’d had a lot of reason to remain single for so long after Greg’s death. Mourning him had been part of it, but she’d also refused to settle for a man lacking the patience to interact with her child.
She and Emma were a package deal, and no one could have her without involving her little girl.
Please, she thought. Please be good to her. Please don’t be angry. She didn’t think she could handle it if he lost his temper with the girls.
“First of all,” Griff replied, kneeling to bring himself to Emma’s level, “you can just call me Griffin, okay? Or even Griff if you like that.”
“Okay.”
“Second, do you promise you can keep a secret?”
Emma’s face lit with joy. “Yes!”
“Can your friends?”
“We can!” Kiana called, a sentiment Julie echoed while nodding her head rapidly.
Ellie chuckled. For as long as she’d been a resident of Swan Lake, secrets never lasted. Gossip traveled fast in their community. Griffin had to know that, because he grinned at her and winked.
“All right. For you, I’ll do it.”
One second, her sexy dinner date was sitting back on his heels in the grass; in the next, a change rippled over Griff and shrank his human proportions. The entire thing was over in less than three seconds, but the result wasn’t at all what she expected.
An eagle stood in his place. He tucked his wings against his dark-feathered body and glanced up at the girls, cocking his head.
“You’re an eagle!” Emma squealed. She plopped onto her knees and threw her skinny arms around his neck. He chuckled, the noise a huff in his chest that stirred her silky blonde curls. “Mommy, isn’t he beautiful?”
“He sure is, baby.”
Her little fingers sifted through the fluff covering his throat, then swept up into the white feathers of his face. “Does this mean Griffin can teach me to fly?”
Griffin blinked, alarmed. Funny how such emotions were transmitted even on avian faces.
Ellie’s gaze met his, equally startled. “I don’t know about—”
“Please, Mommy?” Her eyes were so full of innocence and longing.
“You don’t have your big-girl feathers, Em,” Ellie blurted, saving him. “It’ll be a few years before you’re strong enough to be airborne.” Thank God. But in the meantime, her baby did need to build her muscles and tone her little body. And that meant lots of time in her swan form.
“Then can we go catch fish with Griffin?”
Ellie smiled. “That you can do, if Griffin is okay with fishing.”
Indicating that he was, Griffin jerked his yellow beak toward the lake and took off for the edge, flying down to where rocks crept up onto the grassy shore. Emma threw her shawl over her shoulders and followed—first as a little girl, and then as a juvenile swan. Gray down still covered the back of her graceful neck, and it would remain for a few more years.
Griffin watched the girls as closely as she would have. Sometimes he soared above them, sometimes he sat on the grassy edge of the bank, always keeping one gold eye on the trio of cygnets paddling on the lake. He even splashed into the shallows with them, using his powerful wings to propel through the water in a sort of butterfly stroke that made the girls honk with glee.
His secret never stood a chance.
Ellie settled beside him during a quiet moment after he returned to dry in the dwindling sunlight. She trailed her fingers down his dark back, smoothing the silky feathers then scratching his cheeks. He leaned into her touch and closed his eyes, features blissful.
“Think you can catch a fish for tomorrow’s dinner, big guy, or did those little girls wear you out?”
His eyes snapped open. The expression on his feathered face was nothing short of what she’d call incredulous. “One fish?” he seemed to say. He’d catch her a dozen.
Grinning at the unvoiced acceptance to her challenge, Ellie rose. “I’ll go get the bucket.”
9
The girls were gone and Emma was fast asleep. Ellie peeked in on her again before she slipped out to the living room to sit with Griffin on the couch. The poor guy looked seconds from passing out himself, slumped on the sofa with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. When she approached, he opened one and peered at her.
“She asleep?”
“Knocked out. Thanks for reading those stori
es to her.”
He chuckled and sat up straight, like he hadn’t just been run all around the lake flying and doing aerial maneuvers for a trio of energetic young swan maidens. “It’s no problem.”
Emma had refused to stay in bed until Griffin read her a story from their collection of Grimm’s classics, then she’d conned two more out of her mother before finally nodding off.
The chamomile and valerian root were going to come out next if the little twerp didn’t finally surrender to the sandman.
Ellie settled next to her beau and patted his knee. “You were a good sport.”
“Good kids make it easy to be. Anyway, I should get out of your hair. Thanks again for dinner.”
“Any time.” She rose with him, meaning to walk him to the door. A proposition for him to stay tickled the tip of Ellie’s tongue.
It was just too bad that Emma was only a couple rooms away in her bed.
The tiny, irresponsible part of Ellie wanting to ask him to stay the night warred with the obstinate part of her adhering to obsolete values held by a hurting widow. Would it be so wrong to do something just for her?
“Lunch tomorrow?” Ellie asked instead.
“Ah, I can’t. Sorry.”
“Oh.”
“Trust me, I would, but I made plans with my sister right before I came over to visit y’all.”
Ellie’s brows raised. “Right. That makes sense. Um. Your monthly brunch.” She bit her bottom lip then glanced away. Before her nerves could intervene, she said in a rush, “If you ever want to invite her to join us for dinner, that’s fine, you know.”
His brows rose. For the first time, she noticed they were closer to gray than black. “Does that mean you want to meet my family?”
Ellie’s cheeks heated. “Yes.”
“You actually have met her before.” Mischief widened his smile. “A couple times.”
“I don’t think so… Has she come into the bakery?”
“Oh yes.”
“Now you’re having fun with me. What’s her name?”
What the Flock Page 5
