He was bone-tired, and his mouth tasted of smoke and ashes, but that was okay. Dane loved this part of the day, returning to the firehouse when he was balanced on the edge of fatigue and satisfaction.
Dave Zettler's vacation rental cabin was going to need a new roof and a lot of interior work to repair the smoke and water damage, but Dane and his brothers had been able to stop the fire from spreading.
And, most important, the family staying in the cabin had escaped with no major injuries.
"Hey, remember how Manny Ornelas was telling us that he found someone for Frank's place?" Mark asked as he turned the fire engine onto Main Street. "I think they're finally open for business." He sniffed. "And I smell something baking."
Dane's younger brother had won this morning's coin toss as to who got to drive the Bearpaw Ridge Fire Department's big fire engine.
Like Dane—and all the other Swanson brothers, with the exception of Thor, who'd moved to Denver after college—Mark was one of Bearpaw Ridge's volunteer firefighters.
Dane looked ahead and saw that the lights of Frank's Bakery were on, shining like a beacon through the large plate glass windows. All around them, the rest of the town was still deserted and quiet in the gray light of approaching dawn.
"Think they're open? I could really use a cup of coffee and maybe a Danish," Dane's other brother Evan said from the back seat.
"Only one way to find out," Dane said as Mark pulled over and parked the engine in front of the bakery. "And whatever's going on in there, it smells damned good."
A newly painted sign on the glass door read Cinnamon + Sugar Bakery & Café.
Underneath, the sign said, Open 5:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Tuesday – Sunday.
Both parts of the sign were written in a pink, curlicued font that Dane immediately labeled as "girly."
Not that Dane objected. If anything, Bearpaw Ridge desperately needed more women.
But crusty old Frank Hermann, who was a man's man, would be spinning in his lawn chair if he knew what had become of his bakery.
Dane grinned at the thought as he pushed open the bakery door. It was 4:55 a.m., but the door was already unlocked.
An old-fashioned bell fastened to the inside of the door tinkled as they entered the café area, which had been furnished with new stone-topped tables and chrome chairs in place of the beat-up Formica tables and battered wooden chairs that Frank's establishment had boasted.
Mark and Evan followed close on Dane's heels.
Dane stopped just inside and inhaled deeply as a wave of wonderful smells greeted him like a warm embrace: baking bread, cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla mingled with the scent of freshly brewed coffee.
The display cases near the register were filled with a selection of cookies and miniature fruit tarts, topped with glazed berries and pieces of fruit that gleamed like jewels. There was a tall glass case that held a model wedding cake, which had been beautifully decorated with a lacy pattern of piped frosting and a cascade of lifelike sugar roses.
And then the bakery's new owner hurried from the back.
At the sight of her, curvy and radiant under a turquoise-blue chef's coat decorated with a dusting of flour, Dane suddenly felt like he'd been punched in the chest. He couldn't breathe.
"Hi, I'm Annabeth," she said with a warm smile. "Welcome to Cinnamon + Sugar!"
She paused to look them up and down, and Dane felt another jolt as their eyes met. Hers were dark blue under arched red-gold brows, and a few wisps of curling strawberry blonde hair escaped from under a chef's hat that resembled a beret.
Dane wondered what she saw when she looked at him.
Glancing over at Mark, who looked like a reverse raccoon with his sooty cheeks and wide pale band around his eyes where the goggles had shielded him, Dane could guess that all three of them looked pretty damned funny at the moment.
To her credit, Annabeth didn't stare. Or laugh. Just smiled at them like they were already old friends that she was glad to see.
"You guys just coming back from a call?" Annabeth asked.
Her voice was low and pleasant. Dane felt like he could listen to her all day.
"Uh," he managed. Somehow, he couldn't get his mouth to work properly.
"Yeah," Mark said, grinning at her, his teeth white between soot-stained lips. "I wouldn't be out of bed otherwise. I'm not really a morning person."
She laughed, and Dane felt a sudden, inexplicable stab of jealousy.
"I'm really not a morning person either," she confessed. "But if I’m not up by 2:30 a.m., then I won't have anything ready to sell for breakfast."
Something dinged in the back, and she glanced back over her shoulder.
"And the first pan of cinnamon rolls is ready, and only a few minutes late! If you gentlemen want to help yourself to coffee and take a seat while I put some icing on them, they'll be my treat." She paused, and her smile widened. She added, sounding shy, "Since you're my very first customers and all."
"Thank you, Annabeth," Dane finally managed. "I'm Dane Swanson, and these are my brothers Mark and Evan. And those rolls smell beyond delicious."
She rewarded him with a dazzling smile and vanished into the back of the bakery.
Dane stood rooted to the floor, staring after her, until Evan put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down into the nearest chair. "Earth to Dane," he said sarcastically. "Come in, Dane."
"Down, boy, and put your tongue back in your mouth," Mark teased him in a low voice.
Annabeth's cinnamon rolls, large enough to fill the entire dessert plate, were amazing. Soft and buttery and still steaming hot, with a generous coil of sweet cinnamon filling and topped with a cream cheese and vanilla frosting that had all three Swanson brothers licking their fingers, the treats vanished quickly.
And the coffee was great too. It had been brewed from freshly ground French roast, dark and strong and just what Dane needed to wash the taste of smoke out of his mouth.
Annabeth, who had been bustling between the back of the bakery and the front, filling the display cases with freshly baked and frosted cinnamon rolls, glanced at their empty plates, now decorated with just a crumb or two, and dimpled.
Without a word, she brought the big pan of still-warm rolls to their table.
"These are amazing," Dane told her as she lifted her spatula and slid another piece of heaven onto his plate. "You're not going to be able to keep these in stock once word gets out. You'll have people lined up out the door, waiting for them to come out of the oven."
Evan and Mark, their mouths full, nodded enthusiastic agreement.
"Do you really think so?" Annabeth asked, as if she didn't believe him. Her cheeks turned an appealing shade of pink. "I mean, they're just cinnamon rolls, nothing fancy."
"They're fantastic cinnamon rolls," Mark assured her, having washed down his mouthful with a swig of the excellent coffee. "And they're going to be a big hit."
"I really hope so," she said. "I've pretty much used up my savings at this point."
Dane looked around at the clean, inviting space. "We'll tell everyone we know to drop by," he promised her. "Just make sure to bake plenty of those rolls."
That won him another smile, and Dane realized he was a goner.
Mark and Evan both snickered at him as soon as Annabeth had bustled off to the back of the bakery again to get the next batch of cinnamon rolls out of the oven.
Dane didn't care. He had just met the woman of his dreams—beautiful, sweet-smelling, kind, and a talented cook.
And, as an added bonus, she had the kind of generous figure that would feel damned good against him when they were both naked in bed. His bed.
His inner bear stirred. Our mate, it announced.
Dane froze in horror as he realized what his reaction to Annabeth signaled.
There has to be some mistake!
Our mate, repeated his bear with calm confidence.
Dane the man was anything but calm right now. His heart was poundin
g, and he felt shaky, as if he'd just downed a dozen espresso shots. It can't be!
For one thing, underneath the enticing scents of butter, spices, and vanilla, he had sensed that Annabeth was just an ordinary human.
Not a bear shifter…not any kind of shifter. Just an extremely attractive woman.
And for her to become his mate, she would have to learn everything about him. How could an ordinary human woman ever accept his shifter side?
Dane recalled Tanya's reaction, all those years ago, and winced. That memory still had the ability to sting him with mingled pain and guilt, especially because of what had happened afterwards.
Dane looked over at his brothers, who had finished their second rolls by now and who were eyeing his untouched roll hungrily. With a sigh, he handed it over, and Evan tore it neatly in two, handing half to Mark.
"Let's go," Dane said abruptly. "We still have our morning chores to do at the ranch."
But he found himself unable to leave the premises without one more glance at the delectable Annabeth.
"Thank you!" Dane called and found himself rewarded when she looked up from behind the row of glass display cases she was filling with chocolate-dipped shortbread. She waved at him.
"And good luck," he added, just to see her smile again. "I think you're going to be a big success."
"Hey Annabeth. Can I give you a hand with those?" asked a deep, sexy voice that Annabeth remembered very well.
Annabeth straightened up and instantly wished she'd worn a nicer blouse and put on some makeup to go shopping.
Strolling up the alley behind the bakery was Dane, one of the three hunky firefighters who had made her Grand Opening Day so memorable.
Watching him approach, her heart felt like it was squeezing in her chest.
In the rare quiet moments of her first few days in business, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about the big dark-haired man since he had entered her bakery at oh-dark-thirty in the morning.
Sweaty, exhausted, and smeared with soot, he'd still been the sexiest thing she'd ever laid eyes on, six-foot-three of broad-shouldered animal magnetism with warm hazel eyes under dark brows.
Now, showered and clean-shaven, he was enough to make her want to fling herself at him.
It was 8:00 p.m. on her third day of business, and she had just returned from the long drive to and from the restaurant supply warehouse in Missoula.
When Dane greeted her, she was staring at the huge sacks of flour and sugar piled in the back of her Prius, trying to figure out how to unload her car without giving herself a hernia.
She'd seen a trickle of customers on opening day turn into a flood yesterday, until, as Dane had predicted, she'd had people waiting in line this morning for each fresh pan of cinnamon rolls as they emerged from the oven.
In fact, she'd never even gotten around to making her planned croissants or more than a couple of kinds of cookies yesterday. All the demand had been for her cinnamon rolls, and she'd spent the hours before the bakery opened prepping batches of sweet yeast dough to meet the demand. Each of the pans of rolls sold out within minutes of emerging from the oven.
She was thrilled with the initial success of her venture but had gone through her starter supplies of flour, sugar, and butter with frightening speed. So she had been forced to close the bakery a couple of hours early today and drive up to Missoula to the restaurant supply place.
She had originally planned to keep the bakery open seven days a week, but with the restaurant supply warehouse located over 100 miles away, she quickly realized that she would have to close one day a week to go shopping, if nothing else.
Which led to the problem she faced now…the friendly guys at the restaurant supply company had loaded up her car with several fifty-pound sacks of flour, white sugar, brown sugar, and salt as well as big, plastic-wrapped blocks of unsalted butter, packages of yeast, and baking powder.
Which was great…until she arrived back at Bearpaw Ridge and realized that she was on her own as far as unloading her purchases went.
"You would be my hero if you could help me drag those bags into the storeroom," she said ruefully.
"I'd be happy to," he assured her. "But it's probably easier if you just step aside and let me get them out of there."
Don't stare. Don't stare. Don't stare…she repeated fiercely to herself as he bent to grab the first of the bags.
So what if those tight jeans made her want to remove them from that fine, fine ass with her teeth?
Bad thoughts, Annabeth. He's just being nice to you because you gave him free food. He's probably married…or gay. All the hunky and nice ones always are.
But watching his muscles move under the tight fabric of his T-shirt as Dane easily hefted all four of the fifty-pound bags out of the trunk of her car only incited more dirty thoughts.
Oh my God, my panties are melting, she thought dizzily, watching him walk to the bakery's back door. He's incredible…and how the hell is he carrying those bags like they don't weigh a thing?
"You want me to put these in your storeroom?" he asked, standing in front of the bakery's back door.
She yanked herself out of her hormone-fueled daze and sprinted for the door.
"Let me open that for you…I'm so sorry," she apologized, fumbling for her keys. "It's just that I was trying to figure out how to lift just one of those bags, and here you are, holding all four of them…”
Damn it, and now she was babbling.
She unlocked and opened the door.
"So, you're from California?" Dane asked as he followed her inside.
"Uh, how did you know that?" she asked, startled. Had Manny told him?
He put the sacks down in her storeroom, which was approximately the size of the walk-in closet in the condo she had shared with Roger, and turned around to grin at her.
She blinked as a rush of heat went through her. No man should be that sexy. It was a crime.
"Your license plates," he said.
"Oh," she said, feeling like an idiot. "Yeah, I'm from the Bay Area. Grew up in the East Bay, but I've been living in the City for the past few years."
"The City—that's San Francisco, right?" he asked as he turned to leave the storeroom.
She nodded and began to follow him back outside.
"So why did you decide to move out here, to the middle of nowhere?" Dane's voice sounded a little muffled as he leaned deep into her car, reaching for the blocks of butter piled on the floor behind her driver's seat.
The urge to tell him the truth was nearly irresistible, but she knew it would be stupid to pour her heart out to a guy she'd just met.
"Just time for a fresh start, I guess." She shrugged and opened her rear passenger door, hauling out the shopping bags holding the containers of cinnamon, active dry yeast, and baking powder.
Okay, maybe that had sounded a little too curt, especially since he had just saved her by dealing with all those heavy bags.
"Besides," she added truthfully, "it would have been another few years before I could even think about opening my own place in the Bay Area. No bank would have loaned me that much money. Things are a lot more reasonable here."
"Manny mentioned you're a friend of his sister," Dane said, his arms piled high with the butter as they headed back inside the bakery.
"Maggie was my boss at Cacao. I really liked working there," Annabeth said with a pang of regret.
The past two weeks had been such a rush of activity, as she settled into the large—enormous, by Bay Area standards—loft apartment over the bakery that had been included in her purchase of the building, that she hadn't had much time to miss Maggie or her old life.
In fact, she had pretty much collapsed with exhaustion every night and fallen asleep right after dinner.
Annabeth had spent most of her time since arriving in Bearpaw Ridge driving around to every restaurant supply warehouse and going-out-of-business sale within a three-hour drive, looking for used equipment and furnishin
gs.
Maggie's older brother Manuel—everyone called him Manny—had been very helpful in getting Annabeth up and running on the business front.
He had helped her get a loan with a good interest rate from the local farmers' bank, though it had terrified her to see her hard-earned savings dwindle down to almost nothing once she handed over the down payment.
Then Manny had helped her score a set of beautiful café tables and chairs at a going-out-of-business sale in Pike's Meadow, just on the other side of the ski resort, and had even gotten the restaurant's owner to deliver them to her.
And he had directed her to the restaurant supply company in Missoula that serviced the ski resort's restaurant, which allowed her to buy her ingredients wholesale.
Their prices were excellent, but her volume of purchases wasn't high enough…yet…for free delivery. She hoped it would be soon.
"So what about you? How long have you been a firefighter?" she asked Dane as she stacked the butter in her big, two-door commercial refrigerator.
She had scored a great deal with the fridge—only two years old and less than half the original cost.
"Since I graduated from high school. It's just a volunteer thing, though," he said. "My real job is managing our family ranch. My dad died in an accident a few years ago, and my mom needs the help. Since the ranch is going to be mine someday, I'm treating this like an apprenticeship. I mean, I've been working with the cattle and doing chores since I was a kid, but Mom's always handled the business end of things—the paperwork, the accounting, and the taxes."
Annabeth groaned in sympathy at the mention of paperwork and taxes.
"That's the part I'm really not looking forward to," she confessed. "It was easier when all I had to do was bake or decorate cakes and Maggie handled all of the paperwork."
"Got that right," he agreed.
They looked at each other, and something hot and urgent flared to life between them. Under the weight of his hazel eyes, Annabeth suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe.
"D-do you want some coffee?" she stammered, not sure if she wanted him to accept the invitation or not.
Heat: A Werebear + BBW Paranormal Romance (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 1) Page 2
