Page 2

Laughing, I pulled on an apron and some mitts and headed for the oven. The place smelled amazing and, while I wasn’t hungry before, I was now. “I’ve got it. What else?”

“The muffins. All the muffins. The case is about out.”

I put the three sheets of cookie butter rolls on racks to cool and grabbed the apple praline pecan and the pumpkin cream cheese muffins and headed to the front. With the line out the door and partly down the street, Lark was zipping between the cash register and the case, filling orders.

“Coffee?” I asked.

“Yes. It’s about to run out, but I can’t…”

Lark was rarely frazzled. He needed to help but hadn’t had time to go over the applications and actually hire someone since the summer rush that had turned into the every-season morning rush.

“I know. I’ve got it.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Warren. Oh, my Goddess. You are a firefighter. I… Focus, Lark.”

Snorting, I made my way to the industrial coffeepots and got three of them going. Nothing special. There was a fancy coffee place down the road and while he wanted to offer a hot beverage, he also didn’t want to compete so he bought beans roasted in their shop. He was a good guy.

While I worked to help Lark with the crowd, my mind had some background tabs open, mainly what Taylor had mentioned that morning.

About packs and locating his omega.

Finding the pivot, our mate was kind of the point of packs, though the brotherhood and family was nice. We met right out of college and decided to move here, making Lapis Lake, our small town, our base for the pack. It felt right at the time, and as soon as we’d saved up enough, we bought a house that we thought would be perfect for a mate.

Except that mate had never come. We’d tried all the usual avenues and some of the newer and more unusual paths to finding a mate.

None of them had worked out.

I wasn’t the only one doubting that we even had one.

Maybe we would be a pack of bachelors and grow old together…alone.

“Whatever that was didn’t sit right in my chest. Do we need to talk?”

Lark was the most sensitive to our brotherly bond. He could feel when we were off. When dark clouds came rolling into our thoughts.

“Yeah. Later. I’m okay.”

He nodded and went back to work. By the time the crowd died down, it was nearly noon, and I heard the back door open and with it came the smell of our other packmate, Rain. His smell was indicative of his name.

“I’ve got lunch,” he announced. He worked a weird shift like me. Three in the morning until eleven. He often showed up for lunch.

We gathered around one of the tables in the bakery and all took seats. Rain was tired. Still in his uniform and already tucking into his chicken pot pie like a starving man.

“What’s going on?” he said after a few bites when I could no longer detect his hunger in the air or woven into his scent.

“Taylor said something about finding his omega. It got to me. But I’m fine.”

Lark dissected his food first. He was not only an excellent baker. He could replicate anything by tasting it once. I hadn’t eaten fast food in years because of that man alone. “It needs pepper but other than that, I could make this. Maybe add some rosemary. And you’re not fine, Warren. But we are on that app, right? The Mail-Order Matings app? It has a solid reputation for finding your mate or mates or whatever you are looking for.”

“It’s been six months,” Rain said, shrugging one shoulder. “Shouldn’t we have matched with at least one female we liked?” He wasn’t wrong.

I forked up a big chunk of tender chicken. “Plenty of them were beautiful. But it’s the wolves inside us that make the decision.”

Rain and Lark looked at me, at each other, and then back to their food.

It wasn’t an easy subject to talk about but on days like this, where the issue was right in front of all the other thoughts in my head, I couldn’t help but wonder if we should just give up on all the searching and apps and let Fate play out like she wanted to.

Chapter Three