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So, while I knew I couldn’t fix what happened to little Onyx, I was going to make and decorate gingerbread cookies as pretty and festive as I could manage and maybe heal the past just a little with our happy present. Remind her that the world could be a good place, which I thought she sometimes forgot. Not that I could blame her. My gilded cage had been a sham, but at least nobody stole my cookies.
I set my tablet in the stand so I could read the recipe as I went along and got started. It looked pretty straightforward, but when I finally had the dough all together, I was appalled at the mess I’d made. Flour everywhere, more molasses in the measuring cup and on the counter than in the dough itself, and I was still facing rolling out and cutting the cookies, baking them then making royal icing in several colors and decorating them.
Rolling was not going well when Asher arrived with the sunrise. He stopped in the kitchen doorway, no doubt taking in the disaster of his once-clean kitchen. “Raven…what?”
I looked up from scraping gingerbread dough from the rolling pin. “Cookies. Making cookies for the party. But mostly for Onyx.”
He’d been there when she talked about the memory, and his expression softened. “That’s…that’s… Let me help you.”
“I wanted to do it myself, but I’m more interested in them coming out well than my pride.” I chuckled. “Of which I have none at the moment.”
There was a reason Asher did most of our cooking and baking. He was good at it. In under ten minutes, while I perched on a stool at the breakfast counter, he cleaned up the kitchen, explaining it was much easier to work in a neat environment. I was pretty sure I’d seen him shudder at what I wrought, so I didn’t say anything.
Then he laid out a sheet of parchment paper, put a blob of gingerbread dough on it, and another sheet on top. “Here.” He laid the whole thing in front of me and handed me the freshly washed rolling pin. “Now, you can roll it out, and then we’ll make those cookies.” With his help, by the time Onyx wandered in yawning in search of coffee, about three hours later, we had twenty-four perfect—to my eyes anyway—little gingerbread boys and girls ready to be boxed up for the party. We just had to let the icing dry a bit more while we ate breakfast and got ready to go.
“Asher, you baked,” she said. “Oh gingerbread! How pretty.”
“Raven did,” he corrected, although I was willing to give him all the credit since without him, they wouldn’t have happened. “I just helped a little.”
Was it any wonder I loved him so much? Or Onyx who didn’t comment on her childhood memory, but who held one of the cookies for a good five minutes, smiling. She set that one aside to eat later when we boxed all the others.
Chapter Twenty-One
Valentina
Everyone had brought a different kind of cookie, and all of them were gone. The eggnog bowl was empty and torn wrapping paper filled the floor.
The whole crew was here, and it just felt right having everyone in our home for Christmas. Onyx, Raven, Asher, Jeremy, and Tess were watchingThe Grinch, while Storm and Fox had already started putting the dishes into the dishwasher. Bishop was with me and honestly had been glued to my side since we woke up that morning.
“What’s with you today?” I asked. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind you being so near, but is something wrong?”
Bishop growled a bit. “Nothing wrong with wanting to be near you.”
“Are you sure? Do you still not like Christmas?”
He chuckled and pulled me into his lap. “I didn’t like it before you, female. That much is the truth. Now, you’ve brought all this light and love and happiness into my life. Makes it hard to be grumpy and brooding.”
I cracked up. “Well, it’s not a necessity to be a grump all the time.”
“It’s kind of my thing.” He rained kisses along the back of my neck, making me shiver.
“You do it well.”
Fox and Storm finished cleaning up, but something else was going on. I could feel it in the air. The others weren’t really watching the movie. Instead, they were whispering to each other and looking at me.
“There’s one more surprise, sweet female,” Fox said, holding up a bandana that he’d taken out of his back pocket.
“It’s not that kind of party, Fox,” I responded, making Onyx roll her eyes.
“It’s a surprise, and it involves this blindfold and riding in a car. I promise you will like it. Everyone in the cars. We will meet you there.”
All of our friends got up and left, smiles on their faces. I scrunched my nose. “Are you serious? Everyone knows but me?”
“Well, it is your surprise. Blindfold on. Let’s go.”
“For the record, I don’t like this, and I already got my presents from each of you. We decided.”
All of them chuckled at me. Storm walked up and bent down to speak in my ear as Fox secured the blindfold. “You decided, mate. Besides, when have you known your mates to follow the rules. In the car with you before Bishop hurls you over his shoulder.”
