Todos os capítulos de The Alpha And The Baker: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

Auntie Letitia was in charge of the cakes, and my two nieces, Melodie and Saoirse, were helping her. She had been in charge of it for at least fifteen years, ever since Great-Auntie Beverly and her husband Jeb had handed the responsibility over to her after they’d handled it for fifty years. She’d taken on Melodie when the girl was five and showed an interest in baking, always demanding to help whoever was making desserts—even when her head didn’t quite reach the counter. Melodie was fifteen now and would be going off to college in two years, so the slightly younger Saoirse had been recruited when she started hanging around the kitchen.It was one of the many things I loved about our pack. Despite everything we’d been through—especially with Alpha Barris gambling away so much of our land—we kept our tradition of passing down knowledge from generation to generation without compelling anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do. We were lucky to have enough young ones that some could f

“I can’t believe she shifted before me!” Saoirse said from where she was still pressed up against the wall. She was covered in flour, which made her bright red curls stand out more. “I’m a year and a half older than her!”“Sometimes it works like that,” I murmured, grabbing a sheet pan and using it to wave more smoke out the window. “Do I even want to know what was in the oven?”“No,” Melodie said miserably as she pulled one of the pans out.My stomach dropped when I realized the smoking, cracked, mostly cinder of a lump was none other than the very cake I’d been talking to Chris about.“Please tell me the other cakes are cooling somewhere,” I murmured as tears welled in Melodie’s eyes. I felt so incredibly bad for her, and I hoped she wouldn’t hold it against Arietty. Melodie hadn’t gone through her first shift either, and was on the cusp of being a late bloomer, so she didn’t quite understand the compulsions and confusion that came with being a wolf for the first time.“No. All the

Bit by bit, my other regulars came and went, and I enjoyed their presence as I went about various tasks. It wasn’t a busy day by any means, but I was pleased as punch that I had three new customers I’d never seen before. Did they order a lot? No. But sometimes all it took was a really good breakfast sandwich to win someone over for life, and if I could do that enough times, then the shop wouldn’t be so far in the red.I did try to keep myself busy as the hours ticked by, researching SEO and AdSense utilization when I could. However, I didn’t exactly enjoy that, so I was always happy to stop every time the bell over the door chimed.Ding!And that was my cue. Closing my laptop, I stepped out from behind the bread retarder to see possibly the most handsome man I’d seen in a while striding into my shop.Whole-double E Halibut! I had to pause for a moment and train my face into a customer-service appropriate smile. It wasn’t that I was desperate or anything, but most of my customers were

Once everything was all laid out, I began to approach it in a circuit. I started with the Genoise sponge—creaming the wet ingredients, putting all the dry together, beating the eggs and sugar on full speed in my stand mixer then folding in half flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and the pinch of salt into the stiff, white mixture, careful not to knock too much air out.It was precise, it was meticulous, but most importantly, it was fun. I put music on, and although I didn’t sing or dance while folding in the flour or pouring the batter into my prepped trays, it was like a sock hop in my kitchen once those steps were done. A productive sock hop.I shimmied over to the chocolate cake station and started going at that. The process went faster since I didn’t have to worry about the light and fluffy eggs. I was making great time, so if I took ten seconds longer to sing a solo into a wooden spoon, well, that was nobody’s business.Not that a single customer had come in after the stranger.Wa

So, I enjoyed the fresh spring air and the warm sun shining down on me while I hauled a second cake, then the third. Thankfully, most of the questions had died down, which was good because I no longer had Polly and Penny to field them for me. I truly was amazed at just how many different faces there were. It seemed less like a family and more like a community gettogether.As I was setting down the third cake, I felt a tug on my shirt. I whirled in surprise, only to see an older woman in a wheelchair, her eyes a bit cloudy but a gentle smile on her face. “There you are, sweetheart. I’ve been looking for you!”“For me?” I questioned, but when the elderly woman tilted her head to the side, I cleared my throat and spoke up a bit. “For me?” I repeated. While everyone had been quite friendly so far, it was another thing entirely to be so warmly greeted by someone’s grandma.“Of course! You know I love to hear about baking adventures. Why don’t you wheel an old lady over to the tent and tell