RIDGE: Meet me in the back room in ten minutes.
Shit. That meant something was happening, and it wasn’t good.
Project Cleanup Pelican Bay was ever-evolving.
But a meeting in the back room was serious business. The security office didn’t have a back room. That was code for meet in the bakery kitchen, the place where we most often had our best strategy sessions.
Sure, the compound Ridge called an office had conference rooms that fit the key players on the team, but something about meeting in the back room of the bakery kept our minds active. Being in the midst of the chaos acted as a reminder of the town at stake and led to our best planning. More than likely, the issue involved one of the bakery women, anyway. They were often the topic of a back-room meeting.
I cleaned up and made it to the bakery in only seven and a half minutes. Life in a small town had its perks, like short commutes. I used a moment to let myself scan Main Street as I parked my big Dodge Ram in front of the store. It was a personal vehicle, but in the small town, everyone knew my truck. The bakery had a larger parking lot behind the building with backdoor access to the kitchen area, but Bennett, Ridge’s right-hand man and Anessa’s boyfriend, liked us to have a presence at the bakery. Hence my parking out front.
Anessa ran the bakery and had enough of her own drama even before she snagged a friendship with Katy, Pelican Bay’s biggest troublemaker. Bennett and Ridge wanted a constant reminder for the members of the local motorcycle club of exactly whose territory the bakery was. Club members could come in for a cup of coffee as long as they got it to go.
The street was quiet except for one lone person walking on the sidewalk rounding the bed-and-breakfast. I waited until she got closer to the front door, and then I jumped out and met Cassandra on the sidewalk.
Her red hair reflected the light from the sun. She wore a pair of shorts that ended above her knees and a lightweight flowery shirt showing off her shoulders. Neither were provocative or revealing, but they still made my mouth water.
At least until I remembered where we were and the direction she’d been walking. She even had her hand out to open the bakery door.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, heading her off at the pass while trying to not sound accusing but failing.
She stopped and dropped her hand, looking at me like I lost my mind. She’d had that expression often during our last two interactions.
“I got a text from Katy asking me to be here at one o’clock,” she said, turning on the screen of her phone to check the time.
I took another step in front of her, blocking her path to the bakery completely. “You received a random text from Katy telling you to be at a certain location at a special time and you listened?”
My word, the woman had only been in Pelican Bay a few days and she was screwed. How did Katy suck them in so quickly? “How did she get your phone number?” I asked once I realized this conversation had other odd parts.
Cass shrugged, and her eyebrows rose in question. “She and Vonnie stopped by to see me last night and brought cookies.”
I laid a hand on my forehead and rubbed my temple. Of course she brought cookies. Anyone opened the door to Katy if she came brandishing a batch of Anessa’s cookies. Cassandra hadn’t visited town since high school, but she had experience with Katy, which meant she should have been wary of her motives.
“You should’ve called me the minute she knocked on your door,” I said, glaring at her.
Cassandra chuckled, as if I was joking. “It was Katy Kadish. She stopped by for a friendly visit, and anyway, I don’t have your phone number.”
That was the crux of our problems. “We’ll fix that.” I planned to stand on the threshold and get her number right then, but my time was running low to make Ridge’s ten-minute deadline.
Against my better judgment, I held the door open and let Cassandra walk in. If I survived whatever shit news Ridge told us, we’d exchange numbers after my meeting. A back-room meeting with Ridge always meant shit news.
We walked in together, and I was ready to have her take a seat and wait for me in when Tabitha came out from the kitchen. The two metal doors opened as she carried a large sheet cake out in front of her.
“Congratulations, Riley” was written in thick blue icing on top of the cake, and Tabitha smiled at me like I’d won the lottery and not a chocolate-frosted dessert. Behind her, Ridge, Bennett, Lee, Sloan, and Drake piled out behind them, filling the space.
Cassandra leaned over so only I heard her next words. “It’s not your birthday.”
I smiled at her, not because someone made me a congratulations cake for some reason I wasn’t sure of yet, but that Cassandra remembered my birthday. I’d been looking for an obvious sign, and I took that as one.
“Nope, not my birthday.”
Truthfully, I was as confused as her, but one lesson I learned while living in Pelican Bay included letting no one know they surprised you.
Ridge shook his head at the display, even as he stopped and placed a kiss on Tabitha’s Temple before scowling at her.
“I told them cake was ridiculous,” he said before coming to stand beside me and patting me so hard on the back I jerked forward without time to prepare for the action.
“Not that I’m not super special, but why do I deserve cake?”
