Knox grins. “You heard the woman, Walker. You coming with us?”
I peek over at Walker and catch his gaze before he nods. “Of course. I’ll be there. And I’ll kick every single one of your asses, too.”
I scoff at his audacity. “Oh, I don’t think so. I’m whooping your tail, and you know it.”
Walker smirks, and I swear I feel my scent glands kick into gear. “Confident enough to make a bet on it?”
“Oh, you’re so on,” I say as I put down my fork and reach for my water. “What’s the bet?”
“Hmmm,” he says as he leans back against the booth, thinking. “If I win, I get to take you out on a date.”
My eyebrows hike up. “What happens if I win?”
Walker shrugs. “I don’t know. What do you want if you win?”
Your knot stuffing me full.
Dear God, where the hell did that come from?
“Ummm…” I act like I’m thinking really hard when all I can think about now is how empty I feel. “How about a bakery feature in your vineyard?”
“Oh, that’s a good one,” Eli says with a chuckle.
“I don’t know that the vineyard sells sweets like that, do you, Walker?” Knox asks.
Walker shoots him a look that could kill before his attention comes back to me. “You’re on. If I win, I get to whisk you away for an evening. But if you win, you get to collaborate with my head chef to put something on the menu that runs through the season.”
“Tansy is gonna be pissed,” Knox says with a chuckle.
“Who?” I ask.
“Tansy,” Eli says. “She runs a bakery here in town. She’s been trying to wiggle her way into selling some of her things at the vineyard for a while now.”
“Oh,” I say as I look over at Walker. “Why won’t you let her sell stuff here?”
“She wants to set up her own place here, like a second location for her bakery. There’s nowhere to build her an installation that doesn’t obstruct a view that I need for weddings and such.”
“It would be good practice for that bakery you told me you want to open someday,” Knox says. “Especially if Walker wants to sell them fresh. You’ll have to get into the groove of cooking for an open kitchen placing orders.”
Walker’s eyebrows lift. “You want to open your own bakery?”
I smile. “One of these days, that’s the goal.”
“I think you’d do great, running your own bakery,” Eli says.
“Thanks,” I say as a blush creeps across my cheeks.
“That’s a good look on you, Alley Cat,” Eli says with a wink.
Walker clears his throat. “Tell me all about this bakery you want to open. Leave nothing out.”
Their scents are so open and inviting. I almost forget about my food. My instincts want to feed off them. I want to bury my nose into every single one of their scent glands and inhale until I’m drowning in them. But I manage to take another bite of my food to give myself a chance to gather my thoughts.
“Well,” I say after I swallow, “I do research on it, in my spare time. I can’t fathom having to move out of the state in order to open my bakery. But a lot of the bigger cities around here have multiple bakeries within their limits.”
“That’s neither here nor there,” Walker says as he waves his hand through the air. “Competition is the heart of business. You’ll do fine as long as we can find you prime real estate.”
“I actually thought about opening one up in Hollow Mill Junction, since there’s only one other bakery in that town. That way, I’m still close enough to the other bakeries that order from me that I could deliver on their orders within my own business.”
