Donika couldn't believe that she had already been matched with a shifter. When she looked at his picture, her knees nearly buckled. He was the hottest man she had laid her eyes on. After dating all the metrosexuals in New York, Grayson's rugged good looks, tattooed, muscled chest, and dark brown beard were a breath of fresh air.

He was the epitome of a manly man. She nearly drooled over the picture of him in his red flannel shirt. It was open at the chest, the arms folded back, showing off all his muscles as he stood by the lake. He was holding a big fish in his hand. It should have been corny, but instead, it was the sexiest thing she’d seen in ages. She had to sit and fan herself.

What was she supposed to do with this guy? He was a shifter and shifters mated for life. She was just a human in a whole heap of trouble. She couldn't ask him to take on her baggage. It was just too much. She stood from the uncomfortable bed in the craft room, her back aching and her heart pounding with excitement and walked into the kitchen where she found her grandmother sitting at the table with a cup of coffee.

“You're never going to believe what happened to me this morning,” she said.

“What's that, dear? I've been around a long time. I can believe a lot of things.”

“I was matched with a shifter on Mate.com.”

“A shifter? I hear they're awfully good-looking,” Pearl said.

“Oh, he's good-looking all right. But I don't know what I'm supposed to do with him.”

“I think the appropriate thing would be to date him,” her grandmother said, before taking a sip of coffee.

Donika smirked as she poured herself a cup of coffee with cream and sugar and took a seat next to her grandmother at the table.

“Look at this, Granny,” she said, showing Pearl a picture of Grayson on her laptop.

Her grandmother looked at the screen, squinting as she held it at a distance and looked through her glasses.

“Well, that's what I call a big hunk of man meat,” her grandmother said.

“Grandma!” Donika said, taking the computer back.

“I think I know that fellow,” Pearl said. “He’s the owner of Fate Valley Café and Bakery. He makes a mean blueberry scone.”

“That's what it says here in his profile.”

“You could do worse, that's for sure.”

“Oh, I just got a text. He wants to meet me. He's telling me he's making me a special cake.”

“Well, I’d jump right on that if I were you. His cakes are delicious.”

“Grandma. I work in New York,” she said. “What am I supposed to do with a baker from Fate Valley?”

“I think we've already been over that,” Grandma Pearl said, looking at Donika over her reading glasses. “Didn’t you say you were staying for an extended sabbatical?”

“Well, I’m going back to my job in New York, eventually,” Donika lied.

The fact was, she had no idea what was going to happen in her life. It could be anything. She was being sued. Her bank account was frozen. And she had a sinking sense that she was being followed. It wasn't a good scene. In many ways, it felt like her life was over, and she didn't even know who she was anymore. How was she supposed to start a whole new relationship with this rugged outdoorsy type baker guy from Fate Valley? The idea just made her depressed.

“What should I say?” she asked.

“Invite him over for dinner,” Pearl said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I guess that's the appropriate thing to do.”

“Of course it is. I want a piece of that cake.”

“Okay, okay, Granny,” Donika said. “I'll invite him over for dinner.”

“Good. I’ll get some free cake, and you’ll get to meet a hot guy. Sounds perfect.”

“I'm sure the family will make an excellent impression,” Donika said, more nervous than before.

Meeting a shifter from Fate Valley was one thing, but immediately introducing him to her entire crazy family? That was another thing entirely.

“Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all,” she muttered.

“Why not?” Pearl asked. “Are you ashamed of us? Is that why you haven't come home in two years?”

“Of course not, Granny. It's just that I usually don't introduce men to my entire family on our first date.”

“When I was a girl,” her granny started.

“I know, I know. Everything was different that back then. Everybody knew everybody else. What? Did you and Grandpa have an arranged marriage or something?”

“Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. But people did know each other back then, and parents would know any boy that courted their daughter before they started courting. So, I do think it's appropriate for you to bring him over here on your first date. Thank you very much.”

“Grandma, we met on a dating app. Need I say more?” Donika held the computer up to Pearl.

“Just invite him over,” her grandmother said.

“All right, you don't have to get crabby about it.”

Donika typed out a text, telling Grayson she’d love to meet him, and waited for his reply.

“Well, what did he say?”

“He hasn’t responded. He’s probably busy.”

Donika took her laptop back to her room and left it there before going to the shower and getting dressed. When she came back out of the bathroom she sat down on the bed with her phone and replied to Grayson's new texts. To her surprise, he responded immediately.

They texted back and forth for a minute and she invited him over for dinner that night at six. She was satisfied with the exchange. He didn't seem like a kook, and that was more than she could say for her family. This guy really didn't know what he was getting into—with her or with the crazy bunch that she called her blood. But the website had matched them and apparently it had some ridiculously high accuracy rate when it came to matching mates.

Donika spent the whole day nervously preparing for Grayson to come over that night. She changed her clothes five times. Put her hair up and took it back down. Put on pink lipstick and then put on red. She couldn't quite decide how she wanted to look when she first met him.

Why was she getting all nervous? She'd been on plenty of dates with high-powered executives, important men with important jobs, sophisticated and educated. Grayson Baxter was none of those things. He was a military vet in a small town who owned a small bakery. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with that, but society would have considered her above him. She bit her lip. It was impossible to think of him that way.

What was it about this guy that got her heart racing and her lady bits all in a tizzy? He was awfully handsome, in a rugged, outdoorsy kind of way. She imagined he knew his way around a firearm and around the kitchen. The combination just made her heart flutter, and she had to sit down to catch her breath when she thought about it.

“What's the matter with you Donika?” she asked herself.

Her mother peeked in the room and told her that the inn guests were arriving.

“Have you decided what you're wearing for dinner?” Adele snickered.

“This isn't funny, Mom,” she whined.

“I'll take your word for it,” Adele snickered again.

“I don't know what's wrong with me,” Donika said, wiping a bead of sweat from her temple.

“Well, Grayson is your fated mate,” Adele said. “I imagine that's the reason.”

“How much do you even know about shifters?”

“I know plenty. Fate Valley is at least half shifters. The mayor is a shifter. He won by eighty percent. We've had a boom in the shifter population since you were a girl. They’re pleasant folks, always respectful and ready to lend a hand.”

“You like shifters for the most part?”

“Most shifters are pretty good people,” Adele said, walking into the room and sitting on the foldout bed beside her. “But I don't think this is about shifters in general. I think it’s about one shifter, specifically.”

“Of course it is. I work and live in New York. I'm a New Yorker now, Mom. What if Grayson and I don't have anything in common?”

“I'm sure you’ll have plenty in common. Maybe your extended sabbatical could turn into full-time?”

“Maybe,” she muttered.

“Is there something you're not telling me about what happened in New York with your job. Were you fired?”

Donika let out a long, rugged sigh. She could never hide anything from her mother for very long. She just decided to let it out.

“I was fired.”

“What happened?”

“I hit my boss,” she said, searching for the closest version of the truth that she was willing to share.

She still didn't want to tell her mom about the blackouts. She was in a big enough mess already. She didn't want the whole family making a fuss over her undiagnosed medical issues.

“You punched your boss, Donika? I thought I raised you better than that.”

“You don't understand, Mom. I can't really talk about it. It's confidential.”

At least that part was true. She'd been working on the Trans-Food Corporation case and something had snapped. It had caused her to blackout. She could barely remember anything from the night she was up late at the office until the next day when she woke up in her bed, already fired. Something was going on. Something unsavory. And for the life of her, she couldn't remember what.

“I'm sure you had your reasons, Donika. But it sounds like you burned that bridge. Maybe you should get used to the idea of staying in Fate Valley.”

“I don't know, Mom. I graduated from Harvard Law.”

“Maybe you could try to get a job at Spinner and Sons Legal,” Adele said. “That’s a law firm in town. I used them when I got in my car accident a few years ago. Got me fifteen thousand dollars! I'm sure they'd love to hire a Harvard graduate there.”

“I'll give it some thought, Mom. Thanks for the advice.”

Adele stood, patting Donika on the hand, smiling down at her triumphantly. “Anytime.”

Adele went to the door. Before she walked out, she turned back to Donika, and said, “Now hurry up and finish getting ready. We have guests to greet.”

Her mom slipped out the door, and Donika was left there feeling more confused than ever. How could she keep her secrets with all of this going on? It was hard enough to keep them from her family. But if she added a guy on top of everything, it just became chaos. The worst part was, she wasn't even sure what her secrets were.

She stepped out into the hall. The guests were arriving in the main part of the inn. An old lady with white permed hair, a gray wool skirt and a pink cardigan, stood in the door with her baggage. Adele sat at the front desk and offered to help her check in.

“I'm Martha Howard, here for the Great American Bake-off,” she said with a grin. “I love that baking show. I’ve followed them all over the country.”

“Well, that's just lovely,” Adele said, handing Martha her key.

Donika took Martha’s smaller bag and Franklin took the others. They followed Martha upstairs to her room and left her bags inside the door.

“Why thank you, dears,” she said, handing them both a dollar.

Donika went back down the hall, looked at the dollar, and shoved it in her pocket. Every little bit helped. Downstairs, the rest of the guests were arriving. Everyone was there for the Great American Bake-off. There was a yuppie couple named Meg and Tanner Pike, dressed in running pants and fleeces.

A group of three middle-aged women, Darcy, Pamila, and Tiffany, who chattered excitedly when they came in the front door. A young man, named Emmanuel Long, dressed in a brightly tie-dyed shirt with hair to match, looking like he belonged at a music festival rather than at a baking contest. Franklin and Donika carried all their bags upstairs, helping them into their rooms.

She slipped into her room to check herself in the mirror one more time. As she was fixing her hair, the door creaked open. Martha and Emmanuel stood on the other side, staring at her.

“Excuse us, dear, we were just looking for the downstairs bathrooms,” Martha said.

“It’s down the hall and around the corner. This is the residents’ area,” she said, trying to contain her irritation.

She decided she’d be keeping her door locked from now on. Being a public house, the doors had sturdy locks on them and her mother had already given her the key.

Her granny was calling her from the kitchen. She found Pearl had finished cooking dinner and wanted Donika’s help dishing everything onto serving trays. Donika helped slice the ham and arranged it on a tray to be carried into the main dining room for the guests.

Donika glanced at her watch, knowing that at any moment Grayson would arrive. She excused herself as the guests were meandering into the dining room. She slipped out onto the front porch to wait for Grayson. Wrapped in her parka, she breathed out puffs of steam into the cold air.

A black SUV slowly rolled past the driveway. The window slid down. A man in a black suit and black aviator sunglasses stared at her. The minute he saw her, he rolled up the window and the car screeched away. It filled her with dread. Were they following her?

She shook her head and stared down at the floor. When she looked up again, she saw a red truck bumping down the driveway. A handsome, bearded man sat behind the wheel, a bright smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes.

Donika gulped hard and wrapped her arms around herself against the cold. Her heart thumped wildly. He parked with the rest of the guests and hopped out of the truck, a pink cake box in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other. He approached her, not losing eye contact for a second. His smile shined so bright, it lit up the dark evening. He hopped up the steps toward her and they stood, eyes locked, for several beats. He grinned down at her, holding his cake. She gulped.

“I'm Donika,” she finally said.

“Grayson,” he said. “I'd know you anywhere.”

“You want to come inside? Dinner’s starting.”

“I'd love to,” he said.

She opened the door and stepped through, Grayson right behind her. They walked down the hall together and left their jackets in the closet.

“What kind of cake is that?” she asked, leading him to the kitchen.

“It's my special lemon cake. Same recipe I make for weddings.”

“My Granny is looking forward to it.” She took the cake box and set it on the table, opening the lid. The intoxicating aroma of lemon and sugar hit her nose.

“I hope you're looking forward to it too,” he said, turning toward her and taking her hand in his.

She swallowed hard. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. Their eyes locked, and her heart pounded.

“Let me just get some water for those flowers,” she said, taking the bouquet. She grabbed a vase from the cabinet where she knew they were kept, filled it with water and arranged the roses inside. She set it on the table next to the cake. The sight of his offerings together on the old kitchen table made her heart pound and her head light. She needed food.

“The dining room is right through here,” she said, leading him through the door.

The guests were all sitting around the long dining room table. Her granny's eyes lit up when she saw him.

“Grayson Baxter, Baker Bear himself, has brought us one of his cakes for dessert,” Pearl announced to the room. “Where is it?”

All eyes turned to him and Donika.

“It’s in the kitchen,” Donika said in a tight voice.

“Ah, good. I knew you wouldn’t let us down, Grayson,” she said. Turning to the guests, she added, “He's one of the contestants in the baking show, you know.”

Everyone began to chatter all at the same time. Donika found two empty seats. Pearl had saved them chairs on either side of the table, near her. Grayson took a seat to Granny's right and Donika took the seat to her left. They were staring at each other across the table with her grandmother between them. Just perfect, Donika thought.

Her grandmother immediately started chatting with Grayson about his cakes and cookies and scones and cinnamon rolls and the bear claws at the Fate Valley Café and Bakery. Donika let out a deep breath and sighed, scooping mashed potatoes onto her plate. Well, at least she had Grandma Pearl to talk up her date for her, so she didn't have to say anything.