CHAPTER 1

Alysha

MY LIFE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO be like this but when did anything ever go as planned for me? I can tell you, I never envisioned myself standing behind this register of Coffee and Stuff for the fifth year in a row. I thought I’d be out of this hell hole by now. I thought I’d be running my own bakery, where someone would actually appreciate my hard work.

As I finished ringing the next customer up, I let out an aggravated sigh.

“That bad, Aly?”

My frown immediately turned upside down as my best friend, Jade Wiley, stepped behind the counter. Jade and I were a matched pair, dressed in matching uniforms that clashed with the dark blue Coffee and Stuff decor—black pants and an orange polo.

It was even worse for Jade, with her blonde hair dyed a two-toned mix of blue and purple, which looked great with her complexion and her usual rocker attire. Not so much with our uniform.

“Worse,” I gave her a knowing look and rolled my eyes. I pushed my burnt-coffee colored hair off my neck for the millionth time, wishing my mane wasn’t so thick that regular hair ties couldn’t contain it.

“Oh, yeah?” she asked as she handed the next order out and then took my place at the register. “Who are we dealing with today?”

“Hyde. Definitely Hyde.”

Our boss, Bruce Thomas, and the owner of Coffee and Stuff, which should really be called ‘Coffee and Shit’, was the very definition of bipolar. Some days I’d come in and he was cheery as can be with compliments galore but more often than not he’d be in a piss poor mood and take it out on us. I chalked it up to his girlfriend not giving him any. The fact that the man even had a girlfriend was surprising at best. He was attractive enough, though. Nice hair, non-squinty eyes, and his nose and ears were proportionate to his face. But with the negativity flowing out of him he could be a hot shot Hollywood actor and he would still be one unattractive guy.

“What was your grievance this time?” Jade turned from her latest customer as I restocked the coffee. My lips twisted at her question. Most of the time I could brush off his insults and complaints. He’d say I’m late when I’m five minutes early, or the coffee was burnt when it was just the shitty coffee he bought. Today though . . . today was different.

“He insulted my muffins,” I murmured, my eyes downcast.

“No!” Jade gasped, her hand going to her chest in horror. “I’ve had it.” She untied the apron she had just put on, and threw it to the floor, “That wretched man has gone too far this time. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.”

I grabbed her arm before she could storm into the back and make a fool of herself. “Jade. It’s fine. I’m fine. Don’t lose your job because of me. You need it, remember?”

Jade and I both went to the same community college in Alinity, Kansas, for business and art respectively. She had been lucky enough to have parents who could afford to pay for her college. That is until they’d found out she wasn’t going to be a lawyer like they’d wanted and then promptly cut her off. Now she was in the same boat as I was; dependent on student loans and this shitty ass job. If she lost it she’d have to drop out of school and go back home. I couldn’t have that. She was the only thing keeping me going nowadays.

“But, Alysha . . . your muffins. Really?” The understanding in her eyes made my heart warm. We both knew that the only thing keeping this store from going under was the muffins that I baked at home and brought in for us to sell.

I had brought them in one day a while ago as a treat for Jade and me. Bruce had gotten a hold of one on one of his good days and had offered me a raise if I’d continue to bring them in to sell at the shop.

Was it worth the extra fifty cents? Hell no. But I kept doing it because I loved to bake, and seeing the look on people’s faces when they bit into something I’d made gave me a joy like nothing else ever has.

“It’s fine, really,” I waved her off and then sighed, “It’s my fault anyways. He wanted blueberry today and I brought chocolate chip. I shouldn’t have deviated from the schedule.”

Usually, when I baked, I created whatever inspired me that day. If I was having a bad day, I’d make a triple berry tart to brighten it up. If I was feeling frisky, I’d make a double chocolate devil’s food cake. It was the same with my muffins.

Usually.

Bruce didn’t like change though. He had made a schedule which I had unfortunately agreed to and he expected me to adhere to it. Monday was supposed to be blueberry and I had had the audacity to make chocolate chip which was only supposed to be served on Fridays.

“People don’t like change,” he’d said.

Well, those people can just go shove it.

“Just wait,” Jade patted me on the shoulder, “Soon you’ll get your own bakery and we will both be out of this dump. Then you can make whatever you want, whenever you want.”

“I hope so,” I said and then frowned, “but that’s not likely to happen if I can’t get a loan from the bank to buy a shop. My savings can only get me so far and on the salary here? I’ll be eighty before I can afford one on my own.” I poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her for her customer.

My credit was not horrendous but it wasn’t great either. I used to have a crap ton of debt. Credit cards, car loans, you name it, I had it. But after my sleaze bag ex—who’d convinced me to take on all that debt—and I broke up, I paid the cards off, sold the car, and worked on getting my credit back up to where it was now.

But did banks care? No. They saw my past history of debt, a low-paying job, and student loans piling up to my ears. Which probably was something else going against me. I didn’t know what it was about the older generation, but the moment they saw someone with more than just a single piercing in their ear, and—god forbid—a visible tattoo, they automatically put you in the ‘irresponsible’ column.

So I had a few piercing. Okay, maybe more than a few. The six on each ear would probably be pushing it for most people, but the stud in my nose and the bar through my tongue pretty much guaranteed me a spot on the young-people-these-days list. Hell, the one tattoo I did have was a teeny tiny fire Kanji behind my ear. I’d gotten it one night on a girl-power trip with Jade. She’d gotten a matching one on the inside of her wrist.

“Here you go, sir,” Jade gave the customer a megawatt smile before turning back to me, “Don’t worry, girl you’ll get it. I can feel it.”

I laugh-snorted at her words. Jade always had these feelings. Said she has a sixth sense of some kind, but, really, I think she uses it as a ploy to sell more paintings. People are dense and would buy anything they thought had magically appeared in her head, or so she said. So far, she’d only gotten whack jobs wanting her otherworldly paintings.

Except for me, of course.

“You laugh now, but just wait. We’ll be opening your shop in the next year and then we’ll see who will be laughing at who.”

“Whom,” I corrected her automatically, to which she responded with a death glare. I stuck my tongue out at her and then smiled.

A throat cleared behind me and the smile on my face dropped. Ugh. Bruce.

“I see you girls are having fun.” The very sound of his voice made all the happiness in the air sour like condensed milk left out on the counter.

“We were.” Jade couldn’t seem to help herself as she turned from the counter to face our boss. The morning rush had died down, which meant Bruce was right on time to come harp on us. God forbid, the man actually did any real work.

“Well, if you girls have time to for a chit chat, then you have time to be cleaning. This place is a mess,” he waved his hands around the pretty-much-spotless front area. As a baker, you’d think I would be the world’s messiest person but it just wasn’t so. I hated dirty dishes and stained counters more than I hated pecans sandies. Which was saying something.

Jade and I exchanged a look and then in a mock salute, said in unison, “Aye aye, capt’n.”

Picking up a wash rag I pretended to wipe away the nonexistent grime on the counter, but Bruce’s voice stopped me. “Not you, Alysha.”

“Huh?” I glanced over my shoulder at him.

He pointed a finger at Jade, and then me, then shook his head, “You two will do nothing but chit chat if you’re left alone together. You can go clean the back, while Jade handles the front.”

“But what about the customers?” I gestured toward the cash register.

Bruce’s lips twisted into a nasty smile, “I’m sure she can handle it. And if not . . . well . . . I shouldn’t be paying her then anyways.” Before either of us could get a word in edgewise, he moved around the counter and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Jade piped up, her hands on her hips. I could tell she was just about ready to explode with his attitude and thinly-veiled threat to fire her.

Pausing at the door, he narrowed his gaze at us, “I’m the boss here. Not you. I don’t have to tell you anything. Now, get to work.” He pointed at us once more before he darted out the door, leaving us as the only workers in the shop.

Growling in frustration, Jade scrubbed at the counter furiously. I watched her for a moment or so. She wasn’t going to be able to hold it in much longer. No more than thirty seconds later she tossed the rag down and spun around. “Who the hell does he think he is? Talking to us that way? We aren’t children. We could run this shop better than he could and on most days we do!”

“Shh,” I tried to hush her, my eyes darting around to the customers who were oblivious to the wretchedness that was our boss, “Don’t cause a scene. Just do your job and remember, we’ll be out of here in a year, right?”

At the hint at her premonition, her scowl turned into a shit-eating grin. “You bet your sweet buns, we will be!”

I laughed at her analogy as I made my way to the back. I grabbed a bucket and filled it with soapy water. With a wash rag tucked in my pocket, I considered what exactly I should clean.

There really wasn’t much back here to tidy up. There was the stock room, which I didn’t even want to get into, the refrigerator where we kept all the milk products, and then there was Bruce’s office.

He never wanted us to go in there. Bruce always insisted that anything we needed to know he’d tell us. But with him out of the shop, and since he had told me to clean up the back, I felt justified in taking a peek in.

The excitement to see what he has been hiding this whole time died the moment I turned on the light.

Boring. That was what it was. Utterly boring.

A second-hand desk and a line of file cabinets sat to one side. A mini fridge leaned against the wall, but even its contents was uninteresting. I had, at least, hoped to catch him drinking beer on the job, but alas there was only diet coke.

As I turned to leave his office, my joy in the unknown thoroughly squashed, I paused by the door and then took a step back as I caught sight of something. On the shelf above his desk sat a line of painted bottles. Those were something I would have never expected to see in his office. Bruce always made a point to comment about Jade’s career choice being a dead end, and of art being for the dull minded.

The little liar, I thought, reaching up to pick up one of the bottles. Resembling a hookah, it had a long neck and a wide bottom. Blue and green stained glass decorate the outside, with a few gems decorating the surface here and there. The stopper seemed to be made out of real crystal, and when I tried to pop it from the top it wouldn’t budge.

Frowning at the bottle, I half wondered if Bruce stashed his weed in there. I remained so focused on the bottle I didn’t hear Jade’s voice until she was right outside the door. Startled, I jumped and the bottle fell from my hands into the bucket of water I’d left at my feet.

“Shit.” I bent over to dig around in the bucket as Jade appeared in the doorway.

“He’s coming back. What the hell are you doing in here?” she glanced around the office with disinterest.

“Cleaning, like he said.” I grabbed a hold of the neck of the bottle and lifted it from the bucket. Jade’s eyes drew to it instantly. Excitement filled them but then disappeared as the front door’s bell dinged. “Put that back before we both get fired.”

She ducked out of the office and I could hear her greet Bruce with a sickly sweet voice. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I grabbed the rag out of my pocket and wiped the bottle off. My eyes darted to the door and back down to the bottle every few seconds expecting Bruce to walk in any minute.

The more I rubbed the surface the warmer the bottle became, until suddenly it began jumping around in my hands. Eyes wide, I fought to hold onto it but it was like trying to keep a soufflé from sinking after it has already begun to fall. The bottle hopped out of my hands and landed on the floor with a clank that made me wince.

The stopper wiggled, causing the bottle to rock back and forth. I held my hands out, each rock made the need to grab it more intense. Eventually, the rocking stopped and I inched toward it. The moment my hand touched the neck of the bottle the stopper popped out and landed on the floor.

Dark smoke billowed from the top. I coughed and waved my hand as I held the bottle away from me. What the hell did he have in this thing? A smoke bomb?

When the smoke cleared and I could breathe again. I bent down to grab the stopper off the floor but was stopped mid-bend by a foot that had appeared out of nowhere.

Encased in a black boot, the foot tapped steadily on the floor. My eyes followed the foot up along a pair of long legs covered by dark jeans, over a wide chest concealed in a tight black shirt that in any other situation would have had me drooling, and then to the scowling face of the man who had just appeared out of nowhere.