Watcher: A raven paranormal romance (Crookshollow ravens Book 1)

T
his is a work of fiction
. Any resemblances to real persons, living or dead, found within are purely coincidental. All characters are consenting adults above the age of 18.

A
ll Rights Reserved
. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

C
opyright 2015 Steffanie
Holmes

http://steffanieholmes.com

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“
A
rgh
, stop it!” I yelped, as Cole reached up and rubbed the flour through my hairnet, smearing it all down my cheeks and over my shoulders. As I reached up to slap him away, he grabbed me under the arms and picked me up, pushing me back so I was sitting on the bench, legs open around him, our faces just inches apart.

All thoughts of struggling fled from my mind, along with the voice that was screaming at me that this was a bad idea. I became aware of just how close we were, my breasts were nearly touching his chest, his crotch was only an inch from mine. All I could see, all I could
feel
, was Cole, the warmth of his body, his eyes boring into mine ...

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. His lips dangerously close to mine. His breath tickled my skin.

“Hey,” I whispered back. My heart hammered against my chest. The blood rushed in my ears.
Please, kiss me ...

T
he moment
I saw Finn pull the tray of sweet-smelling Eccles cakes from the oven and pick up the bowl of pink icing, I knew that both of our lives were in serious danger.

Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration. Finn’s life was definitely in danger, because if the knife he’d just dipped in pink icing went anywhere near one of those pastries, I was going to kill him. But my existence was probably safe. I mean, I was smaller than Finn, so when I tried to stuff a sultana-filled Eccles cake down his throat, and hold his mouth and nose shut until he stopped struggling, there was a slim chance he might be able to overpower me and shove my head into the oven. But he was also a gangly, uncoordinated teenager, and I was a baker with muscles hardened from years of kneading dough, running on nothing but caramel syrup and righteous indignation. He didn’t stand a chance.

The real danger to my own person was what would happen when the authorities came to investigate Finn’s death and found me performing a celebratory dance around his prone corpse. And these days, first-time murderers got off pretty lightly. My best friend was a lawyer. I was sure I could sweet-talk a judge into letting me off with just community service. In fact, if you asked my regular customers, they might say that choking Finn to death with an Eccles cake counted as a public service.

I sighed, tossing aside the joyous image of my assistant lying dead in a pool of pink icing, and bit back the urge to scream. I grabbed the knife from his hand and held it away from the tray. “No, Finn. As I
already
explained, the Chelsea buns need to be glazed
now,
while they’re hot, but those Eccles cakes stay naked. They’re filled with sugar and sultanas, that’s sweet enough.”

“OK, sure.” Finn grinned. He promptly picked up the bowl of dripping sugar glaze and started spreading it over the Eccles cakes again.

I turned away from the kitchen disaster, trying to force down the tears that were now threatening to spill down my cheeks. This wasn’t funny anymore. That was a whole tray of Eccles cakes ruined, unsaleable. And right now I needed every sale I could get.

You can’t expect so much from a fifteen-year-old,
I told myself, trying to calm down.
You have to cut him some slack. It’s not his fault he’s going to be the nail in the coffin of your business.

Finn had been working as my shop assistant for the last three months, and for a fifteen-year-old boy, he definitely displayed a healthy dose of enthusiasm. What he didn’t display was any ability to follow instructions, nor even the most basic aptitude in the kitchen. And since I owned Bewitching Bites, a busy bakery located on the high street in Crookshollow specialising in traditional British cuisine (don’t laugh, it’s a thing), every incorrectly glazed sweet treat meant a disappointed customer.

I’d started Bewitching Bites three years ago, at the insistence of my then-fiancé, Ethan. It had been my lifelong dream to own a bakery, but I’d always been too afraid of failure to do anything about it. My beloved grandmother had died and given me a small inheritance, and Ethan had cornered me about the money. “This is your one shot to make it work, Belinda,” he said, squeezing my hand. “It’s time you did something for yourself. I’ll help you every step of the way. I’ve run my shop for years. I know everything you need to know about retail. And, with your culinary talent, we’ll make it work.”

And so, buoyed up by his confidence in me, I’d leased a small space on the Crookshollow high street where an old Indian takeaway had once been, spent two months scrubbing the curry smell out of the kitchen, and set about planning a menu of savoury and sweet treats to delight the population of the town. Since Ethan had run his own successful auction house for several years, I’d gone to him with every business question I had. He put me on to his accountant, Clive, his business advisor, even his sign writer.

Of course, what I hadn’t realised at the time was that Ethan and his accountant Clive had been running a money-laundering scam, using the auction house as a front. Of course, all the signs were there: Ethan’s caginess about some of his clients and private sales, Ethan’s general lack of knowledge about old, valuable objects, Ethan’s expensive car, designer clothes and gold watch, which he seemed to have no trouble paying for, and yet when it came to bills or dates with me, he would always claim his money was tied up in “investments”. Then there was Ethan’s reluctance to share any of his documentation or phone conversations or even allow me to clean his office, and his overconfident demeanour whenever he was in the presence of the police ... But I’d ignored the signs. Who needed signs when we were in love and building a flourishing business empire?

Well, it turns out, the signs turned into a big raging billboard that read CRIMINAL SCUMBAG: STAY AWAY. If only I’d seen the billboard before Ethan had cleared out my bank account, run up a large tax bill in my name, and skipped town with most of my worldly possessions.

At the time this happened we’d rented a nice apartment a block away from the main street, and I’d just returned from a long shift at the bakery. I walked in through the door, and went to put my keys on the table, but the table wasn’t there. Nothing was there. Not the TV, not the sofa, not the pictures on the walls. Ethan had taken the food from the kitchen, and my clothes from the wardrobe. He’d even deprived Chairman Meow – my fat, cantankerous tortoiseshell cat – of his cat igloo.

He didn’t leave a note.

I was still sitting in the middle of the barren living room, trying to make sense of what happened, when the police came knocking. Detective Sanders and Sergeant McCalister were perfectly lovely for officers who clearly suspected I’d tipped Ethan off that he was about to get busted. They’d closed down my shop for six weeks while they investigated my books, further compounding my financial woes. Eventually, they’d concluded I was just another of Ethan’s victims – instead of his accomplice – but until they found Ethan, there was very little they could do. And even if they
did
find him, Detective Sanders warned me in his quiet, sad voice, I’d be unlikely to see any of my money or possessions again. Last I heard, they’d traced Ethan and Clive to a bank account in Liechtenstein. That was a small country, so you wouldn’t think he’d be difficult to find, but apparently Lichtenstein’s entire GDP relies on them being able to hide both ill-gotten money and the people who obtained it.

At least I still had the shop, my beloved shop. But now I owed HMRC three years in unpaid taxes, plus fines. The debt had eaten away at my small monthly profit margin, and, even though the bakery was thriving, I couldn’t see any way out of my dark tunnel of debt. I’d already cut out all the unnecessary financial burdens, giving up the swanky apartment to live in the tiny hovel above the shop. I’d cut the three employees I’d hired, in order to run the whole shop myself. I’d even stopped using the expensive stone-ground organic flour I loved because it cost an extra 30p per pound. That had bought me enough money to sustain myself, but it wasn’t enough. I knew I had to do something to change the situation, but I couldn’t see how. The whole thing just seemed so hopeless.

In seven more years you’ll be free of the debt,
I reminded myself, trying to stay positive.
Seven more years, and you’ll be able to hire staff and get manicures again.

“Hey, Belinda.”

The familiar voice called from inside the shop. I looked up from the kitchen, relieved to see a friendly face regarding me with concern from across the counter. It was Elinor Baxter. She’d recently moved to Crookshollow from London, where she’d once been a solicitor at a prestigious London firm. Now, she was doing an apprenticeship as a tattoo artist with my other friend Bianca Sinclair over at Resurrection Ink
.
The two professions seemed at total odds with each other, but when you knew Elinor’s story, they made perfect sense.

Elinor had a real sweet tooth, and she came into the bakery most mornings to grab something for breakfast and some sweet treats for her clients. We’d become good friends, and she’d introduced me to Bianca and their friend Alex. We had a great time together, although I saw them less and less now that the bakery was in such peril. After spending so many years with only Ethan for company, it was great to have girlfriends again.

“Hi Elinor.” I poked my head out the kitchen door. “Come back here if you like. I’ve got some glazed Eccles cakes fresh from the oven if you want to try one.”

“Glazed Eccles cakes?” Elinor swung around behind the counter and joined me at the long, stainless steel bench I used for finishing work. She grabbed one of Finn’s iced cakes from the tray and stared at it with a pained expression. “If this is one of those culinary mashups designed to redefine English cuisine, I’m not sure I’m going for it.”

“Me neither,” I groaned, my chin sinking onto my hands.

“Are you OK? You look stressed.”

“I’m not stressed.” I moaned. “Do I look stressed?”

“People who aren’t stressed don’t usually hold their head in their hands as if it might at any moment roll from their shoulders.”

I laughed uneasily. Even though we’d only known each other for a few months, Elinor had a knack for being able to tell when I wasn’t being completely honest. I think it was her lawyer’s instinct, instantly being able to deduce when someone was being truthful.

I hadn’t told any of my friends about my current situation. They knew Ethan had left me and that I was struggling a bit financially, but they didn’t know the full extent of the problem. They’d never seen my bare flat, and I was careful to save a bit of money for our occasional nights out so they wouldn’t notice how dire things were. I couldn’t explain why I kept it secret, I just … every time I tried to say something, my whole body froze up. I felt … embarrassed. Alex had a thriving art career and a rich, hot boyfriend, Elinor had found her passion as a tattoo artist and was dating a bona fide rock star, and Bianca ran a highly successful business and was always fucking someone hot and interesting. And what did I have? A mountain of debt and the knowledge that I couldn’t pick a decent guy out of a line-up. Ethan had probably been in a lot of line-ups.

So I did my best to keep up a sunny disposition. I knew that Elinor was suspicious about what was really going on, because she’d been asking a lot of questions about the shop and my life lately. But when I thought about telling her, a huge knot tied up my chest. I wasn’t ready for her to think me a failure. Not yet. Not until I really had no other choice.

“I’m fine.” I sat up, trying to keep my smile bright. “No one’s died. Nothing’s burned down. I still have all my limbs.” I pretended to check my legs. “See? Everything’s intact.”

“I see that Finn is working today,” Elinor said. Finn looked up from the kitchen and grinned at her, hiking up the backs of his baggy pants in a way he probably assumed was masculine, but was in fact, rather idiotic. He did this every time she came into the shop. With her sleek brown hair, wide hazel eyes hidden behind dark-rimmed glasses, and her luscious curves, Elinor was like a walking hot librarian wet dream come to life. And the corner of her new back tattoo peeking out from the sleeve of her t-shirt gave her a badass streak that any teenage boy would find irresistible.

“Yes, he is.” I said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a platter of delicious glazed Eccles cakes to take back to the shop? People who are being poked with needles multiple times for fun need to keep their strength up. I’ll even give them to you for half price.”

Elinor stared into the box I held out. “They have
pink
icing ...”

“Yes. Er… We’re trying a new experiment.” I raised my eyebrows at her, gesturing to Finn with my pinkie finger. “It failed.”

Elinor looked pained. It had been her idea for me to advertise at Crookshollow High School for a part-time staff member. After a month of trying to run the place completely on my own, it became clear to me that I simply couldn’t do all the work there was to do, still manage to sleep for five hours a night, and not end up in a padded cell trying to eat my own elbow. The only problem was that, even at minimum wage, I couldn’t afford to pay an assistant for more than a couple of days a week. Luckily, the government didn’t consider teenagers to be in the same realm as actual people (and after hiring Finn, I came to understand why), so I could get a student in for the fraction of the price.

Finn was here as part of the school’s work experience programme for kids who were going into the trades or who planned to drive forklifts or sell sexual favours for a living. Instead of doing a class in mathematics, or aeronautical engineering, or advanced selfie photography, or whatever it was his peers who actually had two brain cells between their ears did, Finn came in three afternoons a week to make my life miserable.

Some of this pain must’ve come across on my face, because Elinor plonked down her wallet. “I’ll take the lot,” she said decisively, dropping the rest of her glazed Eccles cake into the rubbish. “My clients will be so busy figuring out why their Eccles cake is glazed, they won’t even notice when I start stabbing them.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“But I’ll also take a Cornish pasty and one of your gooey chocolate brownies. They’re not glazed today, are they?”

“No, Finn hasn’t quite got to those yet.” As I rang up Elinor’s purchase, the shop bell jingled. I looked up to see who had come in, and nearly dropped the credit card machine.

The most handsome man I’d ever seen outside of a blockbuster action film strode through the door and up to the counter. Long dark hair that curled at the ends framed his strong face, and his meltingly dark brown eyes – so dark they were practically black – scanned the room as if he were checking it for snipers. I saw the edges of a tattoo peeking out from the collar of his leather jacket. He wore dark jeans and huge, heavy boots that clanged as he walked. Under his arm, he carried a red motorcycle helmet, and I noticed a strange black ring encircling the index finger of his right hand.

I imagined that under those leathers was a toned, muscular body and more tattoos. Lots and lots of tattoos. I wondered what it would be like to run my hands over his muscled chest, feel the hardness of his pecs and abs, see the colours of his ink shifting before my eyes as he moved on top of me, making love with an intensity that left us both breathless ...