The Cold Breakfast Bride novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Cold Breakfast
Jess signs the rejection papers while her Alpha is in bed with his sweetheart, leaves them by his breakfast and walks out pregnant to her aunt's diner, where Hatty shows her the letter: Cordell bought the diner's debt, due the night of the Hunter's Moon.
I signed the rejection papers at the kitchen counter while my mate kissed another woman in our bed.
The bedroom door was open a crack.
I could hear her laugh.
I could hear him say her name, low, the way he used to say mine.
"Linnea."
The pen didn't shake.
Jessamy Oakes, I wrote, on the line marked Rejected Mate.
Three years of marriage, undone in a single stroke.
The papers had been waiting there since last night.
Cordell had set them down next to the fruit bowl, laid a pen on top, and said the words.
"I reject you as my mate and my Luna."
Then he'd gone upstairs, and an hour later her car had pulled in.
I hadn't slept.
At five I got up and made his breakfast anyway.
Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, the hollandaise whisked by hand, the muffins toasted in butter.
His favorite.
I'd made it every morning at six for three years.
He'd let it go cold almost every one of those mornings.
I set the signed papers beside the plate.
The eggs were still warm.
My wolf stirred inside me, thin and tired.
We need to tell him, she whispered.
I put my hand flat on my stomach.
Six weeks.
The pack doctor had said so on Monday, when I went in for what I thought was the flu.
I'd planned to tell him at breakfast.
No, I told my wolf. He made his choice.
The bedroom door opened.
Cordell came down the hall barefoot, buttoning his jeans.
Linnea came after him in his blue flannel shirt and nothing else.
She'd grown up next door to him on this lake.
She'd been back in town since June.
I'd been stupid enough to have her over for dinner twice.
Cordell stopped when he saw me.
Guilt flashed across his face for a second.
Then he looked at the papers, and his whole face relaxed.
"You signed."
"I signed."
"Good." He picked them up and checked the line like I might have spelled my own name wrong. "This is better for everyone, Jess."
Behind me, the kitchen door to the pack house swung open.
Two of the cooks came in for the morning shift and froze.
One of them was holding a crate of eggs.
Linnea leaned over the counter and looked at the plate.
"Oh my God. You made him breakfast?"
"Habit," I said.
She picked up his fork, cut off a corner of egg, and ate it.
"It's a little cold."
"It always is," I said. "He never comes down on time."
One of the cooks made a sound and turned it into a cough.
Cordell's jaw went tight.
"You can stay in the guest cabin until you find a place," he said. "I'm not a monster."
"No, thank you."
"Jess, don't be dramatic. Where are you going to go?"
I didn't answer him.
I walked to the pantry and took down my knife roll from the top shelf.
Seven knives, rolled in canvas, the ones I bought with my first paycheck as a line cook in Missoula.
Next to it sat my grandmother's recipe tin, dented red metal with a rooster on the lid.
I tucked it under my arm.
That was everything in this house that had ever been mine.
I took the Luna ring off my finger and set it on the counter beside his plate.
"That's pack property," I said. "You'll want to give it to her."
Linnea's eyes went straight to it.
She didn't even pretend not to want it.
"Jess," Cordell said.
I walked past the cooks.
The older one, who'd worked this kitchen since before I came, stepped aside and held the door for me.
"Morning, Luna," she said quietly.
"Not anymore," I said.
"Morning anyway."
My truck was parked behind the lodge, by the woodpile.
I sat in it with the engine off and my hands on the wheel.
Through the kitchen window I could see Cordell pick up the ring.
He didn't touch the eggs.
I pulled out my phone and dialed the only number I had left.
It rang four times.
"Aunt Hatty? It's Jess."
"Jess? Oh my God, baby, what's wrong? It's six in the morning."
"I need a place to stay. Can I come to you?"
There was a pause.
The diner was behind her, the fryer hissing, a trucker asking for more coffee.
Then, very softly:
"What did he do?"
My throat closed up.
Nobody in that house had asked me a question in three years that wasn't about dinner.
"He chose her," I said. "He's been choosing her all summer."
"Get in the truck," Hatty said. "Pie's in the oven."
"I'm in the truck."
"Then drive, baby."
It was forty minutes up the mountain to Larch Pass.
The neon coffee cup over the diner was still flickering, the way it had since I was six.
Hatty's.
My grandfather built it in 1952, right on the treaty line, where no wolf can lay a hand on anyone.
Hatty met me at the door in her pink uniform and pulled me in so hard my knife roll dug into my ribs.
She smelled like coffee and cinnamon.
She held on a long time.
Then she let go and didn't look at me.
"Sit down, baby. There's something you should see before you hear it from somebody else."
She took an envelope out from under the register.
It was a letter from the bank.
The loan on the diner had been sold in July.
The new holder had the right to call it in full on Saturday, October 24.
The night of the Hunter's Moon supper.
At the bottom was the buyer's name, and a signature I'd seen on every grocery order for three years.
Cordell Kinnear.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend