"…I'm sure that a ton of people will show up today, especially with all of those news reports about you rescuing those kids last weekend," said Daniela Martinez, Cacao Denver's new manager.
She grinned, and a silver stud glinted in the hollow of one dimple. A lock of dark blue hair had escaped her chocolate-brown baker's cap and hung over her forehead, brushing one of the silver rings piercing her dark eyebrows.
It was T-minus one hour until the bakery's grand opening, and Maggie's stomach was churning queasily with her usual pre-event nerves.
She and the newly-hired Cacao Denver staff were gathered in the small employee break room at the back of the bakery, where Maggie was giving her final set of instructions before the hoped-for flood of VIP guests arrived.
She especially wanted to make sure that her barista and her two counter staff members recognized and treated the Denver Herald's food critic as a VIP guest if she came. And then there were a host of local food bloggers and social media influencers who'd been invited and who would hopefully share favorable reviews and flattering product photos.
Her two production bakers, Jonah and Bella, were covered in a fine layer of flour, and both looked exhausted. They had been hard at work since 3:00 a.m., working alongside Maggie to finish a tempting selection of fresh breads and delicate pastries.
"Yeah, you're like a freaking hero now," commented Jonah. "So cool."
Everyone in the break room nodded in agreement. Maggie groaned at the reminder of her Labor Day camping trip debacle.
She hadn't been prepared for the mob of journalists armed with cameras and microphones who'd been waiting for the evacuees when the helicopter touched down at the small regional airport.
Guessing that the rescued children would be the focus of the news stories, Maggie's plan had been to hurry past the reporters and make her escape.
She'd been in the process of exiting the helicopter when Bob, Kathy, and Susan stopped to answer a reporter's questions, giving a breathless account of Maggie bravely swimming across the lake with a couple of kids balanced on a large pool float.
All the cameras promptly swung in Maggie's direction and trapped her in their unblinking lenses.
The next fifteen minutes were a blur in her memory, as she tried to answer the barrage of questions as briefly as she could, all the while praying that her fellow evacuees kept her secret, as they'd promised.
When she'd finally made it back to Denver and flopped wearily onto her hotel room bed after a nice long hot shower, she'd turned on the TV. She'd been horrified to see the rescue of the summer camp kids among the top stories on the national news.
With every interview and news segment came the risk that one of the campers would spill the beans. Maggie didn't want to think about what might happen if she was the one responsible for publicly outing the existence of shifters.
The bakery's front door buzzer sounded.
Excitement shot through Maggie. She hopped up from her place at the head of the break room table. "Looks like we've got early birds. That's a good sign. Everyone knows what to do?"
Nods all around the table.
Prepared to either welcome a gaggle of local food bloggers and social media influencers or politely turn away members of the public and ask them to return after Cacao's doors opened at 10:00 a.m., Maggie fixed a smile on her face and left the break room. She walked through the bakery's large work area, with its shiny new ovens, giant refrigerators, tall mixers, and long stainless-steel work tables, before emerging into retail storefront area.
"Hi," she began, smiling. "Welcome to Cacao—"
She stopped short as she recognized the three people standing in the middle of the slate-tiled café space.
Her chest tightened, leaving her short of breath, with bright sparks dancing in her field of vision. Her heart began pounding madly.
Mamá. Papá. And even worse, Abuela Inez.
Her mouth set into a thin line, Maggie's grandmother was peering around the beautiful new store, examining every detail with a gimlet eye.
Until this moment, Maggie had been proud of Cacao Denver's sophisticated yet rustic decor.
A coffee bar with a polished live-edge wood counter and metal stools ran along the right-hand side of Cacao's storefront space, with gleaming Italian espresso machines and neat stacks of cups and saucers arranged on open shelving backed by a reclaimed-wood wall.
On the left side of the café area and across the back of