“What the hell…” she murmured.
She started across the street and her bootscrunched over the snow in the road. The closer she got to Hearth and Story, the stronger the odd sensation became. It spread through her belly, rose up through her chest and settled there.
By the time she reached the sidewalk, her wolf was pacing so hard inside her that she could barely think.
Keena caught a brief glimpse of herself in the window. Her brown skin, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and amber eyes. She tried to erase the intense expression she was told she always had on her face. She didn’t want to meet the human owner and appear as if she’s a bitch.
She reached for the door.
One quick stop and be pleasant, she reminded herself.Make sure everything is good then get back to work and patrol.
This would be easy. She could handle this. Her wolf practically snarled at the lie.
Keena wrapped her hand around the brass handle and pulled the door open. A rush of warmth greeted her first. Coffee and pine and something sweet from the bakery case beyond the front counter. She blinked at a scent that was so rich, and so intoxicating so achingly right that the entire world stopped turning.
Keena froze on the threshold. Her heart slammed once against her ribs as her wolf surged forward with a force so violent it nearly buckled her knees.
For the first time in five years, Keena Bolden forgot how to breathe.
Brice Andrews had never been so happy to smell like butter, sugar, and cinnamon. It was the smells that dreams were made of—at least hers were.
She stood in the narrow kitchen tucked behind the cafe’ counter at Hearth and Story. She picked up a fresh pan of sugar cookies fresh from the oven and tried to not grin like a fool as she walked toward the front. The cookies had come out just right. They were soft in the center, lightly golden around the edges and were dusted with sparkling red and green sugar that she insisted on using because if EvergreenHollow took Christmas seriously, then she was going for it.
A laugh bubbled out of her before she could stop it.
Six months ago, she’d stood in a cramped apartment kitchen in Boston and stared at a stack of overdue bills and wondered if she were losing her mind. She didn’t even know how she had gotten so far behind.
Now she owned a bookstore.
A real one with a little cafe built into it.
Not a little online storefront or a booth at a weekend market. Hearth and Story was hers. Every shelf, every chair, every mug stacked behind the coffee bar and every display of holiday romances and mystery novels.
She’d poured her life savings into the place. She had packed up her life and moved to the small town on the wild and crazy hope that she could build something for herself here.
Like a home.
So far, it had been the best decision she had ever made in her thirty-three years of life.
The old Mercer building had needed more work than she’d anticipated. Besides fresh paint, and refinishing the floors, it had needednew plumbing for the cafe, updated wiring, and more money to be poured into it than she had wanted to think about.
But the moment she stepped inside for the first time and saw the oversized windows, the exposed brick wall and the old stone fireplace at the back of the shop, she’d known her dream was about to come true.
It was like this place had been waiting for her.
And now just a few weeks after opening, Hearth and Story was doing well.
It wasn’t packed yet, but it had been busy enough that every time Brice looked out over the shop a warmth filled her chest.
She pushed the door open with her hip and went out into the storefront. A couple in their sixties stood near the local interest section. Their heads were bent together as they argued over whether the woman’s sister would prefer a memoir or a cookbook. A young teenage girl in a dark knit sweater sat curled up in one of the oversized armchairs near the fireplace, reading with one leg tucked beneath her while a hot cup of coco rested on the small side table next to her.
Brice grinned at the sight of two little boys dragging their mother toward the children’s corner where Nandi was helping them find a bookabout snow monsters. Near the front, her other employee, Alanis, laughed with a customer while she rang them up.
The conversations, and the occasional hiss of the espresso machine—this was what she’d dreamed of.
Matter of fact, this was better.
She hadn’t wanted to open the kind of bookstore where people rushed in, grabbed a bestseller and rushed out again. She wanted a place where readers could settle into a chair by the fire and lose an afternoon to a good story while snaking on pastries and drinking coffee.
