The Cinnamon Bun Book Store (Dream Harbor, #2)

by Laurie Gilmore

Not that Hazel understood that line of reasoning. She always wanted to be browsing the shelves of a bookstore.

Hazel was literally surrounded by amazing stories, books filled with love and adventure and life, but Hazel herself was stuck.

Same 😂🥲

It was just that it really seemed like this man, this theoretical, fictional man could in fact take her on an adventure.

If only fictional men were real 😪

Her heart was racing, and only partially because she’d been caught reading smut during work hours.

He didn’t know how much more obvious he could be. He was in here every other week doing his best to charm and flirt his way into her good graces, but it didn’t seem to be working.

‘Hazel hates sunshine. She’s like a vampire.’ ‘I am not! I just prefer to be inside. I’m an inside cat.’

Hazel liked herself in general. She liked her life. But she still couldn’t help feeling like something was missing. That all those holes in her memories were turning into something like regrets. Regrets she didn’t want to bring with her into her thirties.

Hazel was doubled over in giggles and Noah would let Mac make fun of him all day just to keep listening to that sound.

Activity and noise and lights and bodies swirled around her, but Noah only saw her. It was as though everything else was blurred but Hazel was crystal clear.

Noah wanted a little piece of Hazel Kelly that no one else had. A little treasure he could put in his pocket at the end of this day and keep with him when she decided she didn’t require his services anymore.

He liked that about her. Hazel didn’t say things unless she meant them. It made everything she said that much more important.

‘You don’t have to keep asking, I’m okay.’ He pulled back, a crease between his brows. ‘Of course I have to keep asking, Haze.’ ‘Oh. I just meant ... I don’t want you to worry about me or anything.’ He kissed along her neck again. ‘I want this to be good for you. Every time. I’ll always ask.’

‘I’ll strip for you, though, Haze. Anytime.’

He was summer and she was fall. He was adventure and she was comfort. But right now, on the cusp between the two seasons, in this liminal space they’d carved out for themselves, they fit just right.

She was watching him now, her big eyes taking him in like she always did. She looked at him like maybe he didn’t come up short in her eyes. Hazel was the one person in his life who looked at him and he didn’t feel like she was searching for something that wasn’t there. And God, wasn’t that addictive? That feeling that maybe you were enough.

Hazel was everything. Hazel was getting lost-in-your-favorite-book good, sun-on-your-face good, the-perfect-cup-of–coffee good.

He didn’t just have the hots for Hazel Kelly anymore, he was completely and inconveniently in love with her.

She was thirty years old and she knew who she was. Hazel Kelly, bookstore manager, tea drinker, book reader, blanket snuggler, indoor cat. And she was also fun and flirty and sexy if she wanted to be. And sometimes she might get bored or antsy and that was fine, too,

Because what more did one need besides good friends, good books, and the occasional cinnamon bun?

‘Hell, yeah. Of course I do. I have for so long, Hazel, I don’t even know when it started. I was prepared to read every damn book in that bookstore just to spend more time with you.’

She was the tart spark of blueberries on his tongue, she was salt air and rainy days, she was the perfect book. She was kisses and secret smiles. She was everything. He just needed her.