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.

Hazel had a different problem with thirty. She’d forgotten to have wild and storied days.

She liked her bookstore. She liked cups of chamomile tea and rainy days and the Sunday morning crossword puzzle. She liked her quiet life.

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

This was a man with stories. So many that he’d imprinted them on his body.

He had it bad. Like real bad.

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. Although, he had read more books in the past few months than in his entire life, so that was a bonus.

He's a keeper!

The blueberries popped tart and bright in her mouth. They tasted like summer and new beginnings.

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

Her eyes closed as she ate the berries and Noah just stared. Anyone that didn’t realize that Hazel was hot as hell had their head up their ass.

‘I think I need your help.’ Anything. ‘Okay.’

‘Do you want to have a milkshake with me?’ she asked. ‘There is literally nothing else I’d rather do.’

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.

‘You know if we hold hands the whole town will have us married off by Monday.’ His laugh was low and just for her when he leaned down to whisper in her ear. ‘Fine by me.’

She wanted to say more. That he was a breath of fresh air in her musty life, that he was slowly reminding her how to let go, that he was waking her up like the sun after a long winter.

‘Noah, what⁠—’ He was gone before she could finish her sentence, running down the beach, sending a group of seagulls squawking angrily into the air. Hazel clapped a hand over her mouth. He was chasing birds for her. He ran, kicking up sand and waving his arms until the birds were a satisfactory distance from their spot. She held in the unhinged giggles that threatened to spill out.

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

‘Good books,’ she said after a minute, her gaze returning to his. ‘Good friends. Good food.’ He smiled up at her. ‘What more do you need?’ ‘Exactly.’ She smiled back.

Hazel Kelly was the only thing he’d felt like learning about in years.

Hazel was different. He wanted Hazel in bed and out of it. He wanted to lie here and talk to her all day and then bring her home and do everything but talk. He wanted to know what she loved and also what she tasted like.

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.

Maybe she hadn’t needed to change her life, maybe she’d just needed to change how she saw her life. How she saw herself.

She didn’t need a new life or to be a new person. She just needed to look at herself, at her life, in a new light.

He flipped his book back open and lost himself in the pages. These epic fantasy novels seemed to be the antidote to his normally fidgety behavior. When he was in the story, everything else faded away.

Getting out of your comfort zone was by definition, uncomfortable. And if these last few weeks had taught her anything, it was that good things came from being a little bit unsafe, by taking a few risks now and then.

And it was fine that she had never sowed any wild oats or ever had any wild oats to begin with. 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, but Hazel liked her place here. She was allowed to be content. She was allowed to not want anything more than this.

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

He didn’t care if Hazel ditched the bookstore tomorrow and wanted to leave town and become a circus performer. She could shave her head or decide she wanted to take up rock climbing, and he’d be on board. Hazel wasn’t her job or her curls or her cute button-up blouses. 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.

‘Noah...’ ‘Say you’ll be my wife, Haze.’