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

by Laurie Gilmore

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. ‘And in two months, I’ll be thirty,’ she muttered to no one

The Sugar Plum Bakery early to set off with some of her sisters to traipse around a vineyard.

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.

She was smiling. At him.

Her lips ghosted over his fingers and he nearly dropped the whole damn thing.

carcinogenic.

‘She dug her toes into the cool sand and dipped her head back, letting the warm sun caress her face.’

‘I always bring a book, just in case.’ ‘Just in case of what?’ ‘Just in case the person I wanted to see gets very busy doing his job and I have to wait to talk to him.’

Hazel glanced down. But now with Noah face to face with her practical, polka-dotted, cotton underwear she could feel the sexy confidence seeping from her body. She was losing it.

this man’s mouth must be some kind of national treasure. Like maybe there should be a holiday designated to it.

‘Or...’ Annie paused, thinking. ‘It could just be some sociopath who likes to highlight books and then leave them on the shelf.’ Hazel groaned louder.

Ms Kira North recently purchased the Christmas-tree farm up on Old Spruce Road.’

‘Of course. It satisfies some deep masculine urge to mark you as mine.’

She wanted to be his. And in the spirit of equality, she wanted him to be hers.

Hazel liked to play it safe, and somehow that hadn’t occurred to her until she stood on this rocky boat, held by this man who might not be a safe bet.

And God, wasn’t that addictive? That feeling that maybe you were enough.

‘It’s okay,’ she said, even though it wasn’t.

if she hadn’t gotten to know him so well over the past month she might not have noticed the trace of disappointment on his face. But she did.

all Noah could think about was the look on her face when he’d said they didn’t have to have sex ... that they weren’t anything. It was a lie. Hazel was everything.

He chuckled even as inside his heart lurched. He wanted to give her everything. He wanted to be everything.

‘Hazel Rainbow Kelly.’ Logan’s voice was serious, stern, like she was in trouble. ‘If you tell Annie my real middle name, I’ll kill you.’

I met a girl this summer.

The kiss was incendiary. He could have sworn his entire body had gone up in flames.

She brought him back to life, reconstructed him into a better version than the original. And he felt alive. He was alive. He was real.

Fierce sea birds swooped from the sky, but he held them back. Anything to protect the princess.

He dipped his head between her thighs and he found heaven.

‘You’re all I think about. All I want. Me and you until the end.’

He realized he loved her and that he probably had all along. But it had snuck up on him somehow even though she’d been perfect from the start.

‘And sometimes it won’t be fun. Sometimes it will be boring and sometimes you’ll be mad at me and sometimes I’ll be mad at you. But, Haze, it will be me and you. Forever. Do you want that?’

what