Chapter 5 Stephanie
STEPHANIE
Steph had promised herself she'd wait at least twenty-four hours before walking into the Griddle & Grind, mostly because she knew what was waiting for her behind that counter.
But the storm had broken, the sketches in her journal were still making her pulse race, and she'd earned a cup of something hot and a conversation with someone who'd talk enough for both of them.
The bell chimed as she pushed through the door, and she barely had time to register the warmth and the smell of fresh coffee and cinnamon sugar before a voice cut through the café like a foghorn wrapped in honey.
"Stephanie Ward, you get over here right now."
Twyla Honeytree came around the counter with the speed and determination of someone half her actual age, which was considerable and unknowable, given the fae blood that kept her looking like a woman barely brushing thirty.
Her hair was twisted up with a wooden spoon, and her soft brown eyes, flecked with that strange brightness that always seemed to know more than they should, were already cataloguing everything about Steph from her mud-caked boots to her rain-damp curls.
"Look at you." Twyla grabbed her by the shoulders, held her at arm's length, inspected her like she was a shipment that had arrived damaged, then pulled her into a hug so tight Steph's ribs creaked. "You're too thin. You're not sleeping. And your hair needs oil. Sit down."
"Twyla, I just walked in."
"And I've been waiting for you since Diana told me you rang and said you were coming. Which was three days ago, by the way. Three days I've been holding a table and you."
“I wasn’t even here. I just got in yesterday.”
“That’s neither here nor there.” Twyla was already steering her toward the counter, one hand on her elbow, the other waving at someone in the kitchen. "Mara, bring out the lavender scones. The good ones, not the ones from this morning."
"The ones from this morning are fine."
"They're adequate. You're getting the good ones.
" Twyla planted her on a stool and set about making tea without asking what kind Steph wanted, because Twyla never asked.
She decided. "Now. Tell me everything. How's the dig?
How's the drive? How long are you staying?
And why do you look like you've been crying recently even though you'll tell me you haven't? "
Steph opened her mouth, closed it, and then just let it happen. That was the thing about Twyla. Fighting the current was pointless. You just had to let her sweep you along and hope you ended up somewhere warm.
"The dig is promising. The drive was long. I'm staying as long as the excavation takes. And I haven't been crying."
"You haven't been sleeping either."
"I slept fine last night, actually. Diana's inn is comfortable."
"Diana's a sweetheart, but comfort isn't the same as rest and you know it." Twyla set a cup of something floral and steaming in front of her, then leaned both elbows on the counter with focused attention. "So. Who was he?"
Steph's hand paused on the cup. "Who was who?"
"Whoever put that look on your face. The one you're trying to hide behind work and field notes and pretending you're fine.
" Twyla's voice had dropped just enough to keep it between them, though in a café this size, "between them" was a generous concept.
"I've known you for years, Stephanie. You don't show up anywhere looking like a stray cat in the rain unless something knocked you sideways. "
"It's not relevant to why I'm here."
"I didn't ask if it was relevant. I asked who he was."
Steph took a sip of the tea.
"His name was Grant. Structural engineer. We dated for a year and a half. He decided I was too focused on work and not focused enough on making his life easier, so he found someone who was." She kept her voice level, factual, like she was giving a field report. "It ended two months ago. I'm fine."
Twyla studied her for a long moment with those ancient, ageless eyes.
"You're not fine, but you will be. Hollow Oak's good for that.
This town fixes things people didn't know were broken.
" She straightened up and pushed the plate of scones closer.
"Eat. You need butter and carbohydrates and someone who isn't going to let you disappear into your work for six weeks without human contact. "
"I have plenty of human contact. I talked to Diana, Nora, Tom Brewster."
"Professional contact doesn't count."
Steph bit into the scone and nearly closed her eyes. It was perfect. Warm, crumbly, lavender-scented, with a thin glaze. "This is unfairly good."
"Everything I make is unfairly good. It's my gift and my burden." Twyla refilled her tea without being asked. "Now, tell me about this dig. Diana said something about old wards and stone patterns?"
Steph leaned forward, and for the next ten minutes she talked about the site with the kind of energy she usually reserved for conference presentations.
The layered magic, the storm revealing carved patterns in the limestone, the feeling of something enormous and deliberate buried beneath decades of silence.
Twyla listened with her chin in her hand and her eyes sharp, asking the occasional question that proved she understood more about magical archaeology than a café owner had any right to.
"You're excited," Twyla said when Steph finally paused for breath.
"I'm interested."
"Honey, you're glowing. I haven't seen you like this since that lecture you gave on pre-Veil settlement patterns. You talked for two hours and nobody left." Twyla grinned. "This dig is going to be something special. I can feel it."
"Since when do you have precognitive abilities?"
"Since always. I just call it intuition because it's less intimidating." Twyla glanced past Steph's shoulder, anger expression turned brighter with a spark of mischief that Steph had learned to recognize as dangerous. "Speaking of something special."
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You made a face. The face always precedes something I don't want to hear."
"I was just going to mention that Kieran Holt's cousin has been in town for a couple of months, and he happens to be sitting about twelve feet behind you looking at you like you're the most interesting thing that's happened to him since he arrived."
Steph did not turn around. "I'm not interested."
"I didn't say you should be interested. I said he's looking."
"Good for him. He can look all he wants."
Twyla's grin widened in a way that meant this conversation was far from over, but before she could say whatever terrible thing was forming behind those bright-flecked eyes, a voice came from directly behind Steph's left shoulder.
"I'm going to take a wild guess that you're not from around here."
Steph turned on her stool, slowly, and looked up into a face that was, objectively and annoyingly, exactly as good-looking as Twyla's expression had promised.
Golden-brown hair that caught the café light, amber eyes with a lazy confidence behind them, a jaw that could have been carved by someone who specialized in jaw-carving, and a smile that had clearly opened a lot of doors and an equal number of bedrooms. He was tall, lean through the hips but broad enough through the chest and shoulders that the dark shirt he wore was earning its keep.
He stood with the easy, loose-limbed posture of a man who had never once doubted his welcome anywhere.
"Wrong," she said.
The smile didn't falter, but it recalibrated. "Wrong?"
"I've been coming to Hollow Oak for years. But I appreciate the effort." She turned back to her tea.
The silence that followed was her hope that the conversation was over. But, seeing the confidence in his posture and voice, she knew it was only hope.
He stepped forward and leaned one elbow on the counter beside her, smooth enough to look casual but close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating off him. Tiger shifter. She could tell from the way he moved, that predatory economy of motion wrapped in deliberate charm.
"Then I should probably introduce myself, since you've been coming here for years and we haven't met. Criss Holt."
"I know who the Holts are."
"Then you've got me at a disadvantage."
She picked up her scone, took a bite, and chewed before answering. "Somehow I doubt that."
Twyla made a sound behind the counter that was suspiciously close to a laugh being swallowed.
Criss leaned in slightly, and up close those amber eyes had a heat to them that she suspected worked on most women.
She could feel the pull of it herself, a low magnetic tug that her body registered even as her brain filed it under absolutely not.
"Can I buy you a coffee? Or something stronger?
Twyla keeps the good stuff behind the counter for people she likes. "
"I have tea." Steph met his eyes directly.
"And I'm not here for coffee, conversation, or whatever it is you're about to suggest with that look on your face.
I'm here to work. So unless you have something relevant to say about pre-Veil archaeological methodology, this is where the introduction ends. "
The confidence didn't crack, but something behind it shifted. But she wasn’t about to wait around and see, she was already gathering her jacket from the back of the stool.
"Twyla, the scones were perfect. I'll come back tomorrow."
"You'd better." Twyla was watching the whole thing with barely concealed delight. "And bring your sketches. I want to see what the storm uncovered."
Steph pulled her jacket on, shouldered her bag, and walked past Criss Holt without looking at him again. She could feel his gaze follow her to the door, warm and steady and entirely too aware, but she pushed through into the cool evening air and let the bell chime shut behind her.
The cobblestone was still wet and the air smelled like rain. She walked back toward the inn with her journal pressed against her ribs and her hands shoved into her pockets.
Attractive didn't mean interesting. Confident didn't mean worth her time. And she had not driven four states and crossed a magical barrier to get distracted by some tiger shifter with a pretty face and a pickup line older than the ruins she was excavating.
She had work to do.