Chapter Two
NOPE. NO WAY. ABSOLUTELY freaking not.
Hunter Hall took another step back, away from the frankly stunning woman he’d just collided with.
The one with long black hair, full red lips, and deep brown eyes—not to mention a figure that made the back of his throat go dry.
In desperation, he darted his gaze toward the street sign just over her head, silently begging it to say something other than what it did.
But it was useless. He knew this town like the back of his hand, and he knew exactly where he was. The intersection of Heart Street and Hope Road.
And he knew even better the local legend that surrounded it. He could hear it in his mother’s voice even now: When two strangers meet at Heart’s Hope Crossing, they’re destined to help each other find their heart’s secret hope.
In other words, they were soulmates.
Which was nonsense, of course. How many toddlers had met each other at this corner on their way to story time at the Cozy Nook Bookshop?
And none of them had gone on to get hitched.
Probably. Though considering people tended to spend their whole lives in this town and marry their high school sweethearts, it might happen more often than anyone realized, but still. It was ridiculous.
But that didn’t stop people from acting like it was some sort of gospel truth. Even his own parents had bought into it, crediting their unlikely meeting on this very street corner as the beginning of their epic love story.
His stomach clenched, and he swallowed hard. Everyone knew how that story had ended.
Hunter wanted nothing to do with a fateful meeting here—no matter how beautiful the girl, or how good she smelled. Like sunshine and flowers, and was sunshine even a scent? It didn’t matter.
What mattered was that both love and fate could take a hike, and as far as he was concerned this girl could, too.
He opened his mouth again, ready to tell her exactly that.
But then his mouth closed. There was this pinched expression to her brows, like she was about to cry, and oh, no.
“Hey,” he started, holding his hands up instinctively, as if he were going to comfort her or something, which was a laugh.
Jeez, he’d basically just growled at her.
It wasn’t her fault this town had cockamamie ideas about chance meetings and true love that happened to revolve around this specific patch of concrete. “Sorry, I mean—”
“No.” In a flash, whatever hint of emotion had clouded her eyes disappeared. She smiled, too brightly to be real, but that was her business. She lifted her phone and waggled it as if it were the source of all her problems. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
People wandering around with their noses buried in their phones was an issue, but it still didn’t excuse his jumping down her throat. “I’m uninjured.”
She laughed, her smile going a little less fake around the edges, and he liked that more than he should. She gestured at him. “I would imagine so. Think I’d need a real running start to take you down.”
“Let’s not try it.” Even if she did, she was tiny. She’d probably just hurt herself smashing into his chest.
And fine, the idea of her literally throwing herself at him wasn’t exactly unappealing, but he forced himself to flatten out his expression. Fate still wasn’t getting the jump on him. Not today, and not ever.
He cleared his throat and asked, “Are you, uh… okay? Not just in an impact way. You seem…” Upset? Frustrated?
Exhaling hard, she waved her phone in the air again. “I’m fine. Only, I’m supposed to be meeting someone here, and the store says it’s supposed to be open, but it’s not.”
The pieces suddenly fell into place. “You’re the new girl Granny hired.”
That made their head-on collision all the more ominous. If Granny Smith was behind this…
“Your grandmother?” the girl asked.
“No.” He snorted. “That’s just what everybody calls her. You’ll see when you meet her.”
“Okay… but how did you know—”
“Oh, believe me. Small town. Everybody knows everybody, and everybody knows Granny’s been meaning to bring in somebody to help her run the bookshop. Guess she finally found the right person for the job.”
The girl let out a little huff of laughter, like that was funny or something. “I don’t know about that. The interview process was not exactly rigorous.” Her brows scrunched up. “Or existent.”
“Sounds like Granny for you.” Hunter tilted his head toward the front of the store. “Come on, let’s go investigate.”
“I don’t mean to take up any of your time.” She scurried to keep up with him as he led the way.
“It’s no bother. This is where I was heading anyway. Picking up a book for my father.”
“That’s nice of you.”
Hunter chuckled wryly. “Try telling him that.”
“He doesn’t appreciate you running errands for him?”
“He does, in his own way,” Hunter conceded.
Once upon a time, Charles Hall had been more than appreciative.
He’d thanked Hunter’s mom for dinner every night, and he’d cooked on weekends, too.
These days, though, he was even grumpier than Hunter was—and more reclusive.
Which was why Hunter was here in the first place, when he normally avoided going into town if he could come up with any reason not to.
Suspicion prickled in the back of his mind. His father had asked him to pick up the book, all right, but Granny had been the one hounding him to come get it right when the store opened. And now she wasn’t here? While this new girl was?
Granny had a reputation for meddling, but this was devious, even for her.
Arriving at the front of the store, Hunter double-checked the doors, but the girl hadn’t been lying. The place was definitely locked.
“You tried calling?” he asked, peering through the glass.
“No answer.”
He spun around, but he didn’t realize the girl had been standing so close behind him, and he just about collided with her all over again.
There was that same warmth and that rush of her sunshine-and-flowers scent, and he sucked in a breath.
He moved before he could think about it, reaching up to grasp her by the arms in a mad attempt to keep himself from actually bowling her over this time.
And that was a mistake. She was wearing a dress with a gray cardigan over it, but even through the wool, she felt warm and soft. A crackle of attraction zipped up his spine.
Jerking back, he let go, stammering out an apology.
“Sorry,” she echoed, but there was a pink cast to her cheeks, like maybe she hadn’t been too mad about them literally bumping into each other yet again, and that was bad. Really bad.
“Uh—” he started.
“Oh, there you are.” A voice came from the sidewalk.
They both jumped apart. He swore under his breath, jerking his gaze up to find Granny Smith herself standing there, watching him make an absolute fool of himself.
Granny was about as old as you’d think she was, considering her nickname, but other than using a cane for balance, she was fit as a fiddle, and sharp as a tack.
She had weathered, tawny brown skin, and her salt-and-pepper hair was a mass of tightly coiled curls.
Dramatically sweeping a beaded shawl across her shoulders, she stared at him through her big, black statement glasses, a pointed smile turning up the corners of her mouth.
Yeah. He had definitely been set up.
“You’re late,” he grumbled at her.
Granny rolled her eyes. “A Jedi is never late, nor is she early. She arrives precisely when she means to.”
“Wizard,” Hunter corrected, at the same exact time the girl murmured the same. He did a double take, glancing over at her, and their gazes met.
Something funny happened in his midsection, but he ignored it and looked away.
Granny waved a hand dismissively. “Space wizards are still wizards. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
They stepped aside to let Granny through.
She pulled an enormous key ring from her big, quilted bag, fit it to the lock, and pushed open the door.
Hunter reached forward to hold it for her.
He kept holding it for the new girl, drawing his mouth into a flat line as she brushed too close to him on her way in.
“You must be Emma,” Granny said, flicking on the lights.
“Yes.” The girl—Emma—followed Granny through the store, rubbernecking the whole way. “Mrs. Smith—”
“Granny,” Granny corrected her.
“Um.” Emma shot a glance Hunter’s way, and he shrugged. He’d told her.
“And I can see you’ve already met our Hunter,” Granny continued, ignoring her misgivings about the nickname.
Emma looked to him again, her brows raised. “Our Hunter?”
“Small town,” Granny said, as if that explained everything, and basically, it did. Of course, she had to go ahead and keep explaining anyway. She at least had the decency to lower her voice slightly before confiding to Emma, “You see, we all basically adopted him after—”
Hunter cleared his throat pointedly, narrowly restraining himself from actually tackling her to stop her spilling secrets that weren’t hers to tell. “You realize I’m standing right here and I can hear you, right?”
“Well, I should hope so,” Granny said. “Means you don’t need hearing aids. Unlike your father.” She lifted a brow in question. “Any progress with that, by the way?”
“What do you think?” His old man was stubborn as could be, and considering how little he liked socializing, his solution to his hearing starting to go was just turning up the TV volume with his remote.
“Speak of the devil, though, he said his book was supposed to be in? And you said I needed to come get it at exactly noon?”
Granny put a hand to her heart. “Hunter Thaddeus Hall, where are your manners? Did you not notice that we have a guest?”
“Oh, I’m hardly a guest,” Emma demurred.
“You’ll be a guest for about ten years.” Hunter sighed. “Then maybe they’ll accept you as one of their own.”
Emma blinked, like the idea of staying here for ten years was not on her agenda, and fine, great, all the more reason not to have anything to do with her.