Chapter Three
GRANNY SMITH WAS RIGHT—after just a few days, Emma was settling in and starting to feel at home.
Heart’s Hope Crossing had welcomed her with open arms. Sure, it was different from her life in the city.
At night, the streets were quiet, and the sky was a kind of dark she’d almost forgotten could exist. There was one co-op grocery store and one drugstore.
She’d set herself to embracing the quiet and the slower pace, and to her own surprise, she’d mostly been enjoying it.
But Hunter had been right about some things, too: As a newcomer, she stuck out like a sore thumb. Everywhere she went, people gave her funny looks or—more often—rushed over to introduce themselves. It was sweet, if maybe a little overwhelming sometimes.
Like right now.
The door to the bookstore swung open, and in wandered half a dozen women of various ages, all laden down with multiple tote bags and bedecked in colorful scarves.
They were chatting among themselves, but the instant Emma stepped out from behind the register, they pounced on her like she was a fresh carcass and they were the friendliest, most enthusiastically welcoming pack of hyenas in the universe.
“Oh, you must be the new girl!” The first to greet her was a middle-aged Black woman with a round face and a giant pink-and-purple shawl. She held out her hand. “I’m Toni.”
Emma accepted the handshake automatically. “Emma.”
“Oh, she knows.” A young white woman with red hair rolled her eyes affectionately as she unwound a multicolored scarf from around her neck. She wiggled her fingers in a wave. “I’m Hattie. We’ve seen each other around. I work at the diner down the street.”
Emma thought she looked familiar. “Right.”
“Guys,” a soft voice chided. “Don’t attack her.” The speaker was also a woman in her late twenties—Asian, with straight, dark hair tied back in a twist, and dressed in a soft-looking gray sweater with intricate flowers stitched across the shoulders.
“We’re not attacking, we’re welcoming,” Hattie insisted. “Don’t mind Abby,” Hattie told Emma, “she’s a weirdo who thinks people should be distant and cold.”
“I’m a weirdo who believes in personal space.” Abby smiled at Emma, and Emma found herself smiling right back in gratitude. She appreciated friendliness, but she had to admit that this was a lot.
Fortunately, she had professionalism to fall back on. Addressing the group, she asked, “Can I help you with anything?”
“Oh, we’ll help ourselves,” Toni assured her, leading the way to the café side of the bookshop, where a couple of the others were already pulling together a few tables to make one huge one.
“Um…”
“Crafting group.” Owen—the twenty-year-old community college student who worked in the shop part time—breezed past her, heading for the espresso machine. “They meet here every Saturday.”
“Two p.m. sharp,” Toni agreed. She sat down and pulled a crochet hook, a ball of fuzzy blue yarn, and what appeared to be a king-sized blanket out of her tote bag.
Emma’s brows pulled together. That hadn’t been on the calendar.
Then again, the store hadn’t even had a calendar before she’d shown up.
The biggest task of learning the ropes of managing the shop involved figuring out all of Granny’s little undocumented systems. From the inventory to the accounting to the event planning for the shop, everything was ad hoc, and the only one who really knew how any of it worked was Granny herself.
Emma didn’t want to step on Granny’s toes, so she was loath to suggest too many big changes, but she couldn’t properly staff the place if she didn’t even know what was happening on which day.
For now, though, it was what it was. Keeping half an eye on the register, she joined Owen in the café.
Thankfully, he was an ace barista; Emma herself still didn’t know how to do much besides brew coffee and put muffins on plates.
Pumpkin spice lattes—which seemed to be the ladies’ drink of choice—were utterly beyond her.
As she and Owen started taking and filling orders, even more crafters filtered in, each eager to say hello and introduce themselves. Trying to memorize the names of a dozen women—and one tall white man with a dramatic handlebar mustache—was impossible, but she did her best.
The man, Christopher, thanked her as she delivered his oat milk caramel apple iced latte and gluten-free chocolate-dipped biscotti. “So,” he asked, casually knitting without looking at the needles, “do you have any yarn-based hobbies?”
The whole room suddenly went silent as a jumbo table full of fiber artists all leaned toward her with interest.
On the spot, she let out a small, nervous laugh. “Oh, no. I’m just not that creative, I don’t think.”
“Have you ever tried?” Hattie had a gleam in her eye that yet again made Emma feel like a small prey animal—but not in a bad way.
“I haven’t,” Emma allowed. A pang echoed behind her ribs. Brock had always said that that kind of thing was a waste of time.
Toni nodded knowingly. “So you don’t know if it’s for you or not.”
The elderly woman next to her—Betty, maybe?—drew a long piece of thread through a needle. “Gotta try new things. Keeps you young.”
“You’d know,” Christopher gibed her, affection in his voice.
“Damn right,” probably-Betty agreed. Emma glanced at the piece of cloth she was embroidering. The half-finished design read Needlepoint: because stabbing people is wrong.
“You’ve got to shake things up,” Toni advised. “Otherwise, how do you even know who you really are?”
That seemed a little dramatic of a statement, but it hit someplace tender in Emma’s chest.
“She just moved here,” Abby said quietly, glancing up at Emma. “That seems like more than enough shaking things up to me.”
But Hattie wasn’t having it. “Next week, I’m bringing extra yarn and some spare needles.” She stopped Emma before she could protest. “Believe me, I have plenty. You’d be doing me a favor, taking them off my hands.”
“The first one’s free,” Christopher mused.
Toni laughed, completing his sentence. “But the next one’s going to cost you.”
“Why do I feel like I’m being recruited into a cult?”
“Because you are,” Owen whispered, scooting past her to deliver Abby’s mug of tea and Hattie’s whipped-cream-topped iced coffee confection. “Run for your life.”
“It’s not a cult,” Hattie insisted.
“It maybe kind of is.” Abby didn’t seem bothered by the risks, though.
And Emma didn’t exactly know what it was, but the easy rapport of the whole group opened up something inside her.
Moving to a new town, sight unseen, had definitely been enough “shaking things up” to last her quite a while, but maybe it was the perfect opportunity to try some new things.
And goodness knew she could stand to make some new friends.
“I’ll give it a try,” she allowed.
Hattie threw her hands up in the air in victory. “Yes!”
“No pressure,” Abby assured her. “If you don’t like it, that’s completely fine.”
“Boo.” Hattie grinned at Abby, as if giving each other a hard time like this was a sustaining component of their friendship.
“But seriously, though, she’s right. If knitting isn’t for you, there are tons of other things you can try.
” She started rattling off fiber crafts on her fingers.
“Crochet, cross-stitch, punch needle.” Her eyes lit up.
“Ooh, or if you’re really not crafty, there’s a new line dancing class they’re putting on at the community center next week. You should come try it with us!”
Okay, now that was pushing it. “Let’s start with the yarn stuff.”
With impeccable timing, the door to the shop swung open, and instead of more crafters, their mail carrier strode in, two big cardboard boxes balanced precariously in her arms.
“If you’ll excuse me…” Emma took advantage of the opportunity to escape for a minute.
Not that she hadn’t been having a good time, but she didn’t need any more suggestions for ways to shake things up in her life right now.
Putting a little hustle in her step, she hurried to intercept the packages. “Hey, Carlita.”
“Oh, hi, Emma.” Carlita glanced around. “Where would you like these?”
Emma frowned, glancing at the labels on the boxes. She hadn’t been aware that any deliveries were scheduled for today, but apparently that was yet another thing that hadn’t made it on the calendar. “We usually get the big shipments in on Monday, I thought.”
Granny Smith appeared as if out of nowhere. “The new releases, yes.” She pushed aside the notebook where Emma had been scribbling down her to-do list and tapped the counter in invitation. “These are special-order items.”
“Think mine’s in there?” Carlita asked with interest as she set the boxes down.
Nodding, Granny took a knife to the tape on the top and pried the cardboard open. She fished out a particularly thick paperback and handed it over. “Your faerie smut, my lady.”
“Let me just scan that in,” Emma tried, reaching for the book, but Granny waved her off.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Emma swallowed her annoyance. She’d been here for less than a week.
She shouldn’t expect to be running the place yet, but if she was ever going to take over, she and Granny would have to get on the same page about some of the admin procedures.
Now wasn’t the time to go getting huffy about it, though, so she smiled and nodded.
“Much obliged.” Carlita took the book, waved at the crafting group, and made her way to the exit.
“Happy reading,” Emma called after her. She turned back to Granny, who was continuing to unpack the new arrivals. She took a deep breath. “I was actually hoping to pick your brain about how we’re handling some of the ordering.”
“I told you, you’re welcome to make whatever changes you like.”
Emma chewed the inside of her lip. It didn’t feel that simple. “Okay, well—