 by Brenda Rothert.jpg)
Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 52100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
Shea Grady has a life. Honestly, she does. It just so happens that most of the hours in her days are spent working as the chef at The Sleepy Moose. She loves her work, and she adores her quirky northern hometown. Her ordered world is upended by the arrival of her childhood crush and his two children, who remind her she’s more than just a chef.
Holt tries to keep Shea at arm’s length, but when another man starts vying for her attention, he has to show her that no matter how messy and complicated love is…he’s all in.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
Holt
“Was his beard really that long?” my son Spencer asked as he stared up at the massive statue of Sven Karlsson.
“Longer. It went all the way to his feet.”
Spencer narrowed his eyes skeptically. He was nine—old enough to know his dad was sometimes full of shit but still never entirely sure of when. I doubted Sven’s beard had ever been that long, but it was part of the legend, and as someone born and raised in the Beard, I knew better than to mess with the legend.
My six-year-old daughter Marley tentatively reached her fingertips up toward the flowing beard of the massive Viking statue.
“It brings good luck if you touch it?” she asked, looking to me for confirmation.
“Yep. That’s why the finish is all worn away on his beard. Because so many people have rubbed it for good luck.”
“I want good luck,” she said softly, brushing her hand over the statue’s beard.
If anyone deserved some luck on their side, it was my kids. Their lives had been upended in the past few months. Moving from Minneapolis to my small northern Minnesota hometown of Sven’s Beard would be a fresh start for all three of us.
It was May, and colorful flowers filled concrete planters and spilled out of wire planters on the decorative black light poles that lined Main Street. Some of the stores and restaurants I’d seen when we pulled into town ten minutes ago were familiar, and others were new to me.
I hadn’t come back to the Beard much in the last fourteen years. After being drafted right out of high school to play pro hockey, this place felt too small-time. When I found myself unexpectedly retiring at age thirty-two to raise my two kids on my own, though, I knew there was no better place.
This was home to me. And I hoped it would soon feel like home to my kids, too.
“Daddy, can I have a grilled cheese?” Marley asked me.
“Sure, peanut. We’ll go to The Corner Café and get some lunch.”
The movers were on their way, but we’d gotten here before them, so it was a perfect time to take a break before they got here. For now, they’d just be moving our stuff into storage, anyway.
“I want to go see our house first,” Spencer said.
“We’ll eat, go see Grandma and Grandpa and then go see the house.”
“Dad!” Spencer gave me an imploring look. “You said we could go see the house.”
“And we will.”
“I want to see my room.”
I ruffled his sandy brown hair. “It’s just plywood right now, kiddo. We’ll be living at The Sleepy Moose for a few months, remember?”
“I still want to see it.”
“You just saw the house three weeks ago,” I told Spence. “It hasn’t changed much. We’ll go see it later.”
“Look!” Marley cried, pointing across the street. “What’s that place, Daddy?”
She was gaping at a neat little white building with a walkway that looked like it was made of gold brick. The big display windows in the front showcased cupcakes and chocolates on tiered glass dishes.
“Sweets of Gold,” I said. “Looks like a little candy shop.”
“Let’s go, Mar!” Spence took his younger sister’s hand and ran to the edge of the sidewalk, where he paused to make sure there were no cars coming, telling Marley to remember to look both ways.
“Hey!” I called to them, checking to make sure there were no cars coming as they ran across the street to the little shop.
I shook my head and sighed. I couldn’t make up for all the time I’d missed in their younger years when I was focused primarily on hockey for nine months of every year. But I’d assumed when I became a single dad recently that at ages six and nine, they’d be good at listening and following directions.