Page 3 of Wolfish
Silva brightened. “Perfect. An empty shop always makes it seem like stores are failing. That will provide more traffic to all our stores on Main Street.”
“What happened to the two businesses that didn’t make it?” Selena asked.
“Oh,” Laurel said, “in both cases, the owners were disagreeable wolves. Word quickly spread, and no one would do business with them. One was a used-and-new bookstore owner, but he only wanted to sell classic fiction and rare books. We didn’t know this at the time. We were excited to see that he would carry all kinds of different books to read. Most of us wanted to read romance, historical fiction, paranormal fiction, thrillers, mysteries, and westerns. And the kids wanted children’s books. He refused to carry anything we were interested in reading and was quickly out of business.”
“Wow, unreal.” Selena couldn’t imagine a store not carrying merchandise that customers wanted to buy.
“The other store that failed in town copied what everyone else was doing, offering to sell the same merchandise we were all carrying,” Silva said. “We try to have unique gifts so that shoppers will have a variety of items to choose from. If you go into one store and they carry the same as all the other stores, that hurts sales. We all talked to the store owner, but she wouldn’t go along with the plan. All the wolves in the pack boycotted her.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Do I need to check in with you all?” Selena sure didn’t want to step on toes when she opened her new business.
“It wouldn’t hurt. We all do that with each other when we want to buy something that might be sold by the other stores. Of course, sometimes we do have some duplicate items, but most of our items for sale are unique to our shop,” Silva said. “For instance, I sell teacups, and tea-related signage, statues, books on teas, and teas. No one else does.”
“At the theater, we sell movie posters and everything movie-related,” Faye said. “So we don’t compete with anyone.”
“For us at the Timberline Ski Lodge, our merchandise is ski-related,” Roxie said. “So we don’t have any problem with anyone there.”
“We’ll sign off on you opening your new shop. As soon as you’re ready to set it up, let us know, and we’ll be there to help,” Laurel said, her sisters agreeing.
Selena smiled. For the first time since she had started this venture, she was hopeful this was going to work out.
She thanked the ladies and Silva for the wassail and cheesecake, which were out of this world. Afterward, she headed to the sheriff’s department. Surely they couldn’t thwart her when the business owners and the pack leaders had already signed off.
When she arrived at the office, the sheriff and two of his deputies were out on a call. She shouldn’t have been annoyed. That was their duty, but she wanted to get this done. But then another deputy came out of an office to speak with her.
“Hello, I’m Deputy Sheriff Daniel Hoffman.” He greeted her with a smile and a warm handshake.
“I guess you know I’m Selena Rivers.”
“Selena, goddess of the moon. Radiant and enchanting,” he said.
She smiled. “Not too many people know that.”
“I did my research.”
He was dark-haired and eyed, having a chiseled face; his hair was cut just a little longer than military regulation, which made her wonder if he had a prior military background. She had a thing for men in uniform, especially when they were wolves. “The sheriff told me to investigate your background. Come, have a seat in my office.”
She took a seat across from his desk while he sat on the edge of it, intimidating, towering over her.
“So why did you come here to Silver Town?”
“I write books about cemeteries,” she blurted out, figuring he would guess her setting up a shop wasn’t all she was up to.
He raised his brows, smiling a little. “I thought you were opening a shop.”
“I am, and I am writing a book on the side. The cemeteries are old, dating back to the eighteenth century, and I photograph them. When my shop is closed for the night, I’ll be documenting details about the ones around Silver Town.”
“We have several. They’re not mapped. I can show you where they are.”
“Thank you. That would be appreciated.” It sounded like he was going to approve her application to own a business here. She couldn’t be more thrilled.
“So you’re a forensic anthropologist by trade.”
“Yes. I study remains.”
“For law enforcement?”
She suspected he’d done a comprehensive background check on her already. “Yes, but I needed a change of pace.” And to get away from her stalkers.
