Page 10 of Wolfish
Silva greeted Selena when she arrived. Selena smiled. “I feel any place I go, you’ll be there to greet me.”
Silva smiled. “What do you want to drink and eat?”
“Just two pumpkin spice cold brews.”
“Two. One wouldn’t be for Deputy Sheriff Daniel Hoffman, would it?”
“Yes, he’s helping Frank build more things in the shop.”
“Sheriff Jorgenson gave him the time off?” Silva asked.
“Yes. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
Silva chuckled. “Peter’s mated to Meghan MacTire. It sounds to me like she and her sisters are doing a bit of matchmaking without even telling me.”
Selena laughed. “Well, we’re enjoying each other’s company. See you later.” She took the drinks back over to her shop and thought how much fun it would be to get a special drink from the tea shop to start her daily routine.
“Here you go,” she told Daniel as she entered her shop.
They enjoyed their kolaches and drinks, and then the guys went to work while she ordered more merchandise.
Halfway through the day, Daniel took Selena to Silva’s shop to have lunch. Frank had brought his lunch from home.
“Oh, my, you’re back.” Silva seated them at a table and gave them menus.
“Sure. We decided to have lunch here. Frank brought his own,” Selena said.
“He loves his mate’s cooking, but also, she would be offended if he didn’t eat it. Do you know what you want?” Silva asked.
Selena read the menu. “I’ll have the chicken salad and lemon tea.”
“I’ll have the beef pot pie and cinnamon tea,” Daniel said.
“I’ll get them right out.” Silva hurried off.
Daniel turned to Selena. “Do you want to go to the same cemetery tonight or a different one? Or do you want to take the night off?”
“I’m getting deliveries in and want to keep working on the shop to start getting it ready. So no cemetery tonight. I should do a grand opening.”
“Yes. Everyone does, and they’re wildly successful.”
“Okay. I’ll order treats from Silva’s shop.” Selena loved giving back to the community.
“I can make some chocolate chip cookies.”
She laughed. “A man after my own heart, only I’ll be eating them up before customers can have any.”
He smiled.
“Double the chocolate chips?”
“Naturally, a chip in every bite,” he said.
“You have a deal. I’ll make a couple of pitchers of wassail.”
After they finished their meal, they said goodbye to Silva and returned to the shop. Daniel and Frank began building the dressing rooms while she took in deliveries and opened boxes out of their way. She decided that, until all the merchandise arrived, she would decorate the top shelves with her own special Halloween and fall decorations and post a sign reading: "For Display Only."
Her howling wolves had come in, and she set two of them in the window—the black one for Halloween, and the copper one for fall, representing the red wolf. Then she put a bunch of orange and burgundy flowers around them, as if they were in a meadow full of fall flowers. She opened another box, and she was excited to see that her six-foot skeletons had come in. She hoped Daniel wouldn’t mind helping her put them outside.
