Page 1 of Words of Love

Chapter 1

He was late.

Brooke Castle peered into the darkened window of Title Wave Books and tapped impatiently on the glass.

Ofcoursehe was late. Unless he’d just decided not to show up at all today, even though it was ten o’clock on a Friday morning, and every retail business on the planet was open on Friday—except for Title Wave.

Brooke paced in front of the door and looked at her watch. Most of the residents in the California seaside town of Bliss Cove thought the bookstore’s unpredictable hours were a charming little quirk—even if the grumpy proprietor was not.

Brooke had occasionally enjoyed the “quirkiness” of the store hours herself…except for now, when she actually needed tobuy some books.

Taking out her phone, she scrolled for the Sierra mountains weather forecast.Snow expected starting mid-afternoon through the evening, possible accumulation of three to four inches.

It wasn’t a dire forecast, but Brooke wasn’t accustomed to driving in the snow, and she wanted to reach the Eagle’s Nest cabin before the bad weather started. With a four-hour drive ahead of her, that meant she had to leave soon.

“Come on, Sam,” she muttered.

She should have known that relying on the bookstore owner to open his business at a reasonable time was a dicey proposition at best, but her best friend Aria had offered her the cabin only a couple of weeks ago, and Brooke had been so busy with job applications that she’d neglected to order the books she wanted online until it was too late for timely delivery.

No problem, she’d thought to herself last night as she was packing for her trip.I’ll swing by Title Wave to stock up before hitting the road tomorrow. I’ll be out of here by nine.

So much for that plan.

This was not the most auspicious start to her New Year’s retreat. Neither was her post-Thanksgiving discovery that her grandfather, Charlie Castle, editor-in-chief ofThe Bliss Cove Gazette, couldn’t afford to keep her on as a staff reporter any longer…and that he hadn’t intended to tell her.

A knot of guilt tightened her throat. She’d been working at the paper since she’d moved back to Bliss Cove two years ago. Though Charlie had given her a job right away, both she and her entire family had assumed her position would be temporary. She’d find a job with another newspaper or a magazine soon enough.

But after she’d crashed and burned so badly atThe New York Times, she’d found it painfully easy to be back at home working atThe Gazette, where speeding tickets and jaywalking filled the police blotter and a gingerbread contest scandal had dominated the holiday headlines.

Take that, big scary world with your anxiety crises and disintegrating glaciers. I’m writing an article about the new baby otters at the aquarium.

Brooke hadn’t even considered that her staff position might be hurting the paper’s already-strained budget…until she’d found out that her grandfather had been paying her salary from his own pocket.

The gesture hadn’t angered her—helping each other was what her family did—but her guilt and shame had cut deep. She’d also been forced to admit that she’d stayed atThe Gazettefor so long because it was safe and she was with the people she loved, not because it was helping her move forward in her career or her life.

So in early December, she’d resigned from the paper and begun sending out dozens of applications and freelance article pitches to publications across the country.

Then the rejections had started rolling in, all of which had contributed to her feeling that she was too late. Her time had come and gone. She’d blown her one big chance.

But.

Charlie didn’t call her “Sunny Side Up” for no reason. She was known both in her family and around Bliss Cove as being a woman who always looked on the bright side.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t be “Sunny Side Up” without also sometimes surrendering to “Sunny Side Down.” As her job prospects began dead-ending, she’d had an increasingly hard time being optimistic about her own life.

Seven years after graduating from college, she was still paying off her significant student loans, and she hadn’t taken any steps toward making extra money for IRAs and investment accounts. Not to mention, she was turning thirty this year. It was time to do adult things like get a real job not funded by her grandfather and to seriously plan for her future.

Or, rather…starther future.

That feeling has been solidified when Destiny Storm, Bliss Cove’s resident fortune teller and purveyor of fate, gave her the Christmas gift of a Tarot card reading that foretold a time of immensechange, decisions, and new beginningsin the coming year.

Brooke interpreted that as a message that it was time for her to take decisive action. Despite her usually chipper attitude, the universe wouldn’t just hand over change and new beginnings. She had to work for them.

Like Gramps always said, a good reporter had to climb the stairs, pound the pavement, and knock on doors.

Speaking of which…

She rapped her knuckles on the bookstore window. Cupping her hand around her eyes, she peered inside again. No sign of life.

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