Bear Valley Valentine: Valentine's Day Paranormal Romance by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online Page A

shirts.” He pulled her feet back into his lap and relaxed into his chair while she finished eating. “What time do you work tomorrow?”
    “Talking about work is very unsexy.”
    He laughed and said, “I have a reason for asking.”
    Pushing her bowl away, she wiggled her toes against his stomach and stretched. “Five in the morning.”
    “Whoa, that’s early.”
    “It’s Valentine’s Day, remember? Plus, I cut out a little earlier than I usually would today so I could come up here. I still have a lot of orders to put together and will probably have a lot of last minute orders tomorrow, too. Men tend to forget it’s Valentine’s Day until the day of. That’s what I’ve learned in my five years at the flower shop.”
    “Did you always want to be a florist?”
    “Yeah, since I was a kid. My mom was really good at gardening. She used to take home awards from the city for our yard. I remember she was obsessed with orange tulips. She planted the bulbs, and every spring, we had orange tulips pop up everywhere. I spent weekends helping her in our flowerbeds. When she passed, it was the best way for me to feel connected to her.”
    “She died?” His face looked stricken as he asked the question.
    “Yeah.” Hadley swallowed the sadness down and tried to keep the tears from her eyes. Talking about Mom brought up a whole slew of emotions she tried her best to keep buried. “We knew it was coming for a long time, so we were prepared as much as we could be. She was ready by the end.”
    Colin’s gaze drifted to the picture on the wall and back, like it was an unconscious motion. As if the ghosts there beckoned his attention.
    “You’re a special kind of woman, Hadley. You’re nice to people, but strong. You make me…” He ran his hand over his hair and looked embarrassed.
    “I make you what?”
    He cleared his throat and began shredding the paper napkin on the table. “You make me want to be better.”
    Oh, what that man did to her insides with declarations like that. Churning and butterflies and roller coaster dips, and she was too far away from his warmth for comfort. She stood and folded into his lap again, then held him for a long time.
    Resting her cheek against his shoulder, she inhaled a long, steadying breath. “You make me want to be better, too.”

Chapter Five
    Hadley stumbled to the front door of her shop. It was a horrific hour to be awake. The street lights on Main Street were still on, casting a yellow glow over the parking spaces that lined the main drag. Her little hatchback was the only car here besides a police cruiser parked in front of the precinct a couple of doors down.
    Bleary-eyed, she fumbled with her keychain for the key that would open her building, but a package on her front stoop drew her attention. It was small, the size of an envelope, but three inches thick, at least. Squatting down until she felt the stretch in her calves, she lifted the tag that was fluttering gently in the breeze.
    Flowerlady26 , it read.
    An instant smile took her face as she scooped up the package. Hurriedly, she unlocked the door and flipped on the lights inside before locking up again.
    He’d come down his mountain, all the way down that winding road at the ass crack of dawn to put this present here before she arrived. An excited squeak left her lips, and she set the package on the counter and plucked the handwritten note from under the brown twine that held the box together.
     
    Hadley,
    You once told me you’d never had a Valentine before. I aim to make up for it. Today is your day. I’ve never done this before either, so I Googled popular gifts for the occasion. Imagine me, wide-eyed and terrified, looking at a glowing screen full of neon-colored hearts and giant boxes of assorted chocolates.
     
    She laughed and bit her lip before she unfolded the letter wider and read on.
     
    I wanted to do something a little different for you, because you’re different. You’re special. You’ve brought me