CHAPTER ONE
“ARE YOU HERE for the mistletoe latte?”
The excited voice plucked Emma from her fog. She’d wound up standing before a cute coffee shop. An adorable, hand-cut sign dangled above the door—Brew 4 U. They’d even added a coffee cup to the u. It would have been a local favorite back in Portland. A soft pain throbbed at the reminder of what she’d lost and sent her driving cross-country a week before Christmas.
“I’m sorry?” Emma said to the stranger who’d stopped her.
He only looked up from his phone to take a picture of the sign. “The mistletoe latte, you know.”
“Um…” She had no idea but it sounded interesting. Had she stumbled on a small-town gem by pure accident?
He plucked open the door. The toll of the shop bell sang not a cherry Christmas jingle but a death knell. While the outside of the cafe was bright and cheerful, the interior of Brew 4 U was as dour as a funeral. Every fixture was made of darkened wood. Copper pipes running the length of the vaulted ceiling were stained to a brown.
Emma couldn’t see past the line of customers ending right before the glass door. She moved to let a woman leave and bumped into a sign. In large, jagged letters, it declared, “Do not ask for the mistletoe latte.”
Strange.Maybe they were low on supplies. She knew too well the pain of facing down an irate customer who couldn’t understand her inability to make the missing ingredient magically appear.
The line moved and heads parted to reveal what waited at the end. A menu board with jagged letters smudged by fingerprints laid out the bare bones options. Someone had recently wiped away the bottom part under “Pastries” to write, “No Mistletoe Lattes” in all caps.
“Who’s next?” a voice boomed above the excited chatter of the crowd. A tingle shot through Emma faster than espresso. With his arms crossed and stance wide, the man didn’t so much stand behind the counter as guard it. The hanging industrial lights glinted off his shorn dirty-blond hair and the day-old scruff. It struck his square jaw, emphasizing the rugged terrain. She couldn’t make out his eye color, but she’d guess it was steely gray for the stone grit to his wide brow and long nose.
“Uh-huh,” he boomed, tossing a pad of paper to the counter. He swiped a pencil across it to take the order the old-fashioned way. Suddenly, his detached expression knotted up. His whole jaw gnarled into a sneer.
“That’s it!” he shouted, leaping around the counter like a wide receiver going for a touchdown. The customer blanched as the man grabbed him by the arm and hauled him out of line.
“Wh…what are you—?” the man stammered as the enraged owner stormed past, half dragging him. Even as Emma folded away with the rest of the line, she could feel the immovable force from the owner. It’d be like fighting a tidal wave.
He yanked open the door, flinging it against the wall, and hurled the customer into the cold. The man rebounded off the lamppost festooned with Christmas greenery. “Do you know who I am? You’ll be sorry for this!”
“I’m sorry I woke up today!” the man shouted before latching onto the door and slamming it back. Silhouetted by the morning sunlight, his wide shoulders shook in unsuppressed rage. Only his jagged panting and the squeal of tools from the auto repair shop down the road filled the air.
Slowly, he drew a palm over his face and revealed a smile below. “Are you here for the mistletoe latte?” he asked, his baritone voice crackling.
The man beside Emma nodded excitedly. “Yes, I saw the article—”
He shook the man off and stopped right before her. She was wrong. His eyes weren’t steel gray but ice blue and beamed with such ferocity her chin dropped to avoid them stripping her to her core. “What do you want?” he thundered.
A job.
A home.
A future.
“A coffee,” Emma whispered.
“Finally.” He crooked a finger at her. The powerful scent of coffee wafted off him as he raised his hands. “Everyone who’s here for the mistletoe latte, will you please step to the side?”
The entire line moved, leaving Emma exposed. She knotted her fingers together and flicked the hole in her glove. He didn’t grab her like the last customer but guided her to the counter. Once there, he picked up his abandoned notepad and knocked the spiraled edge on the desk three times before looking at her.
“Coffee, right? How do you like it?”
“In a cup?” she squeaked before slapping a hand to her mouth.
To her shock, his rigid sneer slipped up for a moment, and he gave a quick snort. “That’s complimentary. Do you want sugar, milk?”
“Um, a little cream? Please.”Normally, she didn’t drink coffee without sugar, but this day was far from normal.
The man nodded and jotted it down before he hauled a mug off the pegboard behind him. It bore the logo of a local hardware place.
