Page 10 of The Huckleberry Bookshop

“And Rafard? Tell her my proceeds will go toward feeding hungry kids.”

Chapter 3

“What? Say that again?” Athena frowned at her phone. Her literary agent’s words made no sense.

“His agent called. He wants to be on the cover. Merry Christmas! Your book is going to sell crazy amounts with that hunk gracing its pages. Say hello to big money in the New Year!”

Athena rubbed her forehead and scrunched her eyes shut, pacing the crowded back room of her shop on Main Street, Sweetheart Creek. She had too much on her plate at the moment to even think about Chad Mullens elbowing his way into her project.

Case in point, she—a dietician—had just sent her sister across the street for greasy takeout because she—who lived in one of the two apartments above the shop—had nothing in her fridge. (Neither did her sister, who lived in the second apartment, but Meddy wasn’t paid to provide people with the tools and skills to eat nutritiously.) Right now Athena was supposed to be clearing off an eating space in the former café’s old kitchen, not on the phone. Not worrying about a huge personality taking over her cookbook.

She nudged a box aside and blinked away tears of fatigue and frustration. One month until the Huckleberry Bookshop’s grand opening. One month and a day, to be exact. And it looked as though they’d need at least three months to pull it all together.

“I know we already settled on the cover,” Aurora was saying. Athena peered into an abandoned coffee cup, debating if the latte was too old and cold to drink. She tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder and picked up another box of books, carrying it to the storage area at the back of the building. “But…Mullens? Hottie McHot Hot. So, what do you say? Happy Hanukkah? Are you Jewish? Or maybe I should say happy Chinese New Year?” There was a short pause. “Because I said this wouldn’t be a problem.”

Athena almost dropped her phone as she headed back to the kitchen to collect another load of books.

“But he doesn’t fit the image!” Never mind all the weeks of fighting she’d endured to get a beautiful book cover that would now be scrapped. Because in walks Chadwick Mullens and he was going to be on it instead. It was like putting a cup of white sugar on the cover of a sugar-free cookbook.

“Um,” Aurora said, her voice filled with amusement, “your book is called Eat Like a Player. He’s a player—in both senses of the word. We both know he’s perfect.”

That’s what she’d thought the first time she’d met him, too. Perfect. Until she’d actually tried to do her job and discovered that he was a jerk. It still smarted how she’d fallen for the way he’d leaned in. He’d leaned toward her as though she was interesting, gorgeous and intriguing. Like he didn’t want to miss a word.

She’d been so excited to welcome the new players to the team and to share some of her favorite recipes. Chad had been sitting close to the front, the tattoo that peeked above his collar drawing her eyes, his wide silver rings somehow the sexiest thing she’d seen on a man in eons. He hadn’t shaved that morning and was looking rugged, yet still put together in his crisp, striped shirt and bold tie with dark jeans. The man had been as delicious as the vegetarian enchilada recipe she’d just perfected the night before.

She’d felt the connection with him when she introduced herself to the room. And then he’d leaned in.

Leaned in.

And all her brain’s warnings about him being a player among the ladies had gone right out the window.

She’d had his attention, and for whatever asinine reason, her biochemistry had embraced that heady feeling and made her consider falling in love all over again. Or at least lust.

She was such a sucker. She’d thought she’d seen something in the way he’d tuned in to her talk, as though he understood the dietary language she was speaking. Feeling emboldened—stupid heady feelings—she’d cracked a joke about the difference between boogers and broccoli.

He’d replied instantly with the punch line that kids didn’t eat broccoli. Then he’d given her a ghost of a smile and pulled back, locking her out of that irresistible connection they’d been enjoying.

Okay, okay, so sometimes she wasn’t cool or sexy. She was a bit of a book nerd and a rule follower. And immature. Because who told booger jokes to a roomful of hot jocks?

Aware she’d put him off, she’d focused on her talk, babbling about a favorite recipe. Walnut carrot pancakes that were low glycemic and hearty. Great for an athlete looking for a sharp carb increase, but not an accompanying spike in sugar levels. But the more she talked, the tighter his jaw got. Feeling she was losing him, and therefore probably all the other players in the room, she’d decided to get personal. She’d told them about her family’s game night and how they made breakfast for supper those nights, and that the pancake recipe with all the toppings were their all-time favorite.

She’d then grabbed the stack of recipes and turned to him, worried about the flexing in his jaw. “Chadwick?” she’d said softly, handing him a recipe. “Do you want carrot pancakes?”

The sheet wavered in the air between them.

“Chad?”

He’d snatched the page and crumpled it, dropping it onto the table in front of him, jaw so tight she worried about his molars.

“I don’t do pancakes.”

And that had been it. The atmosphere had changed, the fun sucked from her talk, a tone set that she couldn’t ever quite undo.

“You don’t want a good-looking, recognizable pro hockey player on the cover of your cookbook for athletes?” Aurora asked Athena, steering her thoughts away from Memory Lane and back to the problem at hand.

“No, I do.” She just didn’t want him. If she’d wanted a player on the front, she could have found one.

“His face will sell tons of copies,” her agent said. Her tone suggested the paperwork with Chad had already been signed by the publisher and the call was mere courtesy.

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