Loch

shipped out?”
“I never finalized those plans.” Holly sighed. “I sort of got kidnapped.”
“Right.” Garret pressed his lips together. “Yeah, we can stop and pick up a few things.”
“Great!” Holly beamed. “And, on second thought, can you roll down the window? I think I will stick my head outside.”
“Just don’t get decapitated. The roads are narrow, and the branches are always closer than you think they’ll be.”
“Why does it sound like you’re speaking from experience?”
“Want to know why I have the beard?”
Holly twisted in her seat to face him. “Why?”
“I got snagged by a rotted branch doing exactly what you’re about to do now.”
“Did you, really?”
“Well.” Garret winced. “Technically, I was on top of the car, but it’s the same basic principle.”
“I have about fifty questions,” Holly said through sputtering laughter. “About twenty of those questions involve the word why.”
“I was sixteen. It was a dare. I was trying to impress people not worth impressing. Does that cover it?”
“More or less.” Holly nodded. “Who were you trying to impress?” She waggled her eyebrows and nudged him playfully.
“Johnny and Loch, actually.” Garret laughed. “They were the cool kids. I wanted to be cool so badly. Then I figured out that cool and stupid were synonymous when it came to sixteen-year-old boys. After eight stitches in the jaw, I stopped caring about impressing them.”
“But you and Johnny still ended up as friends.”
“We did.” Garret nodded. “It took a few years after the incident, but it happened.”
“Thanks to Pearl?”
“Yup.” Garret grinned. “Once Johnny simmered down, it was a lot easier to get to know him.”
“What about Loch?”
Garret’s smile faded. “Loch never simmered down.”
“Was he really that bad?”
“Bad?” Garret shook his head. “He’s had a rough go of it, but I never thought he was a bad guy.”
Holly arched a brow.
“Okay, I thought he was bad when he tried to take you into Golden Oak territory, but I don’t think that anymore.”
“You swear?”
“I swear! I made the guy breakfast yesterday. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”
Garret pulled his truck onto the singular main road that ran through the town proper. Town residents milled about, conducting their business and running errands. It looked so ordinary.
“How many of them are shifters?” Holly asked.
“It’s generally frowned upon to reveal someone else’s status as a shifter,” Garret explained. “The paranoia from when our kind was hunted hasn’t gone away.”
“I see.” She nodded. “You’ll have to clue me in on all the do’s and don’ts of being in a shifter society. I don’t want to piss anyone off.”
Garret parked the truck in front of his store.
“I’m excited to see the place.” Holly grinned. “I feel like your life has completely revolved around me since I arrived.”
“That’s not an understatement.” Garret chuckled. “But I’m not complaining.”
“I am. I feel like the most self-centered person on the planet.”
“Considering the circumstances, you’re allowed to be self-centered.”
Holly hid her face behind her hands and groaned. “Stop being so nice!”
Garret paused with his hand on the door of his store. “Yeah, I’m not going to do that, but I appreciate the suggestion.” He opened the door and gestured for Holly to go inside.
Griz’s General Store looked exactly how Holly imagined a general store set in a movie to look. The hardwood floors were appropriately scuffed but not shabby. The walls that weren’t covered in signs and products had antlers or paintings of the mountains mounted on the wall. Birds nested in the peaks of the A-frames.
“This is adorable.” Holly grinned.
Garret’s brows drew together as he laughed. “Never heard that one before. Thanks?”
“You’re welcome.”
Holly wandered around while Garret checked in with his employees. The majority of the shelves were stocked with hardware supplies rather than general goods though there were plenty of those to be found as well. Everything from lawnmowers to corn starch was carried at Griz’s. She was pleased to see that most of Garret’s suppliers were also from Silver Spruce. A handful of them were from Gallant Green, one of the neighboring towns.
Gallant Green was originally part of Silver Spruce, but they had split off years ago. Holly didn’t know much about the state of the town today. There were a few small shifter clans there, but none of them caused any trouble lately.
That anyone knew of.
When Holly and Garret entered the store, it was all but empty. Now, people were flooding in. It was as if everyone in town needed something from the store right then and there.
Holly moved toward the front of the store in time to see Garret jump behind one of the unoccupied registers. Lines quickly formed. The only other operational register was worked by a skinny, red-headed boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen. He looked like he was going to pass out. He must’ve been a new hire.
Holly worked her fair share of retail jobs. Without hesitation, she jumped behind one of the empty registers. Thankfully, it didn’t use any complicated software that required an employee passcode. She was immediately able to start ringing people up.
Customers came one after the other. Every once in a while, Holly was able to steal a glance at Garret. When he wasn’t working just as hard as she was, he was staring at her in awe.
“Are you new?” a middle-aged woman with a kind face and thick glasses asked Holly.
“Sort of.” Holly laughed. “I’m just helping out for the day.”
“I meant, are you new in town? I don’t recall ever seeing you before.”
“Oh!” Holly quickly scanned and bagged the woman’s items. “Yes, I am new in town.”
“How long have you been here?”
Holly wasn’t sure what to say. Technically, she’d been here close to a month, but she rarely left the house. A normal person wouldn’t hole