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My eyes widen. “Is that a real department here?”

“Yes, shockingly.” She takes two steps, then turns around again. “One piece of advice.” Her gaze flicks briefly down the street. “When your neighbor ignores you, don’t take it personally.”

“Is he a grump?”

“He’s not rude.” She pauses. “He’s... committed to appearing rude.”

Before I can ask anything else, she hurries away with the coffees.

I look down at my phone. Number fourteen, Briar End Lane. Apparently, somewhere beside a man who’s turned antisocial behavior into a vocation.

Perfect.

I tuck the phone into my pocket and head into Lucky Bean. Behind me, somewhere farther down Nightjar Row, a wolf howls. The sound rolls low across the town, deep enough that I feel it under my skin.

I stop with my hand on the café door. No one else does. A woman pushing a stroller keeps walking. The dragon-tailed woman across the street doesn’t even look up from her phone.

Maybe wolves howl all the time here. Maybe that’s normal too. Still, for reasons I can’t explain, I turn toward the sound.

Nothing there. Just the street and the trees.

I shake my head and enter the café.

By the time I leave Lucky Bean, I’ve acquired coffee, directions, and enough local gossip to last me through unpacking.

I’m not ready to head straight to the cottage yet, I’m not ready to head straight to the cottage yet, so I spend the next couple of hours wandering.

I pass Hearth & Hollow, where the windows are crowded with candles, dried herbs, and things I can’t immediately identify. A little farther along, Ink and Intent catches my eye, its front window filled with beautifully bound journals, fountain pens, and hand-lettered signs. I make a mental note to try the Monstrous Margherita pizza at The Howlng Crust another day, grab something sweet from Conjure and Crumb, and end up back at Lucky Bean because I need caffeine-to-go before I tackle all the unpacking.

Somewhere along the way, I realize something.

The restless feeling that’s followed me for months has finally gone quiet.

Chapter 3

Hewit

I spend the rest of the morning avoiding Nightjar Row, which is ridiculous because the quickest route from the diner to the north side of town runs straight along it. I’ve driven that route almost every day for years. Today, I cut behind the old post office, cross Witchhazel Way, and take a detour that adds three minutes to a drive I’ve timed often enough to know exactly how long it should take.

My wolf notices. He doesn’t need to say anything. The bastard sits behind my ribs with the kind of silent judgment usually reserved for disappointed fathers.

A woman sweeping the front step of Hearth & Hollow looks up as I pass.

I keep driving toward the western boundary.

The problem isn’t the woman with the honey-brown hair, yellow sweater, and a smile I had no business noticing. That’s what I tell myself. I saw a stranger unloading a car, nothing more. It’s a coincidence that she happened to arrive on the same morning my wolf decided to wake from a years-long coma. Screaming Woods specializes in coincidences. Doesn’t mean anything.

My wolf shifts inside me, unimpressed by the argument. He’s trying to get my attention, so I ignore him harder.

By nine, I’m at the western boundary, checking a damaged fence for the town maintenance crew. A branch came down overnight, split one post, bent another, and crushed a section of wire. I clear the branch, replace the broken post, reset the wire, then replace a second post that doesn’t technically need replacing because I don’t like the way it leans.

By ten-thirty, the job is finished. At ten-thirty-two, I’m still standing there staring at the fence.

Usually work helps. Physical problems make sense in a way people don’t. Wood breaks, you replace it. Wire sags, you tighten it. A hinge sticks, you oil it. There’s comfort in things that don’t expect you to interpret what they mean.

People aren’t like that.

Wolves apparently aren’t either.