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“You met her?” Evan asked.

“I did, briefly. She likes apples, and Alan tells me she asks a lot of questions.”

His bear stirred, clearly approving. Questions are good.

They are. Wes broke off a piece of the cinnamon bear and ate it.

The conversation moved easily around him, the way it always had. Wes liked that. Finding Kate mattered more than anything that had happened to him in years, but he was still sitting in the bakery with men who had known him long before yesterday morning.

Gabe leaned back in his chair. “Does Kate know about shifters?”

“I don’t think so, and she certainly doesn’t know what she is to me.” Wes paused, thinking of the way Kate had looked down at their joined hands after the handshake. “She felt something when we touched, though. I’m fairly sure of that.”

The memory pleased his bear. It pleased Wes too, but what had Kate made of it? She had rubbed her hand on her thigh afterward, with that small crease between her brows, and then thanked him for helping her parents as if nothing had happened. Wes looked at his hand on the table. Had she thought about it since? Had she thought about him at all?

“She’s only here for a little under two weeks,” Wes continued. “She has her business back home, and Penny has preschool.”

His bear went quiet at that. They had discussed it already, but hearing the time spoken aloud seemed to make it more real.

That is not very long, his bear said after a moment.

No. How quickly would two weeks pass? Harvest alone would swallow most of them. He would be up before light and in the rows until dark, and Kate had come to Bear Creek to spend time with her parents, not the man next door. He wanted time to get to know her without turning every spare hour into an excuse to see her. Two weeks suddenly felt very short.

Then we should spend as much time with her as we can, his bear said. We can find reasons to visit the Harlands. And reasons for Kate to visit us.

Wes looked down into his coffee to hide his smile. His bear made it all sound so simple. Was it?

Across the table, Joel’s phone buzzed. Joel glanced at the screen and turned it face down. A moment later it buzzed again. Wes watched him ignore it.

Joel was normally capable of carrying several problems in his head at once. Organizing the Bear Creek Fall Festival in his mother’s place, on top of running the hardware store, seemed to be one too many. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes, and the coffee in front of him looked as though it had been sitting untouched for some time.

“Festival?” Wes asked.

Joel sighed. “What gave it away?”

“The phone you’re pretending isn’t there.”

“I’m on a break,” Joel said firmly.

Gabe pushed the other cinnamon bear toward him. “Eat something before you start answering it again.”

“I have eaten.” The silence around the table made Joel look up. “All right. Coffee counts as breakfast somewhere.”

Gabe nudged the cinnamon bear a little closer. The phone buzzed again, and Joel picked it up with obvious reluctance.

Wes waited until he had finished reading whatever had arrived. “What’s going wrong?”

“Nothing yet. That’s the problem. Everyone seems to have sensed my fear, and so they’re all trying to help. Which means they’re all asking questions before I have had time to learn the answers.”

“Who knew there was such a thing as too much help?” Nate said.

“I know, right. And don’t even get me started on apples.” Joel looked at his phone again as it pinged. “I thought the apple part would be easy. Apples, cider, maybe a tasting table. Apparently I was being optimistic.”

“What happened?” Wes asked.

“Bobbing for apples happened. Then Karina messaged to say she wants to make apple hand pies for the festival. Which is fine, except now she wants to know how many she should bake and whether you can supply the apples. I suggested she ask you herself, but she told me that since I see you here most mornings, I could ask you…” Joel rubbed a hand over his face. “And somebody still wants another cider station because there was a long line last year.”

“How bad was the line?”