Page 1

Chapter 1

Kiera

“When I said that we needed an experienced, mature, knowledgeable

new staff member, I didn’t mean a twenty-year-old blond bimbo who

dropped out of college and is looking for the next hot thing for a few weeks

to paste all over her social media to impress her friends with.”

“Geez.” Wynn rolled his eyes. “Tell me how you really feel. And in case

you didn’t notice, she’s a brunette.”

“I know she’s a brunette,” Kiera growled. “That was just an expression. I

feel like you did the exact opposite of what I asked for. We got over twenty

resumes. Did you do this just to spite me?”

“Of course not.”

Wynn Rosland, antiques expert and manager extraordinaire, was Kiera’s

most trusted confidant. He was a lifetime friend of the family. For a man

who was going to be seventy in two months, he was as fit as any guy in his

thirties. His bushy eyebrows and the stark white beard that matched were

well known all over Cincinnati.

“Well, why, then?” Kiera huffed.

It was late. After a long day spent picking in a barn that was held

together by mouse shit and a thousand layers of dust instead of actual wood,

Kiera made the extremely poor choice of dropping by the store because

Wynn was so eager for her to meet the new hire. She’d stepped through the

back door, past the back rooms that were overflowing in areas and stacked

to the ceiling in others, and headed up to the second floor of the four-story

building where Wynn was working on putting together a display of antique

and vintage dishes. He was a master with the cell and had texted her that

afternoon that he was training and she should stop in.

She had another four days lined up with picks. Picks was just a fancy

term for going to someone’s house or barn and going through piles and piles

of old stuff. Going on a pick was a little bit like going on a treasure hunt.

The kid in her always salivated at the thought of all those old items just

waiting to be discovered and brought back to life. Kiera had spent years

working her butt off in college, and later working shit jobs until she

developed a few apps that really took off. She suddenly had a successful

career and enough money to retire.

She’d found her success at thirty-one and had spent the last two years

dedicating her life to her greatest passion. Antiques were always a hobby,

but when she found herself with the means to make her wildest dreams a

reality, she’d gone all in. Bought an ancient warehouse that was once a flour

factory and turned it into a thriving antique mall. The massive store was

now a hotspot for anyone who wanted anything from architectural salvage

to antique furniture and everything in between.