Page 81 of The Cinnamon Bun Book Store

Noah smirked. ‘There won’t be any lulls, I can assure you.’ His gaze skimmed the top of the bag and delight lit up his face. ‘Oh, wait, you brought book three of the Wolf Brothers series!’

‘It just came in.’

‘Thank God!’ He hefted the book from the bag and hugged it to his chest with one arm. ‘The last one ended on a cliffhanger and I was dying to know what happened to the seer.’

Hazel grinned. ‘So maybe there will be a lull or two today?’

Noah nodded as he turned the book over and read the back. ‘Oh, yeah, there might have to be.’ He squeezed her hand and looked up at her. ‘Thanks, Haze. This is great.’

‘My pleasure.’ And it was. Seeing how excited Noah got over these books made her feel like maybe they had more in common than she first thought. That maybe theycouldmake sense together. They’d been making plenty of sense so far.

‘Okay, let me give you the tour.’ He easily stepped onto the boat and then gave Hazel his hand and helped her over. The water was relatively calm today, but the ocean always had a rockiness to it, one that Hazel immediately felt when she stepped on board.

‘What if I get seasick?’ she asked as Noah stowed her bag in the cockpit. Cockpit? Was it the same on a boat as on a plane? She’d have to find out.

‘You won’t,’ he said. ‘I brought motion-sickness tablets and ginger candies. They always work.’

‘Hmm.’

Noah spread his arms wide. ‘The open sea awaits us, Hazel! Doesn’t that thrill you?’

‘It’s the openness that concerns me, actually. And the sharks.’

‘There are no sharks on the boat, Haze.’

‘What if I go overboard?’

‘You won’t.’

‘Hmm.’

He came toward her and wrapped his arms around her. It was chilly so she let him. And she liked his arms around her. That, too.

‘Trust me, okay? I’ll keep you safe. Promise.’

She tipped her face up to his. ‘I do trust you. There’s just a lot of ways this could go wrong.’

‘Yeah, but think of all the ways it could go right.’

Were they still talking about this boat trip or everything else between them? Hazel wanted to believe it could go right, she really did. But there was a reason she’d done the same thing for fifteen years, kept the same job and the same friends. Hazel liked to play it safe, and somehow that hadn’t occurred to her until she stood on this rocky boat, held by this man who might not be a safe bet. Who might end up hurting her in the end.

But adventures weren’t safe, right?

Getting out of your comfort zone was by definition, uncomfortable.

And if these last few weeks had taught her anything, it was that good things came from being a little bit unsafe, by taking a few risks now and then.

By trusting this man.

‘Yeah, okay. Let’s do it.’

Noah’s smile brightened his whole face. He planted a kiss on the tip of her nose and then continued the tour of the little boat.

‘All right, so first off, general boating terms. The front of the boat is the bow and the back is the stern.’

Hazel nodded.

‘Right is starboard and left is port.’