Free Courted by Trouble: A Courting Romance (In Hyacinth Book 3) by Bree Cariad

go in town was just a short walk away. With snow on the ground, her boots crunched as she walked along the street. She had gone back and forth on whether to go out to the café or to curl up in Dora’s house to do her work, but Darcelle was packing and getting ready for her big life-change so Stephanie had elected to get out of the way. It was kind of amazing how much noise went with other people.
    The Lava Lamp was busy, doing a brisk business by the time she arrived, but most people seemed to be getting their cups to go so she laid her bag down on one of the corner tables and went to get her latte. Julienne Moore, one of the baristas, smiled as she reached the register. “Hi, Stephanie. What can I get for you today?”
    “My regular latte, please. How are you doing?”
    “Fine. My eighteenth birthday’s next week. Very excited.”
    “Wow, you graduated early.”
    Laughing, Julienne nodded as she rang up her purchase. “Yep. I skipped third grade so instead of being older than my whole class by half a year, I was younger.”
    “Got your eyes on any of the men?” Stephanie teased as she made her drink.
    “One,” Julienne admitted. “He’s relatively new to town but wow, he’s a looker.”
    “Well, good luck.” It was easier to be happy for and to enjoy the year Julienne had coming knowing that any day now her own courting banns would be posted.
    “Thanks.” Julienne handed over her latte and Stephanie went back to her table, unpacking her drawing pad to continue working on an outfit that had come to her Saturday night. While pants weren’t her norm, the idea for a jacket and slacks ensemble didn’t seem to want to go away and she had kept trying to get it right. So far, it wasn’t quite working for her.
    “Morning,” said a nice deep voice that made butterflies erupt in her stomach. Looking up, she beamed at Christopher as he sat down at the table next to hers facing away from her.
    “Sitting over there again?” she teased.
    He chuckled. “Yes, I have to protect your name, now don’t I?”
    Grinning, she took a sip of coffee. “Do we know when…?” She drifted off, but he picked up on it.
    “Nope. They seem to enjoy taking their time.”
    Looking around to make sure nobody was looking, she asked the question that had been on her mind since last Thursday. “What did you need to do to get the council to think about agreeing?”
    He took a moment to go get his coffee and come back to sit down, this time instead of facing away, he sat so that he kind of faced her, though not completely. “I told you to go after your dreams and wasn’t going for my own. They helped me to see that if I expected to lead my own family, that I needed to lead by example. I had to go home and explain to my parents that I was making my life out here now and to talk to a friend of mine who is rather gifted at creating restaurants that make it.”
    As he spoke, she sketched and just listened. “I had him come out to Hyacinth to see if there was a possibility of making a go of my own restaurant.”
    Startled, she looked up at him. “Is there?”
    “He wasn’t impressed,” he admitted with a grimace. “Said I would work too hard for not enough money. That the people here won’t pay what the food was worth. But, he was encouraging on the B&B front.”
    “A bed and breakfast?”
    “Yep. It seems there just aren’t enough rentable rooms in town and he was highly expressive that a well-run B&B would do very well.”
    “How exciting. You said you would love to work in one.”
    Smiling, he nodded. “Yes, I would love to run the kitchen, but the actual hotelesque part of it isn’t for me. He suggested I take on a partner.”
    “That’s scary. I mean, do you know anyone you could trust who would love doing that?”
    “As it turns out? I do. My gran. She’s only sixty-eight and a very young sixty-eight. When I told her, she was thrilled. Flew out here against my father and mother’s wishes, I might add, as they think