Novels by Kayla Imhoff

In the last week of November, Celia made the first call on her lunch break, eating a sandwich at her desk at Ellery with a legal pad beside her keyboard. She and Colin had agreed on a list of vendors back in October, but she had put off calling them for weeks while the work on his merger ramped up. It felt good to finally start crossing things off.The florist answered after a couple of rings, and her voice was so cheerful that it was impossible not to like her. Celia gave her name and the date and explained that she was hoping to set up a meeting about flowers for the hall."Oh, of course. Ms. Harrow came in last week, so we already have a proposal drafted. Burgundy and gold for the arch, with the centerpieces to match. I can email it over so you can see everything."Celia stopped with the sandwich halfway to her mouth. "Ms. Harrow. Paige Harrow?""That's right. She said she was handling the details for you and Mr. Merrill."Celia thanked her, asked her to send the proposal, and hung

Her mother had texted on Monday night, a little after eight. All fine, told you so. The healer says I need more sleep and less coffee. Love you. Celia had smiled and gone to bed without thinking about it again.On Thursday she got to the pack's hall straight from work, twenty minutes early. She let herself in with the key Caroline had given her and, for a while, simply stood inside the door.The hall sat in the oldest part of Northbridge, among stone buildings far older than the glass towers downtown. It was one long room under a high wooden ceiling, with tall windows down the west side and a raised platform at the far end where every Alpha in the pack's history had been sworn in. Celia had worked as an architect for nine years, four of them at Ellery Design Group, and she could not walk into a building without reading it. An evening ceremony would fill the place with gold. Down the center of the floor ran a path worn pale and smooth, where generations of the pack had walked toward th

Caroline picked her up at nine on a Saturday in the middle of October, with a covered dish on the back seat and the heat turned up higher than the morning needed."Chicken and rice," she said when she caught Celia looking. "Ruth won't eat it in front of us, but she'll eat it."When Caroline had called during the week, Celia had expected it to be about the wedding. Instead the question was whether she would like to come and meet someone, and something in the way it was asked had made her agree before she knew what she was agreeing to.They drove out past the edge of the city, where the houses spread farther apart and the trees crowded in. For a while they talked about dates and whether next fall was too long to wait, until Celia ran out of things she knew to say about the wedding and asked the question she had been carrying around for three weeks."What am I actually agreeing to? Not with Colin. With the rest of it."Caroline took her time answering, the way her son did. "Mostly, peopl

Frederick and Caroline lived on the older side of Northbridge, in a stone house with a long front porch and more windows than any one family needed. Celia had been to enough Sunday dinners there by now to know which step creaked and where Caroline hid the good chocolate, but she had never walked up that path with a ring on her hand, and her steps slowed without her meaning them to.Her mother's car was in the driveway. Elaine had driven up that afternoon and was already at the kitchen counter beside Caroline when Celia came in, the two of them slicing bread and laughing at something she had missed. She stayed in the doorway a little longer, just to watch.Colin went straight past her. Elaine had barely set the knife aside when he bent to hug her, and she patted his back twice, the way she always did, and informed him that he had better take good care of her daughter.Caroline wiped her hands dry and held them out. "Let me see it."Celia held out her left hand. Caroline declared that t

Celia dug her phone out of her jacket pocket, and her mother answered on the second ring with the television going somewhere behind her."Sweetheart? Isn't it dinnertime up there?""Almost. Mom, Colin asked me to marry him."The pause on the line went on long enough that Celia started to say it again, and then she heard a sound that was half a laugh and half something else. The television went off."Oh, sweetheart. Oh, I'm so happy. Is he there? Put him on."Celia handed the phone over, and Colin took it as easily as if he talked to her mother every week, which by then he more or less did. "Hi, Elaine.""Don't you 'hi, Elaine' me. You never asked my permission.""I meant to. I got nervous and forgot.""You did not forget. You were afraid I'd tell her.""That too."Elaine laughed properly then, in a way Celia had not heard in a long time. Colin got up and wandered a few steps toward the creek, describing the ring, and since her mother had never been able to talk quietly when she was ex

A year earlier, in the last warm week of September, Colin had asked her to run with him before dinner, and she had said yes without thinking about it, since they ran most weekends and the woods north of Northbridge were at their best in that light.The shift took her as it always had, one long breath out and then the ground closer and louder and full of information, and she was moving. Colin's wolf was a shade darker than hers and a stride longer, and he let her set the pace out of habit, though he could have outrun her any day he chose. They went up through the trees and along the ridge path, where generations of the pack had worn the ground bare, and the air was cool enough now to taste.She knew where they were going before he left the path, because there was only one thing out here worth leaving it for. The old mill stood where the creek came down off the ridge, two stories of stone with the roof half gone and the wheel long since rotted off its axle, though the water still ran th