The whole town had lost its collective mind. Every corner, building, light post, and street sign displayed the insanity, wrapped with garland, lights, and string. Spider webs covered windows. 3D vinyl ghouls lunged from doorways and scarecrows protruding from haystacks decorated the sidewalk.

Not a sweet little Hallmark Christmas town once October spawned. No. It was a Nightmare Before Christmas town.

Maple Falls loved Halloween.

I guess for those who couldn’t see ghosts, spooky was a bit of a novelty. However, since the town population was half werewolf, I’d have thought that silly decorations of ghosts, ghouls, witches, zombies, and… inflatable werewolves, would have made everyone duck heads and pretend to not believe in the supernatural.

Not Maple Falls. This podunk nowhere embraced the spooky holiday like it starred in the next “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” special.

Rather, everyone played up the magic, not hiding fang or claw, or eye-shine, and easily laughing it all off as good costumes and play. Even Liam’s bakery, The SweeTooth, played up the name, werewolves, sweets, and spooky.

The bake case, packed with supernaturally themed cakes, cookies, and scones, wore decorations of teeth, bugs, bulging eyes, brains, or blood, painted in frosting. And Orange, black, and purple streamers hung everywhere. Old movie posters from the Werewolves of London and other classics hung on the walls in place of what had been more traditional prints. They had painted fake webs across the window edges and bake case, and even the stickers on the bread packages featured pumpkins, skulls, or spiders.

“Couldn’t they at least do a traditional day of the dead?” I grumbled to myself as we made our way to the hardware store. Webs stretched of cotton, streamers, and bleached skeletons wrapped the small shop in ghoulish delights.

Liam needed to pick up an order, so Dylan followed us with an empty hand truck. I could have stayed behind, but since we’d been so busy the past few days, when Liam had invited me along, I jumped at the opportunity to spend time with him. “What are we picking up?”

“Some last-minute giveaway stuff for tomorrow,” Liam said. He held my hand as we entered the shop. I was still getting used to him being so open about… us… me.

Just inside the entry a cage filled with black kittens sat on a wide table, a handwritten sign taped to the front reading “For Sale.”

I frowned, not liking the idea of anyone selling kittens, especially black ones for Halloween. I looked up at the owner, who was stocking shelves with what looked like more mass-produced Halloween crap.

“Rose?” I asked her, pointing to the kittens.

“Hey, Sebastian,” she greeted. “Would you like to take a kitten home?”

“He has a cat,” Liam said. “High maintenance, very needy.”

“He’s not high maintenance,” I said of Robin, my fae puck friend who spent most of his life as a cat hiding out in my camping trailer. “Just moody.”

“Sounds like a normal cat to me,” Rose said. She directed Liam to a stack of boxes near the register. “Your stuff is there.”

“Is it safe to have black kittens on Halloween? Kind of like getting people a rabbit for Easter is a bad idea?” I stared at the babies, my heart aching to cuddle them.

People were evil. I’d read about it enough, and knew that black animals were the least adopted. But the four little beans in the cage didn’t look like minions of darkness. And the last thing I wanted was for those little babies to be hurt because they’d had the misfortune of being born the wrong color and wrong time of year. As a creole mutt myself, I knew how tough that path could be.

“I’ll only adopt them out to locals I know,” Rose said. “They are from the Hendrick’s farm out a ways. They thought they’d try here first before taking them to one of the bigger town’s Humane Societies. Barn cats don’t last long this far north. Cold sets in and hungry cougars come down from the mountain. Best to get them homes long before then.”

I reached between the slats of the cage and petted the nearest little black jelly bean. The baby mewed and head butted my hand. All four of the babies were suddenly swarming me for pets. Okay, so I was a sucker for small and fuzzy…

“They’ve had all their starter shots and the local vet has given them an all clear.” Rose made her way to my side. “I’m hoping that since everyone in town will be in here over the next twenty-four hours, we can get them all good homes.”

Kittens in a town full of werewolves. That sounded cruel. Did cats like werewolves? I knew some werewolves who owned dogs and horses, but never cats. Cats and the supernatural didn’t really mix well. They saw ghosts and seemed to irritate vampires. I’d never seen a fae with an actual cat, though they often used the form of them to blend in. Maybe the ancient Egyptians worshiped cats because they seemed to keep the supernatural at bay?

Liam loaded up the boxes onto the hand truck, and Dylan adjusted the strap. “I’d never let anything happen to the kittens,” Liam said.

“Right, because you are everywhere at once,” I said to him. Big bad alpha he might be, but champion of kittens?

“They are super cute,” Dylan said as he joined me in petting the munchkins.

“Maybe you and Sean should get one?” I said to him.

“I’m not sure Sean’s a cat person. He’s not really a dog person either.” Which was saying something since Sean was a human dating a werewolf and now knew his boyfriend turned fuzzy. Were they having trouble?

“We could bring them home with us,” I said to Liam. “They look like baby werewolves, if werewolves could have babies.”

“Very fitting for Halloween,” Rose pointed out.

“Neither of us is home enough to take care of four kittens. But I’ll send word around and see if we can get them adopted to good folk.”

I sighed, giving the babies one last scratch before following Liam out and back to the bakery. His decorations were very PG. Streamers, some hanging paper designs, and some soap-drawn art on the giant glass window.

“You can design something if you’d like,” Liam said.

I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it and shook my head.

“I heard the pot is around five grand this year,” Dylan said as he passed us with the hand truck filled with the boxes of supplies.

“Pot?” I frowned and watched him head to the back to unload.

“Visitors from the next town over fill Maple Falls each year for Halloween. They vote for the spookiest shop, and the winner takes home the prize. All the shops that want to enter contribute to the pot. It’s a pretty big deal, and one of our busiest days of the year.” Liam made his way behind the counter. Since it was late in the day, the shop was quiet, with only a handful of customers. Prep for the next morning had already begun. “Are you going to enter Tea Time?”

Tea Time was the tea shop next door, which was technically mine according to Liam, but I still battled with the idea that it was really his every day. “Five grand? Like a real five thousand dollars? For decorating?”

Liam smiled. “I see dollar signs in your eyes.”

“Five grand is a lot of money,” I said, in case he’d lost his mind and forgotten that money ruled the world.

“And technically, you’re rich,” he reminded me.

“You’re rich,” I corrected him. “I’m just dating the hot, rich guy.”

“Just dating…” Liam raised a brow. “Hmm. At least you called me hot.” He headed into the back.

“Don’t get mad,” I said.

“Not mad,” he called back, “irritated.”

“With me.”

“Hmm,” he replied. I hated that non-agreeing, agreement noise. Placating.

I followed him and grabbed him, wrapping my arms around Liam from behind and pressing my face between his shoulder blades. He stopped and sucked in a deep breath.

“Don’t be mad. Or irritated. I’m trying.” I couldn’t help the endless suspicion from circling in my head. But it didn’t mean I didn’t need him. Hell, I needed him desperately most days. So much so that I feared someday he’d find out and it would terrify him with its intensity. It terrified me thinking about ever having him walk away. If this was what having a true mate was… then the romance novels got it all wrong.

I likened needing Liam in my life to having air to breathe. Even when I wanted to spend time alone, I’d often drag him away so he could hold me for a while, and remind me he was still there. But how did I say all that without sounding stupid or scaring him away?

He let out a long sigh, turned, and wrapped me up in his arms. “What is mine is yours. Why is that hard to understand?”