All Fired Up at the Frostlight Inn

Fake the engagement. Pass the inspection. Do NOT fall for the dragon in the attic.

Juniper Wren keeps The Wandering Hearth, an inn whose forty enchanted rooms rearrange themselves to give every guest exactly what they need. Last April, with a fancy resort out past the county line poaching her winter bookings, she ticked one little box on her Inn Guild form: betrothed keeper. Couple-run inns rank higher. Winter was ages away.

Now it’s Frostlight. The Guild’s inspector is arriving for festival week, the same week the inn’s charter comes up for renewal, and she looks forward to meeting the keeper and her intended.

Enter Brand, the town’s dragon fire marshal.

He winters in Juniper’s attic to keep her pipes from freezing. He cites her hearths, then quietly fixes every one of them. He hoards blankets and tin mugs instead of gold. He is grumpy, enormous, and already on the premises.

He is also hiding a problem: ever since she jabbed a mittened finger into his chest on the covered bridge six weeks ago, his banked fire has been trying to hum. A dragon’s fire hums for one person, and everyone in earshot knows exactly what it means.

So they draw up a betrothal memorandum.

The engagement is fake. The paperwork is fraudulent. The whole town is taking bets.

All Fired Up at the Frostlight Inn is a complete, standalone cozy small-town paranormal romance with a matchmaking inn, a town that bets on everything, casseroles delivered as formal complaints, a goat with eleven attempts on the town’s eternal flame, a grumpy dragon who fixes what he cites, and a sunshine innkeeper who takes care of everyone but herself.

Open door. No cliffhanger. No third-act breakup. Guaranteed happily ever after.

Tropes: fake dating · fated mates · grumpy meets sunshine · only one bed (the inn insists) · forced proximity · he falls first · size difference · found family

Heat level: 4/5, open door and explicit. He runs furnace-hot, she runs cold, and the inn has opinions about the sleeping arrangements.

Book 2 of Monster Mates of Maplemoon Hollow, where every book is a new couple and every couple gets their HEA.