Chapter 2, February Summary

Stella Randolph, an overweight single woman who owns the Set 'n Sew shop in Tarker's Mills, is dreaming about love. It's Valentine's Day and each year, she sends herself a Valentine, pretending the cards come from celebrities like Paul Newman and John Travolta. Stella is the object of ridicule in town, but she longs for love and romance, and spends a great deal of time imagining what that would be like.

As she's daydreaming, Stella hears someone scratching at her window. At first she thinks it's a man she sees from time to time in town, and she believes that love has finally come to her. As she opens the window to let him in, however, she realizes it is not a man, but a wolf. As she remembers how Arnie Westrum was killed a month earlier, the wolf enters the...