Page 31 of A Wolf for Winter

“Hey, Talia, thanks again for your help yesterday,” he told her, feeling the need to reach out. He hated to see women cry, and he could empathize with how she was feeling. Like a loner.

“My what?” she asked, the tongs slipping from her hand.

“Your help. With Prue Stonewell? I’m sorry she took out her anger on you.”

“Oh.” The young woman’s shoulders drooped. “Yeah. The closest I’ll get to magic again at the lodge is maintaining the library of three spell books. Yippee.”

“I’m sure the Hawthornes can put a good word in for you, especially since you tried to help them.”

“The Hawthornes?” Talia shook her head. “Most of them are nice, like Mistress Lilac, but they’re coven witches. They only take care of their own. They don’t bother with ‘silly little practitioners’ like myself.” Her shoulders straightened, and she stabbed at the cocktail sausages with more vehemence than necessary, splattering sauce everywhere. “I don’t need them. Or Prue and the Cailleach Lodge. I’ve got other prospects.”

Allen gave her an encouraging smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”

When he was finished helping his next spurt of customers, either selling them baked goods or refilling their punch cups, he checked in with the Hawthornes again. Rose was finally back in sight, checking out some outdoor camping gear, Boar was still schmoozing with the villagers, and Lilac . . .

Unlike Talia, the poor witch didn’t seem to have any prospects at all. It had been over an hour and she hadn’t sold a single thing. In fact, the only ones coming to her booth were the most persistent of her suitors, each of them with punch or snacks or flowers.

His wolf was a roiling mess of emotions, whining as a result of Lilac’s unhappiness and snarling at the men who wouldn’t leave her alone.

“Hey, Talia? I need to check on something. If you swing back through here, mind letting anyone who stops by know I’ll be right back?”

“Sure thing!”

Allen waded into the bustling crowd, ignoring the cries for him to buy a festive quilt for his holiday sweetheart or some custom jewelry or a pretty winter painting. The suitors recognized him from before, realized the look on his face was more than a little predatory, and reluctantly shuffled off. It allowed those truly curious to come forward and inquire after the various bottles and jars.

“So, these aren’t made by your mother? Mistress Peony?” a woman asked, quickly replacing the bar she’d picked up as if were a live toad instead of soap. Another woman hastily retracted her interest in an herbal shampoo.

“That’s correct,” Lilac replied, straining for patience. No doubt she’d given the same explanation over a hundred times already. “But I can assure you—”

“Mistress Lilac, thank goodness you’re here,” Allen said, rushing forward. “Please, please tell me you have more of that hair stuff!”

The women clustered around the booth immediately lifted their gaze to his head of thick blond hair.

“T-the Follicular Elixir?” she asked, unsure.

“Yes.” Allen added a crazed glint to his golden-brown eyes. “That’s the one. Completely changed my life, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

The prospective customers certainly were.

“I’ll take two bottles now, but I’ll come around at the end of the Faire to clean you out if haven’t sold out already. ’Tis the season not to be greedy an’ all that.” He picked up the bar of soap the woman had discarded and exclaimed, “My cousin loves this stuff. Cleared her rash right up. Better get her another one, though, just in case. This weather is horrible on the skin. What else you got?”

Lilac was quick to catch on, eagerly explaining all her different products. Her face brightened, her eyes sparkling.

His wolf wiggled in delight, tail slashing left and right as the pretty witch spoke to them with such enthusiasm. It was like a light had been turned on inside her, her joy for her work overflowing into the excitement in her voice, the dance of her fingers as she gestured to each product, and, spirits above, her smile. It wasn’t that demure fake one she wore for the masses. This one . . . not even the sun shone so radiantly.

“So?” she asked, wetting her lips nervously.

Allen realized he’d just been staring at her without truly listening, his gaze riveted on her mouth. How her lips would feel like warm satin—

“Fantastic,” he blurted. “I’ll take one of everything.”

“Y-you will?” the first woman sputtered. “You do know these were made by her and not her mother, right?”

Allen gave her a withering look. “And I know it’s Mistress Lilac’s Follicular Elixir that put the hair back on my head for my lovers to pull on in bed and her Wound Salve that heals the fingernail scratches they leave on my back.”

The woman turned a mortified red as the others clustered around her tittered.

“Your bag, sir,” Lilac said lightly, slipping the loops of a brown-paper tote into his hand. “Thank you for being a loyal repeat customer.”