Page 42 of A Wolf for Winter

Biting down on her lower lip, she glanced from the tantalizing food to Allen. Surely her refusal to try it wouldn’t offend him? And so what if it did? By his own admission he was a man with a past, with secrets she wasn’t sure were in her family’s best interests.

Right?

“You and your family have nothing to fear from me.” By the Green Mother, he’d been so sincere when he’d said that. Could it really be as simple as that? Surely the Hall wouldn’t have accepted him as Zofia’s successor if he meant them harm. Had she pegged him wrong all this time? From the way he’d looked at her last night, and how she’d responded to his attention . . .

“He’s not on the menu, Li,” Rose said, and a bit too loudly in Lilac’s opinion. “This is.”

“Shut up, Rose,” she hissed.

“Your loss.” Rose returned to wolfing down her breakfast.

“Allen,” Lilac said hastily, desperate for a different conversation subject, “I can, um, try to heal you if you want. Rose and Boar are better at it, but I’m not terrible.”

He winked at her with his good eye, sending a zing into her abdomen. “Save your magic. I’m a fast healer, anyway, and Boar’ll fix up what I can’t later. He owes me for being his punching bag.”

“You volunteered,” her brother said, sitting down at the table.

Not on the available stool to Rose’s left, but down on the empty stool beside Lilac. He offered her a small smile that seemed like an olive branch, but she most definitely wasn’t ready to accept it yet. If he thought he could gloss over what he had done to her the past few days with such a simple gesture, he was dead wrong.

She picked up her mug and planted herself firmly on the other side of Rose and looked anywhere but at her brother. He didn’t say anything, but when he got up to occupy the spot she had vacated, Rose swung her leg out and slammed her foot down on the stool.

“Uh-uh,” she told him around a mouthful of food. He had made her cry yesterday, too.

Boar opened his mouth to protest, but when Allen cleared his throat while sliding a heaping portion of French toast and bacon in front of him, their brother thought better of it. He mumbled a thank-you to the caretaker and dug into his food.

“So, you volunteered to be a punching bag, did you?” Lilac asked Allen. As if Boar needed to work his frustrations out on him when he had his sisters to publicly humiliate. “Whatever for?”

He set her plate in front of her—the eggs indeed bore no resemblance to an omelet, but it still smelled appetizing. Though not nearly as divine as his French toast.

“Some need a quiet little chat by the fireplace, others need comfort food, and some need to work things out with their fists,” he answered.

“As long as I’m caretaker here, you will have my care. You all will.”

His expression looked mild as he sipped on his coffee, but there was no way he could miss the stunned look on Lilac’s face. He stared back at her for a moment over the rim of his mug, those golden-brown eyes stirring that hopeful spark inside her, and something much more besides, before he shifted his attention to the group.

“Now finish your breakfasts and get out of my kitchen,” he ordered with mock sternness. “That pond isn’t going to skate itself.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

He had smelled something when wrestling outside with Boar earlier that morning. It was human.

Mostly.

It was that mostly part that had Allen confused and agitated and grateful that his little gesture of French toast and a round or two with Boar had set the Hawthorne siblings on the right path for the morning. They would stick together now, the sisters intent on mercilessly pelting their brother with snowballs for the foreseeable future. No doubt they still needed to have a good scream at each other, but for now, a snowball fight let him know they were all together and relatively safe as he headed off into the woods. Clearing the pond of snow and testing its worthiness for ice skating would come later after they’d called a truce. If they called one at all.

“Hey, no magic!” Boar shouted.

His voice was a little strained, as if he was suddenly nervous his sisters wouldn’t play fair. Wonder what ever gave him that idea?

“Allen, a little help here?”

“Sorry,” Allen called back, already at the top of the little slope that overlooked the frozen pond. “You’re on your own with this one.”

“Are you going on another perimeter sweep?” Rose asked. The nosiest Hawthorne had figured out his habits alarmingly quickly.

“Doesn’t hurt to check,” he said, keeping his tone light.

“Shouldn’t you be inside washing the dishes?”