Page 12 of Wishing for a Werewolf
I grin. It felt good to diffuse the problem, like a natural extension of my protector duties.
“Nicely done.” Severin claps me on the shoulder. “I suppose if we can’t have Autumn here to take care of these types of things, you’re an adequate substitute.”
Autumn? Shock drains away every drop of my self-satisfaction. “What in the goddess’s name did you just say?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Autumn
After a morning spent reading dry witch-history books without finding anything that helps me figure out my magic, I spend the afternoon catching up on work, mixing and pouring multiple batches of peppermint soap into a series of large mold blocks. We make all of our regular soaps using the hot process, which means they cure fast, so you have to make sure you get them even before they set. But I’ve done this so often I could make soap in my sleep. In fact, I often dream of it, which is sad when you think about it. I’m only twenty-five—I should be having sexy dreams!
Sexy dreams full of big hunky men who growl and go commando…
“Stop thinking about Rune, horny Autumn,” I mutter, shaking my head and swiping the back of my forearm across my forehead. “All I need is a BOO from Mr. Good Vibes,and I’ll be fine.”
As I grip the lever of the industrial mixer and tip it to make my last pour, Babybelle rushes into the barn, bleating for attention with a little cry that sounds just like the human word, “Me! Me! Me!”
“I know it’s you.” A laugh escapes me as I lean over to scoop her up into my arms, wiggling my nose back and forth over her soft forehead. “You want to come and help? I was going to make you some butternut goat cookies.”
Her little head butts my cheek in a loving tap, and I take that as a yes.
After securing the door of the soap barn, I stride past the farmhouse to the end of the backyard and my little cottage. Originally built to house the head farmhand, I moved into it when I returned from college. These days, most of the goat milking is automated, so Dad only needs one farmhand to help with the animals, and Steve already has a home in town.
Like the main house, the cottage is painted white with fanciful green trim and even has a covered front porch just big enough for a swing. I grab my mail from the little box tacked up by my front door—Mom picks up all of the farm’s mail from the big mailbox out on the main road and sorts it for us, leaving mine here. Inside the cottage, the cream walls and rich-brown hardwood floors gleam golden in the evening sunlight. Bundles of dried herbs hanging in the kitchen sweeten the air with hints of rosemary and lavender, and that first deep breath always smells of home. I love it.
I set Babybelle down inside my peaches-and-cream kitchen and close the door. She doesn’t get to run around the cottage unsupervised, not after she chewed on the rug I havein the living room. I was able to maneuver it so that corner’s now hidden by the couch, but…
As soon as her little hooves hit the hardwood floor, she gives a happy bleat and runs over to where one of my pretty fall kitchen towels hangs from the oven handle. I snatch it away right before she chomps down on one of the pumpkins embroidered along the border. “No, Babybelle! That’s not food.”
Undeterred, she races around the room, looking for something else to get into.
Shaking my head, I rifle through the stack of today’s mail: ads, a few bills, and…
“Ahhhhh! This is it!” The return address at the top of the pale-pink envelope says it’s from the Ferndale Falls Events Committee, the volunteer group that oversees the town’s fall festival. They always let the winner know before anyone else, and the elderly women running the committee refuse to do anything by email. I slip a finger under the flap, ready to rip it open and read that my farm has won the competition to hold this year’s hay maze.
Then I freeze, my mouth dropping open in disbelief. The envelope isn’t addressed to me.
It’s addressed to Rune.
“Thishasto be a mistake,” I mutter. But it’s not only his name that’s the problem. The envelope says 739 Farmway Lane instead of 735, like it would if it were really for me.
“No goat cookies for you today.” I scoop Babybelle off the floor. “You can blame the big bad werewolf.”
“No!” she cries.
“I know. It’s a travesty.” I march for the front door,plucking my keys from the entryway table. “Let’s go and tell the big lug just how much of one it is.”
Since it’s less than a mile to his house on back-country roads, I settle into Tank with Babybelle on my lap and wrap the shoulder strap of the seat belt over both of us. “Will you stay like this, or am I going to have to leave you behind?”
“Stay,” she baas at me, holding still for the first time in her life.
I don’t know how, but I can tell she means it.
At the end of the long dirt driveway, I ease Tank onto the main road, my feet stomping the pedals.
How in the world is Rune of all people getting letters from the events committee? He’s only been in town for two hot seconds!
It’s a good thing I know the area so well, or I would have missed the turnoff for the old Clemmons place. Grass has filled in the start of the driveway, and the mailbox lies on its side, the post uprooted. Maybe that’s why Rune’s letter ended up coming to the goat farm—Rosie, the mail carrier, must have figured we’d do the neighborly thing and get it to him.
