Page 7

Lily

“She’s beautiful,” the taller male said. He ticked his chin toward Bernie who was fisting my shirt and then releasing it. Practicing her grip. Strong little female.

“She is. Anything you want to sample?” My face and chest flushed. “The, um, peach cobbler, perhaps?”

Goddess, I had to get a grip on myself.

“Sure. Everything looks great.” The other male smiled at me.

It was warm and, while some males tended to be creepy in smiling at women, this man’s grin calmed me.

His scent overpowered all the food and herbs and flowers being sold at the whole market.

Cinnamon. Pumpkin. Vanilla. Honey. Smelled better than any pumpkin pie I’d ever baked or tasted.

I had to stop myself from leaning in to get a better draw of it.

“Um, sure.”

Rumor got up and came to stand next to me. “Come on, Bernie, let’s let Aunt Lily work.”

“Aunt Lily?” the taller one asked. “That’s your name? Lily?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but she’s not really my niece. It’s…never mind.”

Why in the world was I willing to give out information to strangers?

I opened one of the jars of peach cobbler and handed them each spoons. As I handed over the glass, the brooding one took it from me. Our fingers brushed and my wolf preened, whined inside me.

They took bites of the peach cobbler and from the moans, they liked it. Rumor giggled a bit behind me. “I think they like it.”

“You made this?” the taller one asked.

“We. We made all of this. Kind of the point of the booth.”

They chuckled and so did Rumor and the guys behind me. Even Bernie let out a little squeal of joy. “It’s really incredible. Thank you.”

“Anything else you want to try?”

Rumor snorted a bit. I turned around to see her blushing. She tried to cover it all up with a cough, but I heard her. I widened my eyes and mouthed, “Stop it!”

“Is this everything you have?” the brooding one asked.

“Yes. We sold everything else.”

“We have a friend running a booth but we’ll come back before closing and buy everything you have left.”

Interesting. “Okay. If we’re still here, that’s fine.”

The shorter one stepped forward, almost running into the table. “Are you leaving early?”

“We leave once we sell out.”

“We…” The other looked to his taller friend. “When you close up, we would like to come and talk to you. Would that be okay?”

“About what?” I asked.

There were several snickers behind me.

What in the hell was going on?

My wolf wanted them to come back. She thought they were devastatingly handsome. She sent me images and feelings I didn’t dare entertain. Maybe I was just horny. Then again, if all of this was one-sided, why did they ask to talk to me?

“We’d just like to get to know you better, Lily.”

I sighed. “Sure. I’ll be packing up but…sure?”

“Great,” The taller one said. “By the way, this is Roan, and I’m Benji. It was really great meeting you. See you later.”

They walked away, and I watched their backs until they were lost in the crowd. I hated to admit it, but I was gladder than ever for my scent blockers. Those two would make any omega swoon.

I shook myself from the trance and turned around to find Wilder, Penn, Vargas, and Rumor all staring at me. “What?” I asked.

The boys put their palms up and Rumor shook her head. “Nothing.”

“What?” I asked a bit louder.

“I said nothing. Maybe we should, um, try some pear cobbler for this week. Want to brainstorm?”

Was my brain still working? A little. Even though they’d walked away, I couldn’t stop thinking about those two males.

And they wanted to come back and talk to me?

Why?

I was so torn. A part of me wanted them to come back and talk. More than talk.

But giving in to this feeling meant things I didn’t want to think about. Already, my mood had changed based on them coming back. I was anxious.

I was giving my power away and we’d only had a conversation.

“Yes. Brainstorming. All the business things.”

I sat down with Rumor, and we both got out our phones. Next week, we wanted to try a pear cobbler and, since the sweet and spicy jams sold the fastest, we would need to double up on those. Not to mention everything that was preordered.

The pickled onions? One man bought seven jars of them.

Letting the customers sample things worked wonders.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” I asked Rumor once our ideas settled. We made list after list for the next week. One day, we might have a master list for everything to go more smoothly but for now, we were finding what worked and what didn’t.

“Who?” she answered, pursing her lips to stop from smiling.

“You know who. What do they want, anyway? Maybe they’re coming back to buy some things. Maybe they forgot their wallets or something.”

“Could be,” she replied.