Page 41 of Sweets and Sycamores

The market was quiet this early in the morning, filled with heavy-lidded vendors who still found the energy to scowl at her. Allie was unfazed, her entire focus on Dominic and getting him better.

“What do you need so many herbs for, anyway?” the tall, gangly man with a thick red beard asked her. Allie had seen him around town a few times, mostly at the market, but he was one of the people who sneered at her less. Occasionally, only.

“Just tea,” Allie said and offered him a strained smile as she took the bags from him.

The last thing she wanted was to say the word potions and watch the townsfolk gather to run her out of the bakery and their town once and for all.

The man harrumphed with a fake air of disinterest, and Allie took that as her sign to walk away.

Back at Dom’s Sweets, Allie made ginger tea with honey and lemon, chicken broth with vegetables and semolina dumplings, and two different medicine potions which she infused with the purest of magic she could find in her heart.

Still unsure if Dominic’s illness was caused by him straining his power, Allie made one potion with echinacea and dried elderberries and the other with peppermint leaves, rose hips, and chamomile flowers.

She added a pinch of salt together with the purple healing powder she’d brought from Pearls Fields.

Allie used a large wooden cutting board as a makeshift tray, placed a bowl of soup, a cup of tea, and two shots of the medicine potions on it, and prayed to whatever deities were listening that she wouldn’t trip on the stairs.

She didn’t, but it took her forever to climb up. Allie pushed the door open with her elbow, thanking her past self that she had had the common sense to leave it cracked.

“Knock, knock,” she said softly, and was welcomed with a groan and the sound of rustling sheets. Finally, she placed the tray of hell on top of the dresser, next to the lamp, and went to check on her patient.

Big green eyes stared back at her.

“How are you feeling, Dom?” Allie asked, kneeling next to his bed. His eyes followed her until the angle made him drop her caring gaze, so he gathered the little energy he had and rolled on his side. A cloth fell on the bed, and Dominic grabbed it and rubbed his face with heavy, lazy moves.

“Like I’ve been run over by a truck. Twice.” Dominic cleared the glass from his aching throat. “Did you…” He fluttered the material, and Allie snatched it and discarded it on the nightstand.

“I did. I also made tea, and soup, and some medicine potions you might not like, and I’m not leaving here until you eat and drink everything.”

Dom’s initial instinct was to argue. But he was so damn tired, and she was so damn beautiful, with that soft pout that made him want to grab her by the neck and kiss her senseless.

If only he wasn’t fucking sick—he’d get into the how and why of that later.

Now this amazing woman stared at him with such determination in her eyes that he was glad to be lying down.

He clutched the sheets to keep himself from twirling his finger around the red strand of hair that had escaped Allie’s bun and fell freely over her cheek.

Such a lucky strand of hair.

“Fine,” Dom uttered as he pushed himself up into a seating position. Even if his first reaction was to argue, Dominic quickly realized there were fewer and fewer things he would not do if Allie was the one to ask.

Especially when she smiled like that, wide and fully and only for him, and so bright that the sunrise had nothing on her.

He was gone for her. And he would not fight it a minute longer.

“Great!”

Allie roamed around the room in her tight jeans, and he ogled her shamelessly because he was just sick, not dead. Her pastel green sweater had a V-neckline that hid the crescent moon locket in a warm place that he had an intense urge to explore.

“Is your fever high again? You’re flushed.” Allie dropped a bowl of soup in his hands and felt his forehead with her cool, soft fingers. Dominic leaned into her touch like a greedy cat, fully aware of the reason he was flushed, and that it had little to do with his fever.

Despite his infatuated brain, he felt lightheaded and weak, so Dom leaned against the headboard and gobbled down the hot and tasty chicken soup, which had some weird puffy dumplings he hadn’t tried before.

“Ginger tea,” Allie said as she exchanged his empty bowl for a steamy cup of the tea he hated most in this world. But she smiled at his empty bowl, then at him, and Dominic was powerless. He’d bathe in the damn tea if it meant keeping that expression full of light on her face.

“This is horrible,” he confessed, coughing through an entire cup. Allie grimaced.

“I know. I don’t like it either, but it’s helpful, I promise.

” She went to the dresser where she’d set up her mobile nursing station in his bedroom, then came back holding two shots of suspicious-looking liquids: one pink and one green.

“Why are you sick?” There was an edge in her question, almost like she was scolding him.

“I—”

“Is it because you’re overdoing it? Using too much of your power?

” Again, that edgy, irritated voice. Dom hadn’t thought about it, but he never got sick, so…

She might have been right. He had stretched his power too much yesterday, but wrote it off as a mere busy, tiresome day that a night of sleep would fix.

Apparently, he was wrong. When he didn’t answer, Allie muttered, “I thought so,” and shoved the green shot into his face.

“That tastes horrible,” she warned him and lifted her nose.

Like she was a bit happy he was being punished for getting sick.

Beside himself, Dom smiled.

Allie cared about him.

“You’re never smiling, but you’re smiling now?” She dropped the pink shot on the nightstand, looking downright outraged. He couldn’t help himself.

Dominic laughed. Loud and full, a belly laugh of joy provoked by the woman glowering at him. She watched him as if he was new and strange, and Dom supposed that wasn’t far from the truth.

Allie turned on her heels, but he caught her wrist just in time.

“Allie, wait.” He tugged at her hand until she sat down on the edge of his bed. “Don’t leave.” If the simple request wouldn’t work, he wasn’t above pleading like a child. Or holding her hostage, whatever worked.

The beautiful Witch scoffed and made a poor attempt to hide the smile playing at her lips.

“I’ll get some food for myself and be right back,” she assured him.

Reluctantly, he let her go, even if keeping her captive in his bedroom sounded like the best idea he had ever had.

But then she squeezed his fingers and smiled at him, and all was good in the world again.