Page 1 of Wishing for a Werewolf (Ferndale Falls Forever #2)

Autumn

A triumphant bleat cuts through the air as I spoon my special pumpkin spice mix onto the newly poured pumpkin soap. I hide a wince and smile at the camera. It’s fine, totally fine.

“Did you hear that?” I use the handle of a wooden spoon to swirl the rich-brown cinnamony goodness through the creamy orange soap in pretty patterns.

“That’s one of the goats here at Ferndale Falls Goat Farm, where the happy free-roaming animals produce the amazing milk that makes our soaps so luxurious. ”

I’m filming outside at the edge of the backyard, letting the forest’s red and gold autumn leaves create a beautiful backdrop that complements my red hair and bright teal dress. Part of my pitch is that I make natural goat-milk soap on a goat farm. Goat sounds simply add to the charm.

Yet I know that bleat. It should mean furry adorableness, but…

“Autumn!” my mother yells from the barn. “That goat has done it again!”

“That goat” is my attempt to create a mascot for our farm. All of the regular-sized animals are lovable, but mini-goats take cuteness to a whole other level. Too bad I picked one determined to be the most mischievous goat to ever gambol her tiny hooves across my heartstrings.

I finish up with a quick tilt of the mold pan toward the camera to show off the top of the soap loaf, my golden bangles sliding down my forearm in a soft chime.

“Look how beautiful this pumpkin spice latte soap is! I love the way the pumpkin adds a pretty pale orange to the soap, and the ground coffee we added will gently exfoliate as you wash! I wish you could smell its lovely scent. It’s spicy and warm, like a cozy fall hug.

” I take an appreciative inhale and let my eyes flutter closed for a moment.

Then I stare right into the camera and smile.

“We’ll let this set, and when I come back, I’ll show you how to cut it. ”

I click the remote to stop my phone from recording, hoping I’ll be able to edit out Mom’s voice and still use the video for my YouTube channel. Then I step around the rustic wooden table I use for filming, grab my phone from its tripod holder, and go to see what “that goat” has done this time.

The main house sprawls in front of me, a huge Victorian painted white with a touch of fanciful dark-green gingerbread trim.

An iconic red barn stands just beyond it, and as I pass the corner of the house, the south pasture comes into view, dotted with goats browsing on the last of the year’s grass, already starting to brown.

We moved the goats from the north pasture a couple of days ago, once they finished grazing its last growth of the year.

In a week, we’ll get our first big shipment of hay bales, which will act as winter feed.

But first I’ll use all of those bales to make the best hay maze Ferndale Falls has ever seen!

I’m totally going to win the maze design competition this year.

That’ll show Maria! Her farm’s hosted the event for the past five years running.

It’s time for someone new to win—it’s time for my family’s farm to shine.

We’re doing okay but only okay. If I can get business to pick up, then I can finally open the little store I’ve always wanted and sell my more artisanal soaps. And now that downtown Ferndale Falls is full of people shopping again, it could totally work!

Mom meets me at the barn door, her forearm swiping across her forehead to push her red bangs out of her eyes.

I get my hair color and freckles from her, along with pale skin prone to flushing at the drop of a hat.

Happy? I turn red. Mad? I turn red. Doing even the slightest physical exertion? Yep, you guessed it. I turn red.

“You been filming again?” she asks, eyeing my pretty dress.

“Yep. My pumpkin spice latte soap. I think that one could be a really great seller.”

She lets out a little sigh and tugs at the collar of her denim shirt. “We talked about this, honey. Our customers don’t want fancy. That time we tried, it didn’t work.”

“Our current customers might not,” I say. “Specialty soaps will attract new customers. If people could just smell them and see how pretty they are—”

“But they can’t.” Mom grabs my shoulder and gives a tiny shake. “The internet’s amazing, but no one’s going to smell your soap from a phone screen.”

“They could if we had a shop.”

“You know there’s no money for that. Now go and get that goat so you can come back and help me finish this batch of lavender.”

Lavender. The “fanciest” soap we make, along with peppermint and unscented.

That’s it. That’s the extent of our soap line.

It does well, but just barely. Our numbers are starting to slip.

I think we have to invest in something new to help the business.

Mom and Dad argue that there’s no cushion for any kind of risk.

Yet there’s no point in going over the old debate right now.

“Where’s Babybelle gone this time?” I ask.

“Off across the pasture, straight over the fence, and into the woods.” Mom points.

I squint at the goat-proof fence, which is a bit of an oxymoron, especially where Babybelle is concerned. How can a mini-goat get over the fence that keeps the regular-sized ones in?

As I cross the empty pasture, my boots crunch the browning grass, grazed low by the goats over the last few weeks.

This is the flattest area of the farm and where my grandparents always set up the hay maze for the Ferndale Falls Fall Festival when I was a child.

It’s time we got to host it again. “This year,” I whisper, a promise to Nana and Pop’s memory.

A few baas float through the air from the other field, and this year’s kids go bounding across the open space in a series of energetic hops that always make me smile.

A more insistent bleat comes from the woods ahead of me. Babybelle. Oh, no. Has she gotten in trouble already?

My fingers feel clumsy as I fumble with the goat-proof latch on the gate.

Then I slam it shut behind me, sprinting into the forest, already breathing hard.

My cranberry-red cowboy boots are cute as heck, but they’re not made for this.

Hell, I’m not made for this. I’m not in bad shape—I do a lot of yoga—but heavy cardio like running is so not my thing.

“Babybelle!” I yell. “Babybelle, where are you?”

A tiny black and white blur barrels out of the underbrush to dash past me.

She gives a high bleat of happiness that I’ve decided to play and spins on a dime to race back into the trees.

Her little cries sound just like she’s saying, “Me! Me! Me!” and I can totally believe it.

Animals tend to be pure ego, but the mini-goat takes it to whole new levels.

A soft huff of a laugh escapes me as I take off after her. For all her mischief, the little rotten does everything with such pure joy it’s hard to stay mad.

But she’s really done it this time, going farther than ever. We cut through a grove of oaks and near the property line.

“Babybelle!”

Her only response is to slow enough to let me catch the impudent flick of her tail, its white fur raised like a little flag above her mostly black back.

But this white flag is the opposite of a sign of surrender.

After a mischievous glimpse over her shoulder to make sure I’m following, the mini-goat takes off again, skipping through a patch of ferns, the reddened fronds waving in her wake.

She keeps heading north, crossing onto neighboring land. No one’s lived at the old Clemmons place for a couple of years, not since Jeb passed at the ripe old age of eighty-nine.

At least there’s no one Babybelle can bother there.

I break into a small clearing to find the mini-goat bouncing in a beam of sunlight, her splotches of white fur gleaming against the black. She gambols over to me with a hopping little run, headbutts my leg, then spins to take off again.

I race after her, heading east toward town. God, what if I don’t catch her in time?

Then I huff a laugh. As if anyone would care about a mini-goat running down Main Street!

Compared to all the pixies and gnomes and walking tulips that now fill Ferndale Falls, a goat would be nothing.

In the past few months, my little town’s gone from sleepy to bursting with magic and fae.

Downtown has been transformed, full of bustling shops and cute cafés with seriously yummy food.

And even yummier fae walking around like three seasons’ worth of Love Island contestants got dropped on our small town. We’ve got winged shadow daddies with tattoos, hulking orcs running The Thirsty Tusk, and sexy shifters silently stalking the streets.

Okay, so the werepanther, Shadow, isn’t necessarily the quiet type, but Rune…

I snort. The werewolf hasn’t said two words to me.

It’s not fair. A guy shouldn’t look that good if he’s not willing to at least flirt a little!

And staring at me all the time with those gorgeous golden eyes totally doesn’t count.

Hands lifted to shield my face, I push between a couple of pines, their long needles tickling over my forearms and filling the air with their crisp scent.

Babybelle leads me into a stand of oak, maple, and poplar trees, their leaves blazing red, gold, and orange.

The trunks thin ahead, forming a small glen, and she gallops straight for the old well at the center.

The circular stone base stands a few feet high, topped with a peaked wooden roof to keep off leaves.

No one ever uses it for water anymore—the hook to lower a bucket hangs empty—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t deep.

And I don’t trust her. The little furball of mischief is a total trouble magnet.

“Babybelle, no!”

Instead of obeying, she bounces right up to the well. Then my insides turn to ice as she leaps. Oh, god, this is it. She’s going to fall in!

Her little hooves clatter against the rock, finding purchase. Babybelle stands triumphantly on the lip of the well, looks straight at me, and gives a happy bleat that I could swear sounds like she says, “See!”

Jolting forward, I scoop her up, cradling her to my chest, which billows in and out like an accordion wheezing notes to an offbeat tune.

I stand, sucking in big gulps of air now that the run is over, pressing my cheek to the top of her soft little head.

“No more intense cardio for you, Autumn,” I mutter to myself. “It makes you hear things.”

As soon as I catch my breath, I turn toward home.

Babybelle becomes a whirling dervish in my arms, every muscle in her tiny body straining, her little legs kicking. “No!” Her cries sound human. “No, no, no!”

My hand tightens on her tummy, but it’s no good.

The mini-goat twists out of my grip. As soon as her little hooves hit the ground, she races around to the other side of the well and headbutts the wooden sign propped against it, her forehead bouncing off the words “The Wishing Well.”

“I haven’t thought about the Wishing Well since high school.” During eleventh grade, it was a rite of passage to come out here late at night and make wishes. Not that anything ever came of it. I crouch to wipe away the leaves built up at the bottom of the sign.

The Wishing Well

Will grant three wishes:

One for joy today

One for future happiness

One for the heart everlasting

Babybelle lowers her head and bounds toward my thigh, punctuating the hit with a “You.”

“Boy, you are really starting to sound human.” I rub her soft forehead, grateful she doesn’t have horns, since headbutting is her love language. “Those YouTube videos don’t capture half of it.” Most of the ones you find of goats sound like screams or babies crying.

When I reach for her, she scuttles away, one of her hooves clattering against metal. She paws at the ground, unearthing a gleam of silver. Sticking her nose under the edge, she flips the disk my way.

“A silver dollar!” My grandpa used to carry one, the jingle of Pop’s coin pocket always a happy sound, but you don’t see many of them these days.

A shiver of magic hums through the air when I touch it.

My head snaps up, and I squint into the trees.

Are there fae nearby? But I don’t see anyone.

If it wasn’t fae, what caused the magic?

Me? I’m supposed to be a witch, which is why I can sense magic, but I have no idea what kind of powers I have.

Maybe I’m a metalworker? I rub off the last of the leaf mulch, my thumb gliding over the coin’s embossed surface, but nothing happens.

A niggle of disappointment goes through me—guess I’m not some kind of metal witch—but the silver dollar is still interesting.

“Huh. It’s from 2000, the year I was born. What a coincidence.”

I scoop my free hand under Babybelle’s soft tummy and stand.

“You.” Her amber eyes meet mine, and she seems to point both her front hooves at the well.

“Oh, why not.” I study the sign again.

“One for joy today. Okay, that’s easy. I wish to win the competition to host the town’s fall hay maze at the family farm.

“One for future happiness. I wish to set up a shop to sell my artisanal soaps in person.

“One for the heart everlasting.” The first two wishes came easily—I didn’t even have to think about them—but this last one…

My voice drops to the breath of a whisper as I remember my friend Hannah and the love she’s found with her new fae husband.

“I wish for someone to love me, really love me, like head over heels, totally gaga love.”

I toss the coin, the wide silver disc spinning through the air, flashes of sunlight reflecting from it.

More and more sparkles flicker, too many to be natural, like someone set off a firework at ground level.

A whirl of magic sizzles through me in a dizzying rush.

The world spins—or I spin—I’m too dazed to tell.

I tip backward, falling, falling, falling. Nothing’s solid anymore.

A long arm wraps around my waist, catching me to a rock-hard chest. Shoulders as wide as the world strain the fabric of a soft cotton Henley, an island of stability I long to cling to.

I look up and up into a ruggedly handsome face, all tan skin and sexy scruff stretched over a jaw so square you can use it to draw right angles. The tease of fangs dents a full bottom lip, and the pointed tips of fae ears emerge from the heavy weight of long, deep-brown hair.

Rune. Gorgeous, huge, sexy werewolf Rune growls and stares down at me with intense golden eyes.

I suck in a shocked breath. He smells like musk and pine, like running through forest on a cool fall evening. He smells like something wild and untamed, like freedom and life.

He finally talks to me, his deep voice reverberating from his chest.

“By the goddess, Autumn.” His big fingers flex on my waist, making my heart skip. “What did you do to me?”