I’d been in Oliver Creek for a few months and expected business to slowly build up, especially since the town was full of shifters who didn’t get many diseases or sicknesses, but I found that the draw of Oliver Creek’s other businesses trickled into mine as well.
On the weekends especially, humans came in by the truckload and often I was sold out of basic remedies and teas by Sunday afternoon.
I wasn’t complaining in the least.
I flipped the sign on the front door telling the public I was open that morning and got caught up on some salves and teas.
The population of Oliver Creek was growing by the second. When I went on my lunch break, I saw at least two new couples who were talking about expecting. The school, library, and parks were expanding and had plans for more. Everyone I met either had children or was expecting soon.
The couples made something twinge inside me. I wanted an alpha. Not just any alpha, the one Fate had chosen for me. It was the one subject on which my mother and I didn’t agree. She and my dad met and three weeks before I was born, he passed away in a car accident.
She was never the same, the townspeople told me.
If Fate had any moral compass, my mother whispered to me once, then she wouldn’t have taken my father so soon. They’d had less than a year together.
I ate my sticky honey-garlic ribs in the park, not liking the smells of food to mix with the scents from my products. The honey on the ribs was so complex. Notes of local flowers burst in my mouth along with the garlic and slight heat of chili peppers. It was so profound, I asked the owner of the food truck where he got it.
“There’s a beekeeper on the edge of town. North. I get all my honey there. Works wonders for my kid’s allergies as well. He sells everything in his shop, or you can place bulk orders. Here.”
He pulled a business card from the fridge. “This is where you find him. His name is Wilder.”
“Thank you.”
I went back to the store and found a human woman with her son waiting. He had an upper respiratory infection but, after a round of antibiotics from the doctor, the cough lingered.
“I’ve got just the thing.”
A tincture of mullein, thyme, and marshmallow root. As I explained the ingredients and how they worked together, the little one’s eyes lit up at the wordmarshmallow.
That night, I put the business card for the beekeeper on my fridge and made a note to contact them the next day. Maybe go over there on the weekend after my shop closed.
I used local products as much as possible and would bet his honey tasted amazing on a stack of piping-hot pancakes.
Chapter Three
Lewis
Too busy to let a headache and cough slow me down, I went about my day and attempted to ignore it. Maybe it was something in the air, possibly a cold, but none of that was a big enough deal to miss a meeting. Especially one online where I couldn’t pass on any germs, if I had any.
I brought up my iPad and entered the meeting room where my contact at the specialty shop already waited. “Hello. I hope I’m not late.” My throat tickled, and I took another sip of tea, hoping to suppress my coughs for the duration of the meeting.
It wouldn’t be long, after all.
But not two minutes in, I went into a coughing fit, and the buyer’s expression showed his doubt that we would be able to continue. “Do you want to reschedule, Lewis?”
I didn’t, but when I tried to reply, I couldn’t get enough breath before another coughing fit stopped me.
“I’m going to say we should.” He shook his head. “Whatever you’ve got, I hope you’ve seen a healer.”
Sucking in air, I managed to get out, “I’ll be fine, but how about same time next week?”
“Sounds good. I have the information you sent and I’ll go ahead and place the order online. Just get some rest and get well soon.”
“Sorry. This is”—hacking, I waved at the camera—“annoying.”
“I can imagine. Honey should help, right?”
I nodded. Usually it would be enough. It always had been in the past. “Won’t hurt.” That much was true. In a space between coughs, I choked out another apology and a thank-you for his order then disconnected.
