Page 7 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
She grins. “An opportunity to figure out if your heart is still trying to tango with the one that broke it.”
I groan again and drag my hands through my curls.
I have spent years rebuilding this life. Quiet joy. Predictable rhythms. Flowers that don’t leave.
But now?
Now Drogath Thornhold iseverywhere, wearing my name on his tongue like he never gave it up.
And I’m going to have to stand next to him, smile for the town, andpretendlike I’m not still tangled up in everything I swore I buried.
Gods help me.
This harvest season is going to kill me.
CHAPTER 4
DROGATH
By all accounts, today should’ve been a victory.
The land survey came back clean—no hidden springs, no cursed burial sites, no surprise badger colonies. The contractors are ahead of schedule, the ridge soil is firm, and my investors are thrilled. If I sent one of my usual updates to the board right now, they’d call it a perfect opening quarter. Hell, they’d probably raise their glasses and toast my unshakable instincts.
But I haven’t sent a single report this week.
Because every time I sit down to do it, I look out the window of this creaky old inn and see the glow ofMaple & Mallowin the distance, flickering like a lantern just waiting to burn me alive.
I spent the entire damn morning pacing the eastern edge of the ridge, boots crunching over moss and lichen, pretending like I give a damn about scenic elevation angles and brochure wording. Truth is, I already know where the retreat will go. I could draw the blueprints in my sleep. The real reason I’m out there so long is because it’s quiet—and because it keeps me from doing what Ireallywant.
Which is to march straight into Tessa’s shop, drop to my knees, and ask her what it would take to build a life here—permanent, rooted, hers.
Instead, I go back to town.
I stop by a woodworking shop tucked between the post office and a bakery that sells cardamom tarts so sweet they make my teeth ache. The man behind the counter is older, human, with hands like sandpaper and a voice like crumbling tree bark.
“I need a custom sign,” I tell him. “Something sturdy. Rustic.”
He squints up at me, then gives a slow nod. “For the gala?”
“For the shop.”
That gets a raised brow.
I give him the measurements and sketch a rough idea—maple leaves carved in relief around the edge, her business name etched in cursive along a panel of polished cherrywood. I make sure it’s tasteful. Beautiful. The kind of thing she’d never admit to liking out loud, but that she’d run her fingers over when she thought no one was watching.
“I hear she likes your work,” I say, signing the slip with a flick of my pen.
The man softens. “Tessa Quinn’s got an eye for detail. Like her mother did.”
That gets me. I nod, leave a generous deposit, and head out before my expression cracks.
Next stop is the weaver’s cottage on Juniper Row. An elven woman answers the door in a shawl striped with forest greens and cider reds, her silver hair braided into a crown.
“You want wreaths?” she says, voice sharp despite the decades in her bones.
“Not just any. Tessa’s favorites. Dried thistle and orange, maybe some strawflower tucked into the base.”
She eyes me like I’m a raccoon sniffing around her root cellar. “Youarethe one who broke her heart.”
