Page 42 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
Slow. Sure. So warm it burns.
The crowd shifts again, murmurs becoming claps, a few scattered cheers rising like birds startled into flight. Bramley whoops something that might be “About damn time,” and someone starts crying in the back—probably Ada, bless her sentimental heart.
But all I can see is Tessa.
Tessa, with her hand in mine and her heart wide open and no sign of fear in her eyes.
I lean down, barely a whisper from her ear. “You sure?”
She nods once, firm as any oath. “You’re finally planting roots. And I want to grow with you.”
Godsdamn.
I might be the alpha of empires, the man who walked into battle with nothing but plans and fury—but this? This moment? It unmans me in the best damn way.
I lift her hand, press a kiss to her knuckles, and look back to the crowd.
“This land’s yours now,” I say, raising the folder high once more before I toss it into the ceremonial brazier we set beside the stone. The paper flares, catching in seconds, flames licking through decades of ambition and replacing it with something rawer. Truer.
A co-op trust, funded by my own coffers, governed by the village, protected by law and promise and a ridiculous amount of small-town determination.
Tessa squeezes my hand, and I know I’ve finally done something right.
CHAPTER 21
TESSA
It smells like clove and cinnamon and sawdust in the shop again, which might not seem like much, but to me, it’s the scent of things finally turning the corner. I’m humming a little—something aimless and happy and embarrassingly off-key—as I hang the last wreath in the window, a crooked heart woven from cinnamon sticks and twine and wild sage from the south ridge. It leans just a little to the left, which probably says something poetic about me and balance and still figuring life out, but it’s staying that way. I kind of like it better imperfect.
The front door chimes as it swings open, letting in a gust of maple-sweet wind and Tara Mettles, who marches straight toward the display table and plants her hands on her hips like she’s here on official business.
“You put love wreaths out in October?” she asks, one eyebrow arched so high it nearly disappears under her blunt bangs.
I grin without turning around. “Hearts, homes, and maybe a few pinecones if you look close enough. It’s called seasonal optimism, Tara.”
“It’s called rushing things,” she huffs, but she’s already poking at a wreath of tiny apples and crimson ribbon, her expression softening like she doesn’t want to admit she likes it.
People keep stopping in, not really shopping, not always saying much, just… stepping inside. They let their hands brush the blankets on the ladder rack, breathe a little deeper when they catch the scent of rosemary and cedar tucked into the back corner, and I swear some of them just come to sit on the worn bench near the old stove and let the warmth seep into their bones.
I didn’t plan any of that. I just wanted to open the doors again and see if the shop remembered how to be a sanctuary. But maybe it never forgot. Maybe it was just waiting on me to come back with a steadier heart.
The bell chimes again—this time it’s Bramley, looking out of place with paint on his hands and a grin like he knows something he shouldn’t.
“Morning, Miss Hearth,” he drawls, brushing off his boots on the mat. “Heard you’re back in the business of mending hearts.”
I glance down at my apron, streaked with glue and glitter and something sticky that might be honey but I’m choosing to believe is sap. “If they’re willing to pay in cider donuts, absolutely.”
He chuckles and drops a paper bag on the counter before pointing toward the back. “You get that thing fixed yet?”
My breath catches before I even glance in the direction he’s gesturing. I know what he means. The acorn.
It’s still where I left it this morning—nestled in the little sunlight shelf near the register, its once-snapped stem now gleaming faintly gold in the early light. I finished it last night, working in slow, meditative silence long after the village had gone to bed and the only sound was the owl in the orchard calling for something it would never catch.
I took the broken halves and pressed them back together, letting the jaggedness stay, not sanding it down this time. Then I gilded the fault lines with a careful hand, using thin sheets of gold leaf the way my grandmother used to when she practiced healing rituals for cracked pottery. “The break is part of the story,” she used to say, fingertips warm as she ran them over the seams. “You don’t hide what’s been hurt. You honor it.”
So I honored it.
Even the splintered parts.
