Page 4 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
There’s a knock.
Too light to be staff. Too bold to be accidental.
I open the door to find a boy—maybe twelve—holding a wrapped package withMaple & Mallowscrawled across the top in flowery ink. He stares up at me, wide-eyed.
“You’re... Drogath Thornhold, right?” he asks, voice cracking halfway through my name.
“I am.”
“I’m Clay. Tessa sent this. Said it’s payment for ‘startling a lady with no warning.’”
I blink, then take the box. It’s warm. Smells like cardamom and apple.
“She... baked?”
“Shebribed.Said you might need a reminder that this town’s still sweet, even when you’re not.”
I huff out a breath. “Smart girl.”
“She’s scary when she’s mad.”
“She always was.”
He eyes me a moment longer, then holds out his hand. “She also said you should come by the Harvest Gala meeting tomorrow at town hall. Eight sharp. If you’re serious about helping, you’ll show up with coffee and no attitude.”
I reach into my pocket and press a coin into his palm. “Tell her I’ll be there. With coffee. No promises on the attitude.”
He grins and bolts.
I close the door and carry the box to the desk. Inside is a hand pie, crust flaky and burnished, filling still hot enough to steam slightly when I break it open. I don’t even hesitate. The first bite nearly knocks the wind out of me—spiced apples, a hint of brandy, and cloves that remind me of her lips after a kiss beneath the orchard trees.
There’s a note beneath the twine.
Next time, knock like a decent orc. —T
I sit heavily in the chair and stare at the fire in the hearth until the pie’s gone and the silence stretches long. My empiremeans nothing if I don’t fix this. If I don’t find my way back into that warm, wild world she’s built without me.
Because I didn’t come back for the ridge.
I came back forher.
CHAPTER 3
TESSA
By the time I unlock the shop the next morning, half the village already knows.
Not about the pie I sent—that was just sugar-laced diplomacy—but abouthim. Drogath Thornhold. Orc billionaire, former heartbreaker, and current menace to my carefully curated peace.
It starts with Mrs. Fenley, who shuffles in under a gust of leaf-laced wind and whispers, “I saw him at the co-op this morning. Bought four jars of elderberry preserves and smiled at that poor cashier like he knew how to flirt. I nearly fainted into the onions.”
Then there’s Bramley Grigs stomping into the shop mid-morning, cheeks red from the chill and his own amusement, muttering something about “that orc lifting barrels like they were made of feathers and flexing so hard the apples blushed.”
By noon, three customers have asked if Drogath is single, and one—not naming names, but she’s wearing a scarf that matches her dog—offered to bring him baked brie with her phone number tucked under the rind.
Maple Hollow has officially lost its damn mind.
I try to ignore it. I really do. I stack cinnamon brooms into neat baskets and dust the shelves like they personally offended me. I even spend a full twenty minutes arranging a display of dried flower crowns until it looks like the Autumn Court threw up on the window ledge. But the hum in the air is louder than usual, electric with gossip, and I know it’s only a matter of time before?—
