Page 17 of Falling for the Grumpy Orc (Monsters of Saltford Bay #1)

Chapter Thirteen

Gerralt

The sky is just starting to lighten when I throw my bag into the truck and climb behind the wheel.

There’s a cool bite to the air, the scent of pine needles and damp earth washing over me as I grip the steering wheel.

The Saltwater Lodge is hidden from my view by the dense cover of the forest, curled up safely on the shoreline, but its presence is like a hook in my gut, pulling me to it. To her.

Last night, I almost crossed a line I can’t uncross.

The feeling of Cassidy’s lips is still burned into my memory.

The way she kissed me first, tentative and soft.

The way I snapped like a goddamn branch in a winter storm and kissed her back, all teeth and possessiveness.

She didn’t pull away like she should have.

No, instead she leaned in. Melted into me.

And for a moment, I let myself forget everything else. I almost claimed her, mated her right there on the spot.

I can’t let that happen again.

So I do what I do best. I get to work.

The engine roars to life, vibrating through my fingers as I grip the steering wheel.

I steer out onto the road, heading for Weyland’s Lumber.

It’s a two-hour drive if I take it slow, but with each mile marker that ticks by, my foot presses harder on the gas, eager to outrun the memories that are creeping up behind me like shadows in the rearview mirror.

I tell myself I’m only making this trip for work. The lodge foyer needs a new mantelpiece, something solid and timeless. Weyland’s Lumber is the only place that carries the kind of high-quality lumber I need.

That’s the reason. The only reason.

I shake my head, as if it could physically dispel the doubts swirling in my mind.

Just a business trip, nothing more.

It’s got nothing to do with the fact that I haven’t set foot in the small town of Silverbrook in almost twenty years. The thought grips my heart, a vise tightening as my breath quickens. I swallow hard, but the lump in my throat won't dissolve.

As the miles pass and the lump in my throat grows bigger, I double down on my resolve to ignore it. It’s silly. Irrational at best .

But even as my mind says one thing, my brain thinks the opposite.

This is the road I was driving when everything went to hell in my life and it feels almost poetic that I chose today of all days to drive on it again.

Today of all days, days after I kissed the woman who uprooted my life by the balls and shook me to my foundation.

My knuckles whiten as I clutch the wheel tighter, the leather cool against my clammy palms. My eyes flicker to the trees lining the highway, their branches swaying slightly in the wind as if whispering secrets of the past. The county road stretches ahead, much like it did back then, dark asphalt cutting through the forest, flanked by towering firs.

Memories flash through my mind uninvited, a kaleidoscope of moments that I fought so hard to bury.

I see them as clearly as I see the pavement in front of me. My mother’s smiling face in the rearview mirror, proud to see me drive next to my dad. My father, trying to act relaxed as I took the curve just a little too fast. All so happy. All so carefree.

All that happiness, so easily broken.

Then the car in front of me, swerving madly across the road, as unpredictable as it was sudden. My mother’s cry and my father’s shout. The metal screaming as I lost control of the truck.

The lump in my throat grows and grows until I can barely breathe.

Fuck. I shouldn’t have come here. There’s lumber in other towns.

But here I am. Driving on the same road where happiness was ripped from my life along with my parents’ last breaths. As emotions choke me, threatening to drag me back to the darkness where they thrive, another image imposes itself to me .

Cassidy. Cassidy and her smiling, eager face. Cassidy’s laughter and her smart mouth, all that sass wrapped into a delicious, intoxicating package.

I hold on to the thought of Cassidy as the lump loosens by the tiniest of fractions in my throat. Then I hold on to her some more and the lump loosens until I can finally wiggle my fingers around the wheel.

It’s not gone. Not by a long shot. But for the first time since I was a seventeen-year-old boy, I see more ahead of me than just an endless dark void. I see the smiling face of the woman who haunts my dreams and makes my blood boil.

By the time I pull into the lot outside Weyland’s Lumber, the place is already humming with early-morning activity.

The crisp scent of freshly cut wood mingles with the lingering bite of the night’s chill, sharp and familiar.

Forklifts beep as they weave through the yard, their engines grumbling under the weight of thick timber planks.

Sawdust drifts lazily in the sunlight, catching in the folds of my jacket as I slam the truck door shut.

I roll my shoulders, shaking off the stiffness that settled in during the long drive, but the real tension, the kind coiled deep in my chest, is back with a vengeance.

The place is still the same as it was all those years ago, in that other lifetime I’ve buried deep and far.

The layout hasn’t changed much; the same stacks of lumber stand like sentinels, the same towering shelves stuffed with planks and beams. It even smells the same, that rich, earthy scent of oak and pine, of varnish and sweat and honest labor.

A voice drags me back into the present.

“Banesman? ”

I turn, squinting against the morning glare.

A thick-set man stands near the entrance of the main warehouse with his arms crossed over his broad chest, his pale-green skin and garnet eyes a testament to his half-orc heritage.

His thick black beard contrasts with a head full of salt-and-pepper hair, and his dark eyes narrow slightly beneath thick bushy brows.

Emory Fenn. The owner. Still the same, if slightly altered by time.

His gaze lingers on me, surveying, assessing, measuring the years that have carved lines into my face, tightened my posture, left their marks in me in the ways only time can do. Time and tragedy.

“It’s been a long time,” he says, his voice gravelly but not unkind. “Last time I saw you, you were all skin and bones and worried about who your prom date was going to be.”

I nod, flexing my grip at my sides. “It’s been a while.”

Emory grunts, the kind of noncommittal sound that carries more weight than words. His gaze tracks over my face, and then his expression shifts.

“I never got a chance to tell you, but I was awfully sorry to hear about what happened to your parents,” he says, his gaze steady on me. “They were good people.”

“I’m sorry, too,” I answer and I’m surprised to find that it doesn’t make me want to turn around and stomp to my truck and drive away.

Emory nods, then his lips curve up about halfway. Not exactly into a grin, but close enough. Something knowing and quiet settles behind his eyes. He shakes his head, rubbing a calloused palm over his short-trimmed beard.

“You look just like your old man. ”

The words hit harder than they should. I’ve heard them before, countless times from Bernice, from old neighbors and just about everyone in town who still remembers, but hearing it here, now, in this place?

It lands like a hammer to the ribs. It hurts, but it’s a good kind of pain. The kind that promises a healing afterward.

My father used to stand right where I’m standing now, hands on his hips, arguing good-naturedly with Emory about the price of lumber and the worth of honest craftsmanship. He used to bring me here when I was just a kid, barely tall enough to see over the stacks of planks.

Now I’m back, and I realize he’s not entirely gone. Memories of him still linger in all the people who remember him. And inside me.

I clear my throat, dragging in a deep breath that does nothing to loosen the knot in my chest.

“I’m looking for a good slab for a mantelpiece I’m working on. Something thick, good grain. I was thinking hickory, oak, or even walnut.”

Emory watches me for a heavy beat, like maybe he hears everything I didn’t say hidden between the things I did say. Then, with a grunt, he nods toward the warehouse.

“Follow me.”

I fall into step beside him. A few minutes later, I run my hand over a promising slab of walnut, feeling the dense grain beneath my fingertips.

Emory nods toward the slab. “Good choice. I’ll have the boys prep it for you.”

I step back, pleased to find the tightness in my chest gone, replaced by a warm buzz. Like being here, I can feel a bit of my old man with me.

I pay for the slab and go wait by my truck while the warehouse guys wrap it up for me, basking in the warm midday sun.

But then my gaze drifts toward the far end of the parking lot, where the scrap piles sit in uneven heaps of broken planks and discarded offcuts.

Movement catches my eye, someone hunched low, sifting through the wreckage with slow, deliberate motions, next to what looks like an old shopping cart, overflowing with junk.

The person, a human man around fifty years old, turns his face to me and stares for a moment before returning to his task.

Those worn blue eyes, that eagle beak of a nose, and those high cheekbones all echo inside my brain to form the image of a man that is as engraved into my memory as my own reflection.

My breathing stills. Blood rushes to my head and the sound of my own heartbeat drowns the noise from the lumberyard.

Joren Veckett. The drunk driver whose car swerved in front of my father’s truck and stole my parents’ lives from them.

The name slams into me like a physical blow, rattling through my bones.

For a second, I'm certain my mind is playing tricks on me.

The last time I saw him, he was standing in a courthouse, his expensive suit pressed to perfection, his expression carefully blank as the judge read the sentence that meant nothing.

A fine. Probation. A slap on the wrist for something that stole everything from me.

But this man? This man is barely recognizable.

His back is curved forward, spine bowed as though the weight of the years has settled on his shoulder.

His clothes are worn thin at the elbows, the fabric fraying and stained.

His hands, once pristine and manicured, shake as they sift through the discarded wood, fingertips ghosting over broken edges like a man searching for something that isn’t really there.

My pulse hammers in my ears.

Joren mutters under his breath, eyes darting among the scraps.

His fingers close around a piece of lumber no thicker than my thumb, movements slow, deliberate.

He places the scrap of lumber on top of the pile and pushes his cart away, but the front wheel catches in a hole in the pavement and tilts to the side.

He doesn’t see me.

I take a step forward, the gravel crunching under my boot. His head jerks up, and for the first time in nearly twenty years, our gazes meet.

Hollow. That’s the only word for his eyes.

No recognition flickers there, no guilt, no understanding. Just a skittish wariness, the look of a stray dog expecting a kick.

“I ain’t stealing.” His voice is as hollow as his gaze, worn and brittle. “I got permission to take those. Emory says I can take as much as I want. Gotta keep myself warm, he says.”

He bends down and picks up the scrap of wood, then clutches it closer to his chest, his fingers curling over the rough, splintered surface. It’s an instinctive gesture, protective, almost defensive.

My fists clench without my permission. Heat coils in my gut, ugly and familiar. I’ve spent years imagining this moment, the things I would say, the weight of my fury behind them. But now?

Now, I’m standing in front of a ghost .

This is the man who stole my parents from me. The man who destroyed lives and walked free. And yet, looking at him now, all I see is someone condemned.

Joren flinches when I move, like he expects me to strike him.

I don’t.

Instead, I step around him, toward the overturned cart. I put it back up on its wobbly wheels, then step backward and out of his way.

Joren stiffens, his breath catching. For a moment, he just stares at me, uncertain, confused. Then, hesitantly, he steps forward. His gaze flicks to me, brief, unsure.

“Thanks,” he mutters. Then he looks away, hunching his shoulders inward, shrinking in on himself. He begins pushing his cart away through the parking lot.

He has no idea who I am.

And maybe that’s worse than if he did.

Behind me, Emory calls my name, his deep voice cutting through the crisp morning air. I turn and see him waving from where the walnut slab is being loaded onto my truck.

I walk back to Emory waiting by my truck door. His eyes are knowing when they go from me to the homeless man pushing his cart. He doesn’t say anything, but I know he saw what I did. Saw what I didn’t do, too.

“His wife left and took the kids after what happened with your folks,” Emory said with a soft, quiet tone. “He lives in a trailer parked behind the Piggy Wiggly these days. Comes here now and again to get wood to burn.”

I grunt, unable to speak and yet grateful that Emory told me what I needed to hear .

“Have a safe drive back home, Gerralt Banesman.” Emory nods to me. “And don’t be a stranger, you hear?”

I hesitate, then I nod back at him.

My eyes flick to Joren.

He doesn’t look at me again. He still struggles with his cart, heavy with the few possessions of a man who has nothing. Who is nothing. This is all that's left of the specter that haunted me all these years.

A hollow man, surviving in the ruins of his own making.

I draw in a slow breath. My hands unclench.

Then I turn away.

I don’t speak. I don’t demand explanations or apologies. Because Joren Veckett isn’t the monster I spent half my life chasing.

He’s just a shell of a man who lost who he is.

And I’m still standing.