Page 15 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
TESSA
T he first whisper comes from Miss Fenley’s rose-stained lips over the display of Braeburn apples. She leans in close, all hushed reverence and scandal-tinged breath, like she's about to confess a crime or tell me the baker's using margarine again.
“They’re surveying up near the east woods,” she says, tapping her temple like it's a state secret. “Just past the pond trail, you know the one—where the deer cross come dusk. Said it’s a new proposal. Development. Something big.”
I laugh at first—tight and bright and reflexive. “Oh, Miss Fenley. Rumors sprout faster than tulips after frost in this town. Probably just some drainage work.”
But she shakes her head, grave and certain. “No, darling. These weren’t village men. Suits. Clipboards. Company trucks with that Thornhold emblem painted big as pride.”
The Thornhold emblem.
My stomach dips like I missed a step on a staircase I thought I knew by heart.
I tuck the bouquet of cinnamon basil tighter into the crook of my elbow and murmur something about needing lemons before scurrying away from the stall, heart thudding so loud I’m half convinced Bramley’s nephew can hear it from the cider booth.
By the time I reach the shop, I’m pacing. Barefoot. Angry. Anxious. All of it wrapped in a tangle that smells like dried rosemary and impending heartbreak. I haven’t even taken off my coat, and my boots lie abandoned near the threshold like they gave up on me.
I try to focus—there’s wreath orders to fill, bundles to tie, and the cooler’s a disaster from last night’s gala pickup rush—but every time I try to thread twine around a bouquet of dried clove oranges, I hear her voice again.
Company trucks.
Thornhold emblem.
East woods.
I know that stretch of trees. It's barely half a mile from the back fence of my shop’s little garden plot.
The wild bit. Untamed. Sacred. I used to sit out there on the overturned crate that still smells like fennel seed and watch the light dapple through those maple leaves, humming nonsense songs and dreaming of greenhouses and forever.
If he —if Drogath—is touching that land, even with good intentions, even with his endless resources and maddening, earnest eyes—I need to know. I deserve to know.
Because I won’t let him make a liar out of the man he’s been lately.
I don’t storm the lumber yard or show up at the inn swinging accusations like a broom at a raccoon.
I wait. I wait until the weekly garden co-op meeting lets out, and he’s walking past Maple & Mallow with a carved box under one arm and his collar turned against the wind like he doesn’t feel the cold anymore.
“Tessa,” he says, warm and low, eyes crinkling like I’m something soft he wants to hold.
I don’t soften.
“You’ve got crews in the east woods?”
He stills, just slightly. Enough to tell me I’m not imagining it.
“Just preliminary,” he says. Calm. Measured. Cautious. “Nothing’s finalized.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
His jaw flexes, just once, but his voice stays quiet. “I didn’t want to say anything until I had something solid. No need to stir up panic over paperwork.”
I blink. The words hit like cold water down my spine.
“No need, ” I echo, voice sharper than I mean. “Gods, you sound just like you did before.”
His brows draw together. “Tessa?—”
“No,” I cut in, stepping back before I do something dramatic like throw a bundle of baby’s breath at his chest. “Don’t ‘Tessa’ me with that voice like I’m a fragile root about to snap. You’re doing it again. ”
“I’m trying to keep you from worrying,” he says, the box in his arms tightening like it’s the only thing keeping him steady.
“And who asked you to decide what I get to worry about?” My voice wavers, and I hate that it does. “You think just because you gave me a blueprint and a dream, you can still choose what part of the world I see?”
He looks like I just slapped him. Not furious. Just… gutted.
“I didn’t mean?—”
“Doesn’t matter what you meant,” I whisper, the words scraping my throat. “You’re still keeping me in the dark.”
And I can’t help but remember being twenty-three, alone and aching, waiting for letters that never came while he chased power and cities and god-knows-what without ever looking back.
He steps toward me, slow, hands open like he might reach for mine if I just give him the space.
But I don’t.
I retreat to the safety of my doorway like it’s a shoreline, and I’m too soaked to let myself be pulled back into deep water.
“Don’t,” I say, barely audible. “I can’t do this again.”
And then I close the door—not hard, not in anger. Just enough to say: Not today.
I don’t cry. Not right away. I busy myself rearranging eucalyptus and pulling dried pomegranates from their bins. I scrub the sink. I sort twine. I count stems twice.
But by sundown, I’m curled up in the back room, the tin with the acorns resting on my lap, and my chest too full of words I never said.
Why didn’t you tell me?
Why don’t you trust me?
Are you still the boy who left, or the man who came back?
I don’t open the tin.
I don’t burn it either.
I just sit with it, like it holds some answer I haven’t figured out how to hear yet.
Over the next few days, I pull back. I don’t do it with icy glares or door slams—I just drift. I leave before he arrives at meetings. I pass the orchard on a different route. I make excuses about inventory and schedule tea dates with Tara I don’t fully commit to.
He doesn’t chase me.
And that might be what hurts the most.
By the end of the week, the town’s begun to buzz.
Some folks defend him. Say he’s brought business, donated lumber to rebuild the community center roof, even bought pie from every booth at the gala.
But others aren’t sure.
They’ve seen the trucks. The clipped conversations. The uncertainty.
And me?
I’m stuck somewhere in between.
Caught between the man who carved an acorn for my tea tin and the one who kept his empire’s claws in the soil behind my shop.
I don’t know who he is anymore.
And the worst part?
I still want to believe he’s mine.