Page 7 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll

TESSA

B y the time I make it to Town Hall for the Harvest Gala planning meeting, I’ve already broken two pencil tips, burned a batch of orange-peel sachets, and told a scarecrow to go straight to the seventh circle of the harvest moon.

It did not respond.

Tara, naturally, finds all of this hilarious.

“You know,” she says, trailing me up the steps in a shawl the color of overripe cranberries, “if you glared any harder at the agenda, the paper might spontaneously combust. Just think—no seating chart required.”

“Don’t tempt me,” I mutter, adjusting the satchel on my shoulder and clutching my tea like it holds my last remaining thread of sanity.

Inside, the meeting room already smells like anxiety and cinnamon scones.

The long pine table is littered with fabric swatches, lantern samples, dried flower arrangements, and someone’s half-eaten maple bun.

Bramley’s there, sipping cider and pretending not to eavesdrop.

Three other council members chat by the window—Mrs. Fenley, always in some shade of lavender; Ewan Larkspur, who overuses exclamation points even when speaking; and Ada, the schoolteacher who runs the silent auction and has a suspicious addiction to raffles.

And, of course, Drogath.

He’s leaning against the far wall, arms crossed over that ridiculous chest, looking like a thunderstorm wrapped in a wool coat. The moment I walk in, his eyes lift—burning gold and way too steady—and I swear my stomach does an absolutely treacherous somersault.

I straighten my spine.

Smile like a professional.

March over to the table with the same energy I reserve for extracting dried rose thorns from my palm.

“Morning,” I say brightly. “I brought updated vendor notes, a revised cost list for the cider garden, and the willpower not to stab anyone with a corn skewer. Let’s keep it that way.”

Ada blinks. “Did something happen?”

“Nope!” I say, flipping open my notebook like it holds the secrets of the universe. “Everything’s just fine. ”

Across the room, Drogath grunts.

I don’t look at him.

Planning the Harvest Gala is normally one of my favorite events of the year—bundles of mums at every table, families dancing under string lights, the smell of warm cider and rain-damp hay.

This year? This year it feels like being asked to arrange autumn leaves with a bear looming over my shoulder, muttering about logistical efficiency.

“Centerpieces should be symmetrical,” Drogath says, tapping a drawing I made of staggered floral bundles. “The tables are uniform. The décor should reflect that.”

I arch a brow. “The gala is not a war conference. It's a festival, not a summit. The asymmetry is part of the charm.”

He folds his arms. “The charm is in the function. If the tables don’t match, the servers will lose track of which ones need cider refills.”

“Then we train better servers.”

He levels a look at me that says I’ve negotiated mergers in boardrooms where the wallpaper cost more than this entire town.

“Well, Thornhold,” I say sweetly, “this isn’t a conference center. This is Maple Hollow. We do things with personality.”

“Your personality just threw out a perfectly balanced lighting schematic.”

“And your lighting schematic looked like the floor plan for a prison riot.”

Bramley coughs into his cider.

I press on. “And another thing, these linen samples are not all beige. This one is pumpkin cream.”

“That’s beige.”

“It’s festive.”

“It’s bland.”

“It’s nostalgic.”

“It’s boring.”

“ You’re boring!”

The room goes still.

I realize I’m standing now, cheeks flushed, hands clenched on the edge of the table.

Drogath’s mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smile. “You always did argue like you were ready to throw the table.”

I breathe out through my nose. “And you always argued like you were issuing a ceasefire agreement after a hostile acquisition.”

“You always made it worth the fight.”

And just like that, the air shifts.

My heartbeat stutters. I don’t mean for it to. I hate that it does. But the way he says it—quiet, low, just for me—makes the room blur around the edges. I should say something snarky. Deflect. Keep control.

Instead, I sit back down. Hard.

Bramley scratches behind his ear and mutters, “Remind me to charge double for cider this year. Gonna need it.”

After the official meeting ends, Ada and Ewan pack up the raffle sheets and Bramley disappears with Tara muttering something about tree lights.

I stay behind to organize the mess on the table.

Not because I need to, but because I need to not storm out like a flustered mess with feelings I refuse to name.

Of course, he stays too.

He moves slowly, collecting fabric swatches and stacking lantern bases into neat, military rows.

“I meant what I said, you know,” he says, without looking at me.

I keep my eyes on the list I’m rewriting for no reason. “Which part? The symmetrical tables or the beige betrayal?”

He huffs a breath that might almost be a laugh. “About you making it worth the fight.”

I pause, pen hovering over the page.

He sets down the lanterns, hands braced on the table’s edge, and finally meets my eyes.

“You were always fire and roots and mess and heart. I didn’t always understand it. But I wanted it. All of it.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“I still want it.”

My breath catches. Just a little. Just enough to betray me.

“You can’t just say things like that,” I whisper, words hot and uneven. “Not after the way you left. Not after the way you’ve come back.”

“I know.”

He steps around the table, slowly, like he’s approaching a skittish animal in the woods.

“But I also know I didn’t come back to play at being civil. I came back because I’ve spent every year since I left wondering what it would’ve been like to stay. To choose us. And I’m trying, Tessa. I’m trying to show you that I still can.”

I want to throw the clipboard. I want to scream, You don’t get to decide that now, and You had your chance, and Don’t you dare make me feel this again.

But I just stand there, heart hammering, the scent of pine and candle wax wrapping around us like memory.

And then Bramley pokes his head in the doorway and hollers, “Quinn! The cider wagon lost a wheel and Mrs. Fenley’s threatening to bless it into a fruit salad. I need backup!”

I jump, a little too grateful for the interruption. I grab my satchel, the meeting notes, the ridiculous pumpkin cream swatch, and bolt for the door without another word.

But as I pass him, Drogath gently brushes his fingers across mine.

And even though I don’t stop—don’t even flinch—I know he felt the way my breath hitched.

I should’ve known better than to let Bramley talk me into decorating the barn loft.

“Just needs a little autumn charm,” he said, gesturing with his cider mug like he was a wizard casting a spell. “Nothing fancy—just a few lanterns, maybe some hay bales, string up some of them dried corn husks you like so much.”

A little autumn charm, he said.

Now here I am, knee-deep in itchy straw, sweat prickling at the back of my neck, trying to wrestle a twelve-foot garland of dried apples and cinnamon bundles into place while balanced halfway up a wooden ladder that creaks like it’s got trust issues.

“You’re going to fall,” Drogath says, voice low and even, like gravity is something he can negotiate on my behalf.

“I’m not going to fall,” I huff, twisting to hook the garland onto a protruding beam. “I’ve been climbing this ladder since I was sixteen.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s safe.”

“Well, neither is loving someone, but people do it anyway.”

It slips out before I can stop it.

Silence drops like a weight. The words echo a little too loud in the loft’s open air.

I freeze, cheeks going hot, hands still knotted around the twine garland like it might save me from tumbling headlong into emotional chaos.

Behind me, I hear the soft shift of boots on wood, the low creak of the hayloft floorboards beneath Drogath’s weight.

He says, “That why you’re scared of both?”

“I’m not —” I start to snap, but the ladder shifts.

Just an inch. A wobble.

It’s enough.

My foot slips on a patch of loose straw, and I pitch forward with a yelp, fingers scrambling for balance that isn’t there.

But Drogath is.

His arms are around me before the ladder can even tilt again, solid and warm and absurdly strong as he catches me against his chest like I weigh nothing. My breath slams into my lungs, my whole body stiff, and suddenly we’re close . Closer than we’ve been in years.

His hands are on my waist, anchoring me.

Mine are clenched in the front of his coat, knuckles white.

And there’s nothing between us but about three inches of air and a decade of unfinished sentences.

Dust floats in the amber light streaming through the slats in the roof, catching on the faint breeze from the open hayloft door. Everything smells like dried clover and old wood, and his scent—pine, leather, faint smoke—wraps around me like it never left.

His eyes are molten gold. Focused. Still. Watching me like I might shatter and he’s terrified to be the one who causes it.

“You okay?” he asks, voice low, rough-edged with something too tender for comfort.

I nod.

But I don’t move.

Because suddenly I can feel the echo of every kiss we ever shared.

The way he used to tilt his head, just so, when he was about to brush his lips over mine.

The way his tusks framed his mouth, sharp and beautiful, when he smiled only for me .

The way his hands—those same hands currently holding me steady—used to cup my face like I was the only soft thing in a hard world.

My heart stutters. Stumbles. Starts to gallop.

He leans in.

Only a little. Barely enough to register.

But I feel it.

The intention in his breath. The weight of all the things he’s not saying. The apology curled up between us like a leaf waiting to fall.

Part of me wants it.

Wants to give in. To kiss him and forget the years and the ache and the jagged edges we never sanded down.

But the other part that remembers what it felt like to be left behind, cold and waiting for letters that never came, heartsick with the taste of clove and goodbye still on my lips?

That part screams not yet. So I pull back.

Carefully. Quietly. Like untangling a root without tearing it.

“Thank you,” I say, stepping away from his arms.

He lets me go instantly, like he knows the second I’m not ready.

I dust my skirt off. Fiddle with a piece of twine. Pretend the way my hands are shaking is from the fall and not from him.

Drogath doesn’t say a word.

He just nods, jaw tight, eyes unreadable again.

“I’m fine,” I murmur, not quite meeting his gaze. “It was just hay.”

“Still.” His voice is low, careful. “Could’ve been worse.”

Could’ve been more , I don’t say.

I turn to the garland, tying it off in a messy bow. “We’ve got six more of these to hang before sunset. Let’s just… finish the job.”

He steps back, gives me space.

And for the rest of the afternoon, we work side by side in near silence, stringing up the bones of a celebration neither of us is ready for.

But every time our fingers brush on the twine or he reaches past me for the lantern oil, I feel that kiss we didn’t have hanging between us like smoke in the rafters.

Too close.

But not quite close enough to burn.