Page 39 of The Pumpkin Bride

“So, you like my name?” She bumped her shoulder against his biceps.

After a beat, he said, “It’s a nice name.”

“I may swoon. Thank you, Jask Bone-Cracker. So is yours.” She sniffed. “Does the air smell like cinnamon? Or am I imagining that?”

“That’ll be the birch trees.” He held the lantern up and led her behind the byre. “The inner bark smells like wintergreen and cinnamon. When bucks scrape their antlers against the trunk, the bark peels and it releases the scent.”

The sun had sunk behind the tree line, and the first stars popped on like freshly lit candles in the purpling sky. She sighed deeply. If she lived here, much like the hooting owls, she’d never remain indoors at night.

“There,” Jask said. “The bucking tub’s under the lean-to.”

Beneath the lean-to’s canted roof stood a neatly organized collection of equipment. Amid the plow, a device with a crank, ladders, and a laundry pot dangling from its three-legged stand, stood a bucking tub the size of her trousseau trunk.

“It’s perfect.” Her blue sparks shrank it to the size of a shoe. After tucking the tub under her arm, she skipped back to the house. Inside, she slipped out of her shoes and moved the crate from the center of the bearskin rug.

“I’ll manage the water,” Jask said.

With great reverence, she centered the tub in front of the hearth. Her blue-sparked snap returned it to full size. As Jask poured the soup pot of boiling water into the tub, Fuzzle scampered up the stairs.

“It’s not for you, cat,” she called after his tail.

When she turned her attention back to the tub, only three fingers of water rippled within. That was barely enough to wet her ass.

She pursed her lips. “This’ll take a lot of boiling.”

“Which is why I bathe in the lake.” He refilled the pot and returned it to the stove. “It’s cold but gets the job done.”

“I was told that’s not an option for me.”

“I stand by that.” He folded his arms across his chest, which caused his forearms to bulge. “Too many prying eyes out there.”

“Whose? It’s you, me, and the animals.”

“Ramblers cross these borders all the time, Princess,” he said. “And there’s Alfred.”

“Alfred? He’s half my height and width. He’s harmless.”

“No one in the hinterlands is harmless. Can we please agree that you’ll bathe inside the cottage as long as you’re here?”

She pressed her hands to her heart. “I swear on my father’s crown I will not attempt to bathe in the out-of-doors.”

“You do that a lot—swear on your father’s crown.”

“Do I?” She pursed her lips. “I suppose it’s because I wouldn’t be sad if he lost it and Rowan, Beckett, and I lost ours along with him. It would make life a lot safer. Easier, too.”

He shouldered the support pillar under the loft. “For you.”

“Yes, for me.” She sifted through her herbal kit, searching for ingredients that matched Jask’s scent. “Do you have pine resin?”

“Yes.” He retrieved a bottle from the drawer above the kitchen’s corner cabinet, then handed it to her. “Tell me, Princess, about this need for a safer and easier life. Do your diamond shoes hurt as well? The tragedy of clean sheets and regular meals must be horrible.”

Jask’s tone was friendly. Well, friendly for an orc. But the angle of his argument set her teeth on edge.

“Ha ha. Obviously, there are advantages. But overall, I don’t want them. My father’s position makes targets of us all and prevents me from living the life I want. Royalty complicates my freedom to choose things for myself.”

His gaze was as focused as an archer. “What weren’t you free to choose?”

She licked her lips. Why dodge the answer? She’d been more honest with Jask in two days than anyone else in her life for the past five years.