Page 13 of Bidding on the Orc Outcast

He studied her face, his expression unreadable, but he didn’t immediately reject her suggestion. The silence stretched between them again, broken only by birdsong and the whisper of wind through the trees.

Her heart thumped against her ribs. Had she said the wrong thing? Should she have suggested something more specific? She forced herself to wait, to not fill the silence with chatter.

“I don’t…” He cleared his throat. “I’m not good at talking.”

“That’s okay.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “We can start small. Flora mentioned you work with herbs. Do you grow them or gather them?”

“A little of both. Things like wintergreen and juniper grow wild and are easy to find. I cultivate some of the rarer plants, or ones that won’t survive the winter.”

“And you make essential oils with them?”

“I started learning when I was young. My mother taught me.” A shadow crossed his face, and she decided not to ask about his mother.

“What do you use them for?” she asked instead.

“I use some to make a few traditional orc remedies, but mostly I sell them. Online,” he added, answering her unspoken question.

A rustic cabin in the woods seemed an unlikely location for an e-commerce business, and the thought of him packing and shipping the oils made her smile.

“Flora said they’re magical,” she teased gently.

“They are.”

“You can’t tell me you cast spells.”

He shook his head, but his lips curved up for the first time. “No. But there’s magic in the woods, in the plants. If you know how to find it.”

“Could you show me?” She immediately bit her tongue. He’d only agreed to talking, and she suspected she’d already pushed hard enough.

Instead of responding, he rose to his feet and she followed him. She half-expected him to send her packing, but after a long pause he pulled on his shirt, leaving it unbuttoned, and nodded.

“Greenhouse is around back.”

CHAPTER SIX

Varek led the way down the path that curved around his cabin, worn smooth from his frequent trips. Posy followed, her footsteps light and quick compared to his, and he automatically slowed his pace to accommodate her. He’d fenced in the area behind the house in a not entirely successful attempt to keep the deer away from his gardens. Most of them laid fallow under a blanket of snow, only a few hardy varieties still visible, but the greenhouse was a riot of color.

He stopped to unlatch the gate, then waved her through. Her eyes widened as she took in the greenhouse.

“That’s amazing. Did you build it?”

He nodded, unexpectedly pleased by her appreciation. He pieced it together over months, carefully assembling the discarded windows he’d collected like pieces of a puzzle until they formed a weatherproof shelter for his plants. Each pane told its own story - the arched window from an abandoned church, square panels from a demolished schoolhouse, even a few broken stained glass windows discarded from Garrick Stonehaven’s mansion that he’d meticulously repaired.

The result looked nothing like the sleek greenhouses in his gardening magazines, but it suited the location. It suited him. The fact that she seemed to understand that made something inside him warm.

He held the door for her, ducking his head to follow her into the section he used for his workshop - shelves lined with bottles and a variety of mortar and pestles, along with more modern equipment.

“Are these all medicinal?” she asked.

“Most of them.” He picked up a small glass bottle filled with amber liquid. “This one’s pine and cedar. Good for muscle aches.”

“May I?”

She held out her hand, and he passed her the bottle, careful not to let their fingers brush. She uncapped it and inhaled, her eyes closing in appreciation.

“That’s wonderful. The scent is so… clean and earthy.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Did you grow the ingredients?”

“I collected those, but yes, I grow most of my plants.”

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