Page 44 of The Pumpkin Bride

“I knew you were a good one.” She clapped, then pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “Oh. The world is swirly. Can we trade bunks tonight? I’ll sleep here. You take the loft.”

She flopped back down on the divan, then burrowed under the quilts. This would not do. He grasped the logic of her laundry argument, but his protective instincts demanded she take the less vulnerable loft. If Crispin and his knights returned, Bram wanted Marigold upstairs and tucked into his bed, leaving him down here, ready to fight.

“Come on.” He tugged at her hand. “I’ll help you up the stairs.”

She giggled as she slipped from his grip. “I can’t possibly make it.”

Her bones were as limp as stewed pears. He agreed she couldn’t climb under her own power. Luckily, as an orc, he had power for days.

“Then I’ll carry you.” With nary a grunt, and careful of his wound, he lifted her. As Bram, he’d capably carried her, but in Jask’s arms, she was light as a butterfly.

“Put me down.” She batted at his chest. “You’ll pop a stitch.”

He could feel his pulse in each of those five stitches, but there was no strain in his palm. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll get all wet.” Marigold laid her head against his shoulder. “Wow, orcs really do run hot, don’t they?”

He grunted in response. She didn’t know the half of it. At the stairwell, he turned sideways. Fuzzle followed, the evil beast twisting himself around Bram’s ankles.

“Do you want us to break our necks, cat? Shoo.”

Marigold glanced up at him with her huge blue eyes. “You pretend to be all surly, but you’re a big marshmallow, aren’t you?”

“No.” He turned at the landing.

“Okay, not a marshmallow. But definitely marchpane.” She held his chin and squeezed. “Squishable.”

“Stop that,” he sighed. “You’re the only person on the planet with the audacity to put her hand near an orc’s mouth.”

“Because you won’t hurt me.” She patted his chest. “I know it.”

Saints, but this was a test of his willpower.

At the top of the stairs, he turned, then ducked under the slanted beam as he crossed to his neatly made bed. With ease, he kneeled on the bed’s edge, then deposited her gently.

“Thank you.” She fluttered her eyes open, then tilted her head. “You remind me of him.”

The scant light up here was from the moon and the ambient light that crept upstairs from the fireplace. Both worked together to lend her an angelic glow.

“Him who?” He held the bed’s post.

“Bram. Something in the way you carry yourself. And you always seem to know what to do.” She sat upright and loosely gestured toward her trunk. “Can you get me a fresh shift? There’s nothing better than falling asleep after a bath in clean clothes and a comfy bed.”

With a hard gulp, he pivoted.

On some deep level, Marigold recognized him. Despite everything—the changed form, color, voice, eyes—she sensed something familiar under his skin she could trust, and she didn’t need to fear him. She couldn’t allow herself to consider he might be Bram. Who could?

But she liked the orc—that much was clear. And that would need to be enough.

He sorted through her trunk, ignoring her undergarments. As he pulled a soft linen shift from among her dresses, a handheld looking glass tumbled out with it. He’d long rid the cottage of these to avoid his reflection.

Today the orc didn’t frighten him as it once had.

After tossing the glass in her trunk, he took the shift to Marigold. “Here.”

She flashed him a beautiful, muzzy-faced grin. “What would I do without you, Jask?”

Probably have been captured and dragged back to Brambleton Castle. His insides slithered with the thought.