Page 32 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch
‘Yes!’ she said quickly, trying not to grimace. ‘That too. I do all sorts, really. Creative things. Did I mention I’m writing a novel?’
His eyes widened. There, that usually distracted people. She didn’t need to admit that her previous attempts had been rejected for being strangely bereft of romance, or that her current fictional hero was based almost entirely on him.
‘I’d better not be in it.’
‘Nooooo. Writers never use people they know.’Much.
They walked on for a while in silence, Rosie behind Zain, his usually strong shoulders appearing slack. She’d expected more of a grilling on her slip-up over job roles, but presumably her full-blown robot-sex revelation had trumped the fact she liked to write stuff. That was bound to turn even the toughest person a touch queasy. She wasn’t usually such an over-sharer, but Zain had been sharing some of his heart too, even if he hadn’t meant to.
Rosie tried to turn the conversation back to bat chat, but it didn’t engage him. Zain’s arms hung at his sides, the bat detector almost forgotten. Even the bats had gone eerily silent.
Since the mood was already broken, maybe it was a good moment to tackle the other subject that had been filling her with dread. They weren’t going to get anywhere talking about kinky androids or winged mammals.
It was time to get real, and she finally had Agnes’s permission to do so. She took a deep breath and balled her fists.
‘I need to start laying down plans for these retreats, here on the farm. As you saw today, it’s getting quite urgent.’ She winced, fully expecting a backlash.
Instead, she got another huff.
‘Agnes didn’t want to worry you, but if we don’t use the retreats to scrape together the funds to fix her roof by winter, she’ll have to find another option. Right now, the only obvious one is to start selling off the land.’
Zain stopped abruptly, his back stiffening. ‘Sell it to who? What about my pumpkin fields?’
‘The only people interested are a tech company. I think they’re more into mass-producing robo-creatures than preserving anything that’s living.’
He spun around to face her, his eyes feral in the moonlight. ‘What?’
‘They make robot cats, and they want this land to build a factory.’
Zain’s face was a knot of angst, and if it was possible to see a heart breaking through all those layers of jumper, she was seeing it now.
‘A factory?’ His voice was still low, but every part of him was shaking like he might just explode. ‘A dirty big concrete mess over the top of everything I’ve been trying to grow? And not for the first time, why has nobody breathed a damned word of this to me before now?’
Rosie remembered Agnes calling him an undetonated bomb, but it probably wasn’t prudent to mention that.
‘Agnes hoped it wouldn’t come to that, and she didn’t want to upset you.’
‘Upset me?’ The flashing red eyeballs were back. ‘What am I, a child? Whatupsetsme is everybody lying. So if there isanythingelse you’ve been hiding from me, I suggest you tell me now. It works out well for you that I don’t want to disturb the bats, because you do not want to hear the full force of my fury.’
Rosie swallowed hard, thinking of the other bombshell that would cause even more wreckage.
He took a step back and exhaled, as though realising that even his quiet aggression was a lot. He rubbed a hand against his temple.
‘There is one more thing,’ Rosie said slowly. Well, one more thing hehadto know. She’d still be harbouring her own closet skeletons, if she didn’t want to get the sack.
‘The thing is... Agnes had some advice. The best way to create real interest for the retreats is to offer what this farm does best. We need to give people the sort of retreat experience they can’t find anywhere else around here.’
His forehead creased. ‘What the hell? Notnakedwild swimming? I was pissed off enough about hipsters in swimming pants, but if they’re going to be parading round with their balls on display, hugging trees and getting pubes in the lake...’
‘No, Zain. The farm’s Unique Selling Point isn’t nudist swimming.’ She braced herself for the storm. ‘It’spumpkins.’
Zain’s jaw dropped, his eyes widening like a pair of Baby Boos.
‘No.No way. I am not having people trampling around the place, poking their noses into my precious Warty Goblins, carving up my Crown Princes and wanting to turn my Casperitas into pumpkin-spiced latte.’
‘It would be nothing like that!’ Now wasn’t the time to mention that she really missed a pumpkin-spiced coffee. ‘I honestly think we can work together on this. Reach a compromise that suits everyone. Because it’s got to be better than the alternative.’
His face tightened.
