Page 5 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch
OhGod. A whirlwind of emotions spun through her, twisting her insides and making her want to yell with the stupid, frustrating pain of it. Was this some kind of crass joke? Hadn’t she been through enough today? She shoved the note back into her pocket. Because somewhere, deep inside her, the words registered as something she’d long suspected but didn’t have the courage to admit. And after everything the world had fired at her that morning, one more truth bomb might sink her.
She felt herself wobbling and thrust out a hand. All she got was a prickly hedge... and a voice?
‘Rachel?’ A woman bustled out of an overgrown entranceway and made Rosie jump. The woman glanced at her watch and tutted. ‘You’re a bit bloody late.’
Rosie blinked back the tears that she really hadn’t invited, and glanced behind her for a Rachel, even though it was obvious there was no one else around. ‘No, I... I’m Rosie,’ she stuttered, forcing up her reluctant shoulders as much as her holdall would allow. If nothing else, her mother had taught her not to blubber in public.
The woman screwed up her face, as if she was trying to remember something. She reminded Rosie of the squat, scary-looking woman from that filmMisery. The one who’d kidnapped the writer and bashed his legs with a sledgehammer to make sure he wrote a novel without escaping. That would be just about her luck today. Rosie shook her head. The writer in her always did have an overactive imagination.
‘I was sure he’d said Rachel,’ the woman continued, scratching her head. ‘But he’s a forgetful old beggar, and I ain’t much better. Well, you’d better come in and I’ll show you around. I’m rushed for time now. Let’s go.’
The woman beckoned her with an urgent hand and turned to walk away.
‘I’m not sure...’ There was clearly a mistake, and Rosiewantedto explain herself. But she was also desperate for a wee, and perhaps she could ask to use a phone. And anything that distracted her from the contents of that letter could only be a blessing. As she plastered on her brave face and hobbled around the hedge and into the opening of the entrance, she spied a huge, ramshackle house that would surely have room for at least five toilets.
‘Teapot’s warm,’ the woman shouted back at her. ‘I’m not one for idle chit-chat over bone china, but you look like you need something hot before you keel over. Nerves got to you, or something? Anyway, I’m not having the death of an employee on my hands.’
An employee? But there was no time for questions. The woman marched off along the dirt track towards the big house. And there would be acup of teaat the end of it. It wasn’t quite a pumpkin-spiced latte, but what she wouldn’t give for that ritual of calm, right then. The small, cup-shaped thought filled Rosie with a flutter of hope after the worst morning ever. There would be plenty of time for explanations when they got to the house. Although maybe she should get her jittering hands around that cuppa first.
As Rosie limped past the partially overgrown wooden sign at the entrance, she noticed the name carved into it.Autumn Meadows Farm. She probably shouldn’t follow strangers onto unknown land, when not a soul knew where she was. It had Scary Hostage Situation written all over it. Though quite honestly, Rosie didn’t think her morning could get any more atrocious than it had already. What was there to lose?
4
‘I’ll put your tea in a flask. Chop chop! No time to hang about like bats.’
Rosie did her best to keep up with the older lady, as she swept down the dirt-track driveway like a whirlwind in a wax jacket and welly boots. If she’d been hoping for a bit of sympathy with her sweet tea, it didn’t look like she was going to get it.
They were almost halfway to the tumble-down house when Rosie saw him. She had to blink a few times to check she wasn’t imagining him.
His long, dark hair was tied back from his face, which looked kissed by the sun and nature’s elements, but rugged in a way that made Rosie’s breath catch. It was like watching a wild, untamed beast as he heaved his way along the path with a stern determination, and actually grunting. Though, in fairness, she might have done the same if she’d been cartingthaton her back. It was a pumpkin. A ginormous orange one, which looked like it belonged in a prizewinning competition and would have squashed most people like a pancake. Who even grew them that big? And why? Well, at least someone was playing the alpha role in their own story, and she was already doing her best not to cast him in one of hers.
Seeming to sense someone was staring at him, the man, who was probably a similar thirty-something age to Rosie, stopped to look up. His eyes were like the darkest shade of wood, and Rosie instantly wished she knew more about trees so she could put a word to them. As they met with hers, she had the overwhelming sense she wanted to write a thousand words. About eyeballs? She shook herself off and cleared her throat. Her wayward writer brain was playing tricks again.Walnutwould do. It was rude to ogle strangers. The walnut-coloured eyes narrowed at her and then darted a look towards the woman in charge, who was now at the door of the house.
‘Come on, Rachel. You’re already late!’
‘No, it’s...’ Rosie didn’t have the energy to shout.
Walnutty pumpkin man grunted again and strode off, still carrying the world’s largest squash as though it was a perfectly normal pastime. Maybe it was, at Autumn Meadows Farm.
Rosie was soon inside the house, and after she’d reiterated that her name was Rosie, her host introduced herself as Agnes. On closer inspection, Agnes still looked worryingly like the woman from the filmMisery– although in truth, she seemed brusque rather than mean, and Rosie hadn’t yet spotted any sledgehammers. After a bit of huffing, she’d even let her use the ancient downstairs toilet.
Now she’d done that, of course, Rosie knew she should ask to use a phone to call the car breakdown people and be on her way. Though in all honesty, she had no idea whereher waywas. She couldn’t face being towed back to the family home, with her half-sister, Flick, gawping and saying,‘I told you Cassius was a nerd-geek.’The curious inside of the farmhouse was more intriguing – and therehadbeen mention of tea.
‘Come on, come on. Let’s not dawdle.’ Agnes ushered Rosie towards a tattered curtain that hung in a doorway, and they ducked past it, into a kitchen.
The kitchen was a jumble of mismatched furniture and yet more pumpkins – of all sorts of strange sizes, colours and knobbly shapes. Rosie was a big fan of autumn and those cosy baskets of tiny pumpkins you saw in cute deli shops and cafés, but these were something else. She had never seen such an array of them. Some were pretty shades of amber, peach and fiery ginger. Others were unashamedly warty and bordering on gruesome – yet there was something fascinating about every one. Her fingers itched to reach out and touch them, but fondling other people’s vegetables might come across as peculiar. Or were pumpkins classed as fruit?
As she pulled her gaze away, she spotted something else that was curious, through the dimly lit room. Various sets of eyes were appraising her. They belonged to cats, and lots of them. Not unlike the pumpkins, they came in all shapes and shades, yawning on rocking chairs and stretching on worktops. Strutting across the broken floor tiles as though they were great kings and queens of who knew where.
‘My strays,’ said Agnes, who must have been busy filling a Thermos flask with the promised tea while Rosie was taking in her surroundings. She handed it to her. ‘They keep me company.’
‘Wise choice,’ said Rosie, nodding her thanks for the flask. The place might have seemed a little unusual compared to what Rosie was used to, but she’d take the company of cats and misshapen fruit or veg over the tech-nerd hell she’d just stormed out of.
There was a loud mewing as one of the cats began swinging from the doorway curtain.
‘Door fell off,’ said Agnes matter-of-factly. ‘Could probably get Zain in to fix it.’ She tipped her head in the direction of the dirt track where they’d seen the guy hulking the freak pumpkin. ‘But I couldn’t put up with all the swear words and testosterone.’
Zain. So that was his name. Rosie imagined Cassius trying to replace the missing door with a swipe-card entry system, which didn’t quite have the same appeal. Not that she’d found walnutty eyes appealing, of course. ‘Sometimes you’re better off without men altogether,’ Rosie agreed.
