Page 13 of Let’s Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About

Seven

W hat was Josh doing inviting her onto his horse? Blowing her cover, that’s what.

“Okay, I lied,” Sadie admitted. “I do know him.”

“Why would you lie about that?” Grace asked.

“I’m just trying to figure out his whole deal, and I wanted unbiased information. Not that you’re at all unbiased, horny for him as you are.”

Grace made a yuck face. “Ew, don’t say ‘horny.’ I know you. You’ve never told me about your crushes. You’re so secretive. And you’re horny for him, too. Ugh, now you’ve got me saying it. Sit your ass back down.”

Sadie doffed her backpack and complied. “I’m not secretive,” she countered.

“I’m private. It’s different. And I’m not horny for him.

” Her fascination with his skilled hands and the way his hips moved in that horse’s saddle were nothing more than admiration.

Couldn’t she appreciate a good-looking human being without it getting blown out of proportion?

This was precisely why she kept her feelings to herself.

“Show me your ears,” Grace said sternly.

“What?”

“You lie like a rug. Show them to me.”

Sadie sat firm and Grace leaned forward, pushing Sadie’s short locks behind her ears. Without a mirror she knew they were bright red; she could feel their warmth.

“Ha!” Grace exclaimed, and then revealed her own crimson ears under her blond blowout. “That man does something to you, too!”

Maybe that light he was always shining was spotlighting her, specifically. She could be a deer in the headlights about it, prepared to crash…or she could appreciate being seen.

Impossible. He was just trying to see the road ahead and she happened to be the nighttime creature crossing his path.

Damn her and Grace’s shared genetics, with the telltale red ears. “He’s just a flirt. I get flustered when anyone flirts with me. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“You lie like a rug,” Grace repeated, but she dropped the subject.

Her sister spent the rest of the time asking in-depth questions about giant pumpkins.

Librarians were nothing if not curious. When Sadie was debating whether to return to Pea Blossom, a reunion with Grace was definitely in the plus column.

Now she was regretting staying away so long, even if her sister did harass her about Josh.

Pumpkins were still at the front of her mind when she returned home.

So she decided to call Stu to ask—theoretically speaking—when to commit a plant to a single pumpkin by removing all but one chosen orb.

She desperately needed to choose which pumpkin her weigh-off entry plant would funnel all of its resources into.

She thought Josh had already waited too long.

But the timing was tricky, and she certainly wasn’t about to ask him about it.

He’d touch her plant with those fucking hands of his.

Then she’d be dazzled into listening to him, someone who’d never won the weigh-off.

It was a much better idea to call her dad, even if she worried her doubt might shake his confidence in her.

She should have expected her father would supply the most maddening answer possible.

“You know when you know.” He’d been honing these instincts for decades, attuning himself so closely to his plants that they spoke to him more plainly than she ever could.

Her instincts, on the other hand, were both rusty and less refined.

Sadie dedicated the past decade to textiles. What tension would keep the edge of a piece of fabric neat, how to make the fabric as dense or airy as she wanted it. She wasn’t letting insecurities disrupt her flow any more than her father questioned his techniques for his pumpkins.

“Is that really all you have for me?”

“Things have changed, Sadface. When it was me entering the weigh-off, I was supposed to be the one making all the decisions. Now it’s all you.”

She’d never learned to drive because Stu kept grabbing the damn wheel, nearly driving them both off the road. How was it so easy for him to let go now? Did he not want a stake in her potential victory?

“You’ll know when you know,” he reiterated. Then he added a coda to this obnoxious answer. “And you will know.”

That tender moment gave her an opening. “What is it about pumpkins, Stu?”

Stu made popping noises with his lips, one of the tics that let Sadie know he was deeply considering her question.

“I was at SPICE to see a buddy in the demolition derby, and I happened upon the weigh-off. Something clicked. Your mother had just left, and I was feeling pretty low. It looked like fun, and I thought you might like it, too.”

“I do like it.”

“I think without pumpkins, I would have become a grumpy old recluse.”

“You are a grumpy old recluse.”

Stu chuckled. “The Growers Guild would disagree! If I hadn’t been willing to leave the pumpkins, maybe I’d agree with you. But I stepped up. And you stepped up.”

“How did you know I wasn’t going to destroy them all again?”

“Safe to say you’ve done some growing up since you were a teenager. And anyhow, I thought my odds were better with you than Josh.”

She hadn’t done anything to restore his faith in her, other than come to Indiana when he asked. But that was something, wasn’t it? What else could she do at this point? She could try visiting Indiana while he was there. Or maybe she could extend this trip.

“When do you come back from Florida? Should I stick around after the weigh-off? You can see how nicely your patch is recovering.”

He answered her without considering for even one second. “Oh no, Sadface, don’t wait for me. You got your life to get back to.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to keep her voice flat. She couldn’t let him know she felt rattled.

“Send me photos from the weigh-off, though. I need to see how much you beat Josh.”

That sentiment returned the smile to her face. She was going to kick Josh’s ass.

Besides, she called her father for information about pumpkins, not to fix their whole relationship. She got what she needed. It was silly of her to think she could change everything all at once.

The next day, Sadie checked on the tiny babies in her father’s patch, where she was seeing signs of growth.

There was a good chance these plants would yield pumpkins, after all.

Then she marched through the woods separating Fox Family Farm and Josh’s Squashes.

Typing a preposterous secret code that was several digits too long let her through the security gate into the patch.

She would look at her plant with an honest eye, and she would know, she told herself.

Just like Stu had said. It might be today.

She wouldn’t spend any time fretting about what Josh was doing.

Or rather, what his fleet of technological tools was doing for him.

The dude should try growing pumpkins with human hands instead of cyborg pincers.

Josh had mentioned that the motion sensors and cameras in the garden were deactivated once people were inside. It was both so the system wouldn’t erupt into deer alarms while people were around, and because he acknowledged that it was creepy to have the surveillance footage.

She got used to the solitude in the patch, so when Josh appeared in the open back door of the A-frame holding a stainless-steel bowl heaped with vegetable scraps, she started like she’d seen a ghost. He smiled and waved, friendly ghost that he was.

“How are things?” he hollered.

“Fine,” she said. She looked down at her plant, took a deep breath, and went with her gut. “I’m culling pumpkins. And they can go in the compost, too, assuming that’s where you’re headed with that bowl. Unless you want them for something.”

Josh set the bowl on the steps and let himself into the patch.

“Big day,” he said quietly.

“Big day,” she repeated.

She didn’t want to delay; she hated being unsure.

So right in front of him, she committed to her one pumpkin, pulled the folding knife from the pocket of her black jeans, and cut the other four from the vine.

She wiped the blade on her thigh, folded it, and sank it back into her pocket.

It only took a second. Yet it called up the image of all the destroyed pumpkins next door, trampled before their prime thanks to a careless neighbor.

Maybe she was overreacting, but her throat felt tight.

“It’s done,” she said. “Don’t worry, I won’t throw these into the woods.”

Josh still spoke in a hush. “You can if you’ve still got some lingering frustration.”

How was he not afraid of her emotions, and why was that so fucking hot?

Sadie was afraid of them herself. They weren’t as strong as they had been that day, but she still felt them bubbling in her. And they were extra intrusive because she had an unusual level of mental space now that she was in an artistic rut.

She should be so much busier. She should have been talking to her father every day, going through tube after tube of sunscreen while she weeded and watered and fretted over his plants.

Instead she felt adrift. She needed to find a loom and start a project, but she’d been procrastinating on that particular task because, frankly, she didn’t know what she wanted to do.

Tending a single pumpkin and lightly monitoring a bunch of recovering plants wasn’t enough to hide from her artist’s block.

Josh bent and picked up a cut pumpkin. He made no comment at all about its size or potential or her decision or their competition. “Hungry?” he asked. “I have a bunch of summer squash that didn’t sell at this week’s market. I was thinking of making ratatouille, and I hate cooking for one.”

Sadie could relate and rarely cooked for herself.

One of the best things about living in Southern California was the variety of amazing food she did not have to prepare for herself.

Pea Blossom was way too far from decent tacos or Korean food for her comfort.

Josh, with neither roommates nor a romantic partner, was either cooking for himself every night, or…

“Do you cook for Stu? Am I subbing in for him?”