Page 20 of Let’s Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About

Eleven

S adie stood frozen while Josh leaped into action. “I’m going to turn off the electricity and gas and plumbing so nothing gets any worse,” he said, handing her Shadowfax’s reins then tearing toward the house.

Fucking tornadoes.

Oh, insurance . If she called an insurance company, they would probably tell her what to do. Shit. To know who to call, she would have to talk to her father first, and then she was right back where she started.

Why did this all feel like her fault? Like she’d tempted fate when she decided to stay in Pea Blossom, when she kissed Josh after watching him dance like a person who knew how to fuck.

She wasn’t meant to be here. She was meant to stick to her lane, do the artwork she knew how to do well, and secure herself a measure of peace.

Anything that distracted her from that—namely caving to her competitive side and then kissing a man as delicious as a sun-warmed strawberry—was asking for trouble.

She could walk everything back, tell Josh to forget about her pumpkin, forget about her. Josh would stay at the fringes unless she invited him closer.

Plus she still had to figure out what to do with the crushed house. Stu wouldn’t come back, nor should he.

While their relationship’s future was uncertain, the photo on the vanity of her, Stu, and a pumpkin from her first day back proved there was something worth salvaging.

Literally and figuratively. Despite this tornado, despite the way her heart was in a vise at the moment, not everything was terrible.

She idly stroked Shadowfax on his velvety muzzle and stared at the house, tears welling in her eyes. In a few minutes Josh came jogging back. He had a small twig in his hair and his clothes were damp in patches.

“I don’t think there’s any risk of fire or flood or explosion at this point,” he said with a steady voice, like emergency personnel who were comfortable in the face of disaster. Like someone who runs right at it.

“Okay,” she said.

“Why don’t you go in and pack yourself a couple of bags with what you need. You can stay in the unit above my garage. It’s not totally finished yet but it’ll do for a night or two if you want it.”

No. She could stay with her sister. She didn’t have to impose on Josh’s kindness yet again. “The pumpkins?” she asked. If she stayed at her sister’s, she’d have to bike to Josh’s every day. It wasn’t the most practical option.

“Your dad’s look okay, a branch down on them here and there, but I don’t think you’ve lost any plants. I haven’t checked on ours yet but I’m sure they’re fine.”

Small blessings. If the plants she’d been reviving from the hog wreckage were done in by this tornado, she might have simply melted into the earth.

“Here’s a plan, what do you think,” Josh began. “I get Shadowfax back to the barn, you pack necessities, and I’ll drive over with the Civic to get you.”

She wasn’t handing anything over, but here he was reaching over the fence and plucking these burdens like carrots from the garden. The relief made her tight chest slacken. “That sounds reasonable.”

“I’ll drive you back, you can get comfortable in your room. I’ll come over here with some tarps and try to cover things as much as I can in case it rains again. Do you want me to call Stu?”

“You would do that?”

“Of course,” Josh said. “I haven’t chatted with him in a while. I can ask him about insurance.”

Sadie’s first thought was I could kiss you . But she already had. Thinking back to their moment, sweaty and dancing in a weird electronics closet in the library basement, it seemed like it happened in another lifetime.

“I’m sorry to say,” Josh continued, “I haven’t plumbed the garage yet. So you’ll have plenty of privacy but unfortunately no running water. The house is unlocked, though, and there’s a full bathroom off the kitchen that I won’t use for the time being. Make yourself at home.”

Had anyone ever invited her to do something so wild?

To make herself at home? She didn’t like to share space; the thought jangled her nerves.

Enough that a persistent voice pushed itself forward in her mind: Go home.

This was fight or flight again, and she had no fight left in her.

The pumpkins were fucked, the house was fucked, Josh or Esther could take over the foraging, and she could be done with all of this.

Pick a new commissioned project, forget this had ever happened. Move forward.

What was keeping her in Indiana now? One single pumpkin that she only just began taking care of?

It would take little for Josh to bring it back “online.” The Growers Guild might be mad that she’d asked for an exception and then not used it, but who cared?

She didn’t owe them anything. What about her hopes that she and Stu could be closer?

She could try to call him more often from California and work on things from there.

Meanwhile, none of these distractions were helping her focus on whether she could come up with a weaving project for herself or whether she’d do another commissioned work.

These thoughts swirled as she entered the house.

Tree limbs turned the living room into a jungle gym.

Sunlight streamed through the holes in the roof, and fluffy insulation from the attic blew through the rooms like snowdrifts.

She packed clothes and toiletries back into the bags she brought from California.

The photo on the vanity survived; she slid that into a pocket of the bag she carried every day.

Josh ferried her over to his house wordlessly and Sadie ascended the stairs to the right of the garage door and beheld her new digs.

The bed, an enormous oak sleigh, was made up with a quilt pieced in a red-and-white flying geese pattern.

There was no closet, but the chest of drawers and simple clothing rack sufficed.

A rocking chair and an end table completed the spartan furnishings, like some old-timey prairie dorm room.

An overhead light fixture and a box fan in the window were the electronic conveniences.

It was pleasant, in fact, someplace with lots of white space to rest her eyes.

Her father’s house was so packed with stuff, from tools to antiques to trophies, and her own home was also her workplace, forever nagging her to squeeze another hour in before quitting for the day.

She could gather her thoughts in this room while she figured out what to do next.

The room spoke to her, in fact, in the form of the towel folded at the foot of the bed. She was still sweaty from dancing in the stuffy server room and then bicycling home, and what would center her was a nice, long shower under cool water.

As she descended the stairs to the driveway, Sadie noted Josh’s Civic was already gone.

He was no doubt precariously perched on a ladder, heroically trying to save those antiques and trophies that cluttered Stu’s house from any further rainfall.

Hopefully he also got through to Stu on the phone and could deal with the initial blowback.

Once under the luxuriously cascading showerhead, she noticed that she’d left her toiletries in her room.

Josh’s shampoo and conditioner accounted for his cedar scent, apparently.

As for his homemade loofah soap, the soothing lavender and vanilla aroma made Sadie want to float away on a fragrant cloud.

She scrubbed herself pink and let the cool water sluice over her for many long minutes.

Stepping out of the shower, she realized that not only had she left her toiletries behind in her scattered state, she’d forgotten the towel Josh set out for her. She felt boorish dripping all over Josh’s tile floor, laid with pristine penny round tiles in charming floret and diamond patterns.

She opened the narrow door of the closet in the bathroom and was relieved to find more towels that matched the one left on her bed. She twisted her hair into one and wrapped another around her body. He favored quality towels, generously sized to easily span her hips.

Below the shelf of towels was another shelf that immediately made her ears go hot.

So. Many. Sex toys.

Josh had gone on a very horny shopping spree.

All the items were still in their unopened packages. Was he some collector of horny memorabilia, perhaps thinking it might appreciate in value over time?

Top-of-the-line stuff, too, like his towels. Rechargeable vibrators, dildos, nipple clamps, cock rings, quite the variety. Sadie was impressed, though curious why they were all unused.

She slipped back over to her room to dry off and get settled.

Her phone revealed a missed call from her father and a text from Grace saying, You get through the tornado OK?

Kyle can’t make it home because of downed trees .

With zero energy to explain her debacle and even less desire to question Kyle’s sketchy/convenient excuse, she set the phone back down.

She wasn’t ready to deal. Lying on top of the quilt, still wrapped in the towel, she dropped into sleep.

A chirrup from her phone woke her sometime later, alerting her of another text.

Josh wrote, Pizza over here if you’re hungry .

He knew she had no access to food in the garage.

Josh wasn’t born with the Midwestern gene requiring people to hook up refrigerators in their garages.

If she didn’t eat anything, she’d wake up hungry in the middle of the night, and that would be torture.

She had to admit the brownie she’d snacked on at the library had valiantly contributed all the energy it was capable of.

She got dressed and knocked on the screen door. Josh yelled back, “You don’t have to knock!”

When she found him at the kitchen table, delivery boxes and a six-pack of beer sat before him, he spoke again. “Make yourself at home. Everything sucks. You won’t interrupt anything.”