Page 15 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch

It was difficult to have a serious conversation with someone when they had a one-eyed chicken under their arm and a plethora of toast crumbs down their misbuttoned cardi.

Luckily, Rosie was fast becoming the sort of person who didn’t run at the first sign of ridiculousness.

She guessed that was a must if she was going to stick it out at Autumn Meadows Farm.

‘So I thought the new shower and toilet block could go right here,’ Rosie said, gesturing with her arms to the place where their open-air, poor excuse for a shower was.

Rosie had sketched up her new idea in her notebook and had tried showing it to Agnes, but her boss was too busy making clucking noises at her latest unfortunate stray.

In fact, Rosie hadn’t got much sense out of Agnes all morning.

She’d gone to the farmhouse to tell her boss she’d be staying, to which the woman had said, ‘Well, obviously,’ as though this unconventional role was the best thing since sliced pumpkins.

Then she’d brought Agnes out here to talk through her winning concepts, but it was proving difficult to hold her attention.

Rosie cleared her throat. In fairness, she did feel a bit bossy, waving her pad around and suggesting a bunch of changes, but if she was going to start getting the place ready for retreat visitors this autumn, she ought to get a move on.

And part of her was anxious to prove herself as a proactive, sparklingly brilliant employee, after being cruelly replaced by a piece of dumb software just a few days before.

‘The new shower and toilet blocks?’ Rosie said, in a louder voice, trying her best to sound assertive rather than nagging. ‘Retreat guests are going to need a little more than this .’

Agnes looked up from her conversation with the chicken. ‘No budget for it. But this shower works perfectly, and they’re welcome to share your compost toilet. I can get hold of more sawdust.’

Rosie blew out a long breath. ‘This water is freezing cold, and there’s barely any privacy for people to get changed.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with this shower, although I refuse to start sharing it with half of the Cotswolds.’

The brusque voice behind Rosie made the hairs on her neck stand on end. Zain bloody Kay. Of course it was. It seemed she couldn’t have a confidential chat about anything without him rocking up.

‘And your swimming people can get changed under their weird poncho towels. It is swimming retreats you’re here for? Like that annoying woman Krista.’

‘Definitely just swim retreats,’ said Agnes, giving him her best, absolutely not lying smile, and trying to distract him by flaunting her one-eyed charge.

He briefly fussed the chicken’s head, before turning to eyeball Rosie and the notebook she was now sweatily clutching. He stepped forward and snatched it from her. Her heart sank. At least it only contained a few drawings and a list of general items, and probably didn’t mention the word pumpkins .

‘So what, you’re planning to knock down trees and fill the place with breeze blocks?’

‘Not exactly.’ She bristled, putting out her hand for her notebook.

It didn’t sound great when you put it like that, but that hadn’t been her plan, exactly.

‘It’s just that guests might prefer nicer facilities.

Lovely warm power showers, somewhere to plug in their hair straighteners, full-length mirrors. ..’

‘They’ll get clean enough in the lake,’ Zain huffed. ‘And aren’t they coming out to nature to escape all that superficial, plugged-in bullshit?’

It was true that Rosie had happily shunned the expectation to do anything with her hopeless hair since she’d been here, but she wasn’t ready to concede that point.

‘I haven’t used a full-length mirror since 1983,’ said Agnes. ‘Seeing the whole picture ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.’

Rosie resisted the urge to punch the air when she saw Zain’s eyebrow quirk at Agnes’s wrongly buttoned cardigan, even if it was clear neither of them would ever mention it.

‘What else is on your list?’ Zain asked, thrusting Rosie’s pad back at her.

At least he wasn’t going to snoop through her notes.

‘Those big, stinky piles of rotting junk need to be sorted.’ Rosie waved an arm in the direction of the next field. ‘They’re an eyesore, not to mention a health hazard. I’m sure I saw a snake writhing out of one of them.’ Rosie shuddered.

Zain’s face twitched into the briefest smile before going back to its stern look. ‘Snakes. Good. The heaps must be in active decomposition. Grass snakes are ectothermic, so they need its warmth.’

Rosie gave him a puzzled look.

‘Don’t get him started on his compost,’ said Agnes. ‘Or his natural habitats for wildlife.’

‘Wouldn’t want to bore you,’ Zain said, with more than a hint of sarcasm. ‘Or prompt you to destroy their home, so you can make a fancy dressing room.’

Rosie did not like the thought of snakes, but she had to agree they’d been here long before she had. And compost was a good thing, now she realised that was what the junk was. She would have to concede that point and learn to keep her distance.

‘They’re harmless and rarely bite, if you don’t go poking. And wear wellies.’ He pointed to the borrowed autumn-leaf-print ones she was wearing, and she could tell he was trying not to smirk.

‘Well, I’m glad something rarely bites,’ she muttered.

‘Anything else?’ He prodded a finger towards her list.

‘Better lighting around the lake,’ Rosie replied, holding her chin up, in readiness to be shot down.

Agnes gasped and put a hand over her chicken’s one eye.

‘Nature. Needs. Better. Lighting .’ He overpronounced each word with a level of incredulousness that Rosie thought was particularly uncalled for.

‘It gets so dark at night-times, and certain creatures have a tendency to fall in.’ She gave him her best triumphant stare.

‘Steve did not start toppling into the lake until somebody turned up, talking too much and spooking him. And it’s a flat no to digging up the land to lay more cables. Plus, more lighting would confuse the bats.’

‘Don’t get him started on the bats,’ Agnes whispered to her chicken.

Zain spun to face the older woman. ‘You’ve employed her to look after your wild swimmers and set up some kind of great outdoors swim retreats, and she knows nothing about nature. And as for her swimming...’ He shot Rosie a glance. ‘Have you even checked her references?’

Agnes cleared her throat and looked at her watch. ‘Anyway, I ought to dash. I’ll leave you to it.’

‘No!’

Rosie and Zain shouted the word at the same time.

At least they were agreed on something. Rosie did not feel good about pushing her luck with her new boss, so soon after losing her last job.

Everything still felt so fragile here. But she was not putting up with Agnes scurrying off again and leaving her to fight this out with Zain.

‘I do not need to spend any more time with this woman.’

Zain looked at Rosie, holding her gaze just long enough for her to feel another fizz of something pass between them. It had happened in his cabin, although this time it could only be his wrath. She felt herself flush.

‘Likewise,’ she confirmed, even though a small part of her relished feeling vexed, after worrying that life events had numbed her. At least not all of her emotions were dormant.

‘And we don’t need these retreats,’ Zain added, still watching Rosie, like his words were a dare.

Agnes shifted awkwardly in her frog-eyed footwear. ‘We could do with the extra money,’ she said, more quietly than her usual no-nonsense tone.

Zain stiffened. ‘Money. That’s all anyone ever cares about, isn’t it?’ Then he exhaled sharply, his shoulders dropping. ‘I’ve got work to do.’ He turned and began walking in the direction of his pumpkin fields, his stride becoming more purposeful.

Rosie couldn’t help watching him for a moment, his body silhouetted by the rising sun. His dark, messy hair dragged into a bun, his lumberjack-style coat pulling tight across his broad shoulders, which suddenly looked as though they were carrying the weight of something.

Agnes cleared her throat, which was totally unnecessary, as Rosie had not been completely transfixed.

‘Money’s a touchy subject with him,’ Agnes explained. ‘Something happened in his past, I think. But you can see why I find it impossible to tell him anything. He’s like an undetonated bomb.’

‘That’s the undetonated version?’ Rosie whistled. ‘But if you just told him the house needs a new roof, and you can’t go on like this...’

‘He’d be up there himself trying to fix it, with precisely no health and safety.

Then I’d have no decent roof and an obstinate oaf falling through it and breaking half of his limbs.

Or worse still, he’d order me to get out of there and go and stay somewhere safer.

’ She shuddered. ‘I don’t want to do that.

And who would have me, with all my waifs and strays?

’ She hugged her latest fowl in closer, two cats now circling figures of eight around her feet.

Onions barked from somewhere in the distance.

‘And the threat of Cyber Purrz wanting to buy this place?’ Rosie asked, though she already sensed it was hopeless.

Agnes sucked in her breath. ‘Zain belongs to this land. Whatever has gone on for him before, this farm is his stability now. I can’t stand to mention the risk of selling it, unless we absolutely have to.

’ She grabbed one of Rosie’s hands and squeezed it with a strength that was almost scary.

‘He’s like a son to me, even if I’d never dare say that to him.

I know you can find a way of making this work without us having to threaten concrete.

You’ll respect an old lady’s wishes, won’t you? ’

Rosie sighed. Agnes knew how to lay it on thick, with her puppy dog eyes, housed in the determined body of a Rottweiler. But Agnes was her boss, and Rosie did not want to go losing her job, home and chance at writing her best romantic novel by disobeying her wishes, however far-fetched they seemed.

‘The key will be compromise,’ said Agnes, like such a thing would be a breeze with the guy she’d just likened to a weapon of war.

‘And baby steps. If you can get him to accept the idea of the swim retreats and all that extra footfall, it will come as less of a stretch when you mention bringing the odd pumpkin patch into your retreat plans.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ Rosie could hear the deflation in her own voice.

‘I have faith in you, girl.’ Agnes gave her a hearty clap on the arm. ‘How do you eat a pumpkin farmer? One bite at a time.’ She laughed at her own joke.

Rosie rolled her eyes. She was sure the saying was about eating an elephant, not a pumpkin farmer. Although right then, she was fed up at having quite so many elephants in the room.

Rosie looked at the notebook in her hand, which now hung limply at her side.

It had been filled with ideas about shiny new shower blocks and enhanced lighting.

It had been full of her first wave of hope.

But even though it stung to admit it, Zain had a point.

Perhaps they should be trying to attract the sort of retreat goers who would respect the land, rather than demand somewhere to plug in their gadgets.

People who wanted to get away from it all, much like Rosie had.

She would just have to magic up new ways to make the farmland retreat-worthy, without the mod cons and upheaval. That was the only chance she had of winning Zain around.