Page 17 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch

The weather was fair with a few clouds and the odd tease of autumn sun as Rosie made her way back across the farm towards one of the pumpkin patches, hoping not to be seen.

When she’d left her hut earlier that morning before her chat with Vix, Zain had been busy on his porch with a hammer, some nails and his strange little gnome houses.

She could only pray that he was still occupied and not in the mood for nosing after her.

Rosie felt almost countryish, in her leaf-patterned wellies and green, swirly-patterned dungarees that Cassius had once looked at strangely.

She’d even grabbed another bag of barely worn clothes from the boot of her car, which had been destined for the charity shop in one of those donation bags.

An assortment of quirky garments she’d enjoyed collecting, like there had been another person inside her, trying to get out.

Against all the odds, was she actually starting to feel at home here?

She let the long wild grasses tickle the tips of her fingers as she walked.

She’d always loved this season best of all, for its gorgeous colour palettes and its sense of slowing down to cosy up.

But being out here in nature gave it an extra sprinkle of magic.

She bent to sweep up a handful of wildflowers that had fallen, admiring their clashing colours.

Her writing needed more of this too. She took a moment to tune in.

Birdsong – though she couldn’t tell a bullfinch from a barn owl.

A soft, floral smell, perhaps from the chamomile she recognised from her mother’s tea, or the fiery flowers that could be marigolds.

And not for the first time since she’d been here, her mind wandered to the fantasy of running writing retreats, in this wonderfully stirring wilderness.

She shook away the thought because she clearly had enough on her plate.

‘Pumpkins,’ she reminded herself, like a mantra, ploughing on towards them, trying to ignore the nervous flutter at her plan to steal a few. She had some experiments up her sleeve, and she hoped the swim ladies would be her willing testers.

Rosie arrived at a wooden gate and stile between fields, stopping to take it all in.

Just wow. The sight of so many golden winter squash, like happy sunshine faces peeking out from their leafy beds, was a balm to her eyes.

She wondered how anyone could be grumpy out here.

Did it bring a smile to even Zain’s sulky lips?

As she turned and began to climb the stile, the opportunity to check out his lips for herself was thrown at her.

‘Whoa!’ The sight of Zain so surprisingly close made Rosie jump. Her body began stumbling backwards from the wooden stile and her bag of clothes dropped to the floor. He reached forward and grabbed her.

Rosie blew out a breath and willed her heart to slow down. It must have been the near fall that had set it racing.

Zain had been climbing up the other side of the stile in her direction, perhaps on his way to the mysterious polytunnels she’d just passed. Or maybe just to spy on her.

It was acutely, cheek-burningly apparent that they no longer needed to be clinging to each other like a pair of vines.

So why on earth were they? Why were his deep brown eyes drinking her in, like she was actually a mug of pumpkin-spiced latte?

Why were his strong hands still gripping her, and his intoxicating manly scent still filling her nostrils, when she’d been quite happily sniffing his marigolds just moments before?

If she didn’t know it was completely impossible, she’d wonder whether the universe kept flinging them so embarrassingly close for a reason. At least they were both fully clothed this time.

‘What are you doing out here?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing. ‘I thought your domain was strictly around swimming and the lake?’

‘Oh, it definitely is,’ she said breezily, waving a hand, which she then realised was brandishing some of his wildflowers.

Damn it . ‘I’m just... lost . So many fields, so many primroses.

’ At least stolen flowers might put him off the scent of her intention to nick a few of his precious pumpkin babies.

‘They’re nasturtium,’ he said, through gritted teeth. She’d never seen them quite so close up. They were pearly. ‘One of the useful flowers that attract pollinators for my Cucurbitaceae. Pumpkins. But that doesn’t work if town people come here and tear them up.’

‘They’d fallen!’

At least that much was true.

They looked at each other, their reddening faces still close, his hands clamped to her upper arms, her fingers still clenched around the chest of his jumper, now almost angrily. She could feel cross heat emanating from him too.

‘And it’s part of your new role to come out into my fields and tidy up?’

‘If you must know, I thought they’d brighten up our compost toilet, if I can trouble Agnes for a vase.

’ The idea had only come to her when she’d spotted them, and it seemed a shame to waste them.

‘Seeing as you vetoed my suggestion to build a new shower and toilet block, I’m coming up with ideas to make use of what we have, without trampling on nature.

Yes, you can thank me. You’ll get to carry on enjoying your open-air ablutions. ’

He raised his eyebrows, and she was sure the memory of her barging in on him stark naked in the shower passed between them.

Then he huffed again for good measure, and they let each other go, both climbing in his direction because it was far too awkward to cross over on the wobbly wooden stile.

‘What’s in the bag?’ he asked, his attention brought back to it now it was by their feet, his eyes registering the writing on its side. ‘You stealing from charity too?’ There was the tiniest tinge of humour in his voice this time, as though he knew not even she would stoop that low.

She tutted. ‘More clothes. Like these.’ She flapped a hand towards herself, then felt a bit silly. ‘Hopefully more suitable for being out here. Or whatever.’

He seemed to weigh her up, before giving her a curt nod.

‘Nice dungarees.’ It would usually have made her feel self-conscious, but for once, she didn’t sense sarcasm.

‘They suit you.’ He seemed as surprised by his words as she was.

‘I mean, probably more practical than the beige coat and the boots you couldn’t walk in.

’ He quickly bent to pick up the bag and thrust it towards her.

‘Thanks. I think.’ Sometimes it was OK to accept a compliment, wasn’t it? She’d seen her sister do it a million times, without her own peculiar impulse to bat it away. Her shoulders relaxed, though not for long.

‘Anyway, I don’t want you roaming around near my crops. Some are rare breeds and all of them are precious to me. I don’t want anyone traipsing where they shouldn’t.’

‘It’s not as though I’m likely to squash one,’ she scoffed. ‘Anyway, I’m really not interested in a bunch of gnarly old, boring vegetables.’ She didn’t want to rile him, exactly, but perhaps she should throw him off the scent of her guilty intentions.

His jaw clenched, like he took that as a challenge. ‘Scientifically, they’re fruit, not vegetables. They have seeds. Although nutritionally, they are closer to vegetables. And they’re not boring.’

Rosie nodded slowly. ‘Right.’

She noticed his slight wince, as if he knew the conversation was getting weird already. Something inside her wanted to keep him talking. Perhaps he wasn’t always strange.

‘I didn’t know there were so many shapes, colours and varieties,’ she continued, deciding that if she could get him talking, it would be handy for her pumpkin retreat research – even if it would go against maintaining a safe distance to avoid accidentally spilling any secrets. ‘What can you tell me about them?’

Rosie could almost see the conflict playing out across his face, his desire to share something about his beloved pet subject having an almighty row with his craving to be left alone.

Then with a resigned nod, he beckoned her to follow him, in the direction of the pumpkin fields. Her heart skipped with glee.

‘But only because if I show you, you’re less likely to snoop or steal,’ he said over his shoulder.

‘I never would,’ she replied sagely, crossing her fingers behind her charity donation bag, which in theory, could probably hide a few.

‘Cinderella,’ he announced, when they arrived, waving an arm a little awkwardly at row upon row of the bright orange sort, growing fatly on their twisting vines.

‘Medium to large, deeply ribbed, predominantly ornamental. But moist and creamy inside.’ He cleared his throat, apparently realising that sounded a bit rude.

‘That is, when you cook them.’ He eyeballed her. ‘Which I do not permit you to do.’

‘Noted.’ She tried not to giggle. ‘No pumpkin muffins for me.’

He gawped at her like she’d just suggested manslaughter.

As they kept walking, him reminding her to stick to the designated paths and begrudgingly helping her where the walkway had become overgrown, he continued to explain the varieties, almost softening a touch with each fleshy friend he introduced.

And perhaps it should have been boring, hearing Latin terms or learning half a dictionary of different types, from Autumn Gold to the little white Baby Boo, to the pretty spotted Carnival or the frighteningly blistered Warty Goblin.

Ordinarily she would have switched off ages ago, nodding, smiling, and disappearing into her own creative thoughts.

That’s what she’d done when Dave had raved about dingoes or James had droned on about conferences in Telford.

But listening to the surprising fondness in Zain’s voice and witnessing the way he knelt gently to touch the fruits’ skin or check how it was growing was strangely addictive.

Rosie found herself following him, keen not to interrupt his flow.

She’d never seen nor imagined this side to him.

Had many people? Never mind complicated retreat activities, like hayrides or carving jack-o’-lanterns – although she wasn’t writing those off.

But guests might pay good money to have their souls soothed by Zain’s enamoured words.

Despite still clinging to her charity donation bag, which would have been so handy for swag, as time passed, she realised she was struggling with the idea of stealthily nabbing his pumpkins to boil into retreat menu stew.

‘The ones that seem rough on the outside are misunderstood,’ he said quietly, as she crouched next to him to stroke the gnarly skin of a variety called Goosebumps. ‘They keep people at bay, but they’re often sweeter.’

They looked at each other, then quickly turned their heads away.

‘Then there’s the symbolism,’ he went on, more cautiously this time.

‘The cycle of life and fertility, the connection to the earth, hollowing them out to make room for new beginnings...’ He paused, seeming to inwardly groan.

‘Well, some of it’s probably bollocks.’ He stood up sharply, brushing down his clothes.

Rosie blinked a few times and then stood up too.

‘No, honestly. It sounds fascinating. What else can you tell me?’

He sighed heavily and turned to her. ‘I can tell you that I’ve been working on these fields, breeding, cross-breeding, trying to improve varieties and bring back species that my North American ancestors once grew.

I don’t know what your plans are for these swim retreats .

’ He said the term as though he didn’t believe that’s all they were going to be.

Rosie felt a pang of guilt, because he wasn’t wrong.

‘You luring a bunch of middle-class, retreat-hungry hipsters in swimsuits onto this land is going to stomp over everything I’m trying to achieve.

If you were planning to encroach on my fields to erect a bunch of fancy yurts and start singing around campfires, I suggest you find somewhere else. ’

Yurts . Now that was a nice idea.

Although something else had been bugging her.

‘What are all these pumpkins for?’ Rosie asked softly. She didn’t mean to offend him, but even her inner dreamer knew when to get real. ‘Have you got anyone to sell them, or any way to make good use of them? Or are they all going to live, die... and rot?’

A twitch in the vein in his temple told her she’d hit a raw nerve.

‘I have no wish to trample over anything , but like Agnes mentioned, she could do with the funds that my swim retreats would bring.’ She was allowed to say that much, even if it was more than her job was worth to mention crumbling roofs, the threat of a cat factory, or indeed the pumpkin-themed USP.

‘Maybe we could compromise over where I could set up camp for the guests and where people can safely wander?’

She willed herself not to mention carved pumpkin lanterns or turning his rare-breed squash into soup.

The question hung in the air, the faint idea of mutuality dancing between them through the autumn haze.

‘Nature has been compromised by humans enough.’

His pumpkin-headedness ought to have vexed her more, but there was something magnetic about the spark in his eyes. He was the hero in his own story, and this was his fight, even if she was only just coming to learn of it.

‘And why do people put money before... everything ?’

There went another of his touchy subjects. Rosie’s story senses began twitching, but she feared if she prodded for reasons, Zain the ‘ undetonated bomb ’ would explode in her face.

‘Money doesn’t have to be a bad thing,’ she replied calmly, because she was coming to see that sometimes his bark was scarier than his bite. ‘People do good things with it too.’ Granted, her mum spent it on sequinned dresses – but he didn’t need to know that.

Zain didn’t look convinced.

‘We were getting along for a moment. I don’t want to ruin things.’

He looked away. ‘I was boring you with Latin words and freaky gourd facts. I’ll go back to keeping my mouth shut.’

‘Honestly, I enjoyed it. You’re passionate about this. Don’t feel embarrassed.’

‘I’m not. Passionate or embarrassed. It’s just a bunch of fruit. No point in getting attached to anything.’

She could tell he didn’t mean that.

Then he turned and stomped away, and it was clear he wasn’t going to turn back.

Rosie decided she’d go back to her cabin too, though she’d find a different route. And frustratingly, she no longer had the heart to steal Zain’s pumpkins. For now, she would have to find another way.