Page 31 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch

‘Anyone for pumpkin waffles?’

It was Bonnie’s voice that woke Rosie and Zain from their treehouse slumber.

There hadn’t been many hours of the night left after their urgent but incredible exploring of each other’s bodies, but they must have slept through them like logs.

Zain’s suggestion, before they drifted to sleep, that he’d soon be ready for more action would have to wait.

Though he was out from under the duvet and hurriedly tugging his clothes on before Rosie could rub the sleep from her eyes.

‘Everything OK?’ she asked him.

‘Not really. It sounds like the guests are making their own breakfasts. That’s our job.’

Rosie could tell he was trying to dial down the frustration in his voice, but he wasn’t doing the best job of it.

‘It’s OK, they’re our friends. This is just a practice run.

’ Rosie sat up and ruffled her messy hair, smiling at him.

He really was gorgeous, even when he was passive-aggressively cross.

Almost as sexy as last night’s face of complete surrender.

She knew that would make it into her book, if she wasn’t careful.

‘They’re your friends,’ he corrected her. ‘I barely know them. And that’s no excuse for us not to do our damnedest to get this right. We’ll have nowhere to live if these retreats don’t work out, and my pumpkin fields will be flattened like pancakes.’

‘Yes, boss,’ Rosie teased, rooting around on the floor for her jumper in an effort to show support for his haste.

‘No, Agnes is our boss. We’re not meant to be...’ his voice paused as he looked around the inside of the treehouse at the strewn clothes and crumpled bedding ‘...letting her down.’

He pulled on a coat, buckled his belt with a more exaggerated clunk than it needed, and shot down through the hatch of the treehouse without another word.

‘Well, good morning to you too,’ Rosie said after him, still half-smiling at his strop.

Not everyone was a morning person, and it probably wasn’t professional to be having so much fun on the job.

Though in fairness they’d clocked off before anyone started getting naked, and at least their treehouse called Wild wasn’t in earshot of where their guests had been sleeping.

And they could avoid doing that when paying customers arrived.

They weren’t offering that sort of holiday.

Rosie popped on her own clothes, downed half a bottle of water, and climbed from the treehouse to join the others.

Checking her watch, she could see it was late, and she and Zain appeared to be the last ones up.

The fire was already going, and Mags was doing a good job of burning bacon whilst Ellen tried not to scald herself boiling a pan of water for coffee.

It wasn’t ideal that their visitors had been left to fend for themselves. It wasn’t the sort of service that would go down well on Tripadvisor, if wooden huts in trees had that sort of thing.

She apologised to her friends, but they waved off her worries and hugged her good morning. Rosie noticed Zain’s jaw tightening at the not discreet enough whistle from Luna about Zain and Rosie having just emerged from the same treehouse.

So when Mags made a throwaway comment about them being like one big, unlikely family, Rosie was only partly surprised to see Zain’s shoulders stiffen, before he let out a huff and moved off to rearrange his trusty pile of logs.

‘You’re quiet this morning, Zain,’ Bonnie sing-songed. ‘I was hoping for one of your dreamy speeches about treetops and nature. You have such a way with words.’

Rosie could see from the sparkle in Bonnie’s eyes that she was trying to be friendly.

Just like Luna was, when she put her hand on her heart and said, ‘Too many word-perfect speeches like yours, our Zain, and you’ll have us all falling for you. And we’d always thought you were the quiet and broody type.’

But Zain was clearly not in the mood for their banter. He dropped the chunk of wood he was holding back onto its pile and walked away, in the direction of his hut by the lake.

Rosie’s mouth dropped open. Where was he going?

Was he honestly OK with visiting her in the middle of the night to get pretty damned intimate, actually, then stalking off without even saying, ‘Oh, that was nice’ ?

And it looked as though she was going to have to get through the rest of this retreat day without him too.

She wasn’t sure what had gotten into him, but some of them had work to do.

Perhaps she’d try talking to him later. She was used to turning a semi-ignorant eye on other people’s odd behaviour in the hope it would pass, because that’s how she’d navigated most of her relationships. Though that had always ended badly.

If the first real retreat was going to kick off in just a few weeks, she and Zain needed to work together.

And more than that, she had feelings for Zain.

Not just let’s roll around in a treehouse feelings, but something undeniably deeper.

A connection that was worth fighting for, even if some people might be too obstinate to admit it.

‘Trouble in the camp?’ Mags whispered, looking at Zain’s retreating back.

‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ Rosie answered. She hoped she was right.

After juggling a day of retreat activities and pretending she was on top of things, Rosie was soon seeing everyone off.

Bonnie was jabbering wildly about making pumpkin fizz for future guests and Mags may have said something about hurdy-gurdy entertainment.

It seemed like the retreat had enlivened them in more ways than they’d bargained for.

It was just a shame that something had sent Zain heading for the hills.

At least Agnes’s dog Onions had bothered to come outside for the send-off, together with a few helpless-looking cats and a stray chicken who looked a bit confused. They wouldn’t have been out of place waving a save our roof, save our home banner, if animals could write.

They pulled in for a group hug, trying not to trip over Onions or squash the ginger moggy that Mags was hugging, who Rosie thought was called Orangeade, but it could have been Pumpkin.

‘We’ll make sure these retreats take off. Those cyber cats won’t take over on our watch,’ Mags half-whispered to her ginger charge, like they were living in a sci-fi cartoon.

Though Rosie had other things on her mind.

When the others had left and Rosie had shepherded the various animals back to their homes, she made her way back to camp to tidy up the treehouses. Even though she was thinking about him, she jumped when she saw Zain climbing out of Squirrel with Steve under his arm.

‘Sorry,’ Zain muttered as he stepped to the ground, avoiding eye contact. ‘Lost my cat. Didn’t even remember to feed him last night.’ He grimaced.

‘I thought cats didn’t belong to anyone,’ Rosie replied, her hands on her hips. She wasn’t usually this confrontational, but as much as this was stretching her comfort zone, they needed to talk. He’d left her in the lurch today, and she couldn’t bear going back to everything being awkward.

Zain shrugged. ‘True.’

He tried to step past her, but she blocked him.

‘Did I do something wrong?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Then why did you spend the night butt-naked in my bed and then strop off without even saying toodle-oo? I mean, at least it wasn’t a total shag and run, but still. I think I deserve a bit more respect than that.’

‘Of course you do. No question. Which is why you’re better off if I just...’ He let his head drop.

Rosie placed her fingers under his chin and gently tilted his face up. She’d expected some resistance and one of his huffs, but he seemed strangely powerless. When their eyes met, an energy danced between them.

Then she remembered something. ‘It started when I talked about forever , didn’t it? And then Mags’s joke about us being like a family. They were just throwaway comments. No one was suggesting...’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not as simple as that.

I’m not as simple as that.’ He rubbed the back of his neck.

‘Though if you’re looking for forever or someone to play happy families with, you need to know that’s not something I’m sure I can do.

It’s not in my nature or my nurture.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’m not programmed that way.’

‘You’re not a chatbot.’ Rosie allowed a small smile. He didn’t return it.

‘I’m sorry I came to your treehouse last night. I shouldn’t have let this thing between us snowball. I know what I’m like when things start to look serious.’

‘Snowball? You make us sound like an inevitable disaster.’

He shrugged. ‘Look, we’re meant to be protecting this place. How can we do that properly if we’re too busy jumping in and out of each other’s beds?’

‘Is that all it was to you?’ she asked, shaking her head as if it would help things make sense. ‘A bit of bed hopping? I thought last night was special.’ Even though they’d fallen asleep before the main event, the starters had been to die for.

‘It was too special,’ he said quietly. ‘And I don’t know how to deal with that.’

She felt her shoulders sinking. Where was this all going wrong?

‘Anyway, I’ve mucked in as much as I can with the treehouses and setting up the retreat camp, and I’ll do my bit with showing off the pumpkins – but you can take most of it from here.

You don’t need me to help fluff people’s pillows or toast stuff around the campfire.

I’d only mess things up. Put people off with my grumpy face or sabotage your chances of doing a great job. And you are doing brilliantly.’

‘You looked happy enough last night. It felt like we all belonged. Didn’t it?’

Zain shrugged. ‘Must have been that weird fizzy wine. Belonging is not my thing. Life was simpler before. Please.’ He stepped backwards. ‘Trust me, I’m doing this for you too.’

The look that passed between them was heavy, like a big old sack of sadness. Rosie didn’t know how to deal with this either, other than to let Zain step away. It would be even harder if they let themselves fall deeper. If she’d slept with him last night, her soul would be breaking in two.

Though something inside her wanted to have one last word.

‘That thing about forever,’ Rosie shouted after him as he walked away. ‘Nobody knows how to do that.’ He stopped. ‘It’s just one day at a time, isn’t it? And you keep going like that. Trying to do your best. Promising not to hurt or mislead anyone. In case you’re wondering.’

He turned back to face her, still keeping his distance. ‘I would never mean to mislead anyone. Just so you know.’

Then he turned away and kept on walking.

Rosie thought she heard him say something about being sorry, although she couldn’t swear it.

She felt like she couldn’t swear to anything anymore.

Who was she to even mention misleading, when she hadn’t confessed how she’d deceived Agnes to get this job, or that she couldn’t hold down a single, sorry relationship, or that she had no expertise in running retreats, or even writing a half-decent love scene without using him as inspiration?

And just like that, Rosie was back to being a loser in love. Though that didn’t mean she was destined to fail at everything. Did it?