Page 16 of The Pumpkin Patch Sisters

"It's not just outdated," Dahlia countered, her sharp eyes tracing the physical area in front of them. She shifted the map slightly, her finger pointing to the legal description printed in the lower margin. "This deed was filed in nineteen-eighty. If the physical fence line follows the wire you strung, we're occupying land that isn't on our tax parcel. That's a major title defect. It's an administrative hazard that could halt any restructuring or refinancing."

Beckett let out a dry laugh, his breath blooming in a tiny cloud in the cool air.

"Only you'd look at a piece of beautiful woodland and call it a title defect," he remarked, his gaze shifting from the map to her face. His eyes held a teasing light that made her neck flush. "Your mother didn't care about tax parcels. She cared about the land. She always told me that the town clerk's office didn't know this valley half as well as the families who cleared the stone from the soil."

"That sentimentality won't satisfy a bank examiner," Dahlia retorted, her fingers tracing the edge of the map. She leaned closer to the paper, comparing the physical landmarks with the sterile grids of the county survey. She drew a quick calculation on the margin of her legal pad, her pen scratching against the paper. "Look at the scale. If that wire fence curves all the way to the stone ridge, that adds a massive wedge of land to our property. It's not just a minor discrepancy."

Beckett's hand remained flat on the map, his knuckles close to hers. "How much of a wedge?" he asked, his tone turning curious.

"By my estimate," Dahlia replied, her voice dropping as she looked from her pad to the dark woods beyond the fence. "It's approximately six acres. Six missing acres that aren't recorded in the town ledger, aren't taxed, and aren't listed on our secondary mortgage paperwork. Yet, the physical boundary is clearly marked, and we've been maintaining it as part of the farm."

Beckett stared out toward the hemlocks, his jaw tightening slightly.

"Six acres," he repeated, his voice quiet. "That's a lot of land to lose track of."

"We didn't lose track of it," Dahlia insisted. He could see her mind racing with the legal and financial implications. "It's as if someone deliberately kept it off the official records. But the physical fence is permanent, and it's been there for years. There has to be an explanation."

Beckett looked down at the map, then back to her.

"The stone ridge is thick with briars and wild growth," he mentioned, his eyes searching hers with a quiet intensity. "Nobody's been up there since your mother got sick. If you want to know why she kept that wire where she did, we'll have to go look at the physical boundary ourselves."

He saw Dahlia hesitate, her eyes filling with worry.

"We'll go look at it," she decided, her hand releasing the map. "We need to see exactly where that wire ends."

Beckett let the paper curl back up, his hand dropping back to his side as he turned toward the tree line. Dahlia quickly slid the rolled map back into her portfolio, zipped the cover closed, and held it tightly against her chest, ready to follow him into the overgrown brush.

Beckett shoved his hands back into his pockets, trying to ignore the tingling from the brief warmth of Dahlia’s hand against his. They looked past the wire fence, where the rusted strands disappeared into a dense thicket of hemlocks and overgrown briars. The land rose sharply toward a rocky ridge, the trees growing so close together that they blocked most of the bright sun.

"The fence continues right through there," Beckett said, gesturing toward the tangled brush. "Nobody's cleared this path since we were kids. It's completely overgrown, but the wire's still standing under the vines."

"We've got to see where it ends. If the physical boundary runs all the way to the top of the ridge, we're looking at a completely different acreage than what's registered in the town books." Dahlia glanced ahead, shaking her head as she gave a resigned sigh.

Beckett didn't answer immediately. He looked at her tailored gray pants, fancy leather boots, and designer jacket, then back at the dense wall of brambles.

"It's thick in there. You'll ruin your fancy clothes and boots." He met her gaze.

"I don't care about the clothes and boots. They can be cleaned or replaced," Dahlia countered, her chin rising as she met his gaze. "I care about the farm. If there're six acres missing from the records, we've got to find out why."

Beckett's mouth curved into a dry line that looked almost like a smile, and he nodded.

"Stay close behind me," he instructed, using the wood to sweep aside a cluster of wild blackberry briars.

Dahlia followed him into the shadows of the hemlocks. The air grew instantly colder, carrying the scent of damp moss and decaying cedar. Beckett moved slowly, his broad shoulders easily pushing past the low-hanging branches, while Dahlia kept her head down, shielding her face from the snapping twigs. The ground was soft underfoot, carpeted in decades of pine needles that muffled every sound.

They climbed higher toward the ridge, the physical wire of the fence remaining a rusting guide on their left. After several minutes of slow progress, the dense trees suddenly gave way to a hidden clearing. The clearing was circular, sheltered by a steep rock face on the eastern side that completely blocked the wind.

They stopped and looked around the quiet space. It didn't look like wild forest anymore. Near the center, a parallel line of moss-covered gravel stretched toward the rock face, the outline of an old driveway that'd been swallowed by ferns and wild blueberry bushes.

"I didn't know this was here," Beckett murmured, his voice dropping in a way that seemed to respect the absolute stillness of the clearing. He walked toward the center of the clearing.

Dahlia walked over to join him, her eyes scanning the overgrown ground. A few feet from the gravel line, a crooked iron hand pump rose from a bed of damp ferns. The iron was flaked with rust, its handle frozen in a downward tilt. Beckett reached out, his hand wrapping around the cold iron, and gave it a firm tug. The metal groaned, a scraping sound that echoed off the rock face, but the handle didn't budge.

"This pump hasn't drawn water in thirty years," Beckett remarked, wiping a smudge of rust from his palm onto his flannel shirt. "There must've been a well here."

"Not just a well," Dahlia whispered, looking at a structure nestled against the base of the rocky ridge.

Beckett turned and watched her walk toward the rock face. He noticed the pulse in her neck quicken as her eyes locked onto something. Beckett moved to stand beside her. His eyes widened when he saw that, half-buried beneath a thick blanket of decaying leaves and wild ivy, sat a rectangular perimeter of stacked fieldstone. The stones were weather-worn, fitted together without mortar in the traditional style of the valley's old builders. Inside the perimeter, several old unstable timbers lay at an angle across one another, the remains of a wooden frame that'd collapsed long ago.