Page 23 of The Pumpkin Patch Sisters

Beckett stood, tucking his tool back into his pocket. He stood close, his shoulder almost touching her cardigan as he looked down at her flushed face. "The farm doesn't break things to hurt you. It's just showing you where the real strength is. You don't have to carry the whole mountain alone. You've got sisters, and you've got neighbors who're ready to hold the gate."

Dahlia didn't reply, her brown eyes locking onto his with a quiet, intense warmth that sent a sudden beat through his chest. She looked across the yard toward the corn maze, where her youngest sister was laughing with a visitor, her shoulders finally dropping as she let out a slow breath.

Dahlia

The mid-afternoon sun baked the packed dirt of the yard, but Dahlia barely noticed the heat. During a brief lull after the gate repair, she'd slipped upstairs to her childhood bedroom, peeled off the mud-streaked gray wool of her city pants, and dug through the bottom drawer of her closet. The stiff denim of her old farm jeans, faded at the knees and slightly snug around the hips, felt like a long-forgotten embrace against her skin. It was a physical shedding of the rigid Chicago armor she'd worn for years, and as she zipped them closed, something in her posture had instantly loosened.

Now, she stood in the center of the farm stand, her cotton blouse ruined with grease and her sleeves rolled past her elbows. Her clipboard sat forgotten on the wooden counter, buried beneath a stack of carbon receipt pads. Her neat diagrams and color-coded schedules'd been folded into a tight square in her pocket, rendered completely useless by the three hundred visitors currently swarming the property.

Dahlia didn't care about the schedules anymore. She wasn't trying to manage the chaos from a safe distance; instead, she was right in the middle of it.

Across the yard, her sisters were moving with a synchronized, effortless energy. Junie had taken over the apple bins near the cider press, her laughter carrying over the hum of the crowd. She had a wooden scoop in her hand, filling brown paper bags with crisp fruit with an easy rhythm she'd practiced for decades. Junie didn't need a database to know which families wanted baking apples and who preferred the sweeter Honeycrisps; she'd their names and preferences memorized before they even reached the counter.

Near the porch, Prue had gathered a crowd of her own at the craft display. She was talking with a mother who'd three children clinging to her coat, her hands moving gently as she showed them how the handmade lavender tags were stitched. Prue didn't look rushed or anxious. Whenever a child reached for a painted ceramic mug, she'd bend down to meet their eyes, offering a soft smile that made them instantly quiet.

A sudden scrape of wood against wood caught Dahlia's attention. Near the main display tables, Teddy was hoisting an awkward, slatted pine crate of gourds onto her shoulder, her copper curls stuck to her forehead with sweat. Her breathing was short and shallow, but she didn't look like she'd any intention of slowing down.

Dahlia didn't let her carry the weight alone. She lunged forward, her fingers sliding under the rough pine bottom of the box to share the load. A small splinter pinched her thumb, but she didn't flinch, gripping the slats tightly as she lifted in unison with her sister. Together, they carried the brimming cargo across the dirt lane, setting it onto the display table with a dull clatter that set the small orange pumpkins rattling.

"Thanks," Teddy muttered, her expression softening as she wiped her dusty palms.

"My pleasure," Dahlia replied, her voice steady as she reached into the box to begin arranging the bumpy green squash.

The cold rind of the gourds had a waxy texture, and the damp soil clinging to the stems got under her manicured nails, but she didn't care about the mess. Her arms were starting to ache in a way that felt surprisingly good, grounding her in the farm's active lifestyle.

When she rolled a low wooden flatbed cart of white pumpkins out from the cool storage barn, Beckett was already waiting by the display tables. He didn't say a word, reaching down to lift three of the large, smooth pumpkins at once, his forearms corded under his rolled flannel sleeves. He set them onto the wooden tiers, his movements matching her rhythm as they worked together to rebuild the display.

Dahlia reached for the final pumpkin at the same moment he did. Her knuckles brushed against his calloused hand, the brief contact sending a sudden, quiet warmth up her wrist. She didn't pull away immediately, keeping her position beside him as they slid the pumpkin into the gap.

"Are you doing alright?" Beckett remarked, his voice low and dry. He didn't look at her directly, but there was a faint, warm curve at the corner of his mouth that told her he'd been watching her closely.

"I'm learning," Dahlia admitted, her voice dropping as she released her grip on the smooth rind. "The spreadsheets don't have columns for how quickly things move out here."

"They don't," Beckett agreed, his tone softening as he adjusted a twisted vine on a large gourd. He stood close, his shoulder almost touching her arm. "But you don't have to carry the entire weight of everything by yourself. You've got people ready to help you."

Dahlia didn't reply, her chest tightening with a warm emotion that had nothing to do with budgets or deadlines. By the time the afternoon sun dipped behind the western hills, her muscles were stiff, and her hands were thoroughly stained with damp soil. But as she watched the last families depart, she didn't feel the usual drain of a long day in the city. She had spent her whole life trying to organize things, but she'd finally found a rhythm that didn't need to be written down to make sense.

The red taillights of the last sedan faded down the gravel lane, leaving the yard in a clean stillness. The air had turned cold, carrying the crisp scent of bruised apple rinds and damp hay. Dahlia leaned back against the wooden porch railing of the farmhouse, her fingers wrapping around a cold bottle of apple cider. The condensation on the glass dripped down her wrist, a cool trickle that made her shiver.

Inside the house, the kitchen light had just gone dark, signaling her sisters had finally gone upstairs to sleep. They'd spent the last hour sitting on the porch decking together, their shoulders touching as they shared a single basket of day-old donuts, their laughter soft in the dark. For the first time since she'd returned, the silence between them wasn't filled with the old defensive walls. They'd survived opening day, and they'd done it together.

A figure moved near the corner of the equipment barn. Beckett emerged into the yellow glow of the porch light, his faded canvas jacket zipped against the autumn breeze. He didn't climb the stairs. Instead, he stopped at the bottom, his hand resting on the wooden post.

"You're still awake," Beckett murmured, his voice low in the quiet yard.

"Just trying to convince myself today actually happened," Dahlia replied, her fingers tracing the waxy label of her bottle. She gestured toward the empty yard where the display tables stood in neat rows under the stars. "I had a whole schedule. I had diagrams. And then a goat escaped."

A dry laugh shook Beckett's chest, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "The schedules are nice, but the farm doesn't care about plans. You've got to bend with the wind out here, or you'll snap."

"I've learned that," Dahlia admitted, looking down at her hands. Her nails were chipped, and a streak of dried mud still marked the sleeve of her shirt. She didn't care. "The counter was completely under control. Every family's name was known, and the counts of the donuts were planned out before anyone even asked. I've never felt so out of my depth."

"You weren't out of your depth," Beckett countered, his tone softening as he leaned his shoulder against the post. "I watched you with the school group. You were holding the gate and helping with the tags. The work you did would have made the family proud."

Dahlia's throat constricted, a sudden wave of emotion catching her off guard. She took a sip of the cold cider to hide the tremor in her chin. "I spent so long believing I had to escape this place to build something real. I thought the limits of the farm were holding me back."

"And now?" Beckett asked, his eyes locking onto hers in the quiet light.

"Now I'm beginning to think the limits are the only things that kept us safe," Dahlia whispered, her thoughts drifting to the locked cabinet in the cider barn that they still could not open. "We've got a responsibility to keep this place going. Not just for the business. There are things here we have to protect."