Page 8 of The Pumpkin Patch Sisters

"There’s a lot you do not know about since you left," Beckett said, picking up his tool bag and slinging the canvas strap over his shoulder. "Your mother kept a lot of things to herself. If you’re going to stay here for the autumn, you’ll need to start looking at this place with your eyes, not just with your ledger lists or between the lines of a spreadsheet."

"I’m only trying to save the farm, Beckett," Dahlia explained, her voice carrying a tired vulnerability that she hadn't let her sisters see. "If I don’t fix the finances, the bank will foreclose before the winter."

"I know about the loan," Beckett acknowledged, his eyes bore into hers. "And I know how panicked you must be and how driven you are to save this place while protecting your sisters. But you cannot buy your way out of every problem in Harvest Hollow. Instead of trying to do everything on your own, embrace the spirit of our little town and let people help you." He watched her intently. “You’re not alone, Dahlia.”

"I’m not used to relying on other people," Dahlia replied, her eyes dropping to the wet ground.

"I remember," Beckett remarked, a small smile touching the corners of his mouth. "You always did prefer to do everything yourself. Even when we were sixteen and trying to rebuild that old wooden cart in the orchard, you refused to let me even hold the nails."

Dahlia felt a pang of nostalgia at his words, the memory of that fall afternoon decades ago rising in her mind like a physical presence.

"You always dropped the nails in the tall grass because you weren’t paying attention," Dahlia reminded him, her mouth twisting into a reluctant smile. “Then we’d have to waste time searching for them.”

"I dropped them because I was too busy watching you," Beckett admitted, his voice quiet in a way that made her heart skip a beat. “To ensure you were doing things right and not building a death trap.”

The wet Massachusetts breeze swept across the open pasture, carrying the scent of damp earth and fallen leaves. Dahlia stood close to the split-rail cedar fence, her fingers lightly brushing the rough, silvered wood. The tension that had flared between them only minutes ago had completely cooled, replaced by a heavy, quiet stillness that felt far more dangerous than any argument.

Beckett now stood on the other side of the boundary line, his tall frame leaning slightly against the weathered fence post. He had wiped most of the dark clay from his hands, but a streak of damp soil still stained the collar of his faded canvas jacket. His eyes remained fixed on her face, searching her expression with an intensity that made her chest tighten.

"I should head back to the house," Dahlia murmured, clutching her color-coded leather portfolio tightly against her chest like a shield. "The mist is turning into a steady rain, and my sisters are probably wondering where I went."

"I’m sure they’ll realize you’re with me. Prue and Teodora know I’m here most mornings," Beckett replied, his deep voice carrying a soft, familiar weight.

"I still have to anyway. I have a conference call with the Chicago office in an hour," she said, looking down at her ruined Italian leather boots to avoid his gaze. "I can’t afford to be late."

"You are always running toward a deadline," Beckett remarked, a faint, wistful smile touching the corners of his mouth. "You were the same way when we were teenagers. You always had a plan, and you were always ten steps ahead of everyone else."

"My plans are what saved me," she countered, her voice dropping as she looked up to meet his eyes. "They are what kept me moving forward when everything else was falling apart."

"I know," he answered, his tone softening as he stepped a fraction closer to the wooden barrier between them. "But you don’t have to run while you’re here. The harvest doesn’t move at a city pace."

"I’m not planning to stay long enough to change my pace," Dahlia admitted, the raw honesty of the words catching in her throat.

Beckett looked down at the fence post between them. His hand rested on the damp wood, only inches from her own fingers.

"I didn't think you would," he muttered, his expression closing up as he stared at the boundary line. "You made your choice thirty-two years ago."

"My mother made that choice for me," Dahlia protested, her fingers squeezing her notebook. "She ordered me to leave."

"And you never looked back," Beckett added, his voice carrying a hint of sorrow that cut deeper than any anger.

"I couldn't," Dahlia whispered, her breath hitching in the cold air. "If I had looked back, I never would’ve had the strength to get on that bus."

A heavy silence settled over the pasture, broken only by the steady dripping of water from the sugar maple branches overhead. The distance between them felt incredibly small, yet the gray cedar fence stood firmly between them, a physical reminder of the lives they had built apart.

Beckett raised his head, his eyes filled with a warmth that felt like a physical touch. "We’re not sixteen anymore," he murmured, his voice barely louder than the rustle of the leaves.

"No," Dahlia agreed, her heart hammering against her ribs as she took a slow step backward, away from the wooden rail and away from him. "We aren't."

Dahlia turned and began walking back toward the farmhouse, her boots sinking heavily into the wet clay. She didn’t look back, but she could feel his eyes on her the entire way across the field. Her chest ached with a longing she’d spent three decades trying to forget.

DAHLIA

The kitchen was completely quiet except for the soft sound of the old refrigerator in the corner. Early morning light filtered through the lace curtains of the eastern window, casting pale, patterned shadows across the oak table. The air carried the scent of stale coffee and the dry, musty smell of aged paper.

Dahlia sat in one of the high-backed wooden chairs, her spine rigid against the hard slats. She had been there for the past thirty minutes after showering and changing when she came back in from the fields. Her laptop was open on the right side of the table, its blue screen light reflecting on her face. To her left sat a large cardboard box that she’d dragged down from her mother's closet. It was filled with decades of Rosalind's undocumented financial history, a chaotic collection of paper that made Dahlia's chest tighten with professional anxiety.

Dahlia reached for her coffee, her fingers gripping the warm cup. She lifted it to her lips, took a slow sip of the beverage, and set it down on a blank sheet of paper.