Page 2 of The Pumpkin Patch Problem

Micah Oswald wore a faded canvas jacket, his silvering hair windblown as he adjusted a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. He carried a thick leather binder under his arm, his expression characteristically sober.

Junie's mind flashed back to their encounter at the local diner three weeks earlier. She had been delivering her fresh pies to the counter of the Hollow Table when Micah had the complete audacity to state, loud enough for the entire breakfast crowd to hear, that her pastry crust had been respectable but a touch over-handled. He'd said it with absolute honesty, as though he'd been doing her a favor by pointing out the structural flaw in her baking. The memory still made her cheeks warm with a prickle of irritation.

"Good morning," Micah said, resting his hand on the open door of his truck as he looked across the open space toward the porch where the sisters stood. "I have the scheduled property review for the municipal tax maps. The files have been updated to reflect the boundary query."

Junie leaned closer to the porch railing, her hand resting on the smooth pine. "The municipal map issue was resolved last autumn. Dahlia reported it. There shouldn't be any outstanding reviews on the core acreage."

"I’m afraid it wasn’t resolved. The records are incomplete," Micah explained, his tone direct and stripped of any soothing politeness. "The county registrar flagged an unrecorded parcel boundary during the winter preliminary audit after it had been reported by Dahlia. I'm legally required to verify the physical coordinates of the southern fence line."

Junie's chest tightened. She'd spent her entire adult life managing the family's crises, wrapping every problem in her own tireless labor to ensure everyone else remained protected. But Micah's honesty was like a cold wind, blowing straight through her carefully constructed defenses.

"The southern fence has been in the exact same spot for forty years," Junie countered, her fingers tensing against the wooden box in her arms. "The harvest starts in two days, and we don't have the luxury of rearranging our plots for an audit."

"The law doesn't adjust its calendar for the harvest," Micah replied, his steady gaze holding hers with unyielding focus. He closed his truck door, the latch snapping shut with a finality that made her stomach drop. "The discrepancy's on the books, and it has to be resolved."

Their eyes met across the yard, a silent spark of friction flying between them. Junie's heart did an unfamiliar flutter beneath her apron. She realized this man wasn't here to offer comfortable platitudes or ease her workload. He was here to look for the truth, and the legal storm he carried with him was about to crash directly into her family's sanctuary.

JUNIE

The air smelled of warm cider doughnuts and sweet corn, a comforting blend that usually settled the flutter of anxiety in her stomach. The farm stand was packed, a vibrant sea of fall tourists weaving through the wooden bins of sugar pumpkins and tables piled with hand-woven baskets of gourds. Junie stood behind the wooden counter, her hands moving in a practiced rhythm as she bagged a dozen hot doughnuts for a family, before quickly counting out their change. It was opening weekend, the official launch of her designated harvest season, and she was determined to make sure everything went off without a single hitch.

She wiped a smudge of cinnamon sugar from her apron, her gaze scanning the crowded yard. Prue was near the flower display, helping a customer select a bundle of dried marigolds, while Teddy was organizing the crates of heirloom apples. Everything was operating smoothly, but she couldn't shake the tight knot of worry in her chest.

That worry tightened when she spotted the familiar green pickup truck parked near the edge of the southern pasture.

A few moments later, Micah approached the farm stand. He carried his thick leather binder, his wire-rimmed spectacles resting on his nose as he studied a parcel map. Junie lifted her shoulders, her fingers gripping the edge of the wooden counter as he neared. The memory of his blunt criticism about her pie crust at the diner still rankled, but today, she was more concerned about the official-looking documents in his hands.

"Hello again," Micah said, adjusting his spectacles as he paused on the other side of the counter. "The crowd is keeping you busy."

"We have a lot of families visiting today," Junie replied, keeping her voice even as she smoothed a clean kitchen towel over her hands. "We don't have the luxury of taking breaks. If you're here to conduct your boundary audit, the pasture's open, but I'll have to ask you to stay clear of the public pathways."

"I'll be working along the southern fence line," Micah explained, his tone direct and dry. "But I need to review some of the historical coordinates with you before I begin the physical measurements."

Junie crossed her arms, her jaw tightening as she looked at the county map tucked into his binder. "Let's be direct. I know how these county reviews go. You're here to find some technical loophole to increase our property taxes, aren't you? Or maybe you're planning to impose back-tax penalties on those six acres, or declare our southern pumpkin plot entirely unusable because of some ancient boundary dispute."

"That's a lot of assumptions," Micah noted, a faint glimmer of amusement touching his green eyes. "None of which are accurate."

"The farm's finally stable," Junie countered, her voice rising slightly before she caught herself and lowered her tone. "We spent the last year fighting to save this land. If the county's trying to squeeze penalties out of us during our busiest weekend of the year, it's going to ruin everything we've built."

"The county isn't trying to punish anyone," Micah answered, his steady gaze holding her focus. "The goal is simply to find the true owner of that unrecorded acreage before we can make any official corrections to the tax maps."

"The fence has been there for forty years," Junie insisted, her fingers tensing against her apron. "That should be enough to prove who owns the land."

"Physical use isn't the same as a legal title," Micah pointed out, tapping a finger against his leather binder. "We have a six-acre discrepancy that's been unrecorded for decades. The state requires a clear chain of title, and until we verify who originally transferred that parcel, the land's in a legal limbo."

Junie stared at the parcel map, her chest tightening with a quiet dread. She'd spent her life protecting her family, absorbing every shock and managing every crisis with her own endless labor. But Micah's unvarnished honesty was a force she couldn't organize or file away. It was a cold truth, and it was heading straight for the mysterious parcel of land and buildings hiding in the ridge.

Micah

Micah rested his hand on his thick leather binder, keeping his gaze on the four women standing near the counter. The air was rich with the smell of warm corn, a lively contrast to the dry files sitting in his office. He was here for facts, but the defensive line the family had formed was sturdier than any stone wall he had surveyed in his career. He had spent decades working with property records because numbers and deeds didn't hide their feelings or tell comforting lies. People, on the other hand, spent their entire lives building defenses disguised by polite conversations.

"I'm looking for the records concerning the southern fence repair from three summers ago," Micah explained, as he looked toward the youngest sister, Prudence. "The county needs to verify who authorized the alignment of those cedar posts."

Prue pulled her cardigan tighter around her, opening her mouth to speak, but Junie moved in front of her before she'd had a chance to utter a single word.

"We handled that repair ourselves," Junie announced, her voice rising with defiance. "The invoices are in our files. I'll find them for you before you leave. There's no need to trouble anyone else with the paperwork."

Micah adjusted his wire-rimmed spectacles, his expressive mouth twitching with amusement. He watched her smooth her apron with an urgent motion. She was like a general guarding a perimeter, shielding her family from a simple administrative query as if he'd arrived with a foreclosure notice instead of a tax binder.