Page 6 of The Pumpkin Patch Problem

Before the receipt could finish printing, Teddy approached the counter, her face pale with exhaustion. "The display of heirloom squash near the entrance is leaning. The tourists keep pulling from the bottom of the pile, and if we don't restack them immediately, the entire wooden tier is going to collapse."

"I’ll handle it," Junie said, her voice rising slightly before she caught herself and smoothed her apron with a trembling hand. "I know exactly how to balance the weight on those lower shelves. Just keep an eye on the pumpkin washing station."

"You can't handle everything," Teddy said, her crossed arms indicating her frustration. "There is help in the office right now, and she offered to manage the inventory spreadsheets so you could focus on the physical displays. You don't have to carry the weight of this entire opening weekend on your own."

"This is my designated management season," Junie reminded her, her chin rising with a stubborn pride that had become her armor over the years. "I have run this kitchen and this farm stand since before you left the valley. I don't need anyone managing my files or telling me how to stack the squash. I have it under control."

"It doesn't look under control," her daughter Carrie added, emerging from the side of the porch with a heavy wooden donation box tucked under her arm. "The church fundraising committee needs a prominent space on the primary counter for the fall donations, but there is no room because of all these pie boxes. You're running yourself ragged trying to do three jobs at once."

Junie didn’t answer her.

Carrie reached out, her fingers brushing Junie's arm in a pleading gesture. "Let me take the register. I know how to process the credit cards, and you look like you're about to collapse."

Junie pulled her arm back, her posture rigid as she clenched her fists. The offer of help didn't feel like support; it felt like a silent judgment, an accusation that she was failing to manage her responsibilities. For years, she'd wrapped her entire identity in her usefulness, convincing herself that her family only valued her because she was the one who sacrificed her own comfort to keep everyone else safe. If she let them take her tasks, she would be left with nothing but the empty space of her own loneliness.

"I said I have it under control," Junie repeated, her voice resolute as she met her daughter's worried gaze. "I'm the manager of this harvest, and I will make sure everything is executed properly. Go help your brother with the cider press."

She turned away, her fingers tensing against the edge of the wooden counter as she greeted the next customer. Her chest held a suffocating pressure, and her "It's fine" mask felt heavier than the crates of apples waiting in the barn. But she wouldn't break. She would keep working until the sun went down, proving to everyone that she was strong enough to stand alone.

The afternoon sun filtered through the gaps in the wooden slats of the porch ceiling, casting sharp beams of gold light across the crowded farm stand. Junie cleared her throat, her fingers tensing around the rough handle of a wooden apple crate as she hoisted it onto the display table. The rhythm of the afternoon was frantic, a relentless cycle of counting change, bagging dried flowers, and answering the same repetitive questions about the orchard's heritage varieties. She kept her attention fixed on the growing queue of customers near the registers, using the constant activity as an emotional barrier against the cold dread that had settled in her chest since the previous evening.

Nell's warning still echoed in her mind, a heavy threat that made her collar feel too tight. She was determined to keep the reality of that unburied foundation from touching her family, and that meant avoiding the man who carried the county's official records.

She saw him before he reached the counter. Micah adjusted the strap of his leather folder as he neared the porch, his wire-rimmed spectacles catching the bright glare of the sun. He didn't carry his surveying tripod today, but the thick binder tucked under his arm looked just as formidable.

Junie went rigid, her knuckles turning white around the edge of the wooden display table. She looked toward the driveway, searching for any plausible distraction, and found one immediately.

An elderly customer was struggling to lift a massive blue Hubbard squash into a metal wagon near the pumpkin pile.

"Let me help you with that," Junie said, her voice rising to carry over the continuous chatter of the crowd. She bypassed the wooden counter, her hands already reaching for the heavy stem of the squash before Micah could even close the distance between them. "We should keep this on the lower shelf of the cart to avoid any strain."

She spent five minutes arranging the customer's wagon, carefully adjusting the straw padding and discussing the best way to roast the thick skin. She kept her back turned, but she was intensely aware of the man waiting near her sales counter. When she finally returned, her face was warm from the physical exertion, but her expression remained completely guarded.

Micah was leaning against the wooden support pillar, his folder resting on the flat top of a cider barrel. He watched her approach, his green eyes steady behind his spectacles. "We have the certified copies of the nineteen sixty-eight filing," he said, his tone level as he reached for the metal latch of his binder. "The county registrar needs your signature to authorize the formal deed comparison before we can proceed with the boundary correction."

"I can't sign anything right now," Junie replied, keeping her voice even as she grabbed a stack of paper bags from beneath the counter and began folding them with precise tucks. "The weekend rush is our primary source of revenue, and I can't leave the registers untended. We have dozens of families waiting in the orchard, and the automated terminal is already operating slowly."

"The signature will take less than two minutes," Micah noted, his mouth twitching with a faint trace of dry amusement. He didn't pull the documents from his binder, leaving them sheathed in the leather cover while he watched her. "The paperwork simply acknowledges that you've received the formal notice of the discrepancy. It's a standard administrative requirement."

"Standard requirement? We're too busy for standard requirements today," Junie insisted, her chin rising as she met his steady gaze. She gestured toward the seasonal assistant who was struggling with a credit card receipt near the cider display. "I need to train our new cashier on the terminal before the afternoon delivery arrives. The system is delicate, and we can't afford to have the cash register crash during our busiest hour. Paperwork is going to have to wait."

She spent the next ten minutes standing over the assistant's shoulder, her fingers tapping the touch screen as she demonstrated how to manually override the tax calculation. She explained the process with urgent instructions, her voice carrying a sharp edge of distraction that had nothing to do with the digital transaction. She kept her posture rigid, her muscles tensing every time she heard Micah shift against the wooden barrel behind her.

When she finally returned to the primary register, Micah hadn't moved. He had crossed his arms over his chest, his folder still resting on the cider barrel beside him. He didn't appear angry or impatient; he simply watched her with an observant focus that made her skin prickle with awareness.

"If you're waiting for a peaceful moment, you'll be standing there until dusk," Junie said, her fingers moving with frantic speed as she began sorting the paper bills in her cash drawer. She aligned the green faces of the bills with absolute precision, smoothing the creased corners with her thumb. "I’m afraid the harvest doesn't pause for administrative audits."

"I've noticed," Micah answered, his voice calm and dry. He didn't attempt to interrupt her work, nor did he offer any comforting platitudes about her busy schedule. He simply held his position, his presence a steady weight against her frantic energy, seemingly unbothered. "You manage the chaos with remarkable efficiency. I don’t mind waiting, but you do realize the paperwork won't disappear just because you're busy?"

"I’ve got it handled," Junie repeated, her throat tightening as she stared at the cash drawer. Her hands flexed unconsciously as her mind spun with a sharp fear of what his documents might reveal. "Everything is fine."

"I'll wait," Micah said, giving her a sympathetic look that both annoyed her and made her heart squeeze. "I'm not in a hurry."

He shifted his weight back slightly, allowing her room to serve the next customer, but he remained near the corner of the farm stand. Junie kept her head down, her hands moving through the repetitive chores of bagging apples and counting change, but her thoughts were entirely consumed by the man watching her from the shadows. Junie knew she was only postponing the inevitable, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to deal with it yet. The county’s questions about that corner of the farm made her uneasy, especially when she thought about Nell’s warnings. There was something her mother had kept from them, something Nell clearly didn’t want them digging into, and Junie wasn’t sure she wanted to be the one to uncover it. For now, hiding behind the chaos of the farm was easier than signing papers that might open a door she wasn’t ready to walk through.

The long shadows of the late afternoon stretched across the empty parking lanes, the cooling air carrying the scent of bruised apples and damp grass from the orchard. Junie wiped her flour-dusted hands against her apron, her shoulders dropping a fraction as the last of the vehicles rolled down the driveway. She lifted a heavy tray of unwashed doughnut racks from the counter, her fingers gripping the sticky edges. Her goal was the quiet sanctuary of the cider barn, where the hot water and steam would give her a perfect excuse to avoid the office and the paperwork waiting there.

She turned around, only to find Micah still waiting. He was leaning against the wooden pillar. He was persistent, she would give him that. Micah didn’t say a word at first, his gaze holding hers with a look that made her skin prickle beneath her cardigan.