Page 7 of The Pumpkin Patch Problem

"The baking pans can wait," he said, his voice calm and unyielding. "The ovens are off, and the business will survive without you for thirty minutes."

Junie tightened her grip on the metal tray as she met his gaze. "The preparation for the morning shift takes hours. If I don't start the cleanup now, we'll be behind before the gates even open."

"It's not a request we can keep postponing," Micah countered, his tone gentle but firm as he reached out to take the heavy tray from her hands and set it down on the pine counter. "The registrar needs this authorized today."

Junie let out a long breath, her fingers tensing against her apron. She knew she could not use the crowd as a shield anymore. The busy farm stand had cleared, leaving only the soft rustle of the wind through the maple trees. Junie led him to her mother’s office in the house. Micah opened the wooden door of the office, allowing her to enter first, and then shut it behind them, closing out the distant hum of activity as visitors left the farm.

The office was small and smelled of dried ink and old paper, with the faint scent of dried lavender that always seemed to cling to the desk drawers. It was a space she had spent years managing, but with Micah standing on the other side of the desk, the room felt incredibly tight.

"You should sit down, Junie," Micah suggested, pulling out the desk chair for her before resting his binder on the green blotter. "You've been on your feet since dawn, and you're tensing your shoulders."

"I'm fine," Junie insisted, though she clenched her fists. She remained standing, her back rigid as she faced him. "I don't need a chair, and I don't need to be managed."

She knew she was being unfair, taking her frustration out on him. He was just doing his job.

"I'm not trying to manage you," Micah said softly, his expressive mouth showing a touch of dry amusement. "But you're carrying the weight of this entire farm on your shoulders, and it's clear you're exhausted."

"This is my responsibility," Junie countered, her voice dropping to a low whisper. "Everyone relies on me to keep this place operating. If I don't handle the details, everything falls apart."

"And who carries you when you fall apart?" Micah asked, his focusing on her with a directness that made her chest tighten.

The question caught her completely off guard, striking a raw nerve beneath her protective armor. She turned away, her gaze landing on the framed photograph resting on the filing cabinet. For years, she had wrapped her loneliness in the neat justification of her usefulness, convincing herself that her worth was measured by her sacrifice. There was also something comforting about being needed by the family. She had believed that if she stopped serving, if she let her defenses crack for even a second, she would lose the only place where she felt safe. To hear him challenge that martyrdom felt like a sudden blow.

"You don't know anything about us," she said, her voice shaking slightly as she gripped the edge of the desk. "Or what it takes to keep this farm going. I’ve been keeping things running for years, but this season, it just feels different. The pressure…"

Junie trailed off, slightly annoyed with herself for admitting that. She didn’t like being vulnerable.

"I know what it looks like when a person works themselves ragged to avoid facing the truth," Micah answered, his voice level and entirely stripped of judgment. He opened his thick binder, the rings clicking open in the quiet room. "But I also know that paperwork can’t just wait. We have to sort out this tangled web before it becomes a real legal problem."

He pulled a certified photocopy of an old document from the sleeve and slid it across the desk blotter, placing his finger on the signature line. "This is the deed for the disputed pasture. It was registered in nineteen eighty-two."

Junie looked down, her chest tightening with a sudden dread. She braced her hands against the edge of the wooden desk, her gaze scanning the legal language. Her eyes landed on the buyer's name.

"This is not our name," she said.

"It’s not," Micah confirmed, his finger tracing the stamped letters. "The buyer is registered under a different name."

Junie stared at the unfamiliar name, the black ink sharp and stark against the yellowed paper. "I don't understand. I've lived in this valley my entire life. I know every household from here to the county line, and I've never heard of that person."

"Neither has the current municipal registry," Micah noted, his spectacles slipping slightly as he leaned over the desk. "The buyer acquired the six acres from a local timber company in the spring of nineteen eighty-two. But look at the next page."

He flipped the document over, revealing a second certified transfer sheet dated just three months later. "In the summer of the same year, the entire parcel was transferred to your household. There's no record of a mortgage, no bank financing, and the transfer tax was recorded as a gift."

Junie’s mind began spinning as she tried to make sense of the dates. "A gift? People don't just hand over six acres of prime orchard land as a gift."

"They don't," Micah agreed, his tone serious. "Not unless there was a private agreement that never made it into the public record. And there is a second discrepancy. The signature of the witness on the transfer deed seems as though it may be forged."

Junie felt the air leave her lungs, her chest tensing as her world began to crack. "Forged? That's impossible. How do you even know that? No one in our house would ever participate in a fraudulent transfer."

"I'm not accusing anyone of a crime," Micah said gently, his words offering a comforting solidity in the storm. "But the legal reality is messy. This deed was never properly audited, and until we find the original transfer files, we can't prove who legally owns the land beneath your trees."

Junie stared at the stark letters of the name Ruth Dwyer, her fingers trembling slightly. The strange foundations, the discrepancy in the records, Nell’s insistence that they leave that corner of the farm alone, and now this unfamiliar name—it all pointed to something her mother had never told them. The cold dread in her stomach deepened, and she realized the unyielding county assessor she had been fighting might be the person who held the keys to the truth.

JUNIE

A crisp draft of cool fall air drifted through the gaps in the rafters of the farm stand. Junie smoothed a damp linen towel over the glass lid of a honey jar, her fingers tracing the neat hexagonal pattern of the wax seal before she set the container onto the tiered shelf. The physical exhaustion of the opening weekend had settled deep into her shoulders, a heavy weight that had only intensified after a sleepless night spent staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. Her mind remained locked in a relentless cycle, spinning over the yellowed photocopy of the 1982 deed, the elegant handwriting of her mother, and the unfamiliar name that threatened to upend the farm’s security.

Ruth Dwyer was a ghost, appearing on a legal document only to vanish into the history of the valley three months later. Every instinct she possessed urged her to search the attic and pull down every dusty box of tax records, but the realities of the fall harvest required her presence behind the pine counter.