The Pumpkin Problem

by Beth Byers

  Table of Contents

  THE PUMPKIN PROBLEM

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  Also By Beth Byers

  Also By Amanda A. Allen

  Copyright

  The Pumpkin Problem

  The 2nd Chance Diner Series

  Book 12

  By Beth Byers

  Emily or Ethan. Just stay with us.

  CHAPTER 1

  The curving drive down from our mountainside home towards Silver Falls was winding and lovely. It was mid-October, and the leaves had turned, but it was also the Pacific Northwest and the majority of our forest trees were evergreens that didn’t lose their leaves. The rain had been steady for the last few weeks, but this morning had dawned crisp, cool, and sunny. The water droplets left over from the previous day’s rain glinted in the sunlight. I cracked the window to get the scent of water and autumn and grinned at Simon who was driving my Forrester.

  I was huge and it was easier to lean my seat back and let the baby have a little more room than to sit upright and drive. We were going to see our baby again. We had been seeing him or her since nearly the beginning since our friend was the town’s main doctor and was happy to let us have look after look.

  This time, however, was an official visit with my blood pressure being checked along with my weight and my blood work. Jane had kept an eye on my blood pressure every time she saw me. I was one of those solid types who bordered on the edge of overweight. Combined with my over-35 age, she was in the careful zone with me.

  “Do you want to find out what we’re having?” I asked Simon. “If we find out what we’re having, then we’ll be able to just pick a name.”

  “Don’t you think we need to meet him or her?” Simon asked. “Maybe whatever name we choose won’t feel right anyway once we meet the baby.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, conflicted still which was why we were having this debate again.

  I was pretty sure Simon desperately wanted a little boy and was afraid he’d feel sad about having a girl, so he’d rather just meet her. I think he had no doubt he’d love our baby, whatever the sex, once he met the baby. He didn’t want to carry any flash of guilt about having wished for something else.

  I also loved the idea of going old-school and meeting our baby on the day they arrived without any preconceived ideas about our little person. I was in the camp of not caring what we had as long as they were healthy, but I had read too many articles about over-35-year-old women having babies. Being in the high-risk group was stressing me out.

  And yet, I also liked the idea of getting the nursery fully ready. I was fixated on planes and teddy bears for a boy or fairies for a girl with a soft pink walls. So far, we’d bought a basinet for our bedroom, a cradle for the family room. We had a swing in our living room and a baby carrier ready to go.

  We didn’t, however, have furniture or walls painted. We had an empty room with a few things that we’d have bought regardless of the sex of the baby. A soft cream teddy-bear that was, apparently, unsafe to put in the crib. That surprised me. It surprised me that drop-sided cribs weren’t safe and that blankets and pillows weren’t safe. How did you keep your baby warm?

  Unlike me, Simon wasn’t feeling the need to get things ready. I’d cleaned our whole house, only stopping when Simon made me. Instead, he’d hired someone to come in and clean it heavily while we’d gone away for the weekend.

  Matthew still came to take care of the dogs even though I was going in less and less to the diner or the adoption center since my feet were swollen and I was achy. I liked to walk the dogs, but now Matthew was with me, holding the leash of my monster great Dane, Goliath, who would no more pull on me than he would attack a child.

  Simon was in protective mode to the extent that I’d have felt a little suffocated if I wasn’t so charmed by the daddy in him coming out. Boy or girl, our baby was going to be a lucky little thing. It was the thought of that daddy who wanted to meet his baby as a surprise that had me saying, “We’ll wait. I know you want to.”

  He squeezed my fingers and I promised myself I wouldn’t bring it up again. “But we have to pick out names so I can try them out in my head.”

  “Ok,” Simon said, twining his fingers through mine, “Deal. What shall we do today after our appointment?”

  “I have to go into the diner. We’re having a special food day at the diner starting Friday. And I want to look for something fun to wear in the days around Halloween.”

  Halloween was coming, and I was excited for it. Silver Falls had pulled out all the stops this year. There were bats and owls hanging from the street lamps. The street corners had pumpkins and bales of hay. My own restaurant, The 2nd Chance Diner, had the windows painted with pumpkins and witches. We had purple and orange lights lining the edge of every window as well as our dessert case.

  We’d been offering special “Halloween” meals all month long as we tested and prepared options for our special Halloween weekend menu.

  Silver Falls was having a trick or treating event on Main Street with a costume party, a band, and a pumpkin carving contest at the local park. We would open during the event selling special ready-to-go snacks and hot drinks as well as having loads of candy for the trick or treaters.

  I had been carving and keeping pumpkins outside of my diner since the 15th. I was using them as prototypes for my entry into the pumpkin carving contest. I didn’t care about winning, but I was really looking forward to walking through the town park and seeing all the offerings for the contest lit up.

  “You should take the afternoon off,” Simon said. “Az is back at the diner full-time, so you don’t need to go in, do you?”

  “I’m going into play with Halloween recipes not to wait tables.” I grinned at him and stopped myself from rolling my eyes.

  Simon was barely able to keep himself from constantly shoving me in a chair and putting my feet up.

  “We’ll have pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, a pumpkin waffle…”

  “Of course,” Simon said.

  “Of course,” I agreed.

  My addiction to waffles had turned The 2nd Chance Diner into a location of revolving, funky flavors of waffles. The highlights included a huckleberry waffles, a lemonade waffle, a blueberry extreme. I couldn’t even remember all of our wonderful flavors, though Az—the diner’s cook and my pseudo-brother—and I had been putting together a collection of recipes for a waffle cookbook.

  “Anyway,” I said, “We’re thinking of a cauldron cake. Maybe some sort of butternut squash biscuit sandwich.”

  Simon shuddered and I laughed at him. He hated trying anything different or unusual.

  “The cake will be something really deep and dark chocolatey, so it looks black. Maybe something sort of horrifying in the scrambled eggs. Like scrambled brains or I don’t know. Az was looking into options there. Zee wants to make lady fingers that look gross. You know…Halloween stuff. It won’t be working, it’ll be playing.”

  “You’ll put your feet up if you start hurting?”

  “Yes,” I promised, again without rolling my eyes. I was a saint, I thought, an epic saint.

  “Maybe I’ll go over and see Hank, then.”

  “What a great idea,” I told him. “Grab a beer, have a man gossip or whatever, and afterwards we can pick up pizza on the way home.”

  “Deal,” Simon said.

  “Deal,”I agreed.

  When we reache
d the clinic, Simon hauled my oversized pregnant body out of the car and we went in. Jane was there to look at the baby with us and take my numbers. It was only my daily walking and the fact that when I wasn’t eating waffles I was eating super healthy that was keeping me from gestational diabetes.

  I didn’t really attribute it to those things, actually, I credited my lack of gestational diabetes to the craving I had for celery and peanut butter. Neither of those things were something that would spike your sugar and I’d been known to eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  The truth was that I kind of wanted some right at that moment and if I could have had a pizza spread with peanut butter and sprinkled with crisp celery, I’d have gone for it. I sighed as the craving hit me even harder and fiercer now that I’d imagined that perfect pizza. I told myself the diner would have everything I needed.

  Jane got us right in and took a look at the baby. She was the only who knew the sex of our child, but she was good at keeping secrets and she’d kept this one before for other parents who chose to wait.

  “Your baby looks great,” she said. “The child is measuring exactly where they should be and your blood work will be back soon. I’ll call you as soon as I get it.”

  We chatted as she went over my weight—surprisingly low given my tendency to be thicker—my blood pressure and such.

  “You’re looking good, Rose,” Jane said. “This baby is looking good. Simon looks haggard though. Are you running him ragged? I hope so!”

  “I’m running myself ragged,” Simon told Jane. They were cousins and long-time friends, so sharing was natural. “I keep dreaming about terrible things. Something happening to Rose or the baby. Zombies attacking when Rose is going into labor. Another murder. I kind of want to put a cement wall around our house, top it with barbed wire, and invest in an arsenal.”

  Jane was laughing too hard to respond but Simon waited long-sufferingly. He knew he was being over-the-top, but he couldn’t help it. I was used to it at this point since I’d woken up more than once to him checking my pulse or pacing the hallway.

  “You could have Goliath accompany Rose everywhere,” Jane suggested.

  “He already almost does,” Simon admitted. “That dog isn’t happy if he isn’t directly next to Rose.”

  We chatted about the baby for a few more minutes and then I asked, “How are you?”

  Jane was one of my best friends and her marriage had been struggling for the last six months. She shrugged and then admitted, “Things are up, things are down. We’re working on it. Honestly, we’ve probably never been more united in working things out between us instead of pretending everything was ok. But it still feels like we’re ripping open old wounds. I think we both wish we could go back and start over—only smarter this time.”

  I squeezed her hand. “You’ve made it this far, Jane. If you were going to really implode surely it would have happened already? Like after Jordy died? How’s J.J?”

  Jane smiled and said, “It helps having discovered he has sisters. They are able to talk about their deadbeat dad and understand where they’re coming from. The three of them go see Dr. Melton, together and separately. We’re going to family counseling too. Basically, we’re at the counselor more than anything but work or home.”

  “It’s worth it,” I told her and she nodded. She grinned and said, “You all are good friends.”

  I left my car at the clinic, because I needed to stretch my legs and because I wanted to check out the window displays for the shops.

  I had to order Simon to leave me be when he was going to walk me to the diner.

  “It’s no trouble,” he said.

  “I want to shop on the way,” I told him for the second time. “I want to linger examining sweaters and maybe buy some ornaments and linger talking to Paige and Sarah and you’ll hate that.”

  “I don’t mind,” he lied.

  “I’m pregnant not dying, Simon Banks. Go away! I have my phone. I swear I will call you if I have an issue. But I am fully capable of walking.”

  He frowned at me and I frowned back at him. It took him a minute to kiss my forehead and leave me to shopping. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I needed new clothes, though, because of the baby.

  I made my way into the Christmas store and grabbed a few Halloween decorations they had out for the diner and the 2nd Chance Adoption center. I lingered for a long time over Christmas ornaments before I went ahead and bought a baby’s first Christmas ornament frame. Our baby was due in January, so it was possible they’d be here at Christmas. I went ahead and decided we could put one of our ultrasounds in the frame if the baby didn’t make it by Christmas Day.

  CHAPTER 2

  The display at Paige’s boutique caught my attention. First just because it was so cute and then once I started examining the individual items because I wanted all of it. There was a skeleton sweater in the display. It had the bones knitted into the black, and it looked like it might have a big enough size for my pregnant belly. I went into the shop and ended up buying the sweater, black leggings, and silver chocker necklace that was linked bones and skulls.

  I also found a sweater that would zip over my belly with room to spare. Maybe the baby would let me wear it for another month or two? More often than not, I was wearing a hoodie instead of a coat. It just didn’t get all that cold in Silver Falls.

  I ended up chatting with Paige for a while, getting all the usual questions about the baby. Did we have a name picked out? Have we finished our nursery? Were we having a baby shower? How was I feeling?

  I told her about my peanut butter and celery craving and she laughed like a loon until I finally left. As I walked out the door, she called, “You should check out the pumpkin display on the for corner before your diner. Someone took your pumpkins and mine and a few others and made a pyramid display, I was upset mine had been moved until I saw what they did with them. It’s pretty neat.”

  “Will do,” I called.

  I crossed away from the diner. Someone had stacked cinderblocks and wooden boards in such a way to make a pyramid with the pumpkins arranged on the makeshift shelving. I could imagine how it would look in the dark, but one of my pumpkins was missing—it had been a really large one. With a typical jack o’lantern face. I frowned. At first, I assumed it had been broken in the making of the display. But they would have put something else in the center spot. Instead, there was a perfect spot for the pumpkin but

  I almost expected to see it shuttered all over the street, but we had been so lucky this year. The kids who usually pulled those stunts seemed to be enjoying the Halloween atmosphere as much as the adults. When I didn’t see the pumpkin, I shrugged and headed towards the diner. I glanced down the alley between my shop and the building over. My pumpkin was on its side down the alley.

  I walked towards it, knowing I wouldn’t be able to lift it. Maybe if it were in pieces I could clean it up without help. I was having a harder and harder time seeing much below my belly these days. Simon even helped me shave my legs. People should warn women of things like this before they get pregnant. Though, perhaps, I had gotten warning about how uncomfortable it could be to be pregnant, and I hadn’t wanted to hear them. For the most part, growing a baby had been amazing.

  I paused a moment later. The pumpkin had been set up in a little horror scene. In my opinion, someone had taken decorating Silver Falls way too far. This was downright grisly. I glanced down at the prop under the jack o’ lantern. Checkered shirt, big puffy coat, workman’s boots, jeans. They’d stuffed an outfit, used my jack o’ lantern for the head and even added a pool of fake blood.

  I supposed the fake blood was why someone had decided to stage this scene in the alleyway instead of the street corner. It would have been way too much for the kids who were coming downtown every day to see the newest decorations.

  The more I examined the scene, the more I frowned. This was a lot of work for an alley where only a few people would see it. And how weird was it that we had two r
ogue decorators? The ones with the pumpkin pyramid and this one? Because surely the folks who’d put together the pyramid scene wouldn’t have taken their center piece to use it in this secret horror scene?

  This scene made me sick. There was so much detail in it. Though, I’d have expected them to make the blood redder than it was. It was more of a pool of dark blood than the horror movie red you’d expect. Which was when the smell hit me. Being pregnant made you far too aware of scents, and this scent…oh goodness. I lumbered out of the alley gagging and crying and crashed into a small body. My phone slipped from my hand and shattered and I looked up into the horrified gaze of a kid who was totally unprepared to deal with a pregnant woman who’d been felled like a tree and with a similar thump.

  “Miss Rose!” The kid said.

  I had to wipe my cheeks before I could stand and my side was hurting too hard for me to haul myself up. The kid was Jane’s J.J, and he looked was though he was about one breath from a panic attack.

  There wasn’t anyone else on the street and young J.J. was glancing frantically around for someone to save him. I looked back towards the body. I felt as though there were neon signs pointing down on it, but J.J. hadn’t noticed. I signed and then tried to get up. My wrist screamed at me, and I bit back a shriek before I glanced up at J.J. Thank goodness the kid was here.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “Go get Az from the diner.”

  J.J. nodded frantically and ran as though demons were chasing him. Seconds later, Az, Lyle, Zee, and Carmen poured out of the diner and came running for me. I’d have been embarrassed if I wasn’t losing it completely. I couldn’t seem to stop crying.

  Az was my huge Jamaican brother of my soul. His hair was cut close to his head ever since he’d started dating my friend who loved to run her hands over his scalp. Lyle and Carmen were a mother-son team who’d come to Silver Falls together. They helped run our food-trucks pod during the summer and on the busy weekends and worked at the diner during the off-season.