‘So-so.’ Julia’s blonde hair hung around her face until she hooked it behind both ears.
‘Sounds dubious.’
‘We’re hoping for a good season for Christmas trees, put it that way.’
‘Didn’t the fruit do too well this year?’ Hollyhock Farm operated a Pick Your Own service for peaches, strawberries and raspberries, and Jack could vouch for how good the produce was. He swore food grown on your own land, or seeing exactly where it came from, made it taste so much better. He’d even begun to think he might plant a vegetable patch or some fruit trees on his new property one day. He’d better be careful; he was sounding almost domesticated!
‘The fruit did fine, but Mom and Dad should’ve handed the reins over long ago. I’d offered to help, but they’d encouraged me to go away to college, forge my own path, to only come back to Hollyhock Farm if this was what I really wanted.’
‘And is it?’
Julia smiled. ‘It really is. Hazelbrook is my home and always will be. Nate and I tried the big city; we lived in San Francisco for a while with his job, and we went over to Europe. All the while I was waiting for a switch to trip in my brain and tell me that I actually wanted more than Hollyhock Farm.’
‘But it didn’t happen, did it?’ Jack sipped his coffee.
‘Nope. But I’m glad my parents put me on the path, made me try a different life. Otherwise I may never have known how much I wanted what I already had. I just wish they’d not let it get in such a state over the years. The Christmas tree section is fine, and I’m hoping the rest will follow suit as we clear more land, replant. And thank you for all your work clearing the maze.’
‘Not a problem. I’m enjoying it.’
‘Well, Nate told me how hard you’ve worked. It’s something that’s been on the list for a while but had been pushed to the bottom with everything else going on.’
Jack gulped down the rest of his coffee. ‘I think I’ll head down there now, see how my pride and joy is coming along.’
Julia smiled. ‘You never were fit for an office, Jack.’
‘Ain’t that the truth.’ He pulled on the rain boots he’d brought with him, the extra thick coat, picked up the gardening gloves to protect him from the elements as much as anything else and left Julia organising supplies for making Christmas wreaths. He tried to focus on how lucky he was to be inheriting a well-oiled family business that would provide for years to come. Nate and Julia had worked far harder than he ever had, or at least it seemed that way when physical labour was involved, but perhaps it was different when it was also a labour of love.
He walked over to the field closest to the lane that ran around the perimeter of the property. Many years ago Julia’s father had planted conifer saplings, and in the first of two framed photos in the hallway of the farmhouse, the maze her father had lovingly made from scratch and cared for as long as he could was on display. In the other photo, her father was shown crouched down, pushing the first sapling, some eight inches tall, into the ground. Those saplings had grown and the maze had taken, looked promising, but when illness ran through the family, the maze had been neglected. It hadn’t been pruned for years, light and rain hadn’t reached the parts it needed to and the paths running between the almost twelve-foot-high conifers had ended up overgrown and impassable.
Last spring Jack had walked around the property with Nate. It had been an unusually warm start to the season and in the lull between Christmas and the start of fruit picking season, which began in June with strawberries, elderberries and this year, blackberries, the men had found themselves at the entrance to the maze with a beer each in hand.
‘What the hell is that mess?’ Jack sat on the grass area in front and swigged his beer as they looked at an overgrown area of land that looked as crazy as a plate of tangled spaghetti, except it needed more than a garden fork taken to it.
Nate, cowboy hat on his head, sat down on the grass next to him.
‘You could clear up the area and plant more fruit, pumpkins maybe, they’re always popular.’
Nate grinned. ‘Julia won’t do that.’
‘What, she’s attached to this mess?’ Jack lay back, propped up on his elbows.
‘Once upon a time, it was a maze.’
‘No kidding.’
‘You’ve seen the pictures hanging in the hallway of the farmhouse.’
Jack whistled through his teeth. ‘It’s unrecognisable.’
‘Julia’s dad planted it years ago, but when he was sick they let it go. They couldn’t manage everything.’
‘Was it open to the public?’
Nate shook his head. ‘Trust you, with your business head on. No, it was only ever fun for him. He did it for his kids.’
‘Could’ve been a nice money earner, people love that sort of thing. Mom went to England once and I remember seeing the photos of her and dad in Hampton Court Maze. Fun for adults and kids.’ He grinned.
‘Be my guest.’
