Page 111 of Trick or Tease

“You’re grinding your teeth again,” Lucy said, appearing at my elbow with a cup of hot cider. She was dressed as a fairy, complete with gossamer wings and glitter in her hair, but her expression was pure concern.

I accepted the cider gratefully, using it to warm my hands and give me something to do with the rage that kept threatening to bubble over. “I wasn’t grinding my teeth.”

“You were. You’ve been doing it all night. Your jaw is going to be sore tomorrow.” She glanced around to make sure we weren’t being overheard, then lowered her voice. “Have you talked to him at all today?”

“No. And I’m not going to.” I took a sip of the cider, letting the warm spices soothe my throat. “There’s nothing to say. He made his choice.”

Lucy nodded. “Good. He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you, let alone have a conversation.”

Lucy knew everything after the confrontation last night. Well, almost everything. I had left out the more intimate details of my relationship with Garrett, but she knew the broad strokes. She held me while I cried angry tears into her shoulder, alternately raging about his betrayal and berating myself for being naive enough to trust him.

“I keep thinking about all those conversations we had,” I said, watching a family with three small kids walk past us toward the corn maze. “All those plans we made for next season, all the improvements we talked about. Was he just gathering information the whole time? Making mental notes for his precious buyers?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said honestly. “But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he lied to all of us. He let us pour our hearts into this place while he was secretly hoping to sell it.”

I thought about the way Garrett had listened so intently when I described my vision for expanding the haunted house, how he had nodded and asked thoughtful questions and even contributed ideas of his own. Had any of that been real? Or had he just been calculating how much more money he could get if the property had better structures?

“The thing that really gets me,” I continued, my voice getting tighter with suppressed emotion, “is that he helped us make it better. He helped us fix up the place, set up the vendor booths and organized the whole business structure. Was that all just to increase the sale price?”

Lucy sighed. “That’s exactly what it was. He’s been playing us this whole time, Sabrina. Making us think he cared about this place, about us, when really he was just setting up his big payday.”

The betrayal cut deep. It wasn’t just that Garrett had lied about the sale. It was that he’d made me believe in something that was never real. He made me think that maybe, just maybe, he could be the kind of man who would choose love over ambition, community over profit. He let me fall for him while knowing the whole time that he was planning to pull the rug out from under everything I cared about.

“I should have known,” I said, more to myself than to Lucy. “I should have seen the signs. The mysterious phone calls and his change in attitude. And that damn appraiser showing up out of nowhere.”

“You trusted him because he’s Billy’s brother and because you have a good heart,” Lucy said firmly. “That’s not your fault. It’s his fault for taking advantage of that trust.”

A group of teenage girls in matching vampire costumes approached us, giggling and asking for directions to the haunted house. I pointed them toward the hill, plastering on my customer service smile and giving them the whole spiel about what to expect. They thanked us and bounded off, their excitement infectious despite my mood.

“Look at this,” I said once they were out of earshot, gesturing at the crowds around us. “Look at how happy everyone is. This is what we built, Lucy. This is what he wants to sell off for a quick profit.”

Lucy followed my gaze, taking in the scene. Families were scattered across the property, kids running between attractions while parents followed with indulgent smiles. The teenagers were clustered around the trebuchets, cheering each other on as they launched pumpkins into the darkness. Couples wandered hand in hand, sharing caramel apples and stealing kisses in the shadows between jack-o’-lanterns.

“It’s not just about the money for him,” Lucy said thoughtfully. “I mean, it is, but it’s more than that. It’s about proving that his way is better. That success means leaving this place behind, not building something here.”

She was right, and that made it hurt even more. Garrett hadn’t just betrayed us. He’d dismissed everything we had accomplished as somehow lesser than what he could achieve by destroying it. In his mind, we were just naive country folks who needed him to show us what real success looked like.

“Seven point two million dollars,” I said, the number tasting bitter in my mouth. “That’s what we’re worth to him. Not the memories, not the community, not the future we’re building. Just a number on a contract.”

“Don’t,” Lucy said sharply. “Don’t you dare reduce yourself to a dollar amount. This place is worth so much more than money, and you know it. Look around. You can’t put a price on what we’ve created here.”

I knew she was right, but it was hard to hold on to that truth when I felt so foolish. I let myself believe that Garrett saw what I saw in this place, that he understood why it mattered. I let myself fall for the fantasy that he might choose to stay, to build something real with me instead of running back to his corporate world.

“I keep replaying that night under the stars,” I admitted quietly. “When he talked about wanting to matter, about contributing to something bigger than himself. I thought he meant this. I thought he meant us.”

Lucy’s expression softened with sympathy. “Maybe he did mean it, in that moment. Maybe part of him really did want to stay. But when push came to shove, he chose the easy money over the hard work of actually building something lasting.”

A family with twin boys dressed as pirates approached us. I helped them get set up for the hayride. The kids were bouncing with excitement, asking a million questions about whether they were going to see real ghosts on the ride. Their enthusiasm was exactly what I needed. It was a reminder of why we did this, of what really mattered.

After they climbed onto the trailer, I turned back to Lucy. “I just feel so stupid. How did I not see this coming?”

“Because you’re not a cynical person,” Lucy said. “Because you believe in people, in second chances, in the possibility that someone can change. Those are good things, Sabrina. Don’t let Garrett’s betrayal turn you into someone bitter and suspicious.”

I wanted to take her advice, but right then bitterness felt like armor. It was easier to be angry than to acknowledge how much this hurt, how much I hoped for something that was never going to happen.

“Billy’s devastated too,” Lucy continued. “He really thought Garrett had come home for good this time. He’s been talking for weeks about how great it would be to have his brother back, to run the farm together like they used to dream about when they were kids.”

My heart ached for Billy. Whatever I was feeling, it had to be ten times worse for him. Garrett wasn’t just some guy I had fallen for—he was Billy’s brother, his family, someone who was supposed to have his back no matter what.