Page 34 of Trick or Tease

“This is going to be embarrassing,” I muttered under my breath.

“Probably,” Jake agreed cheerfully. “But hey, that’s half the fun.”

I pulled the release lever. The trebuchet snapped forward with surprising force, launching my pumpkin in a high arc across the field. For a moment, I thought I might actually hit something. The orange projectile sailed through the air with decent velocity, heading in the general direction of the monster targets.

Then it landed about fifteen feet short of the nearest one, exploding in a shower of orange pulp and seeds. Dracula remained unharmed.

It pretty much went like that for the next ten minutes.

Turned out, I sucked.

Billy grinned at me. “Looks like I won.”

“Won what?”

“Won at life. Deal with it.” He walked away, arms raised in victory while our audience clapped, which pissed me off.

And they knew it. And that was exactly why they were all playing it up like a big victory, all but carrying Billy off on their shoulders. They were loving the fact they were better at something than I was.

But I could see Billy was passionate about all of this. My brother was always a dreamer. He never really focused on any one thing, but he seemed serious about this. And they were all treating it like an actual business. Like they actually might make money.

“Come on,” Sabrina said. “We want to show you the rest of what we’re working on.”

Billy nodded eagerly. “The punkin’ chunkin’ is just one piece of it, Garrett. We’re trying to create a whole experience here. Like a family could come and spend a whole afternoon here.”

I followed them toward what used to be our back forty, wiping my hands on a towel Jake had tossed me. The hangover was finally starting to lift, replaced by genuine curiosity about what they’d managed to pull together.

“See, the thing is, farming has gotten harder every year,” Billy said. “The margins are razor thin, and one bad season can wipe you out completely. Mom and Dad have been lucky, but luck doesn’t last forever.”

“So you’re diversifying,” I said, my business brain automatically kicking in.

“Exactly.” Sabrina smiled. “With the corn maze and the pumpkin patch, it’s giving us several streams.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t entirely convinced. The whole thing seemed ambitious for a small farm operation, but I wasn’t about to crush Billy’s enthusiasm. “I don’t know much about all that stuff,” I said carefully. “But it sounds like people will like it.”

Billy’s eyes lit up. I remembered that look from when we were kids and he’d get obsessed with some new project. “Garrett, I’m going to prove to you this is a bigger deal than you realize. You haven’t been around during the fall for a few years. You don’t know how much it’s grown. People come from all over.”

He was right about that. The last few Octobers I’d been working through weekends and holidays without a second thought. I assumed things here had stayed exactly the same as when we were teenagers.

“This way,” Sabrina said, leading us toward a section of the farm I barely recognized.

Where there used to be just regular corn rows, there was now what looked like an actual maze carved into the stalks. The corn was tall enough that I couldn’t see over it. We’d gone through plenty of corn mazes back in my day. Never actually made one ourselves though.

“I think you’ve got some good ideas,” I said. “And hey, I’m happy to help while I’m in town.”

Sabrina looked at me with surprise in her eyes. “Yeah?”

I nodded. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be here, but while I’m here, yeah, I’ll help. I can’t chunk a pumpkin for shit, but I’m not completely useless.”

I couldn’t believe I just said that because I honestly planned on leaving tomorrow.

But for some reason, I didn’t want to go just yet. And it wasn’t like I had any work waiting for me back in the city.

“I know exactly how you can help,” Sabrina said with a grin that promised I wasn’t going to like it.

13

SABRINA