Page 54 of Trick or Tease

“Right?” I took a long pull from my beer bottle. “I mean, I get it. I’m not exactly his type. But don’t look at me like you want to devour me and then act like I’m radioactive.”

“Sabrina, you do realize the man spent an entire day building scarecrows with you, right? Getting dirty, ruining his fancy clothes, actually having fun for once in his uptight life? He made ghosts and hung spiders. He hates spiders.”

“So?”

“So that’s not exactly the behavior of someone who finds you repulsive.”

“Then why does he keep running away?”

“Maybe because he’s scared.”

“Of what? Me?” I snorted. “I’m about as threatening as a golden retriever.”

“Of this.” Lucy gestured vaguely with her paintbrush. “All of it. You, the farm, staying in one place, actually caring about something real instead of whatever shallow bullshit he’s got going on in the city.”

“When he’s actually working, not thinking about it, he’s…” I trailed off, not sure how to explain it.

“He’s what?”

“He’s the guy I had a crush on in high school. Before he got all corporate and cold. And I know that’s wrong. Bad. I’m falling for someone who’s planning to leave.”

“Look, you don’t have time to worry about this guy. We’re opening up the farm to the public in a few days. We need to get things ready. Worry about getting laid after we shut down in November.”

“You’re right,” I said finally. “I need to focus. But Lucy, I can’t stop thinking about him. And that’s the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

I set down my paintbrush and leaned back against the porch railing. “I mean, I’ve dated guys before. You know that. There was Jake from high school, and that guy from Saratoga Springs I met at the county fair last summer. Even that disaster with Mike from the feed store.”

“Oh God, Mike.” Lucy grimaced. “He had the personality of wet cardboard.”

“Exactly. But here’s the thing with all of them, it was just fine. Nice. Safe. I could take it or leave it when they kissed me. When they touched me. It was like, okay, this is pleasant enough, but I wouldn’t have been devastated if it ended.”

I grabbed my beer and took another sip, trying to organize my thoughts.

“But with Garrett, just standing next to him makes my heart race. When he looks at me, really looks at me, I feel like I might spontaneously combust. And when he almost kissed me on his balcony, and again today in the maze?” I shook my head. “I’ve never felt anything like that before. Ever.”

Lucy had stopped painting entirely and was watching me with a concerned expression. “That sounds like a good thing,” she said carefully.

“Does it? Because it feels terrifying. Like I’m setting myself up for the kind of heartbreak that ruins you for other people. The kind where you spend years comparing every guy to the one who got away. Like the very thing I’ve been doing for the last twelve years. He ruined me.”

Lucy laughed. “Those Hogan boys are hard to resist.”

“And you know what the worst part is? He feels it too. I can see it in his eyes, in the way his breathing changes when we’re close. But he’s fighting it. He keeps pulling away because he knows exactly what I know—that this is temporary. He’s going back to his real life, and I’m staying here with mine.”

“Maybe he would stay,” Lucy offered, though she didn’t sound convinced.

“For what? To run a corn maze and live in a town where the biggest excitement is the annual tractor pull? Lucy, the man drives a car that costs more than most people’s houses. This isn’t his world anymore.”

She didn’t say anything, just kept working on her werewolf.

“And even if by some miracle he did stay, then what? Do I become the girl who gave up her independence for a guy? The one who sits around waiting for him to decide our relationship is worth a shot.”

I was rambling. “Stop it,” I muttered.

She looked up. “What?”

“Me. Done. I am not talking about him. I’m not thinking about him.”