Page 28 of Trick or Tease

GARRETT

I was so glad when the last of the kids walked out of the maze. Since it was a weekday we were closing early, but it felt like I’d been in a constant state of arousal. Having to be around Sabrina but not able to grab her and kiss her whenever I wanted was brutal.

She had turned me into a horny teenager. I wanted her every which way in every spot on this farm. It was the longest bout of foreplay I had ever endured. And I wasn’t handling it well. I wanted the woman.

I needed her.

And I wasn’t sure if she truly understood just how much I wanted her. She seemed happy to flirt and giggle between kisses, but I was on a different level. I felt fucking feral. Like a predator. I wanted to devour the woman. When I did manage to get her alone, I just hoped I could restrain myself.

Sabrina was already upstairs working in the old Hogan house while I unloaded the last of the supplies from Billy’s truck.

She had strung up battery-powered lanterns that cast dancing shadows on the walls.

There was no electricity to the place. I didn’t dare have it turned on.

The last thing we needed was to have the damn thing burn down.

I was pretty sure the last time the electrical had been updated was sometime in the thirties.

We’d been working for about an hour, and I had to admit it was satisfying to see the room coming together. Sabrina had a vision and she was making it happen. I admired that. Even if she had swatted away my hands and lips when I tried to make my move. She insisted she had to get the work done.

I left the cooler filled with cold beer and some sandwiches downstairs and headed upstairs.

“Hand me that fishing line,” Sabrina called from her perch on the stepladder. She was rigging up our fake ghost. It was nothing more than a white sheet with some creative draping. It was hanging in the window where it would be visible from the hayride route below.

I passed her the spool and took a long pull from my beer. “You know, when Billy first mentioned this haunted house idea, I thought he was crazy. But seeing it come together like this?”

“It’s going to be perfect,” she said, adjusting the ghost’s position. “Kids are going to lose their minds when they see this thing swaying in the window.”

I went back to sweeping, pushing decades of dust and debris into neat piles.

It was mindless work, but it felt right to clean the place up a bit.

No one would actually be coming in the house—at least that was my plan.

But with the way Billy and Sabrina were rolling along with plans, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before the place was opened up.

“The reviews have been incredible,” Sabrina continued, securing the fishing line to a nail in the window frame. “I’ve been checking social media all day. People are calling it ‘the most authentic farm experience’ and ‘a hidden gem.’ One family drove two hours just because they saw Lucy’s TikTok.”

“Lucy made a TikTok?” I asked, pausing in my sweeping.

“Oh, yes. She’s been documenting everything. The pumpkin chunking, kids getting lost in the maze, Billy falling off the tractor yesterday.” Sabrina laughed. “She’s got like fifty thousand views already.”

I shook my head in amazement. The world had changed so much since I was a kid.

Back then, if you wanted people to know about your farm, you put an ad in the local paper and hoped for the best. Now a twenty-something with a phone could reach thousands of people in hours.

I thought my friend’s Instagram post was one of the key drivers, but apparently it wasn’t all about me.

Again.

“We had families from three different states today,” Sabrina said, climbing down from the ladder to survey her handiwork. “Three states, Garrett. For a corn maze and some pumpkin launching.”

“Don’t forget the authentic farm experience,” I said with a grin.

“Right, can’t forget that.” She grabbed her beer from where she’d set it on the windowsill and took a sip. “But seriously, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For people to get bored or for something to go wrong. This kind of success doesn’t usually happen to people like us.”

“People like us?”

She gestured vaguely around the dusty room. “Small-town farmers. People who measure success by how much rainfall we get.”

I felt that familiar stab of guilt. Here she was, including me in her vision of simple, honest farm life, and I was secretly calculating property values and thinking about Manhattan.

“You deserve this,” I said quietly. “You and Billy both. You’ve worked your asses off.”

“Thank you for helping out so much. I know you had your doubts at first.”

I stopped sweeping, meeting her gaze. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Garrett. When you first got here, you looked at all this like it was some kind of quaint hobby. Billy’s little farm project that he’d grow out of eventually.

” She flashed me a pretty smile. “But you’ve jumped in with both feet, and I know it means the world to Billy and Lucy. And it means the world to me.”

The guilt hit me like a physical blow. She was thanking me for my help while I was secretly arranging to have the place appraised for a potential sale. I took a long drink of beer, buying myself time to swallow my guilt.

The appraisal needed to happen anyway. The insurance would need it.

The last thing I wanted to do was under-insure the place.

If it turned out to be worth millions like Ron thought, then I would tell Billy.

I would see what he wants to do. Until then, there was no sense in worrying them about something that may never happen.

It wasn’t like I could make the deal without Billy’s participation. We were joint owners. The money would be great for me, but it wasn’t like it would make the same kind of difference in my life that it would make in his.

“I’m glad I could help,” I managed finally. “Things at work lined up just right, and I’m glad I came back for a while. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in my job, and it’s been a while since I poked my head up from the grind and took a breath.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. Being here had been good for me in ways I hadn’t expected.

I’d forgotten what it felt like to work with my hands, to see immediate, tangible results from my efforts.

In the city, everything was contracts and deals and billable hours.

Here, I could sweep a floor and actually see the difference I’d made.

I liked watching the kids smile and the families bond. It reminded me of simpler times.

“The city must be so different from this,” Sabrina said. “Do you miss it? When you’re here, I mean.”

I considered the question. Did I miss the constant pressure, the late nights, the feeling that I was always one mistake away from losing everything I’d worked for?

“Parts of it,” I said honestly. “I miss the energy, the feeling that you’re at the center of everything important.

But I don’t miss the stress. Or the way everyone’s always competing, always looking for an angle. ”

“Is that why you became a lawyer? The competition?”

I laughed, but it came out bitter. “I became a lawyer because I was good at arguing and my parents thought it would be stable. Turns out, it’s anything but stable. You’re only as good as your last case, your last deal.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“It is.” I took another drink from the bottle, surprised by my own honesty. “But it’s also addictive. The rush when you close a big deal, when you outmaneuver the other side. It’s like a drug.”

Sabrina was quiet for a moment, studying my face in the lantern light. “Do you think you’ll go back? After this?”

I knew she wasn’t just asking about my job. She was asking about us, about whatever this thing was that had started between us.

“I have to,” I said softly. “My whole life is there. My career, my apartment, everything I’ve built.”

She nodded, but I could see the disappointment in her eyes. “I know. I wasn’t expecting… I mean, I know this is temporary.”

The rational part of my brain knew she was right. This was temporary. A brief interlude before I went back to my real life. But sitting here with her, it was hard to remember why that life had seemed so important.

“Sabrina,” I started, not sure what I wanted to say.

“It’s okay,” she said quickly. “I’m not asking for promises or declarations. I’m just grateful for right now.”

“Me too.”

“You’re always welcome to come back here, if you ever decide that life isn’t for you.”

It was such a simple offer, but it meant everything. The idea that I had a place to come back to, people who would welcome me with open arms no matter what happened in my other life—it was a comfort I hadn’t realized I’d been missing.

At the firm, everything was conditional. My value was tied to my billable hours, my ability to bring in clients, my potential to make partner. But here, Sabrina was offering me acceptance just for being me. Not the successful lawyer version of me, just me.

“Thank you,” I said. “That means more than you know.”

She smiled and picked up one of the cardboard figures she’d cut out earlier. “Come on, help me hang this spooky character in the back room. I want kids to catch glimpses of movement through the doorway.”

I followed her into what had probably been a bedroom once upon a time. The space was smaller than the main room, with a single window that looked out over the cornfield. Sabrina had already strung up some lanterns in here too, casting everything in that eerie glow.

“Hold this steady while I get the fishing line attached,” she said, handing me the cardboard cutout. It was a simple silhouette of a hunched figure, but in the flickering light, it looked genuinely creepy.

I held it in position while she worked, trying not to think about how close we were standing.

Every time she reached up to adjust something, her shirt rode up slightly, giving me glimpses of the smooth skin I’d been touching just hours ago.

The memory of our time together was still so fresh, so vivid.

I could smell her. I needed to have her.

“There,” she said, stepping back to admire her work. “Now when the wind catches it, it’ll sway just enough to look like someone’s moving around in here.”

“You’re really good at this,” I said, meaning it. “The whole atmosphere you’ve created up here is perfect. Spooky but not terrifying. Exactly what families with kids would want.”

She beamed at the compliment. Making her happy felt almost as addictive as closing a big deal. Maybe more so, because this felt real in a way that corporate victories never did.

Without thinking, I reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The simple touch sent electricity shooting through me. I saw her eyes darken in response.

Finally .

“Sabrina.”

Her hand brushed across my chest. “We should probably close the door,” she whispered. “Just in case.”

I moved to push the old wooden door shut, the hinges creaking in protest. I locked it just in case a ghost didn’t get the memo they could move through solid wood.

We were finally completely alone.

When I turned back to her, she was right there, close enough to touch. Close enough to kiss. The lantern light played across her face. She had never looked more beautiful.

“Come here,” I murmured, pulling her against me.

She melted into my arms, her hands sliding up my chest to rest against my shoulders. I held her close, breathing in the scent of her hair. I was doing a mental count to ten.

One potato. Two potato.

I was going to be a two-second man if I didn’t get things under control.

This felt different than earlier. Less desperate, more tender. Like we had all the time in the world to just be together.

“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” I admitted, running my hands down her back. “About you. About this morning.”

“Good thoughts, I hope,” she said with a soft laugh.

“I’m not sure good is the word I would use. Dirty. Nasty. Filthy. And oh so scandalous.”

“Stop teasing me, Garrett Hogan. Fuck me.”