Page 8 of Trick or Tease

GARRETT

I settled into the driver’s seat of my Mercedes and immediately regretted offering Sabrina a ride.

The confined space of the car made her presence impossible to ignore.

She smelled fucking delicious. Like a creamy dessert waiting to be lapped up.

There was a hint of vanilla mixed with that apple shampoo I’d noticed last night.

It was intoxicating and my cock noticed.

She looked good in those jeans. Too good.

The way the denim hugged her ass and showed off shapely thighs had sent my mind straight to places it had no business going.

I was a grown man, not some horny teenager, but sitting this close to her was testing every ounce of self-control I had developed over the years.

The first hour of the drive passed in relative silence, both of us seeming to dance around whatever had almost happened on my balcony.

I kept stealing glances at her profile as she watched the city give way to suburbs, then farmland.

Her blonde hair caught the sunlight streaming through the windows.

It was crazy that she was the same girl I knew so well, but a stranger at the same time. Sabrina Lamb was the literal girl next door. We had grown up together. Seen each other through our awkward phases. And damn if Sabrina had not fucking blossomed. How had I not noticed before?

Well, I had left before she had become this woman. But now? Shit. She was live and in living color and she looked and smelled like heaven. Like the kind of woman I could bury myself in and see the pearly gates.

I needed to get my head on straight. This was Sabrina.

Not some random woman I could take home from a bar, sleep with, and never see again.

She was part of my past, part of Greenleaf, part of everything I’d been trying to keep at arm’s length for years.

Getting involved with her would complicate everything.

But fu-u-ck, I wanted her. I hadn’t realized how much until she was sitting in my passenger seat, close enough to touch.

What would she do if I reached over and slid my hand up her thigh? Would I find her damp and wanting? Would she let me undo those jeans and slip my fingers inside her?

Shit! What the hell was wrong with me?

I was losing my mind. It had been months since I’d been with anyone. That stupid deal had consumed every waking hour. Maybe I just needed to get laid, and my desperate libido was projecting onto the first attractive woman in my vicinity.

Some women were fine with casual arrangements, no strings attached. But Sabrina wasn’t that type. At least, I didn’t think she was. Hell, I barely knew her anymore.

She was no pump and dump. No “lock the door on your way out” and never see her again. Sabrina was someone special.

That thought sobered me. We’d been close once, but that was years ago. We were essentially strangers now, despite the shared history.

“So,” I said, finally breaking the silence that had stretched between us. “Catch me up on your life. I mean really catch me up. I get the occasional update from Mom and Dad, but not much.”

She turned to look at me, seeming relieved to have something to talk about. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. What do you do for work? What’s a typical day like for you? Are you happy?”

A smile played at her lips. “That’s a loaded question.”

“Start with the easy stuff then.”

“I still help out at my family’s dairy farm most mornings,” she said, settling back into the leather seat. “You know how it is with dairy cows. They don’t care if it’s Saturday or if you stayed up too late the night before. They need to be milked.”

I nodded, remembering the rhythm of farm life that had once dictated my own schedule. “That’s got to be early.”

“Four-thirty most days. Earlier during calving season.” She shrugged like it was nothing. “But I’m usually done by nine or ten, which gives me the rest of the day to work with Billy and Lucy on their new projects for your family’s farm.”

“New projects?” I asked, though something in my gut was already warning me I didn’t want to hear the answer.

Her eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh, Garrett, you should see what we’ve been working on. Billy’s really taking the farm in a new direction. We’ve expanded beyond just the pumpkin patch and punkin’ chunkin’. We’ve got this amazing corn maze now?—”

“No.” The word came out just a little harsh.

Sabrina blinked, clearly taken aback by my reaction. “What do you mean, no?”

“I don’t want to hear about any corn maze.” I kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead, but I could feel her staring at me.

“Garrett, what’s wrong? It’s just a corn maze. Families love them, and it’ll bring in good money for the farm. Billy’s really proud of?—”

“I said I don’t want to hear about it.” I could hear the edge in my own voice, that defensive tone that always came out when I felt cornered. “Can we talk about something else?”

She frowned. “Is this about the scarecrow? Or the clown mask?”

“Stop,” I warned.

She laughed. “I wanted Billy to up the stakes a bit, but he and Lucy vetoed me. Said it was too scary.”

“That fucking mask is not okay.”

She laughed again. “People love clowns.”

“People hate clowns. They’re creepy. And no one likes scary clowns.”

“They love to be afraid of clowns,” she argued.

I could feel my jaw tightening as she grinned at me like this was all some big joke. “Nobody loves to be afraid of clowns, Sabrina. That’s insane.”

“Oh, come on,” she said with that mischievous look I remembered from when we were kids. “What about Stephen King’s It ? That movie made millions. People lined up around the block to be terrified by Pennywise.”

“And then they went home and had nightmares for weeks,” I countered. “That’s not entertainment, that’s demented.”

She laughed, the sound filling the car and making my chest feel tight for entirely different reasons than our clown debate. It wasn’t really my chest that was tight. It was the fucking jeans I was wearing. The effect she had on me was scarier than any movie clown.

“You’re being dramatic. It’s just a plastic mask from a discount store.”

“It’s a gateway drug to full-blown coulrophobia,” I said, trying to keep my tone serious while she dissolved into giggles beside me.

“What does that mean?”

“That’s the official name for the fear of clowns. Coulrophobia.”

“Coulrophobia?” she repeated, barely able to get the word out through her laughter. “You just made that up.”

“It’s a real thing! Look it up. Fear of clowns is an actual medical condition. We don’t want to scar the children.”

“So you’re telling me that my four-dollar clearance mask is going to single-handedly destroy the mental health of a bunch of kids?”

“And me. Where is that thing anyway?”

She flashed an innocent smile and shrugged. And that was disturbing.

“Full disclosure,” I said. “If you pull out that thing while I’m driving, we’re going to have a very bad day.”

I caught her looking at me out of the corner of my eye. I knew she was connecting the dots. She was remembering that night, just like I was. The night Billy had scared the shit out of me dressed as a scarecrow in the cornfield. The night I’d made a complete fool of myself in front of her.

I’d spent years trying to forget that humiliation, the way I’d nearly jumped out of my skin when Billy had lunged at us from his hiding spot against that scarecrow post. I had frozen like a complete coward. And Sabrina had been right there, witnessing the whole pathetic display.

“Garrett, that was over ten years ago.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But of course I did. I knew exactly what she was talking about, and the fact that she remembered it too made my chest tighten with embarrassment.

“The scarecrow thing. Billy jumping out at us. You’re still upset about that?”

I forced a laugh, trying to sound casual. “I barely remember it. It was a stupid prank.”

“Yeah, it was.”

Before we knew it, the familiar sight of bright orange pumpkins stretched out for what looked like miles on one side of the road. On the other was dried corn stalks. I pulled into the driveway of Hogan’s Hill Farm with nostalgia washing over me.

It looked exactly the same as it had when I’d left for college twelve years ago.

The white farmhouse with its wraparound porch still stood proudly against the rolling hills, the red barn still needed a fresh coat of paint, and Mom’s flower garden still exploded with color even this late in the season.

I sat in my car for a moment, suddenly nervous in a way I hadn’t been since my first day at the law firm. This was home. This was supposed to be easy.

The front door burst open before I could even turn off the engine, and there was Mom, wiping her hands on her apron as she hurried down the porch steps. She looked older than I remembered, her dark hair now streaked with silver, but her smile was exactly the same.

“Garrett?” she called out, like she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. “Garrett, is that really you?”

I climbed out of the Mercedes, and before I could say a word, she was throwing her arms around me, squeezing me so tight I could barely breathe. She smelled like apples and cinnamon and every childhood memory I’d tried to keep buried.

It was canning season. She must have been elbows deep in apples from the orchard. Just thinking about her homemade apple pie and the best applesauce a man would ever eat had my mouth watering.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered against my shoulder. I felt her tears soaking through my shirt. “Billy said you might come, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Your brother always dreams big.”

Guilt hit me like a punch to the gut. When was the last time I’d hugged my mother in person? She felt smaller than I remembered, more fragile, and I realized with a shock that she was getting older while I’d been too busy conquering Manhattan to notice.

“Hey, Mom,” I said softly, holding her tighter. “I’m here. Surprise.”

She pulled back to look at me, her hands framing my face like she used to do when I was little and had scraped my knee or gotten into trouble. Her eyes were bright with tears, and she was smiling so wide it made my chest ache.

“Look at you,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.

“So handsome in your fancy clothes. My successful city lawyer.” She smoothed down my hair, a gesture so familiar it transported me back twenty years.

Thank God I got that cowlick under control or she’d be spitting on her fingers and wiping it down.

“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. So proud. ”

I’d been chasing validation from partners and clients for years but hearing it from Mom was a million times better. It was simple and filled with genuine pride. It made me realize how much I’d been missing.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked, glancing toward the barn.

“He’s working on that stupid John Deere,” she muttered. “He’s going to be over the moon when he sees you.”

“Told you I’d fetch the prodigal son,” Billy said, coming up behind me. He shoved me hard. “Had to drive all the way to the city, but I got him.”

I heard my car door close and looked to see Sabrina had grabbed her bag. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” she said.

I felt like I should say something, but I didn’t know what so I just waved like an idiot, wondering why I didn’t want her to go.