Page 58 of Trick or Tease

It was a letter from my great grandpa to my grandpa. The letter talked about holding on to the farm. I flipped through one letter after another. It was always about the farm. They struggled. Three generations before us had fought like hell to keep the land. They were never rich but they stayed afloat by the skin of their teeth. It was never about getting wealthy. It was always about passing the land down to the next generation.

Me. Billy.

One day, our kids.

Well, Billy’s kids. It was Billy’s farm and I wanted to make sure there was a legacy for him to pass down. I didn’t want to be the one that fell asleep on the job and lost the place. That meant I had to do all I could to help Billy make his wild ideas a success.

And protect his crazy ass in every legal way possible.

21

SABRINA

Istood at the entrance to our festival that had started out as nothing more than a pumpkin patch and a corn maze. Things had gotten a little carried away. It had been so fun to take the basic patch to something families would love. They were going to make memories today that they would, hopefully, treasure forever.

But what I was witnessing was not what I expected. Or planned. I was beginning to think we might have bitten off more than any of us could chew.

I watched an endless stream of cars turn off the main road and onto our gravel driveway. My heart was hammering against my ribs as I counted vehicle after vehicle. It was a parade of SUVs, minivans, pickup trucks, even a few cars with out-of-state license plates.

It was definitely not what we had planned for.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, clutching my clipboard so tightly my knuckles were white. “Lucy! Lucy, get over here!”

She jogged over from where she’d been directing parking, her face flushed with excitement and what looked like the same panic I was feeling. “Sabrina, there are like two hundred people here already, and it’s only been open for an hour!”

I did a quick scan of the crowd gathering around our entrance arch. Families with young kids clutching pumpkin-shaped buckets. Teenagers taking selfies with our scarecrows. A group of college-aged kids were taking pictures of the decorations we had made from hand. Even some older couples were milling about. All seemed genuinely excited about our corn maze.

“We planned for maybe fifty people on opening day,” I said, my voice getting higher. “Maybe seventy-five if we were really lucky. This is insane! We’re gonna need more cider.”

Billy appeared at my elbow, practically vibrating with excitement. “Did you see the parking situation? I had to open up the back field just to fit everyone. And there’s still a line of cars coming down the road!”

“Billy, this is a disaster,” I hissed. “We don’t have enough staff. We don’t have enough supplies. The hayride can only take twenty people at a time, and there’s got to be sixty people in line for it already!”

“It’s a good problem to have,” he said, but I could see the stress creeping into his expression as he watched the crowd continue to grow.

We wanted success but holy shit. I was worried we might have to turn people away. And if we had to do that, it would kill the rest of the season. Why would people bother to make the trip if they might get turned away? We had to figure out how to get everyone through. How to make sure everyone had a good time.

“Where the hell did all these people come from?” I demanded. “We put up flyers at the feed store and posted on the community Facebook page. That’s it. We were expecting locals, maybe a few families from neighboring towns.”

Lucy grabbed my arm. “Sabrina, look at this.” She shoved her phone in my face, showing me what appeared to be an Instagram post. “Some influencer chick with like fifty thousand followers posted about us. Look at the caption.”

I squinted at the screen. The post showed a perfectly filtered photo of our entrance arch, complete with Billy’s hand-carved wooden sign and the scarecrow I’d made holding the smaller directional sign. The caption read: “Just discovered this AMAZING hidden gem in upstate New York! Hogan’s Haunted Hill looks like the perfect fall adventure. Who’s ready for some authentic farm fun? #FallVibes #PumpkinSeason #HiddenGems #AutumnAdventure”

“Who the fuck is @FallWithFiona?” I asked.

“Apparently someone with a lot of followers.”

I clicked on the woman’s profile and it didn’t take a genius to figure out how she figured out we were here.

“Garrett,” I said.

“What?”

“Garrett must have done this. He has to know her.”

Jealousy raced through me. And then, as if saying his name conjured him out of the depths of hell, there he was.

I watched Garrett stride through the chaos like he owned the place. He was wearing a blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up and dark jeans somehow making him look more authoritative than any of us in our worn farm clothes. He surveyed the scene for maybe thirty seconds, then walked toward us.