Page 7 of The Naughty List

And I don’t buy them for half a second.

“Did your mom tell you to come out here and apologize for being mean to the new girl in town?” I ask. “Because if she did, you can honestly save it. I’m here for Meri and Brighton and they are the ones who own this farm and they are the ones who hired me. You can either work with me or against me, but if it’s going to be the latter, you need to stay the hell out of my way.”

I complete shifting and let my foot slightly off the break, causing Elliott to back up slightly.

“All right then, Firecracker,” Elliott says and I scrunch up my face at the nickname. Did he honestly just nickname me? I have a few nicknames I’d like to call him…

No.

This is sweet Meri’s son.

I don’t need to start a war I don’t feel like finishing.

SEVEN

ELLIOTT

“Okay…sowe have an acre of Christmas trees, twelve reindeer, photos with Mr. and Mrs. Claus, the Ivy House hot cocoa stand, a cookie walk—”

“And a partridge in a pear tree?” I ask as I walk into the pole barn and see the dark-haired beauty with a stick up her ass from last night ordering everyone around.

She looks down at said list and huffs, no doubt pretending to check it over.

“Nope. I don’t see anything about a partridge in a pear tree.”

Okay, so the angry city girl can’t take a joke.Noted.

“If I had known at Ivy House that you were the person my parents decided to hire because they think we can’t handle a little festival...”

I look into her green eyes as she rolls them and cocks her head to the side.

“You would have what?” she challenges. “Actually, you know what? I don’t have time for this, Elliott. Excuse me, I need to get back to work.”

She spins on her heel and motions for the three farmhands standing at her side to follow her. I watch as her ass sways back and forth as she saunters away with zero shame.

Damn.

“Well that went swimmingly well,” Bennett boasts before letting out a long chuckle from behind me.

“Fuck off, Benny,” I grit out, watching Tillie until she’s out of sight.

Bennett, my brother, clasps a hand on my shoulder and squeezes, and I shrug him off. “Well what crawled up your ass?” he asks, his brow furrowed.

He follows as I walk over to the makeshift office Tillie has set up in our barn. The place isn’t a typical working barn. This barn has floors kept nice enough to eat off of and a central air and heating system. We do a lot of our planning here, and apparently my parents told the intruder that because she’s set up shop in our space and taken three of our farm hands in the process.

I do my best to wipe the scowl off my face but it’s no use. I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions. Why start now?

“I don’t get why Mom and Dad decided we needed to bring in an outsider to help us run our events,” I say, gesturing to the table and chairs that Tillie and her team have taken over. “We’ve never had trouble running our annual festival. Part of the reason the people of Blue Spruce Hills love the event as much as they do is because we’re a family run farm. The people in town don’t want an uptight city chick fucking up a tradition they’ve loved as long as we have.”

I pick up a clipboard from the desk and scan it, realizing it’s a checklist of some sort that Tillie is probably using to keep herself organized.

“You know as well as I do that the toy drive was way out of hand last year. We had the biggest event we’d ever had. People from towns all over were here and we couldn’t keep up. The two of us and Mom and Dad can only do so much. This could be a good thing for the farm, little brother.”

“Don’t ‘little brother’ me, Bennett.” I place the clipboard back down after reading about plans for a mistletoe booth. “A damn mistletoe kissing booth?” I question. “This is exactly what I was afraid of. This woman is coming in here and changing everything that the festival goers have always loved. You don’t screw with tradition, and our traditions don’t include a mistletoe booth. What are we, ten year old children?”’ I place both hands on my hips and look around the barn, exasperated.

“What are you afraid of?” Bennett asks, walking away from me as he chuckles, clearly having fun with my misery. “Think Genevieve Foster will corner you in the kissing booth? That girl has always had the hots for you. You’re not getting any younger, little brother. Might as well give her a chance.”

He heads out the entrance of the barn, and I scoff.

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