Chapter One

Demi Rhone Darke would rather be anywhere else on the entire planet but here, trapped in what was shaping up to be the dumbest conversation she'd ever been a part of.

"In years past, I didn't have to hire my own lights specialist," Mr. Markham gritted out. "I'm a busy man. Obviously. If I wasn't extremely busy, I would be decorating my own house for the All Hallows Lights Festival!"

"I completely understand," Demi said calmly. "I do want to keep your business, and make this as streamlined as possible for you. I simply don't offer a lights package with my services. I haven't ever done that, although I can recommend a couple of lights specialists that can help you. I am a décor manager, but have never dealt with lighting for any of my clients."

"Well, then who the hell did my lights last year?"

She kept her sigh carefully inside of her chest and barely resisted the urge to Change into her crow and fly to freaking Fiji. How was she supposed to know who he'd hired for that? He didn't even remember! She looked at her clipboard, with the quote and contract from this home from last year. "Your wife had me do the upgraded Pumpkins package, with the additional add-on of the Ravens of Halloween package, and chose thirty-six extra décor items from my warehouse. No lights, as I didn't offer those last year either." His wife, Tabby, had hired her when she'd found out Demi was one of the crow shifters that had come out to the public a couple years ago. Tabby was kind and patient and sweet, and knew exactly what she wanted for her holiday decorations, but unfortunately, Tabby was out of town on a girls' trip for another week, and Demi's appointment had been scheduled back in March, because her interior and exterior Halloween decoration services booked up fast for this time of year. It was now two weeks before the All Hallows Lights Festival, and Mr. Markham was going to get what his wife ordered, or find someone else. Or hell, as he said, he could do it himself.

He huffed an aggravated growl and muttered to himself, "I could be doing so much more with my time."

Her hearing was impeccable. She smiled politely. "Why don't you talk to Tabby, and if you decide to stick with my services, just give me a call." She handed him one of her business cards. "There is no pressure."

"Look, Tabby handles this stuff. She's the one who wanted to move to this neighborhood and be a part of the insane holiday traditions here. She loves the holidays. I don't care about this festival. I just want the work done, and to come home and have it be complete, and for it to look amazing when Tabby comes home. She'll be so upset if she comes home for the festival and ours is the only house not done. Can you just hire out a contractor to do the lights? Please? I'll pay you a three hundred dollar finder's fee, and whatever the lights specialist charges too. I just…want it finished."

This neighborhood was wild with the amount of money they spent on holiday décor, but who was she to complain? Her property taxes were due soon and she was still two thousand dollars short, so yep, she would figure this out. "I'll email you a new contract with the terms you listed, and I'll figure out a way to get it done. Just send me a reference picture for what you want the lights technician to aim for, and I'll send you an invoice."

"Thank you," he said, exasperated.

She offered a relieved smile. "Tabby is going to love coming home to everything all done. I'll make sure it looks amazing."

"More amazing than the Anderson's house?" he asked, eyeing the neighbors across the street. She had not been hired to decorate their home for the festival, because the Andersons had decided to go with her competition this year.

Demi twisted around and narrowed her eyes at the woman arranging an atrocious amount of plastic pumpkins on the Anderson's sprawling wraparound porch. Danielle Eckles had gone to high school with Demi, and had competed with her since then. It was annoying. Demi had always wished her well and stayed out of the competition, but then last year, Danielle decided to open a company that decorated for holidays for the neighborhoods directly around the pumpkin patch that Demi's family owned. She'd taken thirty percent of her business by giving a discount to any clients who actively left Demi's roster, and hired Danielle instead. Obnoxious. She was hurting the business Demi had built from the ground up.

"I tell you what," she murmured to Mr. Markham. "Your house will look better in every way, and I'll personally pick real pumpkins from my family's pumpkin patch to decorate your exterior. The quality will eclipse the Anderson's front yard," she said with a wink.

"Attagirl. That Danielle woman came over a few days ago with her business card and offered a discount, but my wife doesn't like her work. She says all the houses she decorates look the same."

"Tabby gets it," she complimented his wife. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Did Danielle offer you a lights package?"

"Not that I recall. I thought I already had that taken care of, so I didn't pay much attention though."

Okay. She thanked him and said goodbye, then made her way to her truck. On the flatbed trailer hitched to the back of her F-150, she had a load of décor to take to one of the houses down the street.

Danielle was watching her, and Demi tossed her a wave just out of politeness. Danielle didn't wave back, and Demi felt a little silly. Being nice was a choice though. Sometimes being the bigger person got her hurt, but she had always stubbornly kept her kind side because those actions were what she could control, and she never wanted to stoop to anyone else's level.

Unfortunately, that meant Danielle was becoming successful at taking over Demi's business. All she had to do was charge less until Demi was depleted of clients and out of business, and then Danielle could lift her prices.

She didn't join in on competitions with other women in general, because what was the point? She wanted everyone to win. But this was her business. She'd worked really hard over the past ten years to build it up, and have a life outside of her family's business. This was just for her, and her future, and she was passionate about it. She loved decorating for Halloween, and adored her clients. She enjoyed bringing their visions to life, and being a part of what she considered the most fun Halloween celebration in the entire world. The community was gated and the festival was always on Halloween, when the gates were opened to the public. Droves of families parked in the huge grass lot at the entrance and trick-or-treated to all of the houses, which were required to decorate for the holidays. And at the end of the neighborhood, there was a back entrance to Darke Pumpkin Farm, where her family would host a enormous party—half of which was kid-friendly with the corn-maze races, and costume competitions. There would be caramel apple bars where the kids could make the ones they wanted, and apple cannons they could shoot at enormous targets. There would be zip-lines, homemade apple-donut eating competitions, etcetera. And then there was a back half to the pumpkin patch that would be adults-only with a beer garden, and huge firepits to tell ghost stories at. An adults-only haunted house—the best in four states—drew Halloween fans from all over, and had become a tradition for so many. Darke Pumpkin Farm was the place to be on Halloween, and this neighborhood had a waitlist a mile long just for people to bid on houses as they came up for sale, which they rarely did.

Demi sat in her truck and shut the door, gripped the steering wheel, and pursed her lips thoughtfully as she watched Danielle arranging plastic pumpkins in the bushes.

She needed to up her game, or she would get taken over and her business would get choked out. This was her passion. She would be heartbroken if she couldn't do this as her job anymore. This was the time of year she most looked forward to…and when most of her annual income was earned.

Mr. Markham said Danielle wasn't offering lights packages either. Maybe that was it. Maybe that's how she upped her game. Perhaps she could become a one-stop shop, if she could figure out a way to hire a lights company.

She plucked her cell phone out of her cupholder and called Rachel, her best friend. Not to vent about Danielle-the-business-stealer, but because Rachel came from a Christmas-loving family who had been in the lights business since she'd met her bestie back in the third grade.

"Biiiitch," Rachel answered.

"Oh my goodness, you have to stop answering the phone like that. What if I had you on speakerphone?"

"Then that would be on you. I am not the one to put on speakerphone without a warning." She punched the words out through loud chewing.

"What are you eating? Where are you?"

"Funnel cake topped with spiced apples. At your momma's house."

Normally she would think that was a "your momma" joke, but the pumpkin patch made funnel cakes with spiced apples. It was the new it-thing on the menu at the snack shack this year.

"I thought you were working today," Demi said, pulling forward to make her way to her next client's house.

"I needed a mental-health day."

"Why? Everything okay?"

"Yeah. That Matthew guy keeps hitting on me, and I got annoyed and took off after lunch."

"Oh my gosh, Rachel. You need that job. You can't get fired."

"That job needs me. Where are you? I thought you were working at the patch today. I came to say hi, and buy you a hard apple cider."

"Rach, even if I was working at the patch today, I wouldn't be able to drink with you on the job. I've told you that like nine hundred times."

"Well, I was just testing if you were still a Goody Two-shoes. Still boring, I see. I tried to get your mom to hire me, but she said I'm a horrible influence on you, so I told her thank you and offered to buy her a beer, but she said something under her breath and walked away. Now I'm just a dandelion seed in the wind, just floating around and not doing—"

"Does your dad still do Christmas lights?"

"That man will do Christmas lights until he is a hundred. Mom keeps telling him to slow down, but he doesn't understand that word combination. This year he has more contracts than ever, so some of his mini-mes are coming back to town for it."

"Whoa! Your brothers are coming back to town?" She tried to remember what they even looked like. All four of the Durock boys had left town right after high school, and only came back occasionally for short holiday stays.

"Yeah, crazy right? This town isn't ready for this."

Party animals, all of them. "Do you think you could ask your dad if he can help me out with the All Hallows Lights Festival? I have some clients asking if I could do a package deal."

"I don't know," she drawled out.

"Can you ask him? Or do you mind if I ask him? I won't ask for any discount, he can charge his normal rates."

"Honestly, he's still being kind of a dick about the shifter stuff," Rachel said, seriousness washing through her tone.

Crap. Some people had reacted well about the discovery that there were crow shifters in town, and some people had not. Mac Durock was one of the latter.

"Look, maybe if he works with me, he will like me again."

"Look at us, being grown-ass women whose parents both think we're bad influences on each other."

"Yeah, well, you actually are a bad influence," Demi deadpanned.

"Fair. Look, I'll ask my dad. No promises though. He's a grumpy old badger set in his ways."

"Yeah, okay. Hey Rach?"

Her friend slurped loudly on some kind of drink. "Yeah?"

"Which brothers are coming back?" Oh, she'd tried for nonchalance in her tone, but had failed.

"Not Tyler."

"Good." Good? She cleared her throat, and rushed out, "I love you, and we can do a girls' night soon. I could use one."

"Mm-hmm," Rachel said. "I'll let you know what my dad says. It'll probably involve the words ‘Oh hell no,' but I'll try. Send me one of the addresses he needs to quote, and I'll try to entice him with potential business, and money. He loves money."

Demi ended the call and parked in front of the next client's house, but before she started unloading her trailer, she sat there with her feelings for a minute.

It was a good thing Tyler wasn't coming home, but why had Rachel brought him up? She didn't know what had happened, right? And clearly when he did live here years ago, Demi hadn't liked him. At all. In fact, she had practically hated him, or tried to. All except one stupid night where Tyler had gotten the better of her and messed with her head, and then made her hate him even more.

Every time the Durock brothers had visited for the holidays, Demi had purposefully made herself very busy and very scarce so that she wouldn't run into any of them on accident in town.

Especially, especially, especially Tyler.

Tyler Durock was two years older—a total playboy, disrespectful, and saw women as toys. Playthings. He probably had a sugar momma, and if so, Demi felt sorry for that woman.

Why was she even thinking about this stuff? Tyler Durock had no weight in her life—not now, not ever.

He was one of those anchor-boys that successful women like her forgot about and elevated from. Not that they'd been together. Ever.

She huffed a frustrated sigh, and wondered again why Rachel had brought up that particular brother, out of the four brothers she had. And why had Demi's response been "good," instead of "I don't care?"

She didn't care.

She was immune to Durock brother charms.

She hoped he had a receding hairline and a beer belly now, and that he'd had his heart broken by some badass woman he couldn't manipulate.

She was unaffected. Demi forced a smile on her lips and relaxed her shoulders, which were drawn up tight near her ears with tension from just thinking about him. He was such a butt-cheek. She did not need the stupid memories about all the times he'd annoyed her just to get her to react, or how freaking mean he had been to her right before he'd moved away.

He was a stupid boy, and now he was probably a stupid man. None of this mattered because he was still out in the world somewhere, and not dragging a dark raincloud over her town.

Feeling a little better, Demi pushed open the door and prepared her smile to greet her client.

Tyler Durock was right to leave town all those years ago, and he was right to stay away now.