Chapter 1
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no!” Haley murmured in disbelief as she sat there, helplessly watching as her pink, white, and yellow tulips were viciously ripped from the ground and-
Just like that, she’d finally reached her breaking point.
Swallowing hard, Haley pushed her glasses back up her nose as she shoved her chair back, got to her feet, stumbled, righted herself, and headed for the front door, deciding that this ended now because there was no longer any doubt in her mind.
She was definitely going to kill him this time.
Five years ago, she’d been excited to buy her first house at the ripe old age of twenty-three. She’d spent hundreds of hours picking out the perfect color scheme for each room, cleaning, organizing, and hitting every yard sale within a thirty-mile radius, trying to turn wood and plaster into a real home. But none of that could even begin to compare to the hours she’d spent working on her yard. With countless blisters, cuts, bee stings, and backaches, she’d somehow managed to turn her dull yard into her own little paradise.
When she first found out that she was going to have a new neighbor, she’d been excited, but that all ended the moment that she met Jason Bradford. Within the first ten minutes of his arrival, he’d backed into her mailbox, spilled fast-food wrappers from his car onto his property, which quickly made their way onto hers, and followed that up by relieving himself on the old oak tree in his front yard with a sheepish smile and a shrug in her horrified direction.
The man was evil.
Over the next four and a half years, he’d turned her picturesque life into a nightmare. She still wasn’t sure how one person had managed to turn her life into a living hell so quickly. Over the years, she’d dealt with paintball pellets decorating the side of her house, her car, and her laundry when she’d made the mistake of hanging her clothes outside to dry. She’d also endured loud music, parties, naked people trying to climb over the fence to skinny dip in her pool, three AM drunken basketball games, women throwing tantrums on his front lawn and on hers when the jerk refused to come out and deal with them.
It didn’t help that they both worked at the same private high school, in the same department with adjoining classrooms and parking spots. It hadn’t taken long before Jason managed to turn her dream job into a nightmare. At work, she had to deal with him constantly “borrowing” things from her room like paper, pens, books, and, one time, even her desk.
He seemed to think that he was the most charming man on earth and had no problem using that devastating smile of his to get what he wanted, leaving her with all the extra work and responsibilities while he got to be the laid-back teacher. It hadn’t taken long before she’d realized that she would have to suck it up at work since there was no way that she was going to be able to find a better job at her age. She’d been lucky to get this one. So, that left her with only one option.
Move.
After the first year, she’d tried selling her house, but every time a prospective buyer came to look at the house, he scared them off by just being Jason. She gave up the idea of selling her house for the next two years only to put it back on the market again last year when he took up golf and broke three of her windows. He’d managed to scare off fifteen prospective buyers by walking out to get the mail in his boxers, a particularly memorable fit of rage when he threw his computer out his front window accompanied with a loud roar, and of course, there was the upkeep, or rather lack thereof, of his property.
His lawn was covered in briars and weeds. He only paid the neighborhood kid to mow it once a month. The rest of the time, it was the chosen habitat of little woodland creatures. The house needed a serious paint job, or at the very least, he needed to clean up all paint chips that had fallen on the ground over the years. If he didn’t personally scare someone off, his house did the job. She gave up her dream of moving five months ago and settled for praying that he decided to move soon, very soon.
Now, he was going after her babies, something that she couldn’t allow to happen. Enough was enough. Over the last five years, she’d bitten her tongue, too afraid to say anything that would make this worse. She’d always been like that. When she was a little girl, she used to hide behind books, hoping that no one noticed her. It wasn’t that she didn’t like people because she actually did. No, her problem was that she was a pushover. When the other kids picked on her or pushed her around, she would shut down, unable to deal with any type of confrontation, and unfortunately for her, she’d never figured out how to deal with bullies.
Only now, it was worse because it seemed that she also couldn’t handle talking to incredibly handsome men and Jason Bradford was definitely handsome. Everything about him, from his dark hair to his ocean blue eyes and chiseled good looks, made her nervous. She just wasn’t good at handling people but throw good looks onto a guy that was being an asshole and she promptly turned into a blubbering idiot.
Bullies just sucked.
When she’d caught her college roommate, Angel, stealing her papers, food, and money, what did she do? She’d avoided her dorm room until after two in the morning when she knew that Angel would be asleep and then made sure that she was out of there before she woke up in the morning.
The same could be said of the few boyfriends she’d managed to have over the years who’d tried to take advantage of her. Instead of throwing them to the curb like any sane woman would have done, she’d stopped returning their calls and avoided them like the plague, knowing that they would get bored eventually and move on.
She was pathetic.
That was the only reason why Jason Bradford had gotten away with everything he’d put her through over the last five years, but no more. The flowers were the last straw. Her grandmother had given her the bulbs from her garden when Haley first bought this house and she’d be damned if she let him destroy them.
When she spied the rolled-up hose by the front door, Haley made a snap decision. This ended here and now. The days of being the world’s biggest pushover were finally over.
“What the hell!” Jason snapped, jumping to his feet when he was suddenly hit with ice-cold water.
He didn’t know what he’d expected to see when he turned around, but it definitely wasn’t his timid little neighbor and co-worker aiming a hose at him. Clearly, she’d lost her fucking mind.
“Step away from my tulips,” Haley bit out coldly, taking him by surprise.
He really couldn’t help grinning. She looked so damn cute standing there with her long bronze hair pulled back into a twisted ponytail and her beautiful green eyes full of fire hidden behind large glasses, making her look so damn adorable. Of course, her rather tight black tee-shirt with the word “Nerd” written across her large breasts didn’t exactly hurt either. His eyes dropped to her shorts, which revealed short but very nice, shapely, tanned legs.
Of course, he already knew that his shy neighbor was beautiful. It was the first thing he’d noticed about her. The second was that she was very shy, nervous, and easily frightened. He still cringed whenever he thought about the first day they’d met. After five hours on the road and three Big Gulps, he’d been in desperate need of a bathroom. Unfortunately for both of them, the realtor hadn’t left the keys where she’d promised and he’d been forced to make a split-second decision, piss his pants or water the tree. In the end, the tree received a healthy amount of recycled Coke.
She never gave him a chance to explain or even apologize. Instead, her face had turned an interesting shade of red seconds before she’d turned around and stumbled her way back to her house. From that point on, she’d avoided him at all costs. If he waved or said hello to her, she would mutter something, turn around, and stumble away. If he, or one of his asshole buddies, broke something on her property, she didn’t say anything.
If he’d been a jerk, he could have easily gotten away with not paying for all those broken windows or paintball-streaked sheets, but he wasn’t that big of a prick. He’d quickly learned that she would never stand up for herself, so as soon as the shit hit the fan, he made a call and replaced whatever he’d destroyed. It would have made him feel like an even bigger asshole to take advantage of her.
It always bothered him that she never spoke up for herself. He couldn’t remember someone disliking him so fast or so intensely before in his life. No matter what he did, she never said a word to him. Hell, he would have kicked his ass years ago, or at the very least, called the cops on him like the rest of the neighbors and filed a complaint with the principal like so many of his other co-workers seemed to enjoy doing. Hell, she’d never even signed any of the petitions that the rest of the neighbors liked to give him every year, demanding that he move.
