The Very Naughty List

1. Hailey

1

HAILEY

Never return to the scene of a crime .

Isn’t that what they say on all those murder mystery shows? But I’m guessing the investigators on those shows wouldn’t exactly consider running away from the altar a crime. And my reason for doing so is definitely not a mystery.

Still, it feels like I shouldn’t be back here in Chestnut Hill, Montana. It feels a bit like defeat.

My old beater of a car sputters a bit as it hugs the familiar curves of the road. And as comfortably familiar as everything in my small, tight-knit hometown feels, it also feels downright weird to be back.

The whole town is covered in a blanket of snow that would make the perfect holiday card, especially since everything is already decorated for Christmas, with twinkling lights casting tiny pools of color against the pristine white backdrop.

I roll down my window to let the cold air kiss my cheek, and the breeze picks up a few tendrils of my honey-blonde hair to toss around my shoulders and spin around in the air. The cold is starkly different here than in LA, and I’m not sure if it’s the temperature or the fact that I’m driving past the exact spot where Dylan proposed to me that sends a chill up my spine.

I try not to think about my ex, since being mopey isn’t in my nature. But catching your fiancé cheating on you with none other than your best friend—on the actual day that you’re supposed to get married—is enough to make even the most upbeat person a bit sour. And driving past all the places that dig those old memories out of their graves makes it pretty damn hard to forget why I ran away from Chestnut Hill to begin with. It’s all so small here. Small enough for gossip to travel and form faster than the snowdrifts along the edges of the road.

I grimace as I drive by the bar where my friends and I went for my bachelorette party, and just past it, I can see the church where Dylan and I were supposed to get married. Right behind that church is where I found him screwing my now ex-best friend, Brielle, mere hours before we were supposed to walk down the aisle.

Well, fuck them both .

I sigh, trying not to let my emotions get the better of me.

My mom always says that whenever I tear up, it makes my green eyes look like sea glass. I know she just says that to make me feel better though, and crying is definitely not something that I want to start with right off the bat as soon as I pull back into town. Besides, it’s Christmas time, and there’s magic in the air.

When I pass by Gus’s General Store, I pull into the parking lot.

It’s been two years since I’ve been back here, two years since I ran the hell away from this place right after the wedding that didn’t happen, and it doesn’t look like much has changed. The outside of the building still needs a new paint job, and the owner still tosses birdseed on the ground just outside the front door for the cardinals to eat.

Maybe the only thing that’s changed is me , although I’m not sure that losing my faith in true love and happy endings is an improvement over how I used to be. Still, deep down I would be lying to myself if I said I didn’t hold on to some minuscule thread of hope that maybe one day I’ll find love again. But for right now, I need to get my head out of the clouds and get some shampoo.

“Hailey! Well, I’ll be. Is that really you?” A wrinkled smile greets me from behind the counter as soon as I step inside the shop.

“Hi, Gus.” I smile politely. I really don’t feel like talking to anyone right now. It’s getting late, and it’s been a long drive. So I head straight to the aisle to find a few basic essentials that I didn’t bring with me when I left LA.

I probably could’ve packed a bit better before tossing everything in my car and heading home. But losing my job happened so abruptly, and my mom’s voice on the phone was filled with such desperate urgency for me to come home for the holidays, that I didn’t stop to overthink the decision to move back here for a little while.

Besides, it will be good to take some time to get my feet back under me. When I first headed to LA, I was determined to rebuild my life with confidence. But losing my shitty office job as an assistant in a music production studio was not the way I saw things going. I thought maybe the job would give me an opening to pursue the singing career I’ve dreamed about ever since I was a teenager. But instead, it turned out to be nothing more than a soul sucking grunt work job that I’m honestly not shedding any tears over losing.

I grab the shampoo, a new toothbrush, and a few other things that I didn’t bring with me.

Before I even reach the counter, Gus is already talking to me again.

“I see you haven’t lost a single freckle in all of that California sunshine,” he teases. “You’re still just as pretty as ever.”

Since he’s trying to give me a compliment, I don’t point out that sunshine would actually cause more freckles, not erase them from my complexion.

“Oh my god, is that Hailey Bennett?” A new voice rings out from the open doorway. “It is you!”

I’d almost forgotten how, in a town this size, everyone literally knows everyone else.

I look over in the direction of the voice and see a woman I recognize as one of my mom’s friends from the salon she goes to. I don’t remember her name, but she’s surrounded by a gaggle of other women who all greet me and act overwhelmingly happy to see me.

“How great that you came back home!” The woman’s patronizing smile hints at being disingenuous.

The two ladies beside her break into whispers amongst themselves until one of them looks over at me with carefully curated empathy.

“After the wedding was called off, and then your mother said you had run off somewhere to pursue some wild singing dream of yours, we figured Chestnut Hill might not see you again anytime soon,” she says.

It’s not hard to see that she’s fishing for details—any information about me that she can use as fodder for the town gossips, I’m sure. Before I can say anything in response to her, the woman beside her chimes in too.

“Oh my gosh, I almost forgot about that wedding!” Her overly saturated, gushing voice tells me that she definitely didn’t. These women have probably concocted a dozen different versions of what happened that day. “I don’t think we ever heard the full story about why you called off that wedding with the handsome Montgomery man. Was it cold feet? Cold feet can definitely destroy a good thing if you let it.”

“No, it wasn’t cold?—”

“Jesus, Myrtle, leave the poor girl alone,” my mom’s salon friend interrupts before I can even get a word out. “I’m sure that she’s embarrassed enough as it is.”

My jaw clenches. I would love to tell them all about how I caught Dylan with his dick out right behind their holy place of worship, but it’s not worth it. Besides, I don’t want to rehash all of this. I just want to buy my toiletries and leave.

“Well, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Myrtle continues as she ignores her friend’s remark. “We all make mistakes sometimes. Was it a mistake, Hailey? Do you regret not marrying Dylan Montgomery now?”

I wish I could evaporate into the Montana air that’s wafting through the intermittently open door as more people from town that I used to know stream in and gather around to hear the conversation about my called-off wedding.

“I’m sorry, but I really do need to get going,” I say evasively. “I’ve had a long drive, and I haven’t even unpacked my car yet.”

“Oh yes, of course! We aren’t trying to pry at all or keep you from getting settled in. It’s just that you left in such a hurry the last time that everyone here just wants to make sure you’re okay.”

Sure they do.

More like everyone here just wants to know my business. If I don’t cut them off and divert the topic, then I’ll literally be standing here all night watching Gus slowly put each of my items into a bag at a snail’s pace.

“I’m fine.” I smile again. “How are you three doing?”

Instantly, the three ladies start filling me in on every little thing that’s happened in the past two years. It’s enough of a distraction that I can get Gus to ring me up and hand me my bag without any further discussion of my “would-be wedding.”

“Thanks, Gus. See you around.”

I grab my stuff and leave, my exit barely even noticed by the trio of women who have now moved on to talking about how the Christmas tree tent has been set up too close to the road for comfortable parking. I make a beeline for my car, hoping to make it to my family’s diner before I get stopped and interrogated by anyone else tonight.

But in my rush to get back to my car, I’m not watching where I’m going and wind up crashing right into a man who’s coming around the corner of the building.

“Oh shit,” a deep voice says as I reel backward a step. “Sorry!”

My heart drops, my body suddenly freezing as if the ice on the sidewalk has flowed up through the soles of my feet and rooted me in place.

I’d recognize that voice anywhere.

My stomach twists as I look up to see Dylan Montgomery, my cheating ex-fiancé, standing right there in front of me. His ears must be burning.

“Hailey? Wow, I didn’t even know you were in town! What a surprise!” Dylan reaches out to hug me, and I can’t help but recoil by taking another step backward. At least my feet are working enough to do that much.

This is the man that betrayed my trust and left my heart scarred and battered. It’s because of him that my wedding turned into a disastrous spectacle and that I now find it tough to let anyone into my life at all.

I started dating Dylan right after high school, and I was absolutely convinced that he was “the one.” Everyone thought we were the perfect couple—between his catalog model good looks and my reputation for being a “small-town sweetheart.”

Little did they know that he’s a cheater, and I’m not a pushover.

Dylan broke my heart, destroyed my relationship with my best friend, and crumbled my expectations for a fairytale future.

I was hoping I wouldn’t run into him for a while, certainly not on the very first day that I pull into town. I’d been hoping to be prepared instead of getting caught off-guard.

“How are you?” he asks, giving up on trying to hug me after noting my instinctual reaction. “How have things been going in the city for you? Have you released an album or anything yet?”

He’s smiling at me with that same pretentious smile that people often mistake as charming, and making small-talk conversation that serves as a polite, superficial gesture at best. But I don’t want to answer him. I don’t want to tell him that all my big plans for LA haven’t worked out, and that I was working a shitty, menial job instead of becoming a singer the way I hoped to be by now.

Usually, I’m fast enough on my feet to come up with a clever response or comeback at the drop of a hat. But Dylan caught me by surprise, and my words stumble over themselves as I eye my car in the distance.

Fuck. Why did I have to park three spots over?

“I’m good, thanks,” I mutter. “LA was great. No albums yet. I’ve been, um, too busy.”

He lifts a hand to run his fingers through his blond hair, careful not to dishevel the perfectly styled pieces.

“Aw, come on Hailey. Too busy? Wasn’t becoming a singer pretty much your whole dream? I mean, aside from getting married.”

Ouch. Dick.

“I really am sorry about that, by the way,” he apologizes, grimacing slightly. “I didn’t mean to end things the way we did. I hope there are no hard feelings. I’m sure you’ll find someone someday too.”

The way Dylan can act both polite and condescending at the same time is a masterful art. He has a gift for making me feel small even when he’s technically apologizing.

I force a smile at him and try not to let my sass take over and ask him if he didn’t “mean” to plow my best friend on our wedding day. I heard the two of them wound up dating after that—him and Brielle—and I’m sure that they’re just perfect for each other.

“No hard feelings,” I grit out. “And getting married wasn’t one of my life goals.”

I incidentally glance down at his hand to make sure it doesn’t have a ring on it yet, and his hazel eyes catch me looking.

“Well, maybe once you finish up chasing after your singing fantasy, you’ll change your mind about settling down with someone,” he says, giving me a look that I think is meant to be encouraging. “I remember how you used to sing in the shower. Are you still working on your pitch?”

The more he talks, the more this conversation makes me feel tenser and shittier. I preferred the mild interrogation of the town’s busybodies inside the store to this. I feel like a deer in headlights, unable to toss back answers to Dylan without feeling like I’m shrinking right here on the cold sidewalk.

He used to always put down my singing. Toward the end of our relationship, I confined my singing to the shower under the cover of the background noise of running water because I doubted my talent so much. As much as I love to sing, it was hard not to internalize the constant criticisms about my pitch or whether or not I was in tune or enunciating my words enough.

He laughs abruptly as if he’s just thought of a joke, and it startles me.

“If you ever do find someone that can put up with all that noise, send them my way, and I’ll hook them up with some noise cancelling earbuds.”

Anger twists my stomach, bubbling up inside me. I absorbed these shitty comments from him for too long when we were together, brushing them off or trying to excuse them. But I don’t have to do that anymore. My tense jaw finally unlocks, and I open my mouth to say something, although I’m not sure what yet.

But before I can speak, a strong arm wraps around my shoulders.

I jerk a little at the unexpected contact and look up to see Reid Cooper, one of my older brother’s best friends, standing beside me.

What the hell?

Not only am I surprised to see Reid, I’m even more surprised that he has his arm around my shoulder. I expected to cross paths with him and his two brothers at some point, especially since the Cooper triplets have been Lucas’s best friends ever since we were kids. But his timing right now couldn’t have been more unexpected.

“There you are!” Reid pulls me closely against the side of his body, gazing down at me with a grin, as if he’s been looking for me.

I can feel the heat emanating from his rugged, muscular body, and suddenly the chill in the air seems like a distant memory. Dylan’s face twists in confusion as he glances between the two of us.

“Hello, Reid.” Dylan gives a little nod, subtly straightening his posture—probably trying to make himself look taller, since Reid is at least 6’3” and has several inches on him. “Here to pick up some more nails or something?”

His remark is clearly meant to be a bit of a dig, insulting Reid for his job as a carpenter who works with his hands instead of someone who’s never needed to lift a finger like Dylan. Although maybe if Dylan wasn’t so spoiled by his family’s wealth and had ever done a day of manual labor in his life, he’d be less wiry and a bit more chiseled like Reid. Not that I’m thinking about how my brother’s best friend’s body feels pressed against me right now.

Fuck, who am I kidding? I’m totally thinking about it.

Reid laughs, a deep sound that I can literally feel vibrating in his chest. “Nah. I get my carpentry supplies wholesale. The only thing that I’m here to pick up is my girlfriend.”

The look of shock on Dylan’s face doesn’t even come close to the shock that I feel at hearing Reid’s words.

I turn my face toward him, instantly getting lost in his blue-gray eyes and suddenly hyper aware of the way his body is almost possessively leaning into mine. My grip on my bag of supplies slips a little as I reach beneath it to pinch my thigh and make sure I’m not dreaming.

Nope, not dreaming. Very much awake.

Which means this is real life.

And gorgeous, off-limits Reid Cooper just called me his girlfriend.