The Seacrest Read Online Free Page A

something wrong with him. He was a little bit “off,” if you know what I mean. He drove me crazy.
    We worked the blueberry farm every summer, starting when we were just kids. This summer—I was sixteen—I’d been allowed to drive the trolley back and forth through the acres to drop off and pick up customers who filled their baskets with plump blueberries in the hot sun. My father would do one run, then I’d do the next. While my father took his turn, I’d weigh people’s berries, helping my mother at the stand.
    Jax had been running the picking machines that morning, and I had just stopped to collect a group of customers who were ready to head back to weigh in and pay for their berries, when I spied her.
    Sassy stood in white denim shorts and a red halter top with her father, a lady I assumed was her mother, and a gaggle of older ladies and kids with blue teeth. My heart nearly stopped when I pulled over to pick them up.
    All lanky and lean, she looked beautiful, and she found my eyes before I could prepare myself, shooting me a smile that almost flattened me from its sheer magnitude. Flustered and deliriously happy, I hopped down and helped folks up the aluminum steps. Her father did a double take when he noticed me, snorted, and heavily climbed aboard. I guess he hadn’t expected to see me there. She extended one delicate hand to me, and I helped her up.
    Electricity shot between us, and I knew she felt it, because I swear I heard her gasp.
    Before she let go, she squeezed my fingers. “Finn. I didn’t know you worked here.”
    I smiled like a goof. “It’s my family’s farm.”
    “Nice,” she said, nodding to the surrounding fields of berries. “I love it.”
    “Thanks,” I said, not sure what I was really thanking her for. Maybe it was for standing there in the bright sunlight, her frank eyes searching mine, her skin glistening in the heat. Maybe it was for the shockwave of love that surged through me. Or the way my legs turned to jelly when she was near. Could it be her velvety voice that trilled a looping dance up and down my spine?
    A querulous snarl came from the back. “Sonny? Stop dawdling and get us out of here. It’s too hot for flirting.”
    Sassy covered her mouth and laughed, and I grinned back at her. “Yes, ma’am,” I shouted to the lady. “I’m on it.”
    Sassy settled herself just behind my driver’s seat. I climbed back up and started the engine, slowly meandering between the rows and up the dirt path leading to the farm. Halfway there, Jax hailed me from a patch of berries he’d been harvesting. “Hey, bro. Give me a ride.”
    I stopped and he climbed aboard, sitting beside me in the front.
    “Hot as hell out here,” he said. “We should go to the beach later.”
    “Yeah,” I said, glancing back at Sassy. “Maybe you could come with us?”
    She giggled. “I’d have to ask permission. But maybe.”
    Jax turned and noticed her, his eyes practically bugging out. To my horror, he got the way he did around pretty girls, practically swaggering in his seat. “Hey, beautiful.”
    I glanced back at her, wondering if she’d smack him. I didn’t think she’d like being treated that way. And I worried. Oh, yes, I worried. At seventeen, he’d stolen girls from all his friends. My mother said it was his devilish good looks, his undeniable charm. I worried some more. “Sassy, this is my brother, Jax. Jax, this is Sassy.”
    She didn’t say much, just nodded and mumbled hello.
    He swung around over the seat and plopped down next to her. “Sassy, huh? You go to our school?”
    She didn’t answer.
    He sneaked an arm around her shoulders, leaning too close to her face. I looked back and saw her slide away from him.
    Good.
    From the back of the trolley, her father curled a finger at her and patted the seat beside him. Her mother called out. “You come over here, girl. Sit with us.”
    With flushed cheeks, Sassy stood, locking eyes with me. “I’ll try to make it. Paines