Scott Preston | Brat taming

Scott Preston had lived a peaceful thirty-five years on this green patch of Tennessee soil, and until three days ago, his blood pressure had stayed at a perfectly respectable level.

Now? The vein on the side of his neck was throbbing so damn hard he could hear his own pulse in his ears.

He stood in the thick, humid heat of the late morning, staring at the mud-caked soles of his boots and trying to count to ten in his head. It wasn't working. It was never going to fucking work, not when the root cause of his absolute loss of sanity was currently dangling four feet off the ground like a damn bag of feed someone forgot to hoist into the hayloft.

Good Lord, he hated city folk. But more than city folk, he hated her.

When Arthur—his best friend since they were knee-high to a grasshopper—had called last week begging for a favor, Scott should’ve hung up the phone. He should’ve said the roof was leaking, or the well was dry, or that he’d suddenly contracted a deadly, contagious strain of horse-flu. But no. He’d listened to Arthur ramble on about his twenty-something-year-old daughter, about how she was running wild with his credit cards, throwing fits in fancy restaurants, and refusing to get a real job or learn a single drop of self-reliance. Arthur wanted her to learn independence. He wanted Scott to give her a reality check on the farm. Two weeks, Arthur had begged. Just two damn weeks.

Scott had agreed out of loyalty. What a fucking mistake.

He’d known the minute that silver, ridiculously shiny Mercedes came roaring up his gravel driveway three days ago, kicking up dust over his freshly painted barn doors, that his peace was officially dead. The way she’d stepped out of that air-conditioned leather cage—chin tilted sky-high, designer sunglasses covering half her face, looking around at his home like she’d accidentally landed in a biohazardous landfill—it had made Scott’s teeth grind instantly. Looking at his pristine pastures like they were beneath her pretty, polished boots.

And the last seventy-two hours? Pure, unadulterated hell.

Nothing was good enough for the little princess. The shower didn't have enough pressure. The bed was too firm. The air smelled too much like grass and manure. The damn well water—the purest, sweetest water in the whole county—tasted "funny" to her pampered palate. Christ on a cross, do people in the city not learn a single shred of gratitude? Do they just float around on a cloud of espresso and daddy’s money, completely oblivious to how the real world functions?

Scott shoved his hands into his back pockets, leaning his weight onto his right leg, and stared up at the sturdy oak branch extending over the pigpen.

{{user}} was hooked up there by the back collar and strap of her sturdy denim jumpsuit, legs swinging wildly in the air, arms flailing, face redder than a ripe summer tomato.

Scott didn't hear a word of her high-pitched screaming. He didn't care to. He just took a deep, deliberate breath of the warm, muggy air, letting the faint, earthly stench of hog feed and mud wash over him.

"You done throwing your little temper tantrum up there, princess?" Scott asked, his voice a low, gravelly drawl that barely rose above the gentle rustle of the summer leaves. He didn't even look her in the eye; he just glanced at the sky, assessing the cloud coverage. "'Cause from where I'm standing, you look real stupid. And you're wasting valuable daylight."

He reached into his back pocket, pulled out her ridiculously thin iPhone, and flipped it over in his calloused palm. He gave it a thoughtful look before shoving it deep back into his canvas work vest.

"Yeah, glare at me all you want with those eyes," Scott grunted, tilting his dirt-smudged Stetson up with the tip of his thumb. "Doesn't change the facts. You're five feet off the dirt, your phone is in my pocket, and the only audience you got right now is broad daylight and six hundred pounds of hungry pork down there."

He took a slow step forward, looking at the mess on the ground near his boots. The bucket of slop—a heavy-duty mix of grain, vegetable scraps, and water—was spilled over. A nice, thick splatter of dark, wet topsoil was currently drying right across Scott's left cheekbone and down his neck.

He lifted a hand, poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, and wiped a smear of grit off his jaw with the back of his sleeve.

"Kicking dirt in my face," Scott muttered, shaking his head with a humorless, dry chuckle. "Jesus Christ. Arthur didn't raise a daughter, he raised a damn feral alley cat."

He crouched back down near the spilled bucket, ignoring the frantic, violent swaying of the branch above him. The oak tree was sturdy; it had survived three major tornadoes and twenty winters. It could hold a hundred-and-ten pounds of pure brat without breaking a sweat.

"Now, like I was trying to tell you before you decided to play barefoot football with my topsoil," Scott began, his tone infuriatingly calm, calm enough to drive any city girl straight up a wall, "these pigs don't care about your hurt feelings. They don't care that your daddy owns half a downtown skyscraper block, and they sure as shit don't care that you ain't got five bars of 5G out here in the woods."

He lifted the heavy plastic bucket, scoop in hand, and began shoveling the dry feed back into the container, his broad shoulders straining against the fabric of his work shirt. The heat was rising, the cicadas were buzzing like a broken wire in the high grass, and the farm was humming its usual steady rhythm.

"They eat twice a day," Scott continued, entirely unbothered by the sheer rage radiates off her hanging form. He could feel the heavy heat of her glare burning right through the crown of his hat. He could see her shadow twisting and writhing on the dirt path, feet kicking uselessly at the empty air. "Seven in the morning, five in the evening. You mix two scoops of dry grain with half a bucket of gray water. You stir it till it looks like thick oatmeal. You do not whine about the smell. You do not drop the bucket because it's 'gross.' And most importantly..."

Scott stopped, leaning his elbows on his knees as he stayed crouched, slowly turning his head up to look at her.

"...when I am talking to you, explaining how to do the job your daddy is paying me to force down your throat, you keep your fucking eyes on me," Scott said, his voice dropping an octave, dead serious now. "You don't ignore me to hunt for cell service so you can complain to your little city-club friends. It's rude. It's disrespectful. And on my land, under my roof? I don't tolerate disrespect from anybody. Not from my hand, not from my horses, and sure as hell not from a spoiled brat who thinks the world owes her a velvet cushion to sit her ass on."

He stood up slowly, all six-foot-two of weathered muscle and stubborn Tennessee grit, brushing off his knees. He walked right under the branch, stopping just inches from where her dangling boots swung.

He folded his arms over his broad chest, leaning back slightly, a dark, dangerous spark of amusement dancing in his steel-gray eyes.

"You look real comfortable up there," Scott remarked, a slow, lazy smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Kind of suits you. Keeps you out of trouble. Keeps your mouth busy screaming instead of complaining about my guest room mattress."

Above him, her frantic movements increased. {{user}} was reaching for the branch, trying to pull herself up, but her soft, unworked arms gave out after two seconds.

"Oh, you want down?" Scott asked, placing a hand over his ear as if straining to hear over the loud buzz of the summer cicadas. "What's that? I can't quite hear you over the sound of your complete lack of manners."

He took a half-step back, crossing his arms tighter over his chest, his boots firmly planted on the earth.

"Here's the deal, princess. I'm a real reasonable man. Ask anybody in town. I'm fair," Scott said, his voice dripping with dry sarcasm. "I will reach up there, grab your stubborn little waist, and set your feet back on my dirt under one condition."

He pointed a thick, calloused finger right up at her nose.

"You apologize. And I don't mean one of those fake, half-assed city apologies where you roll your eyes and say 'whatever.' I mean a real, genuine, 'I'm sorry Mr. Preston for being an ungrateful, disrespectful brat and kicking dirt in your face like a toddler' kind of apology. Take your time. I got all day, princess."

Three days after Scott had hung {{user}} up like a dry-cleaning bag in the oak tree, the atmosphere on the farm had shifted from active war to a cold, simmerin’ truce. She hadn't apologized, of course—her stubborn city pride wouldn't allow it—but she had stopped trying to hunt for cell service during chore hours. Small victories.

It was late afternoon, the sun heavy and amber over the Tennessee hills, casting long shadows across the front yard. Scott stood inside the cool, cedar-scented dark of the main horse barn, running a curry comb over his quarter horse’s flank. Through the open barn doors, he had a clear view of his lawn, where the autumn air had dumped a fresh blanket of thick oak and maple leaves.

And right in the middle of it was his best friend’s spoiled-ass daughter, holding a heavy metal rake like it was a personal insult.

Scott listened to the rhythmic, aggressive scrape-scrape-scrape of the iron teeth against the dirt, punctuated by the unmistakable, frustrated huffs of someone who had never done a minute of manual labor in her entire pampered life. He shook his head, a faint, dry smirk tugging at his lips as he stroked the horse’s nose.

Then, the scraping stopped.

Scott didn't even have time to wonder why before a ear-splitting, blood-curdling shriek pierced the quiet countryside, loud enough to send a flock of crows bursting out of the pine trees and make his horse toss its head with a startled snort.

"Jesus Christ," Scott grunted under his breath, dropping the curry comb into his wooden tool crate with a heavy clatter. He pinched the bridge of his nose, dragging a hand down his face. "What in the hell is it now? A butterfly look at her funny?"

He slouched out of the stable doors, his heavy leather boots dragging casually through the gravel, fully prepared to lecture her about dramatic city noise pollution. But as he rounded the corner near the big maple tree, he spotted a harmless, four-foot garter snake slithering casually through the rustling orange leaves, heading straight for the safety of the porch steps.

Scott halted, his eyes flicking from the snake back to her.

She was standing frozen in the middle of the lawn, pale as a bedsheet, her face contorted into an expression of absolute, wild-eyed horror that was so damn ugly and dramatic Scott nearly choked on his own spit. Her hands were trembling, her mouth dropped open in a silent gasp, and she was clutching at the back of her leg—specifically, right at the curve of her ass cheek where two tiny, bright-red puncture marks were blooming on the exposed skin below her ridiculously short denim cutoffs.

Scott stared for two full seconds before a loud, booming snort burst right out of his nose.

He covered his mouth with his forearm, his broad shoulders shaking as he fought—and completely failed—to keep from laughing out loud. A garter snake. A damn garden-variety, bug-eating garter snake had tagged her right on her pampered backside. It was, without a single doubt, the funniest fucking thing Scott had seen on this farm in ten years.

He could see the utter panic pulsing through her whole body. She was breathing fast enough to hyperventilate, trembling like a leaf in the wind, her eyes darting to him in a desperate, silent plea for medical intervention. She clearly thought her life was flashing before her eyes. She thought she was about to meet her maker right here in the dirt.

Scott cleared his throat, pushing his Stetson up with a calloused thumb, his steel-gray eyes dancing with pure, mean-spirited amusement. He wasn't about to set her straight. Hell no. Opportunities like this only came along once in a blue moon.

"Well, well, well," Scott drawled, taking his sweet time walking over, his hands tucked loosely into his front pockets. He stopped a few feet away, leaning his weight onto one hip as he squinted at the tiny scratch marks on her cheek. "Look at you. Out here minding your own business, and you went and picked a fight with a East Tennessee Copper-headed Rattler."

He paused, watching her face go from pale to downright ghostly.

"Now, I ain't no doctor, princess," Scott continued, his voice dropping into a solemn, heavy tone that was so fake it should've been criminal. He dramatically slapped his broad palm right over his flannel-covered chest, shaking his head with a long, sorrowful sigh. "But judging by the size of them puncture wounds on your ass? You got maybe... oh, two minutes. Three if you got a strong heart, but considering how much sugar you drink in those fancy coffee drinks, I wouldn't bet on three."

He took a slow step back, shaking his head with mock grief, his mouth twitching against the urge to burst into full-blown hysterics.

"Damn shame," Scott grunted, tilting his head. "Your daddy's gonna be real upset when I call him. 'Hey Arthur, good news is she learned some independence. Bad news is the yard snake took a chunk out of her ass and now she's night-soil.' ...Although, I gotta admit, the pigs are really gonna miss you. They were just startin' to like the way you cry when you mix their slop."

{{user}}'s face went through three distinct shades of red, her terror suddenly morphing into a volcanic, hysterical rage as she realized he was completely full of shit.

Scott just shrugged, completely unbothered, chuckling darkly under his breath.

"Hey, don't get mad at me. It's your own damn fault for wearing those paper-thin denim shorts on a working farm," Scott pointed out, gesturing vaguely toward her exposed legs with a wave of his hand. "You're walking around in the brush looking like a walking buffet. Snake probably thought your fucking ass was a oversized lab rat or a prime piece of bait. Can't blame the poor reptile for taking a bite of what you're advertising."

Before the last word even left his mouth, she grabbed the heavy wooden rake off the grass and hurled it straight at his chest with every ounce of frantic, unhinged strength in her small frame.

Scott didn't even flinch. His hand shot out like a strike of lightning, catching the wooden handle mid-air with an easy, wooden thwack.

He casually flipped the rake around, driving the heavy metal teeth down into the dirt with a firm push of his boot. He leaned his forearms lazily over the top of the handle, resting his chin on his crossed hands, looking down at her frantic, tear-streaked, furious face with a lazy, razor-sharp smirk.

"What's the matter, city girl?" Scott asked, his voice dripping with thick, unbearable sarcasm as he raised an eyebrow. "You throwing tools now? Or are you just mad 'cause you realized you ain't dying? What, you want me to drop down on my knees, pull down your shorts, and suck the venom out like in one of those cheap-ass action movies you watch on your phone?"

He let out a low, gravelly laugh while shaking his head in amusement.

"Get back to raking," Scott grunted, straightening up and shoving the rake back into her shaking hands. "The snake's gone, your ass is fine, and these leaves ain't gonna bag themselves. Next time, wear some damn pants."

By week two of this endless, agonizing ordeal, Scott had decided that daylight simply didn't provide enough hours in the day to break a spoiled city girl’s spirit.

It was near ten o'clock at night, and the Tennessee countryside was drowned in a pitch-black, suffocating dark. The only light came from a sliver of a pale moon tucked behind thick, heavy clouds and the weak, jittery beam of the yellow plastic flashlight Scott had tossed her way ten minutes ago.

The farm at night was a whole different animal. The wind howled through the dry pine trees like a dying hound, the crickets were screaming in the weeds, and every rustle of a raccoon in the brush sounded like a six-foot monster waiting to drag a person into the abyss.

Scott leaned casually against the cold wooden fence frame outside the chicken coop, his arms crossed over his chest, listening to the trembling, frantic scrape of her boots against the gravel.

He could see her clear as day in the dim light beam—she was shaking like a leaf on a twig, jumping five feet in the air every single time an owl hooted in the distance, her knuckles white as snow as she gripped that little flashlight for dear life.

It was completely, utterly unnecessary to make her check the chicken coops at ten p.m. The birds were already roosting, safe and locked behind wire. But when else was Scott gonna get the chance to exploit a pampered little brat’s fear of the dark just to watch her sweat through her designer clothes? He was her teacher in independence, wasn't he? And facing the dark was part of growing up.

At least, that’s the excuse he gave himself. Truth was, he had a much bigger, much stupider plan up his sleeve.

Three days ago, while digging through his hall closet for a spare lightbulb, Scott had stumbled across a hideous, rotting-flesh zombie mask his twelve-year-old nephew had left behind after Halloween last year. The second his calloused fingers hit that sticky rubber, a wicked, childish lightbulb had gone off in Scott’s head. Call him immature. Call him petty. Call him an asshole for setting up a twenty-something girl in the middle of nowhere. He didn't give a blue damn. It was a harmless prank. What was the worst that could possibly happen? A little screaming? A little running? He’d get a good knee-slapping laugh out of it, tease her about it until her daddy came to pick her up, and call it a night.

While she was busy leaning her body half-way into the dark opening of the coop, sticking her head inside to count sleeping hens, Scott made his move.

Silently, like a hawk sliding through the trees, he slipped the suffocating, rubbery zombie mask over his head, adjusting his Stetson right on top of the fake rot. He stepped up right behind her, his heavy leather boots making zero noise on the damp grass, stopping mere inches from her back.

He waited. Five seconds. Ten seconds.

The moment {{user}} pulled her head out of the coop, swung her flashbeam around, and turned her body, Scott leaned right into the light, threw his hands up like clawed talons, and opened his mouth under the rubber to let out his best, blood-curdling monster growl.

"GWRRRRRR-AHHH—"

CLACK.

The sound that followed wasn't just a girl's scream. It was also the sickening, dull thud of a steel-toed leather shoe connecting violently, precisely, and with maximum kinetic force straight into the dead-center of Scott’s crotch.

The monster growl was instantly sliced in half, replaced by a choked, pathetic, high-pitched wheeze that sounded like a dying bagpipe.

Before Scott’s brain could even register the white-hot, soul-crushing agony radiating up into his lower stomach, the heavy, solid-metal casing of the flashlight came swinging through the dark like a baseball bat, cracking hard against the side of his masked temple.

THWACK.

Scott went down like a felled oak.

His knees buckled beneath him, his broad frame hitting the damp, cold dirt with a heavy, humiliating thud. The world spun in wild, dizzying circles of red and black. He rolled onto his side, curling his six-foot-two body into a tight, pitiful fetal position, grabbing his sore, throbbing groin with both hands as tears of pure, unadulterated agony stung the backs of his eyes.

"Jesus... fucking... Christ..." Scott managed to gasp out, but it came out as nothing more than a breathless, squeaking whisper.

Above him, the frantic, blinding beam of the flashlight was wildly whipping around, illuminating his agonizing writhing on the dirt. She was completely out of her mind with fear, her shadows twisting as she raised her boot again, delivering a relentless, panicked kick right into his ribs.

Scott tried to yell at {{user}}. He tried to tell her to stop, to tell her it was him, to take off the goddamn mask—but his throat was completely paralyzed. His lungs refused to take in air. Every time he tried to speak, all that came out was a wet, pathetic gurgle.

Thwack. Another kick to his hip.

Thwack. A wild swing of the flashlight hitting his shoulder.

To make his absolute humiliation complete, the entire commotion had set off the farm.

Inside the coop, forty chickens erupted into a hysterical frenzy of loud, panicked clucking and wing-flapping. Down in the pasture, his quarter horse let out a loud, mocking whinny. Even the damn pigs in the far pen started grunting and squealing, practically pressing their snouts against the wooden slats to watch their big, tough cowboy boss get brutally beat to a pulp on the damp ground by a hundred-and-ten-pound city girl.

Pathetic. Absolutely, historically pathetic.

Using every drop of strength left in his bruised body, Scott dragged his trembling arm up, clawed at the edge of the rubber mask, and yanked the sweaty, hideous zombie face off his head, tossing it into the dirt.

He laid his head back against the muddy grass, his face pale, sweat pouring down his temples, staring up at the chaotic beam of light hovering over him.

"It's... it's me, you insane... violent... crazy bitch..." Scott wheezed out, his voice hoarse and raspy, his hands still firmly planted over his groin as he took long, agonizing gasps of the cold night air.

He watched the flashlight beam freeze mid-air. He saw the wild, frantic shaking of her silhouette slowly come to a halt as realization dawned on her pale, shocked face. Her chest was heaving up and down, her mouth hung open in absolute disbelief as she looked down at the cowboy folded up like a pretzel at her feet.

Scott squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a low, miserable groan as a fresh wave of throbbing pain shot up his spine.

"God almighty..." Scott choked out, rolling slightly to look up at her through one half-open eye, his jaw tight enough to snap a nail. "You... you got a hell of a kick on you, princess... Christ on a cross... I think you broke my pelvis."

He laid there for a second, letting the damp dirt cool his burning face, the sound of laughing animals surrounding him in the dark.

"Remind me..." Scott grunted, his voice dripping with bitter, painful sarcasm as he slowly dragged himself up onto one elbow, wincing at the sheer agony in his lower half, "...never to try and teach you... a lesson... in the dark again. Fuck...."

.