Page 69 of The Cul-de-Sac War

For that matter, if she could only get that man to leave.

After all, he was one of those McBride sons; he probably owned dozens of properties all over town. If she could just get him to change his mind about his so-called treasure of a home. Just make him flip the house to some far less annoying owner—like a family with eight kids, or an aspiring tuba player—well, she’d be doing everyone a favor. He could make loads of money selling it and find himself a nice residential house somewhere far, far away. He with his holey T-shirts and alluring five-o’clock shadows could marry Ashleigh, and they could move together into the country.

Where they could have perfect shiny-haired, brown-eyed babies together.

If only there were some way to make him less comfortable—

Bree’s eyes narrowed as she watched him. The way he stood at the sink the last several minutes, staring out thoughtfully, coffee in hand, like her. The way he looked at the mountains. The—her eyes followed his—perfect panoramic view of the Appalachian Mountains.

Bree set her mug on the counter so hard the coffee jostled and spilled a bit.

“Where are you going?” Evie said gruffly, moving into the kitchen. “We’ve got some talking to do—”

“We’ll talk in a minute,” Bree said, snatching her keys off the key post and yanking the door open. She turned quickly to Evie. “Evie. What does your lifestyle book say about planting trees?”

“Trees? How are you going to pay for trees?”

“I’m not!”

Chapter 14

Chip

Chip woke up Friday morning smiling.

He went down the stairs, whistling “Singin’ in the Rain,” smiling.

He hummed along as he made his breakfast, smiling.

And when he opened up his email at the start of the workday to find the inbox sitting at eighty-two new emails from places like Women’s World saying, “Thank you for joining our daily newsletter! See below for 52 Easy Steps to Melting That Belly Fat Away,” his smile grew into laughter.

“Touché,” Chip murmured, taking pains to scroll to the bottom of each email and unsubscribe. And the ones with the dodgy unsubscribe buttons . . . Oh, it was clever.

Chip paused halfway down one. Scanned the paragraph. Paused on the phrase, “With our 100 percent natural clay and seaweed hair removal cream, you can remove stubborn, overgrown hair from your legs in minutes.” Clicked Forward. Swiftly typed in her email.

Wrote beneath the subject, “I think this one was meant for you? I’m so glad to see you are doing something about this.”

Hit Send.

It was truly a wonderful world.

Until, glancing up to her window, he saw the newly posted sign.

And then heard the rumble of the truck down the road.

Chip stared out his kitchen window at an excavator making its way toward Bree’s backyard. Then his eyes ticked over to the sign taped to Bree’s window:

OH, CHRISTMAS TREE.

He knew something was up. He just didn’t know how high.

He began to get the sense of it when he saw a semitruck bearing three fifteen-foot fir trees following the excavator, which started digging right on the other side of his fence.

A while later he saw a hard-hatted man peer down and say, “About two more feet should do it.”

The excavator responded with another dip of its massive claw.

The man put a hand up and the hoe stopped.