Page 1 of So Bad It Must Be Good

Chapter One

Kayla Gallagher stood at the entrance to the brand-new Gallagher & Ivy Farmers’ Market with a sharp pang in her chest.

Her baby. Her brainchild. Exactly as she’d planned before her father had gotten his hands on the idea and warped it into something else, but somehow, even after Gallagher’s hadn’t acquired the land her father had said they needed for this, it existed in Gallagher’s small back parking lot.

Every Wednesday afternoon. April through October. A selection of local vendors, all food and crafts grown or made within sixty miles of where they now stood. Opening day, a bustling crowd in the cool April afternoon.

And she had nothing to do with it.

For good reason. You are making a stand.

Except she’d been making a stand for six months now, leaving her position as sustainability manager at Gallagher’s Tap Room—her family’s pride and joy—and keeping her somewhat toxic family at a distance, and all she felt was empty, lost, and alone.

“Holy shit, Kayla Gallagher, is that you?”

Kayla startled at the deep male voice, trying to place it, trying to hide so no one could see her getting teary over what was no longer hers.

“I’d recognize that red hair anywhere,” the man continued, clearly not noticing or caring that she’d tried to escape.

So she had to turn, she had to smile, she had to pretend. Isn’t that the Gallagher way?

Her heart did an odd flip and drop as a handsome man grinned at her. As though he knew her, but she couldn’t . . . Wait. Something about the tiny almost unnoticeable scar at the corner of his mouth, the flashing brown eyes, the familiarity of the mischief in them.

“Aiden Patrick?”

The grin widened, flashing those perfect white teeth. Funny how the jitters from being a young teenager could reappear when she was twenty-seven years old.

“You look exactly the same, Carrot,” he said, giving her hair a friendly tug, as if they’d seen each other yesterday instead of something like ten years. Maybe more.

Aiden’s father had been the handyman to her family’s restaurant for as long as she could remember, and when Mr. Patrick’s boys had been old enough, he’d started to bring them with him to assist him.

Because Kayla had spent much of her childhood haunting the corners of Gallagher’s Tap Room, she’d always been around when they had. She’d had a crush on Aiden for almost the entirety of her teen years, but Aiden had stopped coming with his father something like a decade ago while his brother Liam had stayed on.

“I . . . Well, this is a surprise,” Kayla managed, trying to calm her jangling nerves, trying to remind herself she wasn’t a little girl mooning after a hot guy anymore.

“Come on, Liam’s around here somewhere. You’ve got to say hi.”

“Oh. No, I—” She couldn’t go into the farmers’ market; she couldn’t be seen. Not by anyone with the last name Gallagher if she could help it.

But just like when they were teens and Aiden was supposed to be helping his dad fix something at Gallagher’s, Aiden didn’t pay any mind. Aiden marched to the beat of his own drum, and Kayla had always been so infatuated by him if for that alone.

The grin, the fact he’d looked at her and her infinitely more confident cousin, Dinah, with at least the same amount of teenage flirtation, had always had her trailing after him like a puppy.

She was trying to change her life—herself—but she was becoming increasingly aware that some things didn’t change.

“Our boy’s got himself a little side business when he’s not helping Dad out with the old ball and chain. Though you’re a part of your old ball and chain, aren’t you? You’ve probably seen each other.”

“Oh, well—”

“Here we are! Liam! Look who I found.”

Kayla would have stayed hidden behind Aiden, but he didn’t let her, giving her a nudge toward a booth inside the market. The table was filled with little wooden figures and knickknacks, and Kayla found herself smiling against her will at a tiny grinning bear.

“Hello, Ms. Gallagher.”

She could remember every moment she’d spent in the company of Liam Patrick because he always used that cool, professional tone with her. He always looked at her somewhat blankly with shocking blue eyes, and she always got so tongue-tied around him she couldn’t speak.

Her body reacted to Liam, unfavorably. She felt all short of breath and nervous and ungainly. While she’d never been a particularly smooth or confident person, only Liam had ever made her feel wrong.

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