Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Tad Hanson: Keeping Red Bridge Warm, One Fleece at a Time, the headline reads, a photo of a sheep farmer I’ve met more than a few times holding a lamb like it’s a Gucci bag right below.
Handsome-as-hell Farmer Tad looks like he belongs on the cover of a Ralph Lauren ad rather than on the front page of the newspaper in one of Vermont’s smallest towns, but that’s probably why Eileen Martin, the editor of the Red Bridge Chronicle, is always finding something to interview him about. If I gathered all the issues I had with his smiling face on the front page, I could fill my now-empty office two times over.
But right now, it beckons of a new, quieter life. Somewhere where the snow falls heavy and people notice when you walk into a room. Somewhere without the teeth of wealth-chasing, where you end up chewed up and spit out on the sidewalk with the gum. And somewhere where sheep farmers look like that.
“Please stay,” Logan begs once more.
“No.” The answer rolls off my tongue with ease. “I’m done here, Logan. I’m going to Red Bridge.”
“Are you serious?” His disbelief sharpens into anger, his sad act ending in a flourish. “You’re going to fucking Red Bridge? Running off to Bennett, the golden brother.”
“Yeah. I am.” My voice is calm now, steady even, a sharp contrast to the sounds of his envy and regret.
“Fucking figures. He was always the untouchable one. Dad wrapped him in bubble wrap and threw me to the wolves so Bennett could keep painting. Ten million dollars to keep his little prodigy clean. I took the fall, did what Dad asked, and Bennett’s still the only ass anyone ever tries to kiss.”
“You and I both know that if there’s anyone who understands walking away from the Bishop bullshit, it’s Bennett,” I say. “He saved himself. And right now, he’s the only family I can stand to be around.”
Logan stares at me, chest rising and falling, but he doesn’t speak. I sling my bag over my shoulder, heels clicking against the floor like punctuation marks as I pass him on my way to the door. “You’ve got the galleries, Logan. Good luck.”
He spins in place to follow me with his gaze, his arms coming up to his sides. “What about all of your shit, Breezy?”
“I already have a courier coming in a few hours to handle it.”
It’s my last official stead as head of the galleries. From here on out, Logan can figure out what to do with the empire I don’t want anymore.
For all I care, he can burn the whole damn legacy to the ground.
2
Breezy
The wipers can’t keep up as snowflakes smear across my windshield in thick and frantic strokes.
“Visibility is near zero,” a man’s voice warns on the radio. “If you don’t have to be on the roads tonight, don’t. Conditions are expected to worsen and won’t let up until three a.m.”
Welp. That’s not ideal. I immediately flick off the dial because I don’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear it when I called Bennett earlier today to let him know I was coming and he advised me to wait out the weather until morning, and I don’t want to hear it now, when I’ve already made it this far.
I couldn’t stay in the city a single minute longer, dangerous blizzard conditions or not.
My hands grip the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles are as white as the snow. I ease my foot off the gas of my Range Rover as it slips and slides gently from side to side, and then I put power back into it when I see a freshly plowed patch of highway ahead.
The snow keeps coming down, but I swallow hard against the anxiety and tell myself if I managed to keep my grandfather Harold Bishop’s art legacy alive amid arson scandals and piss-poor financial management from just about everyone but me, I can certainly handle a little snow.
Except this isn’t a little snow, Breeze. It’s a blizzard.
The sky is ink-black, the road ahead barely visible, and my back is so stiff I think my body might’ve replaced my spine with a metal rod. The drive from New York to Vermont has been nerve-racking to say the least, but I’m so close I can almost taste the cider donuts, and if I did stop now, I don’t even know where I would go.
Red Bridge 5 miles, the roadway sign harkens as I blow by it at a mind-bending one mile per hour.
See? Only a little while longer, I tell myself, instead of daring to do the actual math. You’re almost there. I speed up when the equation solves itself against my will, knowing I don’t have another five hours in me. Fifteen miles per hour, it is. Life on the edge.