Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
The job was straightforward: serve people beer. Avery might have liked it if I made polite chit-chat, but we both accepted that wasn’t going to happen. She seemed to like having me around. I liked helping out. The employee I’d replaced had stabbed Avery in the back, stealing from her and sleeping with her ex—all sorts of crap my sister didn’t deserve. Filling in took a weight off her shoulders. God knew I needed to help. I’d caused too much harm in the years before my father died.
It had started way back when I was fresh out of college and jealous of my older brother’s position in the family, his gorgeous fiancée, our father’s approval, and his knack for business. I’d masterminded Griffen’s exile and taken everything that had been his. I’d thought the triumph would feel so good that it would erase the pain of losing my brother.
I’d been wrong. By the time I figured it out, it was too late. I had the power. I had the position. I had the woman, the sports car, the bank account bursting at the seams. And in the end, I still wasn’t much more than my father’s lackey.
If I’d stayed at Griffen’s side, if we’d worked together…could we have shifted things? Taken the company in a different direction? Shared the glory? I’d never know.
“Hey, Ford.” A local whose name I couldn’t remember bellied up to the bar. “A stout and an IPA,” he said, his eyes bright with interest. “Helping out Avery?”
“For now,” I said with a nod and turned my back to fill his order. I recognized the gleam in his eye. While Avery’s beer was more than enough to draw in locals and tourists alike, we all knew my presence behind the bar was its own attraction, at least until the novelty wore off. The great Ford Sawyer tending bar in the smallest brewery in town. More than a few people had come in just for the fun of having Ford Sawyer serve their beer. I hadn’t thought I had much of an ego left to poke after a year in state prison, but it turned out I had just enough for it to sting. Still, it wasn’t enough to drive me away from my new job. Not yet.
I slid the pints across the bar, ran his card, and handed him the receipt without a word. I served beer, and I was polite, but friendly and chatty weren’t on the menu. If they wanted that, they’d have to come in when Dave or Avery were working. The local left, shoulders rounding in disappointment that he hadn’t gotten more out of me than his beer. Eventually, everyone would get used to the new normal. I could wait them out.
The door pushed open, and West Garfield, our police chief, walked in. He met my eyes, lifting his chin in greeting. I lifted mine back. West and I weren’t buddy-buddy. He was Griffen’s closest friend and had never forgiven me for the way things went down back in the day. Fair enough, especially when I hadn’t forgiven myself. But he was head over heels in love with Avery, and he was a good man. I couldn’t have picked a better one for my sister.
He crossed the taproom, headed for the door that led to the brewery. “Avery in her office?”
“She’s back there somewhere,” I said, and with a grin, he disappeared.
I didn’t have friends like West. When we were kids, everyone loved Griffen just a little more than me. Or a lot more, depending. I’d always wondered if the other kids had sensed the seed of darkness in my heart. The envy that led me to betray my own brother. After Griffen was gone, I’d had a boatload of acquaintances and a million people who were happy to pretend to be my friend in the hopes of a favor—a job, a referral, a tip, anything that could benefit them. And like my father, I’d used them, getting as much as I could before doling out stingy bits of the Sawyer influence. I’d convinced myself it was enough.
Now, surrounded by family, who these days were as much friends as relations, in a house brimming with love and laughter, I finally understood how deeply I’d erred. I had money in the bank, I lived in a castle, and yet I was one of the poorest people I knew.
I rolled my shoulders to loosen the tension and went back to cleaning the bar. This self-pity bullshit was at the top of my list of post-prison fears. I was not going to turn into some useless whiner, sitting alone in the dark, bemoaning everything I’d lost. I needed to find a purpose.
I couldn’t forget what Cole had said to Avery not long before West arrested him. I’m not fucking done with Ford, but he’ll know exactly where we stand before the end.