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)
The message ends abruptly, as if Logan were in the middle of cursing at someone before he had the sense to hang up.
After all the years I needed someone and did it alone, and now someone needs me?
After I’ve been kicked out of my own life, out of the empire that I was holding up for the past twenty years, now someone acknowledges what I achieved?
Not to mention, I had to hear about all the shit he’s had to sacrifice for galleries that should be mine.
Anger bubbles up from my belly and makes my throat burn.
Because, fuck you, Logan. Fucking fuck you.
But something heavier edges in behind the rage. It’s not exactly sympathy, but a tired ache where love and family used to sit. As pathetic as it is for me to feel this, I don’t get satisfaction in hearing Logan suffer. I don’t get any sort of vindication in hearing that everything I built up with my bare fucking hands is slowly crumbling into chaos.
I set my phone facedown on the comforter of my bed like I can smother the sound of his now-nonexistent voice with cotton.
Outside my bedroom window, a drift slumps off the porch rail in a soft, collapsing sigh. And I let the hush swallow me for a full minute before swiping Logan’s voice mail into the trash.
Not today. Not now. And maybe not ever.
I pull on a hoodie I stole from Tad the other day—warm from the radiator and faintly smelling like him—and head for the kitchen. I need coffee. I need air. I need something that isn’t a title or a plea.
Later, maybe, I’ll figure out what I want. For now, I want the world to stop asking.
For now, I want to distract myself, and I know two little lambs by the names of Tom and Betsy that always bring a smile to my face.
It’s not long before I’m pulling on my boots and heading out the front door, across Bennett’s yard and straight to the farmhouse I’m starting to know like the back of my hand.
Straight to the sheep farmer, huh, Breeze?
This is really starting to seem like a pattern…
25
Tad
Breezy and I were working out on the farm all day. Well, I was working my ass off cleaning up the stalls in the barn, and she stayed busy playing with Tom and Betsy. The little lambs follow her around like she’s their second mother. Hell, even Mabel gets excited whenever she sees Breezy arrive on the farm. But that’s probably because she’s just happy for a little break from her constantly bleating babies wanting to nurse from her every five seconds.
Randy, Bennett and Norah, Clay and Josie, and whatever other nosy busybody who’s inside this small town have been made to believe Breezy has taken a job as a Hanson farmhand.
It was Breezy’s big idea, said it was a means to an end to keep her brother and Norah off her trail. And since it gives me unfettered access to her, I went right along with it.
But I know how word spreads around these parts, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Eileen Martin shows up tomorrow morning demanding the inside scoop for an article.
Now, we’re in my bed, and Breezy lies beside me, propped on one elbow with her phone in hand and her thumb flicking as emails slide past her screen. The sheets are tangled around her waist, her hair still damp from the shower she took before dinner, and she’s glowing in that effortless way that makes me want to stop time.
But her face is tight with focus and thoughts.
“You all right?”
She sighs, tossing the phone onto the mattress like it weighs too much. “You want to hear something crazy?”
I tilt my head toward her. “Always.”
She lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Since the call with the headhunter today, I’ve had offers pouring in. London wants me for a foundation position. The MET’s sniffing around about curation. MoMA’s circling. Even Art Basel and galleries in Chicago, LA, San Francisco all want meetings.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I haven’t answered any of them yet.”
I don’t know about any of the shit she’s talking about, but I know enough to know that when her words come out of her lips, they should sound like triumph. But all I hear is defeat.
I keep my mouth shut for a second, because when I hear her mention places like London and San Francisco, a sharp, uncomfortable ache spreads like a vine inside my chest. And my mind whispers, Don’t go, Breezy. Stay here in Red Bridge.
It’s fucking selfish, I know. It’s selfish that I want her to stay in this bed where her hair smells like my shampoo and her laugh fills my otherwise-quiet house. It’s selfish that I want her to stay in Red Bridge where I can see her nearly every morning, hear her tease Randy while he chases sheep around the farm, and watch her make my world bigger without even trying.