Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
People are fickle, hard stances even more so.
As time wore away at the gossip and judgment, and word about the stand spread, more people started making the weekly trip out to the countryside. The farm-to-table concept was catching fire, and bison was becoming the healthier, leaner option. Annie was already an accomplished baker, and she started adding pies to the stand menu, and then preserves, as well as maple syrup from the trees they tapped on their land and honey from the hives she started nurturing. She became a Jill of All Trades, keeping her hands and her mind busy with new projects.
Finally, the Landrys were welcomed back into the local industry.
That was around the time Jon joined the fold. He came from a ranching family out west, holding a degree in agriculture in one hand and a cowboy hat in the other, and he had grand ideas. Not only did he want to grow the herd size, but he was adamant that they go digital.
Sarah, who had dropped out of Western to come home after the tragedy, has always been savvy with marketing, designing a ranch logo at the ripe age of seven with her pencil crayons. She set up social media pages for the store and a website for the ranch, sharing everything from insights about raising bison to the family’s history in Cold River. Jon started posting videos about everyday life and managed to grow a following online.
Together, they have helped breathe much-needed new life into North Country Bison—both figuratively and literally, as Sarah seems pregnant almost as often as she isn’t.
Five years ago, with Jon’s goading—or relentless pestering—the Landrys replaced the shed with a large, permanent kitchen and store down the road, still on their property but away from the main house. It has its own parking lot that is bustling most Saturdays, when people from all over come for meat and eggs, but also produce, cheese, and floral arrangements from local vendors, and ready-to-cook meals made by Annie and Cheryl, a lovely lady from their church who works for the Landrys.
At holiday time, people can preorder turkeys from Oakridge Farm. In the fall, the Shepherd family from two concession roads over drops a wagon full of pumpkins, and people come to pose for pictures in front of it before shopping for their Thanksgiving pies and jack-o’-lanterns, perhaps catching a glimpse of the famed bison herd in the distance, now one of the largest in the province.
Not only has Landry Market become a bustling hub for local businesses, it’s a shining example of one woman’s perseverance and continued faith in people, even when many of them showed her none.
And one day, I will figure out a way to pay for a damn meal from here without Annie circumventing my efforts.
With a heavy sigh of frustration, I head home.
Chapter 25
Logan
“Hey, boy.” I pat Biscuit’s rump as I pass him in the paddock.
Duke sits dutifully by the open barn door as usual. He lets me scratch his head on the way past.
A messy pile of strawberry-blond hair peeks out over the stable wall.
“Morning,” I call out.
Isla’s head pops up. “Oh. Hey.” She goes back to mucking.
I pause at the open stall. “You turning into me now?”
“Huh?” She frowns.
“You’ve been here before sunrise every day this week.” Granted, the days are getting shorter but still, she’s beating me.
“Oh.” She brushes a loose strand of hair off her face with her forearm. “Yeah. I couldn’t sleep.”
“No shit.” Her puffy, darkly lined eyes gave her away. “What’s keeping you up?”
“Besides my missing best friend?”
“Right.” I feel like an ass. It’s been a month since Holly vanished. The cops are tight-lipped about the investigation, but people talk. They’ve seen the K9 units and uniforms—both police and firefighters—searching parks and fields and forests, going door-to-door, looking for any clues or private security camera angles. According to Sarah, people linger in the cramped aisles at my mother’s market and share gossip about who’s been questioned and who should be questioned. I’m sure plenty have my name at the top of their suspect lists, but they have yet to dare utter them out loud while standing on Landry land.
“The police are doing everything they can to find her.” Even if Emery isn’t in charge of the investigation, there’s no way she isn’t involved.
Of course, I wouldn’t know that because I haven’t seen or talked to her since Thanksgiving.
Isla stabs her pitchfork into a pile of hay. “Holly wanted me to go out with her. You know, that Friday? But I went to my teammate Ashley’s instead.”
“Yeah.” I rest my arms over the stall door. “And?”
“And … if I’d gone out with Holly instead, none of this would be happening.”
“You don’t know that.” Isla could be missing too. Just the thought sends a wave of nausea through me. I know the kinds of people who do bad things to teenage girls. I’ve lived among them.