Chapter 2 #2
Randy shakes his head, his eyebrows drawing together as my whole body jolts with a giant shiver. “Why don’t the two of you go get in the truck while I finish assessing this situation?”
“You think you might be able to get me out?” I ask, hopeful. After being emotionally sucked dry by my baby brother, a seven-hour, white-knuckle drive, and fifteen minutes standing in the middle of a blizzard, I’d give anything for a warm bed and dry feet right now.
Still grinning, Tad fumbles toward the truck bed. “Fear not, Breezy! The sheep farmers are here to save the day!”
“Tad, why don’t you get in the truck and let me handle this?” Randy suggests again. His brother ignores him.
“We’ll get you out!” Tad calls over his shoulder. “Gonna take us five minutes, tops!”
“Good grief,” Randy mutters. “Again, I apologize for his drunk ass.”
I shrug and smile at that. “At least someone is enjoying themselves.”
“Oh, he’s enjoying himself, all right,” Randy retorts. “Too fucking much, if you ask me.”
“Shut your trap, Rando!” Tad yells as he fumbles around with God knows what in the bed of their pickup truck. “We gotta focus or else pretty Breezy here is gonna end up sleeping in her fancy SUV!”
Randy heads in Tad’s direction, setting him to the side while he pulls a chain from the bed. Tad does a jig that almost plants him on his ass again, and Randy catches him by the elbow before coming back to me.
“If you think you can, hop back in your car and roll down the window. I’ll tell you when we’re ready.”
“Ready? Ready for what?”
Randy smiles just enough to flatten his usual frown. “I’ll give you instructions.”
Shrugging, I climb carefully through the snow to my driver’s door and squeeze back inside. With the engine back on and my window down, I listen intently to everything they throw my way.
“Give it a little gas!”
“Turn your wheel to the left!”
“Let off the gas!”
Tad tries to insert himself into a conversation with me more than a few times as they work actively and strenuously, grunting and cursing and swapping out chains for cables and ropes and the like, but when he stops in the middle of the whole debacle to peek into my window and ask me, “Why are you so pretty, Breezy Bishop?” Randy finally meets his limit.
“I hate to say this, but you’re stuck, Breezy. We’ll get you out tomorrow when it’s light.” The gloves on his hands are covered in snow, and he breathes heavily into the cold night air. I don’t like it, but I can’t ask him to try anymore.
“So what now? I just walk to my brother’s house?” I ask, my jaw clenched as I climb back out the door.
“Hell no!” Tad exclaims, nudging Randy out of the way and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. He’s still drunk and annoyingly smiley, but he worked just as hard as Randy at getting me out, so I can’t be mad at him. “You’re coming with us.”
“I gotta drop Tad off at home anyway before I head back to my place,” Randy agrees.
“It’s no trouble.” The last update I got from my good friend and Red Bridge lifer, Josie, Randy Hanson bought her grandmother Rose’s old house that sits just on the outskirts of her and her husband Clay Harris’s property, which is a drive in the opposite direction, but his explanation makes sense—Tad’s farm is right beside Bennett’s property, and he’s way too drunk to get anywhere on his own.
“See?” Tad says, still grinning and gently squeezing my shoulders at the same time. “Everything is coming up like roses in the Breeze.”
I laugh at that. “I don’t know about roses, but a ride to Bennett’s will certainly help my situation.”
“We got you, girl,” Tad says, flashing a wink in my direction.
I grab my purse and the Louis Vuitton travel bag that has my laptop and most important shit in it from my SUV and turn off the engine. Once I’m sure the doors are locked and Randy puts my bags in the bed, I climb into the truck and a Hanson Brother Sandwich.
Randy drives and Tad sings along with the radio, the air in the cab thick with the scent of hay, snow, and the whiskey on Tad’s breath.
Yeah, he definitely had some drinks tonight.
But damn, when he flashes that lopsided smile at me, I can’t do anything but return it with a laugh.
It’s downright comical that the man whose picture I saw plastered across the Red Bridge Chronicle this morning while I was packing up my office is the first person to greet me when I arrived in town.
“It sure is good to see you, Breezy,” he says, his head drifting down to my shoulder and back to the window on every bump we take.
“You too, Farmer Tad.”
“Farmer Tad? Fuck me.” He lets out a half groan and half chuckle. “You talk to Josie Harris too much.”
“You don’t like being called Farmer Tad?” I question and he sighs.
“How about you just call me Tad?”
“Okay, Tad. Who just so happens to be a farmer.”
Randy laughs, but Tad laughs even harder. “Breezy Bishop, the linguistic gymnast.”
I grin. “At your service.”
“You know, you should come to Red Bridge more often,” he says. “Hell, you should move here!”
It’s my turn to crack up. “I don’t think I’m small-town material.”
“I think you’re the kind of pretty that can fit in anywhere.”
Is it just me, or is Farmer Tad flirting with me?
“Leave her alone, Tad,” Randy mutters. “Pretty sure she’s had to deal with enough bullshit tonight.”
“Relax, Rando.” Tad holds up both hands like he’s being arrested. “I’m just being hospitable.”
“Pretty sure you’re being a pain in her ass,” Randy retorts.
“Don’t mind him,” Tad attempts to whisper to me, but there’s no doubt that Randy can hear him. “He’s mad at me ’cause he had to pick me up from the bar. I like to have fun. Randy likes to be a buzzkill.”
“I’m mad because you told Maybelline Ross I’d give her a ride home, and she lives five goddamn miles outside of town.”
“Now it’s making sense why you guys were on the road tonight,” I say, and Randy nods.
“Guess it all worked out, though. I wouldn’t have wanted you stuck out there like that.”
“The Maybelline Ross thing wasn’t my fault,” Tad interjects on a sigh. “She was asking to stay at my place, and you know I’m not down for that bullshit.”
Randy snorts and rolls his eyes. “Whatever you say, brother.”