The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

monogrammed duvet.
    She and Richard in their dishabille and their disregard for polite discourse were the wrong note in a sonata, the tear through the center of a Vermeer, the flat tire on a Phantom Drophead.
    Andoh, Gin loved the ruination. Seeing her and Richard together, both trembling on the edge of insanity, scratched the itch that she had been seeking to redress.
    They were each right, however. With her family’s abrupt reversal of financial fortune and his gubernatorial ambitions, they were the union of a parasite and its host, locked in a precarious relationship based on his decades-old crush on the most popular debutante in Charlemont and her unexpectedly finding herself on the red side of the ledger.
    Still, marriages had been built on far lesser bases … like the illusion of love, for example, the lie of fidelity, the poisonous Kool-Aid of “fate.”
    At once, she became tired.
    “I am going to bed,” she announced as she turned away to her bathroom. “This conversation bores me.”
    When he grabbed her this time, it was not by the hair. “But I am not done with you.”
    As he spun her around and pulled her against him, she yawned in his face. “Do be quick, will you. Oh, that’s right. You’re nothing but fast—it’s the only thing I enjoy about having sex with you.”

FIVE

    Lizzie’s Farmhouse
Madisonville, Indiana
    “Y ou didn’t actually think I was there to jump, did you.”
    Asthe man Lizzie loved spoke up from the other end of her sofa, she tried to pull herself together … and when she got nowhere with that, she settled for stroking the handmade quilt she’d tugged across her legs. Her little living room was in the front of the farmhouse, and had a big six-paned window that looked out onto her porch and across her front lawn and dirt driveway. The decor was rustic and cozy, her collection of antique farm tools mounted on the walls, her old-fashioned upright piano across the way, the braided throw rugs done in primary colors to bring out the color of the wooden floors.
    Typically, her sanctuary never failed to calm her. That was a stretch this dawn, however.
    What a night. It had taken about two hours to tell the police what had happened, apologize, get the cars sorted, and head back.
    If it hadn’t been for Lane’s friend, Deputy Sheriff Mitchell Ramsey, they’dstill be out at the river’s edge by the Victorian ice cream place—or maybe down at the police station. In handcuffs. Getting strip searched.
    Mitch Ramsey had a way of taking care of difficult situations.
    So, yes, now they were here on her couch, Lane showered and in his favorite U.Va. sweatshirt, her changed into one of his button-down shirts and some leggings. But jeez, even though it was May in the South, she felt cold in her bones. Which was the answer to Lane’s question, wasn’t it.
    “Lizzie? Did you think I was going to jump?”
    “Of course not.”
    God, she was never going to forget the image of him on the far side of the rail, turning to look at her … losing his grip … plummeting out of sight—
    “Lizzie—”
    Throwing up her hands, she tried to keep her voice level. Failed. “If you weren’t going to jump, what the hell were you doing out there? You were leaning over the drop, Lane. You were going to—”
    “I was trying to find out what it was like.”
    “Because you wanted to kill yourself,” she concluded through a tight throat.
    “No, because I wanted to understand him.”
    Lizzie frowned. “Who? Your father … ?” But come on, like he was trying to figure out someone else? “Lane, seriously, there are other ways to come to terms with this.”
    For example, he could go to a shrink and sit on a different couch from this one. Which would decrease his chances of falling to his death down to zero as he tried to get a handle on what was going on in his life.
    And as a bonus, she wouldn’t have to worry about becoming a nautical felon.
    Wonder if that five-dollar bill was still tucked into