Page 117 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire
A burning pressure builds in the hollowness in my stomach.
Asshole.
I yank the steering wheel to the left and take an unnecessarily aggressive turn onto the road that leads to the farm.
It’s not like I even have time for this—there’s still so much to do before tomorrow’s big event. I lost a bunch of time attending the Senior Central Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, but Grandpa really wanted me there, so if it means staying up all night tonight to finish everything off, so be it. The barn still needs to be cleaned up and the chairs laid out for his talk, and I have to unpack and check everything I ordered for our Save Your Ass merch stand.
There should be T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, notebooks, the works, as well as some super-cute greeting cards and postcards I had printed from designs by Carly from the produce store. She’s also taking care of all the signage to direct people around the property, so I’m sure that’ll be extra adorable.
And the coffee twins are coming over to help put up the last of the vendor huts. I've got a whole bunch of pumpkin fairy lights to decorate them so they should look cute. I searched high and low for string lights shaped like donkeys and couldn’t find any. But I did snag some glowing donkey lawn ornaments meant for nativity displays—they are all wearing red-and-white-checked scarves, so they’ll be sweet dotted around the place.
Thank God for my decent salary, because the sanctuary coffers could never have funded all this stuff. It’ll all be worth it in the end, though. Today is an investment in Grandpa’s and the sanctuary’s futures.
Mrs. B. is all set with her volunteer questionnaire andsign-up forms, and she’s got together a gang from Senior Central to act as greeters. They’ll be stationed at random spots to answer questions, hand out donkey info sheets and coloring pages for the kids, and three of them will staff the merch stands. They’ll also be directing parking in the field across the street that I persuaded the owner to lend us for the day—perhaps I accidentally picked up some how-to-charm-people-into-doing-what-I-want skills from Miller.
I’ll be in charge of the donkey rides, and Grandpa will be giving two talks in the barn, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, on the history of the sanctuary. There’ll also be a smaller merch table at the back to capture that audience, and everyone volunteering at the event will be wearing one of the hoodies so we look like a unified team and advertise the products at the same time.
Both merch tables will have collection buckets and sign-up sheets so people can offer themselves as future volunteers or become a “friend” of the sanctuary with monthly or annual contributions in exchange for a T-shirt and free personal guided visits twice a year. And of course, there’ll be sponsorships for each of the animals, with each donor having a photo taken with their chosen donkey.
To cap it all, I’ve recruited a couple of kids from the high school to spend the entire day glued to their phones shooting photos and video content for our socials. They should rack up enough to keep us going for weeks.
It’s been a lot to pull together in just a week or so, but these last few days it’s at least forced me to soldier on through my pit of despair over Miller. There are times where it’s like wading through molasses, but I have to put it into perspective—my heartbreak andhumiliation is nothing compared to the possibility of losing the sanctuary.
I’m working on the basis that Skinner was bluffing about getting us shut down over certifications. That might be false hope, but it’s the only hope I have, so I’m going with it and planning as if the sanctuary will live forever.
I can’t stand by and watch everything my grandparents worked to build be destroyed by one vindictive jerk.
And if we can keep it going until the rail line is in, well, that line won’t only allow people living in Warm Springs to commute easily to Manhattan, it will also allow families in the city to do an easy day trip to Warm Springs on the weekends, and the increased visitor numbers could secure our long-term future.
But one problem at a time. Right now I need to pick up the hay and also some straw bales to border the pathways and create seating spots for the visitors. My big hope is that after all the Thanksgiving eating yesterday and the shopping today, everyone will be looking to get out for some fresh air tomorrow.
My attention darts away from the road to whatever it is that’s going on up ahead at the old Windwood Barn.
As I approach, it becomes clear two guys are erecting a chain-link fence around it.
And the building’s surrounded by scaffolding that other men are standing on to throw fresh new tarps over it.
The whole scene has whizzed by and is in my rearview mirror before I’ve had a chance to figure it out.
Then my heart rate rises along with my blood pressure.
Don’t tell me the family has finally sold it to developers—someone like Wade Skinner. Or, God forbid, WadeSkinner himself has snapped up the property to ruin it with his cookie-cutter townhomes.
There were definitely a few people there wearing hard hats.
All the rage I’ve felt about Skinner, combined with the furious hurt Miller’s driven through me, roars to the surface in a crescendo of developer hatred.
What the fuck is going on? And how has this missed the local gossip grapevine? Not even Mrs. B. mentioned it when I saw her yesterday, and she usually knows about the council’s planning permits before they do.
I certainly don’t want to have to tell Grandpa that I saw something going on at the old place but drove right by without trying to find out what that thing is.
I check over my shoulder—no traffic behind me. Nothing coming toward me either. So I slow down and make a U-turn.
The thought that Wade Skinner might be trying to wreck even more of the area makes me hotter by the second. Does he have a plan to buy up whatever chunks of Warm Springs he can get his hands on? And turn them all ugly?
I pull off the road in front of the barn, the truck dipping and swaying in the deep ruts carved by whatever machinery these construction guys have been using.
The backs of two large white vans are to the right of the barn, and two men are climbing the scaffolding up the front of it, while another shouts instructions from ground level.
