by Allie Burton
The Heartbreak Contract
A Castle Ridge Small Town Romance
Novella
by
ALLIE BURTON
Love on the dotted line.
Self-made sports and entertainment agent Vivienne Tucker knows no one in the frozen town of Castle Ridge is going to melt her heart. No one can. She’s been on her own for too long and while her skin might appear soft, she’s as tough as nails.
Paul Bradford is a devoted family man to his younger siblings, whose heart and life belong to the town he grew up in. He’s not used to taking time for himself or relationships, but after an anonymous one-night stand, he can’t forget the ice queen who heated at his touch and ignited a passion he thought he’d lost. Until the next day when he spies her kissing someone else.
Vivienne never expected to see Paul again until she discovers he’s the older brother of her newest client. An older brother who doesn’t approve of her client’s career choice. An older brother who stirs up desire she’s tried so hard to forget.
When her client is involved in a possibly career-ending accident, Vivienne and Paul must put aside their differences and work together. But what if working together makes them both re-think the heartbreak contract they’d agreed upon?
Dear Reader:
The Heartbreak Contract is an introductory novella for the Castle Ridge Small Town Romance series. Welcome to Castle Ridge, where love takes you higher!
I love to hear from my readers! If you have any questions or comments, or just want to say hi, please feel free to email me at [email protected] or connect with me on www.twitter.com/allie_burton and www.facebook.com/AllieBurtonAuthor.
Thank you so much, and happy reading!
Allie
Other Books in Castle Ridge Series
Where small town love takes you higher.
The Romance Dance
Reading on a Kindle App or PaperWhite? Click Here
The Christmas Match
Reading on a Kindle App or PaperWhite? Click Here
The Flirtation Game
Reading on a Kindle App or PaperWhite? Click Here
The Playboy Switch
Reading on a Kindle App or PaperWhite? Click Here
The Billionaire’s Ploy
Reading on a Kindle App or PaperWhite? Click Here
THE HEARTBREAK CONTRACT
A Castle Ridge Small Town Romance Novella
Copyright © 2018 by Alice Fairbanks-Burton
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, transmitted, decompiled, reverse engineered, stored in or introduced to any information storage and retrieval system in any form, whether electronic or mechanical without the author’s written permission. Scanning, uploading or distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission is prohibited.
Please purchase only authorized electronic versions, and do not participate in, or encourage pirated electronic versions.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
ISBN: 978-0-9963024-8-7
Table of Contents
About the Book
Dear Reader
Copyright
Dedication
THE HEARTBREAK CONTRACT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Thanks for Reading
Excerpt from THE ROMANCE DANCE
Excerpt from THE CHRISTMAS MATCH
Excerpt from THE FLIRTATION GAME
Excerpt from THE PLAYBOY SWITCH
Excerpt from THE BILLIONAIRE’S PLOY
Excerpt from ATLANTIS RIPTIDE
Excerpt from SOUL SLAM
Other Books by Allie Burton
About the Author
Dedication
For my readers.
The Heartbreak Contract
A Castle Ridge Small Town Romance
Novella
by
ALLIE BURTON
Chapter One
December
Vivienne Tucker passed a sign that pointed to a scenic overlook. She did not take a peek. The last thing she wanted to see was the sheer drop only feet from the wheels of her rental car. The setting sun caused the shadows from the mountains to grow darker. The road was mostly dry, although black ice could be anywhere. Her white knuckles gripped the heated steering wheel so tight she could barely feel her fingertips. She’d been driving on Holy Smokes Road for an hour.
Her name for the winding, climbing, curving highway would’ve been more profane.
Why had her client picked Castle Ridge to rehabilitate from a ski accident? A tiny ski town deep in the Rocky Mountains, not accessible by the interstate. She shivered. Sunny Miami is where she’d moved after a childhood spent in Minnesota. Cold and ice were not her favorite things and only brought back bad memories.
The flimsy metal guardrail looped around the curve. The metal bent and wobbled with the wind. And then the guardrail disappeared. Huh.
Black skid marks streaked across the road and led to a gap in the metal.
She jolted, and imaginary bony fingers crawled up her neck. Not a missing guardrail, a broken one.
Something had plowed through the protective barrier.
Slowing her car to a crawl, she peered over the edge following the black streaks. Smoke rose from a spot near a big boulder and headlights shot two bright lines into the sky.
A car.
The accident had just happened.
Horror raced a cold chill down her spine. She went numb and her thoughts flashed back to another icy night. Another accident. Another death.
Pulling to the side of the road, she flicked on her hazard lights. Her numbness morphed into trembles, starting in her toes and moving up her legs to the rest of her body. With shaking hands, she called 9-1-1.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
“An accident. There’s an accident.”
“Are you injured?” The monotone voice crackled across the line making understanding difficult.
Cell phone service had been spotty on the way from Denver. She’d quit making important business calls to concentrate on the drive when she hit the curvy single-lane highway and the final approach to Castle Ridge.
“Not me.” A slow, cold shudder wracked her body thinking about the person or persons in the car. “A car went off the road on Holy Smokes Road. It’s partially down the cliff. There’s smoke.”
“Can you give me your location? The nearest mile marker?”
She wasn’t familiar with Castle Ridge or the mountain roads surrounding the area. “I don’t know.” Her brain scrambled to think of anything. “I passed a scenic overlook.”
She grabbed the parka from the passenger seat and shoved her arms in the sleeves. She needed to do something to help.
“Okay. I know which overlook you’re talking about. Is anyone in the car? Is anyone hurt?”
The shudder traveled in the opposite direction, just as cold an
d just as fearful. There must be a driver. Unless they’d jumped from the car before it plunged down the cliff.
Jerking the car door open, she put her boot on the slippery pavement. “I’ll check.”
“Ma’am—”
The phone went dead when she stepped out of the car. Cell service sucked in the mountains and she cursed her client Luke Logan again. He’d insisted he needed to talk to her in person while he was in the middle of rehabilitation for his injury and unable to travel. Sure, the vista was pretty in the mountains, but not when there was danger around every corner. Ice, avalanches, mudslides, and bears.
Oh my.
A stiff, frigid breeze hit her when she slammed the car door shut. In the clear evening light, she saw the stars. Scanning the vicinity, she checked first for cars and then for wild animals. There really were bears in these mountains, along with a lot of other wild creatures. Not seeing anything, she took a deep breath and forced herself to continue toward the broken barricade.
Her boots sunk into the gunk on the side of the road. Mud, crunchy gravel, and sand. Probably de-icing chemicals which would ruin the leather. Although her shoes were not more important than the person who’d gone over the cliff.
The gaping hole in the guardrail yawned before the drop-off. Dizziness overtook her as she inspected the car ten feet down the side of the cliff. The fall wasn’t far, but it was bad. The four-door sedan balanced against a boulder, the front end smashed in and some object on top of the hood had shattered the windshield.
Not an object. A person.
Her stomach swooped, the meager contents of the fast food lunch she’d eaten threatening to make a reappearance. The head of the person lolled at an odd angle. It was too dark to see the extent of other injuries.
“This isn’t anybody you know.” She tried to calm herself and her stomach.
Because she only knew one person in the area and she’d talked to him earlier. Luke was hitting an ice bath, not the roads.
“Hello!” She called hoping the person heard her. “Can you hear me?”
No answer.
It wasn’t a straight drop-off from the top, more like a really scary slide. A slide with mud and ice and snow. Certainly not as steep as her professional skiing clients faced every day. Behind the large boulder were rows and rows of trees. A rock wall stood on the right blocking the view in that direction. To the left, the cliff dropped into an abyss of blackness.
The blackness advanced.
She didn’t know how long it would take the police and fire department to arrive at this isolated place. If the victim needed help, she had to try and give it to him. She knew basic first aid and the car was only a few feet down. Stopping any bleeding could be the difference between life and death.
She stepped off the edge of the road and onto the narrow strip of gravel. Holding her hands out, she negotiated a second step down and a third. If she took it slow, used the rocks to place her feet and the boulders for balance she could make it to the crashed car.
The pungent smell of burning oil and evergreen trees combined to sear her nostrils. The wind chilled her cheeks and her hands. She’d forgotten gloves in the car. The cloudy night sky was pitch black. She was used to city lights and the sound of the ocean. Not silence and cold.
Her foot slipped.
Air whooshed out, and she stumbled to the hard, wet, cold ground. And she slid.
Down, down, down.
Her heart bumped and charged. Tumbled. She dug her boots into the ground trying to stop the slide. Her ankle twisted, and pain ratcheted up her leg. She ignored it. A little pain wasn’t going to kill her.
Her downward motion stopped. Her body slumped between a sharp rock and a tree clinging to the side of the mountain. Ice and mud clung to her coat and pants. The dank, damp smell infiltrated her nose, closing out the evergreen scent.
She tried to get to her feet. Her boots slipped from beneath her, and she slid a little farther. Her tumbling heart buzzed with warning. The cliff was too slippery and too steep. She couldn’t get purchase.
“Think.” She took a shaky breath.
Using her hands, she shuffled a couple more feet toward the car. The tiny rocks pinched her palms and scratched. Her manicure would be ruined. She fisted her hands. The only thing that mattered was getting to the car and seeing if she could help stop the blood, hold ice to a forehead, or even speak a few comforting words and hold a hand.
Cold memories enveloped her in a frigid embrace. She could’ve used a hand to hold that one awful night.
She scooted further down the slope reaching the back end of the car. It was pitch black on the side of the glacial mountain. No one knew where she had been headed except her client. No one would realize she was gone. The depressing thought pressed and suffocated.
A sad state of affairs.
Because all she had was affairs and friendly encounters. She didn’t have relationships. Too hard. Too troublesome. The melancholy tune played in her head and she pushed it aside.
Using the car for leverage, she got to her feet. She peeked inside the back and front seats and didn’t see another person. “Thank God.” Only the one person who’d crashed partway through the windshield.
She kept her hands braced on the vehicle and moved toward the front. “Hey!”
No answer from the person slumped over what was left of the engine. Nausea rose in her throat. The driver would be no help. She was going to have to figure out what was wrong on her own.
Sirens pierced the air.
She closed her eyes, sending up a silent prayer. Her feet numbed. Her fingers were raw and frozen. “Please get here quick for both mine and the victim’s sakes.”
The red and blue lights bounced off the tops of the trees. A police car, firetruck, and ambulance screeched to a halt near the broken guardrail. Craning her neck, she watched the activity on the road. Flares were set up. Voices shouted instructions. A large, bright light lit up the vehicles and the side of the cliff.
She used the flashlight on her phone to signal the rescuers. “Help! We’re down here!”
A man tied a rope around the waist of his bright red jacket. The other end of the rope was secured to the firetruck for safety. He slapped on a lighted helmet and hand over fist climbed down the mountain. She envied his sure-footedness.
With his back to her, he drew closer. “Are you all right?”
Stupid question. Of course, she was not all right. Panic bubbled inside her realizing all the things that could’ve gone wrong. She blew out short puffs of air and watched three other firefighters securing more ropes and heading down the cliff. They carried heavier equipment, medical tackleboxes, and a chainsaw.
“Can you respond?” Her rescuer sounded confident, except for the tenseness in the urgency of the question.
She twisted her body away from the car to face him. “Huh?”
Piercing cobalt blue eyes electrified her sending the chills away. “Are you okay? How many other people were in the car?”
“I. Don’t. Know.”
“I know you’re confused. It will help if we know how many people we’re searching for if they were thrown from the car.” His tone stayed calm, reasonable, inviting confidences.
She wanted to confess. She wanted to tell him everything.
Something drew her to him, opening up her normally closed emotions, making her want to confess her secrets and sins.
In her peripheral vision she caught sight of the three firefighters drawing up to the car. They moved to the front and started shouting directions and using terminology she didn’t understand.
“You should help him.” She jerked her head toward the driver. She could wait. She hadn’t injured anything except her ankle.
“We have others helping. Was there anyone else in the car?”
She scrunched her forehead trying to make sense of the question. Why was he asking her who was in the car? “I don’t know. I wasn’t…” She collected her thoughts and realized what he wanted to know. “I was
n’t in the car. I stopped, called 9-1-1.”
The man’s sharp gaze glimmered with concern, sending a shaft of warmth through her. “You climbed down the cliff to help?” His sharp, angry tone cut through her. So much for concern.
Bristling, she tucked her coat closer to her cold body. “Of course.”
“Stupid thing to do.” The censure in his tone scraped across her already raw nerves.
“I couldn’t sit in the car and wait.” She had no way of knowing how long it would take for the fire department to arrive. During her childhood experience it had taken hours.
“It would’ve been the smart thing to do.”
His reprimand hurt more than if it had come from a business associate or date. She didn’t want her rescuer thinking she was stupid. Why she didn’t know. It took people awhile to see past her looks and realize her cunning and intelligence. The normal frustration of having to prove herself combined with the current circumstances made her skin frazzle. Her fear flew to the surface and she couldn’t help shouting out her disgruntlement.
