Chapter 9: What He Told His Father

Niall's POV

"Every week since March," I told her. "One page, the same words."

Maeve stood at the gate with her hand red from slapping that boy.

She did not look at me, and she did not look at the road. She looked at the place on the wire where his hand had been.

"What words?"

"Stand up in church. Tell the club what you did to my father. Then your daughter walks out of my gate."

"You wrote that to my father."

"I wrote it to Wolf Callister, who swore my father killed a man he never touched."

"And he burned them."

"Every one, unopened. The kid knows because he's the one who carries them to the fire."

She was quiet a long time.

Behind us on the porch my father had gone in. The old men were putting their shotguns down.

"Why would you bother?" she said. "You could have just taken me."

"I did take you."

"You know what I mean."

I did.

I wanted to tell her I had written those letters in a rented room, hoping she would never have to hear my name.

I said none of it.

"Because I'd rather have him come for you," I said, "than have it end the way it's going to end."

She turned her head and looked at me properly.

Her eyes were a clear brown, wet and furious.

"I don't believe you," she said. "I don't believe a single word."

"I know."

"Don't follow me in."

She walked back to the house alone, and I let her.

I stood at the gate and watched her climb the porch steps.

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