I Told the Mob Boss I Would Not Be Bought, So He Offered to Be Sold novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Judge

Judge Pelham arrives in the barn yard to take care of everything, asks about an old chest, and Anson steps out of the dark.

Judge Whit Pelham got out of the Buick the way he used to get out of it in front of the courthouse, one hand on the door and one on his hat.

He was sixty-six and tall, with silver hair combed straight back.

He held out a soft white hand to me from ten feet away.

"Odette, honey."

He was the only person alive who still called me that.

"Judge."

"I've been driving around for an hour. Lawson told me what happened, and I said, that girl lost her daddy, let me go see her."

He came across the gravel with his arms half open, a man arriving at a funeral he meant to run.

Lawson sat in the passenger seat with the window down and his head against the glass.

He lifted two fingers at me and looked away.

"Judge, it's ten at night."

"And you're out here with a man who doesn't have the manners to introduce himself."

The judge turned with his hand still out.

Anson did not take it.

He had come out of the barn door behind me into the edge of the light, and he stood with his hands loose at his sides.

"Judge Pelham," he said.

"Mr. Gaillard."

The judge let his hand fall without any hurry.

"I knew your brother," the judge said. "Terrible thing."

"So I've heard," Anson said.

"I'd have thought a man in your line would know better than to come into a lady's sale and make a scene."

"I thought I made an offer," Anson said.

The judge smiled.

It was a lovely smile.

I had watched him smile it at juries, and at my father's graveside, and at me across a bank desk five months ago when he said he would take care of everything.

"Odette, sweetheart," he said, turning back, "I want you to hear this from someone who loves you. The bank will call that note Monday. That isn't me, that's the board, and I can't stop it."

"You own the board, Judge."

"I sit on it."

He put one hand on my arm.

I looked at the hand until he took it away.

"There's a developer in Summerville who'll pay more for this land than it's worth," the judge said. "Enough to clear the note and leave you a cushion."

"I'm not selling," I said.

"You sell the barn, you keep your name, you marry my boy, and nobody has to be hurt."

"I'm not marrying your boy."

The judge sighed.

"You're upset, honey."

"I gave him his ring back in front of forty people."

"People forgive a good deal in a grieving woman," he said.

I felt the heat come up my neck, and I held my voice flat, because that's what the block taught me.

"I'm not selling my father's barn."

"Your father," the judge said gently, "would want you looked after."

In the car, Lawson opened the door and half climbed out.

"Detty, listen. Daddy's right."

"Lawson."

"It's a lot of building for one woman." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Is Daddy's old chest still out here? The one from the Gaillard sale? Daddy keeps asking, and I keep saying I don't know."

The judge said, "Lawson."

It was very soft.

Lawson sat back down inside the car.

I stood with my feet planted on the gravel.

I did not know what chest he meant.

I did not know why my skin went cold when he said it.

I knew only that I did not look at the south wall of the barn, and neither did the man at my shoulder.

"There's a great deal of furniture in a barn, Lawson," Anson said.

His voice had not changed.

But I felt him take one step to the right, so that he stood between me and the judge's car.

The judge looked at him for a long moment, and the smile slid back like a curtain on a rod.

"Mr. Gaillard, I don't believe this is your affair," the judge said.

"I think it is," Anson said.

"Do you."

Anson did not look away from him.

"I put my number on her rail an hour ago."

The judge laughed, an easy courtroom laugh.

"A number on a card. Odette, honey, you ought to know better than to let a man like this into your debts."

"He hasn't been in my debts," I said.

"No?" said the judge. "Ask him who he is, then."

He opened the Buick's rear door, and the dome light came on.

For one second I saw the inside of his face with nothing in front of it.

Then it was soft again.

"Monday morning, Odette. Nine o'clock. The bank will call that note, and I'll be there to see it done kindly."

He looked at Anson.

"I'd go home, Mr. Gaillard. Whatever you think you're buying, this isn't the place."

He got in.

The Buick backed down my father's drive with its lights still burning.

Lawson's pale face turned toward me in the passenger window until the curve took it.

The gravel went quiet.

I stood in the dark with my arms folded and my pulse beating in my ears.

"What chest?" I said.

"I don't know," he said.

"You said there was a lot," I said.

"There is," he said.

"That isn't what I asked."

He looked at me in the light from the office window.

"Miss Marchant, I'll answer that when I can pay for the answer."

"Meaning what?" I said.

"Meaning I'll tell you when I have something to put on the table with it."

"That's the stupidest thing a man has ever said to an auctioneer."

"Probably," he said.

"The note's called Monday."

"Yes."

I folded my arms tighter.

"So what do you do Monday, Mr. Gaillard?"

He turned his head and looked down the drive where the tail lights had gone.

"Then Monday is when I start," he said.

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