This Heiress Doesn't Fight Anymore novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: The Catboat Again

"Take her," I said to the old sailor.

He took the tiller without a word, with the mainsheet still in his other fist.

He steered his own boat through the finish line's wake.

I went down the companionway.

The cabin was dim after the glare on the water, and it smelled of new cedar and varnish and the lobster rolls from the cooler.

Seth was sitting on the edge of the forward berth.

He had his elbows on his knees and his hands together between them.

He looked up at me.

"We won," I said.

"I heard."

"You missed it."

"I didn't miss it. I heard the gun." He swallowed. "I couldn't be up there for this part. Bess would have narrated it."

"What part?"

He opened his hands.

There was a ring in his palm.

It wasn't gold.

It was a plain, heavy band of dark bronze, polished till it shone.

A faint line of old green was still in the grain of it.

"That's the gudgeon off her rudder," Seth said. "Your grandmother's boat. The one I took off in July when we fixed her. It was worn through on one side."

"I cut it down in the shed. Nights. After you went up at eleven."

"You broke my rules."

"I broke Gran's. Yours I kept."

I sat down beside him on the berth, because my knees had decided to.

"I'm not asking you to marry me tomorrow," Seth said. "Or this year, if you don't want."

"I know what you've done, Charlie. You gave away everything so you could stop."

"I'm not another thing you have to earn."

"I'm asking you to stay. For good. At the yard, with us, with me. No hurry on the rest."

"And when you want the rest..."

"I'll ask," I said.

He laughed, very quietly, and his eyes were wet.

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