He Banned a Baby in Our Contract, Then Found His Daughter novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Word
Lorcan's POV
Millie's father stood at the top of the cellar steps with his cap in his hand and looked at the two of us coming up out of the earth.
My shirt was buttoned wrong by one.
Her jumper was on inside out.
He looked at the jumper for some time.
"Well, b'y," he said. "Come into the yard."
I followed him out into the thaw.
Water ran in every rut of the lane, and the air smelled of wet spruce and the sea.
He walked to the fence rail and leaned on it with his back to the bay.
He was a short, thick man of sixty, with big cracked hands, and he did not hurry.
I had faced bankers, and the board of the Trust, and a ward full of cardiologists.
I had not been so afraid since I was fifteen years old on the Hann wharf.
"Sir," I said.
"I'm asked to give you my word," he said. "Millie says you've asked her twice and she's told you to ask me."
"Yes, sir."
"Well?"
"I'd like to marry your daughter," I said.
"I know that. Why should I let you?"
I told him the truth, because I had nothing else.
"I have the heart that killed my father and my brother, and I have a machine in my chest. I can't promise you thirty years. I can promise you I will be there for every day I've got, and that I'll go to every appointment, and that she'll never stand alone at a thing again."
He listened to all of it with his eyes on the muddy lane.
"I buried Millie's mother when she was twelve," he said.
"I know."
"I'd have married her anyway, if someone had told me the date."
He turned and looked me in the face.
"Every man marries not knowing, b'y. You're the only one in the bay who does, and that's the only difference there is."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Banned a Baby in Our Contract, Then Found His Daughter are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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