Chapter 8: Ansel's POV: The Big House

Ansel's POV

The town office closed at four-thirty, and I got there at four-ten.

The clerk behind the counter was a woman in her sixties with reading glasses on a chain, and she had known me since I was a boy.

"Ansel," she said. "Is it the boat ramp permit again?"

"No, ma'am. I want to pay a tax bill."

"Whose?" she asked.

"Ouellette Point. Map 14, lot 6."

She took off the glasses and looked at me for a long moment.

"Eleven thousand, two hundred and six dollars," she said. "That's through the end of the month."

"I have a cashier's check."

I slid it across.

I had cashed out a bond that morning, and I had not told anyone, because there was no one to tell.

She turned the check over in her hands.

"Mrs. Pettengill asked to be told if anyone paid it," she said quietly.

"Then tell her Thursday."

"Ansel," she said.

"I'd like a receipt, please. Made out to the property, not to me."

She hesitated.

Then she stamped the paper twice and passed it under the glass.

"Your father would have my head," she said.

"My father would have signed it over to the company in a week," I said. "Thank you."

I folded the receipt into my breast pocket and went out into the sun.

My hands were steady.

I noticed that and was a little surprised.

I had never felt so sure of anything in my life, and I knew exactly why it was a mistake.

She would find out.

She would be furious.

She had told me in the doorway of her father's house, with a broom in her hands, that she was not my project.

I did it anyway.

The big house sat on the high ground above the harbor, white clapboard with black shutters and a lawn that cost more than my truck.

I had grown up there from the age of fourteen.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Left Him at the Altar, So the Best Man Took Me Off the Island from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.