Chapter 11: Constance's Price

Constance Ashcroft came to my shop on Thursday afternoon, alone, with no photographer and no coat.

Mitchell had gone to the yard to check on the hull.

Meghan had gone home to quit her job.

I was alone behind the counter with a bucket of white tulips when the bell rang.

I knew the sound of those heels before I looked up.

"May I?" she said, and turned the sign on the door to closed.

"I'd rather you didn't."

"I'd rather you hadn't told twenty-four people at my table that you wouldn't be my son's wife."

She walked up to the counter and set her handbag on it, very neatly.

"Give me your phone."

"No."

"Lana. I'm sixty-two years old and I have been through three lawyers' offices today."

She held my eyes.

"Put it in the cooler or hand it to me. I won't say what I came to say with something listening."

I looked at her.

She looked back, composed and pleasant, a cream-colored woman in a room full of flowers.

I took my phone out of my apron, and she held out her hand.

She dropped it into her handbag and snapped the clasp.

"Thank you," she said. "Now we can be honest."

"You've never once been honest with me."

"No." She smiled. "That's what I'm about to correct."

She smoothed her skirt and sat down on the stool where I kept the register tape.

"Lawrence cannot have children."

I said nothing.

"You know that already. Miss Keevan is a sweet girl and a poor liar."

Constance folded her hands.

"He was twenty-eight when we learned it. A fever in boyhood did the damage, and it cannot be repaired."

Keep reading free with an account. Start One Night With The Wrong Brother from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.