Runaway Princess Bride novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Dock

I put on jeans and walked down to the dock before Tristan woke.

My father heard me coming and turned around with the easy smile he used on retired people with savings.

"There's my girl," Gordon Wisniewski said.

He held out the thermos.

"Coffee. Black, the way you take it."

I stopped six feet away.

"How did you find me?"

"You called me from a stranger's phone." He shrugged. "A number is a number, kiddo. A guy I know traced it to a motel, and the waitress at the truck stop talked."

"I'm not your girl."

"Of course you are."

He sipped from the thermos cap.

Across the cove, an old couple in a fishing boat had stopped to look.

A family was loading a kayak at the next dock.

"Dad," I said, loud enough for them to hear. "You sold me."

His smile slipped, just a little.

"Keep your voice down."

"You took four hundred thousand dollars from a man who hurt me."

"He didn't hurt you. You hurt him. He's in a hospital bed with a concussion, and his lawyer is drafting papers that would put you in jail for six years."

"He tore my dress off."

"He's a husband with a temper."

"He wasn't my husband."

"He would have been in forty minutes if you hadn't thrown a tantrum." My father's voice dropped, and the warmth drained out of it. "Now listen. This is simple. You go back, you say you were scared, and he withdraws the complaint. We keep the money. Eli keeps his home."

"Don't you put Eli in this."

"He's already in it. Where do you think the money goes, Delaney? His school. His shoes. The roof."

"Debts," I said. "It goes to your debts."

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