Banished at Dad's Wake, So I Came Back to Run the Boardwalk novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: The Fourth
By nine on the Fourth of July there were three hundred people on the sand below the Boardwalk.
I was the only woman in a red dress.
Blankets covered the beach from the water line to the dunes.
Children ran with sparklers.
Out past the surf, a barge sat dark and low, loaded with the fireworks.
Asher walked beside me in shirtsleeves with his hand at my back.
Every few steps someone turned to look, and then looked away quickly.
"They know who I am," I said.
"They've known since the club."
"Does it bother you?"
"Not at all," he said. "I like being seen with you."
We came to a long green blanket near the dunes.
Thirty or forty people sat on folding chairs there, with coolers and a flag on a stick.
An old man in a tweed cap rose from the center of them.
Malachy Quirke was tall and stooped, with a weathered face and white hair that blew in the sea wind.
He took off his cap.
"Nicoletta Taddeo," he said.
"Mr. Quirke."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Banished at Dad's Wake, So I Came Back to Run the Boardwalk are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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