Chapter 14: The Offer

Boone's POV

Mr. Kell called me at six on Thursday morning.

He did not ask for Ray, and he did not ask for Annie.

"Come to the feed office," he said. "Alone. Nine o'clock."

I went because I wanted to see what a man looked like when he was running out of time.

The Kell Cattle & Feed office sat behind the grain elevator, with a polished desk and a window onto the loading dock.

Mr. Kell sat behind the desk in yesterday's suit.

He had a glass of whiskey in front of him, and it was nine in the morning.

"Sit," he said.

"I'll stand."

"Suit yourself." He pushed a cheque across the desk. "Read it."

It was made out to me for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

"That's a gift," he said. "And a foreman's job here, at twice what Ray pays you. A house on the river road."

"For what?"

"For going back to your cabin, Boone, and staying out of the way. You keep your hands off Ray's daughter. You tell her to take Austin's offer."

"You want me to sell her out."

"I want you to be practical. You're a hired man. She's a Sorley."

I looked at the cheque.

I had eleven years in the bank and a truck with 200,000 miles on it.

I tore the cheque in half, and then in half again, and set the pieces on his blotter.

"She isn't mine to sell," I said. "And I'm not for sale."

Mr. Kell stared at the pieces.

Then he laughed, a thin cracked sound, and poured more whiskey.

"Constance said you'd take it."

"Constance was wrong."

"Constance is always wrong," he said, "and she is never sorry."

He drank.

I should have walked out.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Cheated on Our Wedding Night, I Canceled His Fortune from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.