He Cheated on Our Wedding Night, I Canceled His Fortune novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: What Ray Owed

At four o'clock my father's kitchen was full.

He had asked half the county, and a third of them came: the old widow in the brown coat, the pastor, three ranchers from the stockgrowers' board, the bank manager.

Brooke's mother stood by the stove in her one good cardigan, with her hands wrapped around a cup.

She was small, grey, and very upright, and she did not look at my father once.

The lawyer sat at the end of the table with a leather folder.

Ray stood at the head of it, with his bad knee out and a single sheet of paper in his hand.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "I'm not good at this. I'll read it and then I'll sit."

Nobody spoke.

"For thirty-one years I have had a daughter and not said her name in front of anyone," he said. "Her name is Brooke Ansley. She is my child. I'm saying so in front of her mother, in front of her sister, and in front of this valley."

Brooke put her hand over her mouth.

"I did wrong by this woman," he said, and looked at Brooke's mother for the first time. "I paid her, and I called it duty. It was cowardice. I'm sorry."

Brooke's mother lifted her head.

She was quiet for a long moment.

"I'll take that," she said. "It's late."

"It's late," my father said. "I'll take that, too."

He turned to the lawyer.

"Read the rest."

The lawyer cleared his throat.

"Mr. Sorley deeds to Brooke Ansley eight hundred acres of the south hay meadow, in her own name, free and clear. The guest house, with its well and outbuildings, goes with it. He changes his will to name Brooke Ansley and Anneliese Sorley as equal heirs to the home place."

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