Chapter 14: Two Hundred Thousand

Clark's POV

Dean walked me behind the cedar shed, where the crew couldn't see us.

I had stacked lumber on that ground for ten years.

He stopped by the sawhorses and took a checkbook out of his jacket.

"I'm going to say this plainly, Holter," he said. "You did right by Walt. Nobody here disputes it."

"Get to it."

"You've been hanging around my wife for a week."

"She's a grown woman. She goes where she likes."

He gave me his customer smile.

"Sure. Sure she is."

He clicked a pen and wrote on the top check, leaning on a sawhorse.

His handwriting was neat and round.

He tore the check out and held it up between two fingers.

Two hundred thousand dollars, payable to Clark Holter.

"That's a down payment on a house," he said. "In Kentucky, say. Somewhere with a river and no gossip."

I did not take it.

"You'd take her down there," Dean said, "and you'd be gone by the weekend. Take her, I mean. Not the girl."

"Poppy stays here."

"Poppy stays with her father, where she belongs." He shrugged. "Kate will cry. Then she'll breathe. People get over things, with a man like you."

I looked at the check.

The account name was printed across the top.

BRANDT SUPPLY CO., it said, and under that, in small letters, Gaffney Management, Authorized Signer.

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