Chapter 11: The Shed at Night

That night the wind dropped, and the harbor lay flat and black outside the shed window.

We had a plan for the morning. Ben had been over it twice with a chart spread on the desk.

Now the plan was done, and neither of us had picked up the chart again.

I sat on the cot with my knees drawn up.

He sat on the crate, forearms on his thighs, turning a coil of rope in his hands.

"You haven't said anything in ten minutes," he said.

"I was thinking about the account."

His eyes came up.

"What account?"

"The one you said you don't keep. For kisses."

The rope stopped moving.

"You said it was cash only," I said. "I found some."

I took a twenty from my coat and held it out between two fingers.

He looked at it. He looked at me.

"Fern. You're angry, and you're hurt, and you saw something today that would knock anyone off her feet."

"Yes."

"I don't want to be the thing you do about it."

"You're not the thing I do about it," I said. "You're the person who asked me what I needed."

He put the rope down.

He came across the shed in two steps and knelt in front of the cot.

He took the twenty out of my hand and set it on the blanket.

"That's too much for a kiss," he said.

"Then you owe me change."

He kissed me.

It was slow for about a second.

Then I made a sound in my throat, and he made one back.

His hand was in my hair and my fists were in his shirt.

His beard scraped my chin. His mouth was hot and he tasted of coffee.

I pulled him in until he had to catch himself on the cot with one hand.

"Ben."

"I'm here."

"Take this off."

I tugged at his shirt, and he reached over his shoulder and pulled it off in one move.

He was broad and scarred and solid, with dark hair across his chest.

A long white line of rope burn ran over one rib.

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