Chapter 19: Row One

Keith's POV

On Friday night I drove to Newton with a cashier's check in my breast pocket.

It was made out to the Frane Foundation for one hundred thousand, eight hundred dollars.

It was every cent I had, plus what my truck had fetched on Thursday.

I had not told Nessa.

I told myself it was because she had enough on her.

The truth was that she would have said no, and I could not stand to hear it.

Her mother opened the door in her quilted vest with a dish towel over her shoulder.

"You're early," Bea said. "She's out running errands. Come in."

I came in and stood on the mat.

She looked at my face, then at my pocket, and held out her hand.

"Give it here."

I took out the check and put it in her palm.

She read the amount and the name, and she went very still.

"Where did you get this?"

"I sold some things."

"What things?"

"The truck. A savings bond. A boat that was my father's."

"You sold your father's boat."

"I'm not using it."

Bea folded the check once, crisply, and handed it back.

"Put it in your pocket, Keith."

"Mrs. Colby, if the Foundation takes it as payment, the clause is satisfied. Your house is safe. She can say whatever she likes on Saturday."

"Sit down."

"Mrs. Colby..."

"Sit."

I sat at the kitchen table, the one where I had watched her cry a week ago.

She poured coffee into two mugs, sat across from me, and looked at me over her glasses for a long moment.

"I like you," she said. "You came to my door in a dark suit and you let me boss you. That's rare."

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Was the Genius Couple's Forgotten Bride from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.