Reborn, I Married the Man He Feared novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: The Room Above the Yard
Clara slept that night in her mother's room above the yard office.
It was a narrow room with a daybed, a steel desk and a kettle, where Anne Althaus had slept during the long rail strike the year Clara turned ten.
Nobody had cleared it out.
Her mother's calendar still hung on the wall, with a red circle around a date nine years gone.
Clara lay on the daybed in her coat and listened to the freight cars knock together in the dark.
She had left Roland Park at six in the morning with one bag.
She had left the ring on his desk, on top of the blotter, where he would see it first.
The housekeeper had cried at the door, and the driver had asked if she wanted to be followed.
"No," Clara had said. "Not by anyone."
At nine the yard foreman knocked and brought her coffee without a word.
He had worked for her father for twenty years, and he had called her about the white truck when nobody else would.
"The night guard didn't come in this morning," he said. "He's been on the gate since March. Never missed a shift."
"Who hired him?"
"The Tilghman Freight contract desk, I thought."
"Don't think," Clara said. "Find out."
She worked through the morning at her mother's desk, because it was something her hands could do.
At two o'clock a very large hat came up the outside stairs.
It was straw, with a ring of silk cherries around the crown, and under it Margery Tilghman stood on the landing breathing hard, with her cane in one hand and a paper bag in the other.
"Seventy-nine years old," Margery said, "and your father keeps his office on a second floor. Help me in."
Keep reading free with an account. Start Reborn, I Married the Man He Feared from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 12 · All chapters · Chapter 14 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend