Sold to the Man Who Took Me, but I Hold His Life novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Second No
Declan's POV
I knew the men in the tackle-shop doorway by their coats.
I had looked at them on the Boardwalk for nine winters.
They drank at the same bar as Frank Dunleavy and they had never worked for anyone but Augie.
I walked Roz home to Brigantine through the snow in silence, with the driver crawling behind us.
She did not ask me what I thought.
I did not tell her.
In the morning I stood at the kitchen window with the coffee going cold in my hand and watched the bay turn from pewter to white.
I had slept four hours, in my own bed, alone.
I had dreamed of her on a plank table with her hands braced and her hair in her face.
I put the cup down.
I had never been in love.
I had been in the Boards, and in the habit of the Boards, and in thirty years of a quiet house.
I stood there and knew the thing as plainly as I knew my own name.
It frightened me worse than Sal.
She came down at eight, in the gray sweatshirt, with her hair wet from the tub.
She stopped in the door.
"You're up."
"I didn't sleep."
"Neither did I." She came in and filled the kettle. "Those were Frank's drinking friends. The men outside the shop. They've been on the pier with him since Thursday."
"I saw," I said.
"Augie's paying them," she said.
"Yes," I said.
She set the kettle on the burner and turned around and leaned against the counter.
She looked at me with her gray eyes.
She could read every word I had not said.
I had promised myself.
I had a rule, and the rule said I asked for nothing.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Sold to the Man Who Took Me, but I Hold His Life are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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