I Didn't Marry Him, I Married The One He Hated novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Carried

Magnus's POV

I sanded the hull until my forearms shook, because it was the only thing in the yard that would let me be quiet.

The old foreman found me at ten at night, the way he found me every night that I tried to be alone.

He sat on an upturned bucket and lit his pipe.

"She called you from the pier," he said. "Moby told me."

"Moby can't talk."

"He's got a face."

I put down the block.

"Shelby got to her. She showed her the picture of the truck."

"Same picture she showed the cops."

"Same one."

He puffed and watched the smoke go up past the work lights.

"Your father asked a lot of you," he said. "That night."

I had told myself I wouldn't think about it.

I thought about it.

I was twenty-eight and I had been in the yard until midnight, sealing a keel, when the phone rang in the office.

My father was at Essentia, in the emergency hallway, in his coat.

Trevor was on a gurney with a torn-up knee and a blood alcohol number the nurse wouldn't say aloud.

Shelby was in surgery.

She was twenty-one, with a windshield in her face.

"Trevor was driving," my father said.

I knew it before he said it.

"He's got the transfer," he said. "The hockey transfer, Magnus. Division One. He's been working toward it since he was twelve. It's the only thing that boy has ever wanted, and a drunk-driving charge ends it."

"Dad."

"His mother can't take this. Her heart, her nerves." His hands shook. "You're not hurt. You haven't had a drink in your life that mattered. They won't test you. Say you were driving, and say you'd had a few."

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