The Gold Digger's Ledger novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Her Mother's Address

I told Tristan at one in the morning, standing in the kitchen with my apron still on.

I told him all of it.

Honor at my bar. Mulberry Street. Sixty-two hundred dollars. The word packing.

He listened without sitting down.

When I finished, he put both hands on the counter and looked at the grain of the wood.

"I'll handle it," he said.

"How?"

"I'll talk to her."

"You'll talk to her."

"Miranda, stay out of it. This is my family."

"Your family went to my mother."

"I know, and I'll deal with it."

"You'll deal with it," I said. "Like you dealt with Lydia on the boat."

He went very still.

I hadn't meant to say it tonight.

I had been carrying it for a week, and now it came up whole.

"She read my life out loud," I said.

"Two hundred people laughed, and you stood next to your mother and looked at the water."

"I know."

"You've said that. You say I know, and not tonight, and then you say nothing."

"It isn't that."

"Then what is it?"

His jaw worked. He opened his mouth, and I saw the whole answer sitting there behind his teeth.

Then he shut it.

"I can't tell you yet."

"Then I can't let you handle my mother."

"Miranda..."

"You said I could say so, Tristan. I'm saying no."

He took a step back.

I took the stairs alone, and I locked the door with the green ribbon key.

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