The Secret Between Us novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Study

I walked my father out onto the lawn, because I couldn't stand to hear him say it again in front of her.

The wind off the harbor was bitter.

"Dad, why would you say that?"

"Because I know what she can do."

"She's a seventy-six-year-old woman with a checkbook."

"She owns the lease, the note on the shed, the pension fund and half this town."

His voice shook.

"I have a bad heart, Isla. I can't lose the house."

"You won't lose it."

"Sign what she wants. Marry the boy. He's kind."

"I can't."

He looked at me, and the look went right through me.

It was shame.

I didn't understand why my father would be ashamed of me.

"Please," he said, and he turned and walked down the hill, a gray man in an apron, walking too fast for his chest.

I stood there with my fists clenched.

When I went back inside, I heard the voices from the hall.

The door to his father's study stood half open.

Caleb was inside, and so was his mother.

I stopped just beyond the doorframe, where I could see them both.

His father's old desk faced the window, a huge scarred thing with a ship's lamp on it.

Cornelia sat behind it.

Caleb stood on the other side with his hands at his sides.

"I wondered how long you'd take," she said. "You've been in this house a day and a half."

"I want the truth, Mother."

"About what?"

"The annulment page you put in front of me. Show it to me again."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Secret Between Us from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.