Beyond the Spring Breeze novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Dock

I rode home alone along the dark shore road with my heart beating in my ears.

I did not take the ferry.

A fisherman at the landing said I could cross in his skiff for a dollar, and I said yes, and I sat in the bow with my bicycle across my knees and watched the lights of the Neck shrink behind us.

By the time I reached the yard it was after eleven.

The house was dark.

I leaned my bicycle against the shop and walked down to the end of the long dock, where I had sat as a child with my feet in the water.

The tide was in.

The boats creaked softly on their lines.

I sat on the last plank and took the ring out of my pocket.

It lay in my palm, small and cheap and bright.

I had expected to cry.

My eyes stayed dry.

A flashlight beam swept across the planks.

"Hold on there," a voice said. "Who's that?"

I closed my hand around the ring.

"It's Thea Kittredge. It's my dock."

The beam dipped, and a boy in a gray work shirt came out of the dark with a toolbox in one hand and a small outboard motor hung by a strap from his shoulder.

Ellis Dorsey.

"Sorry," he said. "Your foreman said I could collect this tonight. It's a Johnson, belongs to my uncle. We fixed it here three weeks ago and he wants it back for Sunday."

"At midnight?"

"I work days at the shop. He pays me nights to run errands." He set the motor down gently. "I didn't think anyone was up."

"I wasn't supposed to be."

He looked at me.

The flashlight lit the side of my face and he switched it off without being asked.

We stood in the starlight.

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