Dating Daddy's Best Friend novel · Chapter 20 of 32

Chapter 20: The Wren

"You can't do that," I said.

"I just did." Kiersten smiled. "Ask your lawyer. Ask the bank. Three weeks, Britt."

She clicked away down the hall to the elevator, where Jarrod was holding the door for her.

Coby, my father and Cullen were waiting by the front steps in the sun.

They were laughing about the melon.

I told them on the steps.

My father sat down on the courthouse stairs in his tie and didn't say anything at all.

Coby said a word I'd never heard him say.

Cullen didn't say anything either.

He just turned his silver ring around and around, and looked at the traffic going by.

On Thursday he didn't come to the yard.

He texted my father at seven. "Errand. Back tomorrow."

He didn't text me.

On Friday morning I drove to Douglas to find out what kind of errand takes a whole day.

There was a pickup in his driveway with Wisconsin plates and a long empty boat trailer behind it.

Not empty for long.

The Wren was coming out of the river.

Cullen stood waist-deep in the water in his jeans, guiding her bow onto the trailer bunks with both hands.

A man in boat shoes worked the winch.

The Wren slid up out of the river, dripping, all varnished mahogany and white canvas cushions.

For one second the sun hit her, and she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

Then the winch clicked tight.

I got out of the car.

Cullen saw me.

He didn't stop.

He walked out of the river, took a screwdriver from his back pocket, and unscrewed one bronze cleat from her stern.

He screwed a new chrome one in its place while the man in boat shoes watched politely.

He put the old cleat in his pocket.

Then he shook the man's hand, and the truck pulled out of his driveway with his boat behind it, and turned south.

He stood in his wet jeans and watched until it was gone.

"Cullen."

He turned around.

"Hi," he said. "You're early."

"What did you do?"

"Sold a boat. It happens at boatyards. You'd be surprised."

"For how much?"

He looked at me for a second, deciding.

"A hundred and forty."

I did the math in my head.

I knew where the other forty would come from, because I'd seen it in my father's column of numbers.

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