He Cheated on Our Wedding Night, I Canceled His Fortune novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: On His Knees

The crew was lined up at the corral for morning feed when Austin Kell's truck stopped at the ranch gate.

Eleven hands stood with coffee in their fists.

Every one of them knew his name.

I walked down from the cabin with Boone beside me, still buttoning my coat.

Austin stood at the gate with his duffel bag at his feet.

He looked bad.

He had lost ten pounds since the courthouse, and the tailored look was gone from him entirely.

"Annie," he said. "Please. Five minutes."

"Say it here."

"Can we..."

"Say it here. You've said everything else in front of people."

He glanced at the hands.

Then he went down on his knees in the gravel.

Nobody laughed.

It was worse than if they had.

"I have nothing," he said. "The house is gone. The mill's gone. My mother lives over a church hall. I'm sleeping in my truck."

"I'm sorry for your mother."

"I need a job. I need..." He swallowed. "You own the best operation in the county. I'll work for nothing. I'll muck stalls. I'd do anything you said."

"You want me to hire you."

"I want a chance to prove I'm not what I was."

"To me?"

"To everyone. To Brooke."

I looked at the man I had almost married.

He was thirty, with sandy hair and a good jaw, and he was kneeling on my road asking me to take care of him.

It was what he had always done.

He had found someone to hold him up.

Behind me I heard the guest house door open.

Brooke came down the track in a long cardigan, with her mother beside her.

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