He Rejected Me Out Loud and Kept Other Women, So I Never Answered novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Sent Home

Rhiannon's POV

The boat in the dark was a mainland crabber with a cracked fuel line and three cold men aboard.

By midnight they were asleep on the fish-house floor with blankets round them.

Doran had run the winch himself.

He had gone down the ladder into the black water to take the line, and I stood on the pier with a lantern and did not tell him to be careful.

It was one in the morning by the time we had them settled, and neither of us had said a word about the boathouse.

He stood at the end of the pier with his hands hanging.

"Tomorrow," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Four things on my list are still undone."

"I know which."

"The women," I said. "Saturday, at the Gaff. I want every one of them there, and I want you standing at the door."

"I'll be there," he said.

"You'll not say a word. I'll do the talking."

"Yes, Rhiannon."

I went up to the loft and slept eleven hours.

On Saturday night the Gaff was packed to the walls.

The word had gone through the island like a spring tide, and every she-wolf who had sat in the Alpha's house since October had been sent for, one way or another.

They stood along the bar in their good coats, six of them, and they did not look at one another.

The bartender had pushed the tables back and set out glasses on a long plank.

Doran stood at the door in the oilskin with his hat in his hands, and a hundred people watched him not move.

I walked down the middle of the room in my work boots.

The first one was the tall dark woman from the Tuesday, with her coat belted tight and her chin up.

"I'm Rhiannon Etheridge," I said. "I'd like to give you a drink."

"I know who you are," she said.

"Then you know what I owe you. I'd like to say it to your face."

I poured her a short glass from the bottle on the plank.

"I'm sorry you were sent up that road for my sake," I said. "It wasn't your doing, and I'd not have had it done to you."

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