He Rejected Me Out Loud and Kept Other Women, So I Never Answered novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Tarred Line
Doran's POV
She said yes with her hand.
She did not say a word.
She took my wrist, the scarred one, and pulled me out of the Gaff's yard and up the harbor road in the dark.
I walked behind her with my coat open and my boots loud and my wolf so quiet that I could hear my own blood.
It was nearly midnight, and every window on the Reach was shut.
The house stood at the top of the road with the porch light off.
I had not lit a lamp in it for six weeks.
I opened the door with a hand that was not steady.
She stepped past me into the front hall and stood with her braid over her shoulder, looking.
It was a plain house, a boatbuilder's house, with a long table and a cold stove and my father's chair in the corner with a quilt folded over the arm.
"It's very tidy," she said.
"I don't live in it."
"I can tell."
She walked into the kitchen and put her hand on the table.
She turned round and looked at me for a long time.
"Is there a bed?" she said.
"Upstairs."
"Show me."
I took her up.
The bedroom faced the harbor, and the window held a long strip of moon.
The bed was made, with a gray wool blanket and four pillows, and I had not slept in it since the night of the Settling.
She stopped at the foot of it.
"They sat here," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"On this side?"
"Yes."
"Take it off," she said.
"The blanket?"
"The whole bed. I'll not lie in that."
I stripped it.
I took the gray blanket and the sheets and the four pillows and put them in a heap on the floor.
I pulled the clean quilt from the cupboard, my mother's, smelling of cedar.
I laid it over the bare mattress and smoothed it with both hands.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Rejected Me Out Loud and Kept Other Women, So I Never Answered are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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