My Alpha Shamed Me at His Victory Feast, So I Took His Coast novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: Bean Supper
The Beals Island Grange hall smelled of molasses and bacon fat and wet wool.
Two long tables ran down the middle under the strings of paper lanterns, and three hundred people sat at them.
I had not eaten at a Bay table since before the funeral.
The women of the Grange had been up since four.
They had baked yellow-eye beans in crocks all day in the old oven.
They had steamed brown bread in coffee cans and boiled red hot dogs in a kettle the size of a washtub.
There were pies at the far end, blueberry and apple and squash, and a tray of whoopie pies that nobody touched.
"Not those," Verna said, when she saw me look. "We're keeping them for the gulls."
She had set me at the head of the first table, on a folding chair with a cushion.
Armand sat at my right hand.
He had put on a clean flannel shirt and combed his beard.
Somebody had given him a plate that would have fed a crew.
"Mr. River," said a small voice at his elbow.
A boy of about six was standing there, in a Bruins jersey.
"Can you lift the table?"
"Which table?" Armand said.
"That one. With all the kids on it."
Armand looked down the hall.
At the children's table, ten kids sat in a row with their feet swinging and their faces full of beans.
"Hold your plates," he said gravely.
He got up and walked down the hall.
He put his hands under the end of the children's table and lifted it three feet off the floor.
Ten kids screamed with joy.
He set it down, gently, and not one bean spilled.
The Grange roared.
I laughed until I had to put my fork down.
An old woman across from me wiped her eyes on her napkin.
"That one's keepable," she said. "I'd say so, Mercy."
"I'll want to eat first," I said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Alpha Shamed Me at His Victory Feast, So I Took His Coast are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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