My Father Went to Prison for Their Money, So I Married Their Heir novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: The Step

Beau's POV

I sat on Opal Gaines's front step from five that afternoon until the sky went grey.

I did not knock.

I had no right to knock, and I thought if she saw me through the screen she would have to decide whether to let me in.

I did not want to make her carry it.

So I sat with my elbows on my knees and the ring in my pocket.

Clarice had found it on the garden bench and put it into my hand without a word.

Opal came out at nine with a mason jar of sweet tea and set it on the step beside me.

She went back in.

At midnight she came out again, with a blanket, and dropped it on my shoulders.

"You'll catch your death," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"She's not here," said Opal. "She went to the prison. She called me from the road."

"I know."

"Then why are you on my step?"

I thought about it for a while.

"Because it's where she'd look," I said.

Opal stood behind me for a long time, with the screen door held in her hand.

"That's the first sensible thing a Ravenel has said on this porch," she said, and went inside.

My phone buzzed at two.

It was my father.

I had known he would call.

"Come home, son," said Winston. His voice was warm and tired and patient. "You've had your outburst. I'm not angry. I'll have the lawyers draw up the annulment in the morning, on grounds of her deception, and it will all be forgotten. You'll have your shares at the end of the year with a wife I choose for you. We'll say you were misled."

"No."

"Beauregard. Think."

"I am thinking," I said.

"If you stay with that girl, you are going to be telling her things. You'll tell her about the summer of 2012. And then you and I will have to discuss where the paper trail ends."

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