The Wedding She Survived novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Repayment

Killian's POV

Willa had said only one thing before she took the children home from the pier.

"Don't flash it tonight. Let me think."

So I didn't.

I stood at my dark window at eight o'clock, with the flashlight in my hand and my thumb on the switch, and I did not press it.

It was the hardest thing I had done all month.

On Monday, I was shaping a hull plank in the yard when the foreman leaned in at the shed door.

"Somebody's at the gate for you."

I wiped my hands and walked out through the sawdust.

Maureen Gleeson stood on the other side of the chain-link fence in her blue coat, with her purse held in both hands.

She had lost weight.

She looked old, and I noticed that I felt nothing about it.

"Killian," she said.

"How did you get here?"

"The bus from Bangor. Willa doesn't know I came."

"Then you should go back."

"I've come to say something, and I'd like you to hear it before you decide."

I should have walked away.

I opened the gate.

She had come from the bus station in a taxi, and the driver was waiting in the lot behind the shed.

She sat in the back seat with the window down.

I stood outside it with my arms crossed.

"Say it."

"I want to give it back."

She opened her purse and took out an envelope, and then a folded paper.

"The sewing room is empty," she said. "Four machines, and the cabinet my husband built. I sold them all on Saturday. The car went on Sunday."

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