The Wrong Groom on My Wedding Night novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Fence at Midnight

The old woman put out the candle and pushed me toward the back door.

"The orchard," she whispered. "Go, child. I'll deal with him."

I ran down the rows of bare apple trees in the dark.

Behind me I heard Timothy's voice, warm and easy, on the path.

"Out late with those bandages, aren't you?"

"Somebody's got to," Pat said cheerfully.

I did not hear the rest.

The east fence was a quarter mile past the last tree.

It was chain link, with wire along the top, and it marked the line between Redfern land and the public forest.

The moon was past half, and the snow gave back light.

He was sitting on the far side of the wire on a fallen log, with his coat collar up.

He heard me and stood.

"You stayed," I said.

"I never went through the gate," Crispin said. "I'm on public land. They can't touch me here."

"You're freezing."

"I'm used to it."

I stopped with the chain link between us.

"I found your mother's handwriting," I said.

He went still.

"What?"

"Your name. In the margin of the pack's birth ledger. Two sons, born seventeen minutes apart. The first one was called stillborn, and his name was written in the margin by a woman who knew he'd breathed."

He didn't say anything.

I watched his face change.

"Timothy Ramsay," he said.

"Your father."

"No." His voice cracked. "Timothy's my..."

He couldn't say it.

He put one hand on the fence post and held on.

"The widow who raised me said I was left on her step," he said. "She said she never knew by whom. I used to look at the Redfern Alpha on the news and wonder why my chest hurt."

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