They Chose the Wrong Daughter novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Thirty Days

She disarms Nolan in the garden, they set terms for a fake engagement, and the contract's clause gives them thirty days or the Askews take the docks.

Nolan Askew asked my father for ten minutes alone with his bride.

My father said yes before the question was done.

I let Nolan walk me out of the dining room, because the alternative was sitting through dessert.

He took me through the glass doors into the garden, and he did not touch me.

The hedges were cut square and the lamps along the path were low.

We were thirty steps from the house when he stopped.

"You poured out the wine," he said.

"You noticed," I said.

"I notice everything about a woman I am supposed to marry. I'd like to know how long I have."

He reached under his jacket.

I saw the gun come out, and I did not wait to see where it was aimed.

My left hand closed over his wrist and my right hand took the barrel.

I stepped inside his arm, turned the muzzle toward the hedge, and pushed his elbow back until his fingers opened.

The pistol dropped into my palm.

Nolan stood with his arm still bent in the air and looked at me.

His hand had gone to my wrist, and he was holding it hard.

He had a scar across the back of that hand, white and old.

"Let go," I said.

"You let go first."

"I have the gun."

"I have the wrist."

We stood there in the lamplight, both of us breathing a little faster than the situation needed.

His thumb was on my pulse.

I felt it jump, and I knew he felt it too.

He let go.

I checked the pistol and found it empty.

"No magazine," I said.

"I wanted to see whether the woman they were selling me could do that," he said. "My father thinks you're a plant. He thinks the Dunleavys bought some girl off the docks and gave her a lab report."

"And what do you think?"

"I think nobody buys a girl who takes a gun that cleanly," he said. "I think you're theirs. I think it's worse than a plant."

I handed him back the pistol, grip first.

"You know about the decanter," I said.

"I have a man in their kitchen."

"Then you know what's in it."

"A sedative," he said. "It would have had you asleep by the toast. Someone would have helped you upstairs."

"Whose idea?"

"Your father's cook says your father's. That's all I have."

I took out a cigarette and lit it.

He watched the match go out and did not say anything about it.

"What do you want from me, Askew?" I asked.

"I want the war over," he said. "My father wants the docks. I want to be sold a wife I can stand to look at, and I am prepared to be disappointed."

"That's blunt."

"It's what I have."

I smoked and thought about the sixty smiling faces and my mother's cold hands.

"Here's what I want," I said. "I want to know why they came for me now. Nineteen years is a long time to wait for a DNA test."

"They need the contract filled," he said. "The deadline is soon."

"Then we both need time," I said. "You say yes to the engagement. I say yes. We stand next to each other at every party and let everyone think it's real."

"For how long?"

"Thirty days. You find out what the Dunleavys are hiding, and I find out what they did."

"Terms?" he said.

"No touching when nobody's watching."

"Agreed," he said, and for the first time his mouth almost moved. "You owe me a bullet."

"You drew a gun on me in a garden."

"It was empty."

"I didn't know that," I said.

He looked at me for a long beat.

"You'd have shot me," he said.

"I'd have shot your knee."

"That's reasonable."

"I'm a reasonable woman."

He held out his scarred hand, and I took it, and we shook once, hard.

Neither of us let go on time.

I pulled back first and put the cigarette in my mouth, because I needed something to do with my fingers.

"Your father's lawyer gave me the contract this morning," he said. "He thought you would want to see the clause."

He took a folded page from his pocket and gave it to me.

The page was thick and old, with my father's signature at the bottom in a large hand.

I read it under the lamp.

There was a paragraph near the end with a date circled in red ink.

*If the marriage is not completed within thirty days of the daughter's return, the Dunleavy docks pass in full to the House of Askew.*

I read it again.

"Thirty days," I said.

"From today," Nolan said. "Your father picked the day you came home."

"He knew exactly when he'd have me."

"Yes," Nolan said. "That's what I keep wondering. How did he know you were coming?"

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