Page 158 of The Widow and the Wanted

“I know what I have done. I know the vows I have taken,” I say. “Law or no, we belong to each other, and what lies between us in our bed is not your concern.”

The cane comes up fast. One clean crack across my face.

The shop goes white at the edges, and I grip the counter to keep my footing.

Boone is moving before the pain reaches me.

I lift one hand. “No.”

He stops, nostrils flared, lips tight. He cracks his knuckles as the cords of his neck flare.

Father lowers the cane, breathing hard through his nose. I taste blood.

He looks less satisfied than I expect. Perhaps he thought striking me would put the world back in order.

Boone’s body trembles, seething.

“You have always known how to drag him down to your level,” Alfred taunts him between ragged breaths. “This is a family matter now. Best you let me continue this conversation with my son in private.”

I wipe a warm trickle of blood from my cheek.

“You and I are not family, Alfred Collins. I was never your son. I was a specimen. Something to give a clever name, something to measure and put behind glass. Mother too. She was never your wife. She was your credential. A feather in your cap. I became a problem for you the moment I refused to become the polished political instrument you’d hoped I would be. A living example of Dr. Collins’s infinite brilliance.”

He flinches then, the first honest thing he has done all afternoon.

“What a vile thing to claim.”

“Yes. It is. What’s worse is that it’s true. But Boone has never asked me to be anyone else.”

“Why would he criticize the hand that feeds him? He has no name worth protecting, so he has fastened himself to yours. Look at him,” he spits. “He is not silent out of dignity. He is silent because some part of him knows I am right.”

I don’t think. My hand closes around the cold granite of the pestle Boone left behind.

Father’s eyes flick down at it in my grip. “Okee.”

I come over the counter before he can say another word. Not around it. Over.

“You come to our place of business, to our home, to announce your disapproval? Get your sanctimonious ass the hell out of here before I split your skull!”

He backs away quickly as I chase him out of the store. The bell above the door gives a frantic little cry as my father backs through it.

Late summer heat spills in. Dust. Street noise. The smell of horse manure and sun-baked wood.

He turns on the boardwalk. “You will regret this display,” he says, pointing his cane at me to keep me out of striking distance.

I step out after him, the pestle still in my hand. As he backs away off the boardwalk, he slips, falling on his back in the mud with a wet thud.

The sunlight strikes bright enough to make me squint. Outside, two men across the street at the livery look on.

Good. Let them see. Let them all see.

Then a voice cuts across the street.

“Okee?”

Lula stands at the edge of the boardwalk with a basket over one arm, bonnet ribbons loose beneath her chin, cheeks pink from the heat. A bundle of gathered herbs sticks out of the basket in wild green sprays. She takes in the scene at a glance: me with a pestle in my fist, Father in the mud.

She narrows her eyes at me. “I leave for one hour and you’re bludgeoning customers?” She rushes over.