Nine months ago, when Jennifer Dutton walked into his coin shop, it was her poise and beauty that formed the backbone of his backstory for her. A woman as beautiful and elegant as her could be nothing but a woman of refinement and grace, and honesty. When she said her siblings hated her, he believed her. When she said she had no choice, he believed her. When she said she was doing what no one else had the courage to do, he believed her. When she said this should have been done two generations ago, he believed her.

And when she said he was the only person who could help her, he believed her.

Maggie never liked the coin shop. Now she liked it even less. “He’s probably polishing coins right now⏤useless⏤while I work my ass off to get the Medfords a roof over their heads.” After three devastating house fires in just the last month, their small town had barely any resources left to offer. It would take the entire afternoon, at a minimum, to sort out the next steps for this newly homeless family of six.

“Why don’t you just retire like everyone else your age?” Every time she asked him this question, it was an aching reminder that she didn’t know him at all. She thought coin collecting was his hobby, but it was storytelling that fueled his life⏤and just because his stories never left the privacy of his own imagination didn’t make them any less valuable. How and why did every person and every coin end up in his shop? In his mind, there was always more to the story.

As soon as he walked through the door, Maggie was on him. “There’s been another fire. You never should have bought those coins!” She had always been very particular about these things. When her brother proposed to his girlfriend with an antique ring, she declared it a high-risk decision. Why risk sealing a marriage with a ring you knew nothing about? She felt exactly the same way about the Dutton coin collection.

“I told you they would bring us nothing but trouble, and I was right.” Harry let Maggie’s words slide in one ear and depart, without acknowledgment, out the other. His sole focus was on how to erase any trace of his involvement in this grisly situation.

Copyright 2023 Kesel Wilson (entirely, 100% human-created)

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