Chapter 7 Soft
Soft
I stay hidden, breath held, my back pressed against the shelves of the pantry.
A coward, that’s what I am. Chicken shit for not walking out there and facing her.
But right now, my heart’s thundering too loud for courage.
I’ve dreamt of this moment, prayed for it until my voice went raw, but a small, cynical part of me never truly believed I’d see her again.
Not like this. Not standing just feet away.
I should have rehearsed what I’d say if this ever happened.
I should have something. But my mind is blank, and the ache in my soul is overwhelming.
“Did you know him? Marcel?” Grace asks Eli, her voice gentle, laced with curiosity.
A warm grin spreads across Eli’s weathered face. “Yes, I did. A good man. You couldn’t find a better hand or a kinder heart.”
His words land heavy in the silence, heavier still in my chest. Men don’t usually speak that way about other men. But what he just said to her wraps around my soul.
“When did he pass?” Grace asks, her voice barely above a whisper now.
Eli glances at the table, a shadow flickering in his eyes. “Years ago. He died doing what he loved, out on the pastures.”
“You said he was a good man?”
“One of the best I’ve ever known,” he answers without hesitation.
And then I see Clara move. She shifts, detaching herself from the wall she’s clung to like it’s her anchor. Her movements are cautious, hesitant, like a deer stepping out into the open. She starts toward the table.
Eli turns his eyes toward her, and she stops, frozen.
But he smiles, soft and welcoming, and gives her a small nod.
The tension in her shoulders loosens, and slowly, with the grace I remember so vividly, she moves to the table.
She slides into a chair at the far end, not taking her eyes off Eli, guarding herself from whatever this moment might become.
She wears a red dress that clings to her like memory itself, tender and unrelenting.
Her blonde hair falls in loose waves down her back, catching the light in a soft shimmer that makes her seem both familiar and new.
She carries the weight of years I was never given, and I can’t stop wondering what those years held for her.
What joys, what sorrows, what pieces of her life I was never part of.
I want to go to her. To wrap my arms around her and feel the reality of her against me. I want to know if she still smells like wildflowers. I want her to see me. I want to ask if she followed Grace here because of hope or just because of familiarity.
The air grows warmer. My skin tingles, not from heat, but from the courage blooming slowly in my bones.
I’ve missed her with a hunger that years couldn’t starve out.
I fell for her—so fast, so hard—in those few stolen weeks.
Even knowing she belonged to someone else, my foolish heart fell for her.
I carved out a place inside myself just for her, and it’s stayed lit all this time.
Then I see her hands as they rest lightly on the table.
No ring.
That bare finger hits me like a bolt from the blue—unexpected, electric, alive. It’s the sign I didn’t know I needed.
I push the pantry door open, just enough to slip through. I step into the kitchen, every nerve in my body crackling with fear, with longing. My feet move without thinking until I’m standing in the middle of the room.
Then I look up.
Straight into Clara’s eyes.
Time crashes to a halt. Her hands clench the table, her chest rising in sharp stutters, and tears well up—shimmering, ready to fall. God, I want to run to her. I want to hold her, wipe those tears away with my thumb, and never let her go again.
Eli sees it. He follows her gaze, then finds me standing there, silent, exposed.
“Grace,” Eli says smoothly, breaking the charged stillness. “I’m going to put on another pot of coffee. I hope you’ll stay.”
Just as the moment tightens, the sound of the back doorknob turning slices through the tension. Isaac steps inside, pausing when he notices the atmosphere. Grace turns her head, her breath halting mid-inhale.
“Oh, um, I would like that, Eli.” Grace’s voice stumbles over the words, eyes never leaving Isaac.
Isaac removes his hat and his eyes scan the room until they land on Grace. He stops. That look—I've seen it before. It’s the same look I’m sure I had the first time I saw Clara. Like he’s just caught a glimpse of something holy.
“I’m sorry, Eli. I didn’t know you had a guest.”
Eli chuckles, a knowing glint in his eyes. “Isaac, this is Grace Winthrop. Grace, meet Isaac Myers—my second in command here on the ranch.”
Grace’s voice trembles. “Hello, Isaac.”
“Hello, Grace.”
Their exchange is simple yet sweet, but I don’t watch them. My eyes are only for Clara. She’s watching Grace, smiling. That smile—it’s sunlight breaking through storm clouds. Her eyes are bright and alive, and just like that, the ache in my chest deepens.
I stand rooted in the galley of the kitchen, staring at Clara across the room. Her eyes return to me, and I can’t fight the pull I feel toward her. She always had that power over me. I would follow her like a happy puppy to the ends of the earth.
Isaac finally moves my way, grabbing a mug from the cabinet and filling it from the pot. He walks back to the table.
“Mind if I join you for a cup of coffee? I’ll just be here for a minute.”
Grace shifts in her seat as Eli motions to a chair. “Go right ahead. Grace is here to find out about the ranch and a hand that worked here.”
“Are you from out of town? I don’t remember seeing you around.”
“I’m from Cheyenne. My grandmother knew the hand, and I came here to see if there was anything I could learn about him.” Grace answers lightly.
I step out from my post in the kitchen, courage stirring in my chest like a restless tide.
Each step toward the table feels impossible, Clara’s gaze following me the whole way.
I lower myself into the chair beside Eli, close enough to feel the steadiness of her presence.
Her hands slip to her lap, fingers curling tightly, and her eyes press shut as though holding back a flood.
I know she feels it all—the pull, the ache, the impossible tangle of memory—just as fiercely as I do.
Silence drapes itself over us. This ragtag mix of souls gathered in an unknowing room. Two who might be standing at the threshold of something new, two bound by a past that sits heavy, and poor Eli caught right in the middle of it all.
He sighs, “So, Grace, how old was your grandmother when she passed?”
Grace’s features falter, her voice softening.
“She was forty-two. She died of stomach cancer when my dad was eighteen. I never got to meet her. That’s why when I found her diary and the other things she left behind, I couldn’t help but dive in.
It was the only way I could try to catch a glimpse of her life, of who she really was. ”
The words strike like a blow. My head snaps toward Clara, and the thought of her suffering coils through me like barbed wire. The idea of her in pain, her body failing, her light dimming—it makes my insides twist violently. Beside me, her tears fall faster, silent rivers she doesn’t try to hide.
“Reading her diary felt like stepping into her world,” Grace continues, her voice catching.
“For a little while, it was like I finally knew her. Then, when I found the envelope addressed to this ranch, I was curious. It was still sealed, the ranch’s address crossed out and her’s in it’s place. Returned.”
“Did you read it?” Eli asks gently.
Grace nods, clutching her hands together. “I did. And it broke my heart. I think she really loved Marcel.”