16. Callie
CALLIE
The ranch house sat alone on the ridge, windows lit.
I parked in the gravel circle out front and cut the engine.
My left hand rested on the wheel. The white line where my wedding ring used to be stood out against the tan.
I'd worn that ring for ten years without taking it off once.
Through the orphan calves I'd fed on winter nights and the sick goats I'd pulled through pneumonia.
Now my finger was bare.
I got out of the truck and the cold hit me.
Nights on the ranch were sharp enough to sting.
I pulled my jacket tighter and walked toward the house.
My boots crunched on the gravel. The engine ticked behind me as it cooled.
I kept my eyes on the porch light and my hands shoved deep in my jacket pockets.
Wade came out before I reached the porch. He stopped at the top step, hands in his pockets, expression cautious. The porch light threw shadows under his eyes, and his shoulders were tight in a way that told me he'd been waiting.
"Callie," he said.
I stopped at the bottom of the steps. "Wade."
He shifted his weight, uncomfortable in a way I rarely saw. His hands came out of his pockets, then went back in. "I have your wedding ring with me," he said. "It's in my pocket."
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
He waited, probably expecting me to say something. I didn't. The porch boards creaked under his boots. After a moment he stepped aside and gestured toward the door.
I climbed the steps and walked past him into the house.
His hand brushed my elbow as I passed. The touch was brief, and I didn't let myself react to it.
But my skin remembered anyway. Heat bloomed where his fingers had been, spreading up my arm like I was some ridiculous schoolgirl instead of a grown woman whose marriage was falling apart.
The front hall of the main house smelled like coffee and wood smoke. Normal. Safe. I walked into the living room and stopped.
Marlene sat on the couch with Travis standing beside her, one hand on the back of the sofa. They both looked at me. Marlene's mouth thinned into that expression she always wore when I walked into a room. Travis folded his arms across his chest.
"Callie," Marlene said. Her voice was polite, clipped, with that false sweetness she used when other people were listening. "We didn't expect you tonight."
I swallowed. "I didn't plan on it."
Wade came in behind me. His presence was solid at my back, too close, the heat of him making my pulse kick up even though I didn't want it to. God, I hated that my body still responded to him like that.
Travis cleared his throat. "You look like hell, Callie."
"Thanks," I said.
Marlene gave me a look that could freeze water. "Maybe if you didn't spend all your time at that rescue instead of taking care of your husband?—"
"The rescue has nothing to do with this," I said.
"Then what does?" Wade asked behind me. His voice was calm. Reasonable. It made me want to scream.
I turned to face him.
And that's when I smelled it.
Perfume.
Not mine. Floral and sweet, with something underneath that reminded me of vanilla and jasmine. It was faint but unmistakable. The same scent that had clung to the air at the rescue when Shelby walked in.
My stomach dropped.
The perfume was everywhere. In the living room air. On the couch where Marlene sat. Probably across the gravel in our own house too, in places I didn't want to imagine.
I looked at Wade. He was watching me, waiting for an answer to a question I'd already forgotten. The perfume hung between us like smoke.
"Was Shelby here?" I asked. My voice came out steadier than I felt.
Wade's jaw tightened. He didn't look away. "Yeah."
One word. Just one. But it landed like a blow.
I waited for him to say more. To explain. To tell me it wasn't what I thought. He didn't.
"Was she over at our house?" I asked.
He frowned. "What?"
"In our bedroom, Wade." My voice shook. "Was Shelby Bradshaw in our bedroom?"
Behind me, Marlene made a small sound. Travis shifted his weight, boots scuffing against the hardwood.
Wade didn't look at them. He kept his eyes on mine. Steady. Honest. "Yes."
The word hung there.
My chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped a band around my ribs and pulled. I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears. I pressed my fingers flat against my thigh to keep them still.
Say something else. The thought was desperate, insistent.
He didn't.
"How long?" I asked.
"Callie—"
"How long was she in our bedroom?"
His expression shifted. Not guilt, exactly. More like frustration. "I don't know. Ten minutes? What does it matter?"
What does it matter.
I almost laughed. The sound caught in my throat and died there.
Our bedroom. The room where I'd slept beside him for ten years.
And Shelby had been in it, and Wade said it like it was nothing.
Wade's hands came up, palms out. That gesture he used to calm spooked horses. "Callie."
I didn't answer.
He stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell him—leather and soap and something that was just Wade. "Callie, what the hell is going on? You take off your ring, you disappear for days, you show up here asking me about Shelby?—"
"I'm asking because she was in our bedroom," I said. My voice shook. "I'm asking because I can smell her perfume all over this house. I'm asking because she told me?—"
I stopped. Clamped my mouth shut.
Don't. Don't say it. Give him a chance to tell you first.
Wade stared at me. "She told you what?"
I shook my head.
"Callie." He reached for my hand. His fingers were warm, callused. "Whatever she said, you can't believe?—"
I pulled back. "Don't."
"This is ridiculous," Marlene said from the couch.
Her voice was sharp, cutting through the room like glass.
"Callie, you're acting like a jealous child.
Shelby was here on business. Wade has been helping her father with the expansion for months now.
You know that. There's nothing inappropriate about it. "
I turned to look at her. "In their bedroom? What business takes place in a married couple's bedroom?"
Marlene's face flushed. "Don't be vulgar."
"I'm not being vulgar," I said. "I'm asking a question."
Travis stepped forward, positioning himself beside his mother like they were a united front. "Jesus, Callie. You really think Wade would—" He stopped, shook his head. "You've lost it. You know that? Completely lost it."
"Travis," Wade said. His voice was low, warning.
But Travis ignored him. "She's been nothing but trouble since the beginning. Dad said it ten years ago. I said it too. You should've married Shelby when you had the chance. She understands this life. She wouldn't throw a fit every time something didn't go exactly her way."
The words stung.
Wade's hand landed on my shoulder. "That's enough."
But he wasn't looking at Travis. He was looking at me. And his hand on my shoulder felt like an afterthought, something he did because he was supposed to, not because he meant it.
"Everybody take a breath," Wade said. His voice was still calm. Still reasonable. "Let's slow this down."
Nobody moved. Travis kept his arms folded, watching me like something that had wandered in off the road, and Marlene's mouth stayed thin.
"It's a room, Callie. That's all it is. Four walls and a bed and some furniture."
That's all it is.
I looked at him. At the man I'd married ten years ago. The man who had just told me our bedroom was just a room.
"You don't get it," I said. My voice was quiet now. Flat. "You really don't get it."
"Then help me understand," he said. "Tell me what she said to you. Tell me what's really going on here."
But I couldn't. I pressed my lips together and kept Shelby's words where they were.
And if I didn't tell him, if I just waited, then maybe he'd deny it on his own. Maybe he'd look at me and see what I needed without me having to beg for it.
He didn't.
"Callie," Marlene said. She stood up, smoothing her skirt. "You need to calm down. You're being hysterical."
Something in me snapped.
"I'm not hysterical," I said. Each word came out hard and separate. "I'm done."
Wade's hand tightened on my shoulder. "Done with what?"
I looked at him. At his face. At the confusion there, the frustration. He wanted to fix this. He wanted to logic his way through it, to find the reasonable explanation that would make everything okay again.
But there wasn't one.
"I want a divorce," I said.
The room went silent.
Marlene sucked in a breath. Travis swore under his breath. Wade's hand fell away from my shoulder.
"What?" Wade's voice was barely above a whisper.
"You heard me."
He stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the door. His face had gone pale. "Callie, you don't mean that."
"I do."
"No." He shook his head. "No, you're upset. You're not thinking straight. We can work this out. Whatever's going on, we can sit down and talk about it like adults. We can?—"
"We can't." My eyes stung. I blinked hard, refusing to let the tears fall. Not here. Not in front of them.
"Callie." He reached for me again.
I stepped back. "Don't touch me."
His hand dropped.
For a long moment we just stood there, staring at each other. I could see the exact second he realized I meant it. The exact second the confusion in his eyes shifted to something else. Fear, maybe. Or loss.
Too late.
I turned and walked toward the door.
"Callie, wait?—"
I didn't wait. I walked out of the living room, through the front hall, out the door and down the porch steps. My truck sat in the gravel circle where I'd left it. I got in, started the engine, and drove.
Wade didn't follow me.
I made it to the end of the ranch's long driveway before the tears came. The road stretched out in front of me, dark and empty. No headlights behind me. No one coming after me.
I was alone.
I pulled over onto the shoulder and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. My bare finger caught the light from the dashboard. The white line where my ring used to be looked like a scar.
The sobs came hard and fast, ripping through me like something with claws. I pressed my forehead to the wheel and let them come. Let it all come. The anger and the hurt.
I cried until my throat was raw and my chest hurt and there was nothing left inside me but emptiness. Then I sat there in the silence, staring at the road ahead. I counted my breaths until they slowed. I unpeeled my hands from the wheel one finger at a time and flexed them in my lap.
I'd asked him for a divorce.
God, I'd actually said the words.
And he'd let me walk away. He'd stood there in his family's living room with his mother and his brother and he'd let me leave.
I wiped my face with shaking hands and put the truck back in gear. I didn't know where I was going. Not back to the ranch. Not to the rescue where Shelby's perfume still probably lingered. Not to Jolene's house where I'd have to explain everything I couldn't bear to say out loud.
So I just drove.
The road unwound in front of me, mile after mile of nothing. And I followed it, alone in the dark, with my bare finger on the wheel and my marriage in pieces behind me.