2. Clara
— ? —
Clara
One week later, I stood in the barn arranging wildflowers in mason jars and watching the door like it might suddenly produce my husband if I stared hard enough.
It wouldn’t. I knew that. But I kept watching anyway.
The weekly barn dinner was one of my favorite traditions on the ranch.
Long wooden tables set up in the main barn, string lights hung from the rafters, every rancher and their family gathered together for a meal that was half celebration and half family reunion.
These were the people who had believed in Quin when he was just a broke kid with big dreams, working the same struggling ranch his father had left him.
A kind investor named Mr. Sutton saw his potential when Quin was twenty-three, and that seed money grew into an empire.
But Quin never forgot where he came from.
Or at least, he used to never forget.
“Clara, where do you want the rolls?”
I turned to find Perla standing behind me with a basket of fresh bread, her dark hair escaping from its braid the way it always did when she was cooking. Perla and her husband Agustin had been with the ranch longer than almost anyone, and she made the best dinner rolls this side of anywhere.
“By the main table,” I said, pasting on a smile. “Where’s Agustin?”
“Helping the new hands with the feed schedule. He’ll be along.” Perla set the basket down and then looked at me with too-knowing eyes. “Quin coming tonight?”
I kept my smile fixed in place. “He’s got some calls. You know how it is.”
“Mm-hmm.” Perla’s tone said she knew exactly how it was and didn’t much like it. “Second week in a row.”
“Third,” I corrected before I could stop myself. Then, because I hated the sympathy that flickered across her face, I added, “But he’s really busy with the headquarters stuff. Big merger coming up. It’ll calm down.”
Perla didn’t look convinced, but she patted my arm and went to help set up the dessert table. I watched her go and told myself it wasn’t a big deal. Quin missing a few dinners didn’t mean anything. He’d been at the rodeo. He’d left his phone behind. He’d told me he loved me like he meant it.
But that was a week ago. And since then…
The barn door creaked open and my heart jumped before I realized it was just Agustin, leading a group of ranchers in for the meal.
Kids raced past him, already arguing about who got to sit next to who.
The noise level jumped from peaceful to chaotic in about three seconds, and I forced myself to shake off my mood and get to work.
“Clara!” Tomás, one of the younger hands, caught my arm as I passed. “You and the boss put on quite a show at the festival. Jake Mercer still hasn’t stopped complaining.”
“That’s because Jake Mercer is a sore loser,” I said, and Tomás laughed.
“Truth. Hey, is the boss coming tonight? I wanted to ask him about those expansion plans.”
The boss. Everyone called Quin that, had called him that since before he could afford to actually pay anyone. It used to make him uncomfortable. Now he barely seemed to notice.
“Not tonight,” I said, keeping my voice light. “But I can pass along any questions.”
Tomás nodded, but I could see the disappointment in his eyes. These people weren’t just employees. They were family. And family should show up for dinner.
I made my way to the head of the table and sat down in my usual seat, the empty chair beside me practically glowing in the string lights.
I could feel people noticing it. Could feel the careful way they didn’t mention it.
And I hated that this had become normal.
I hated that I had started preparing excuses before anyone even asked.
“Is Daddy coming?”
Katie appeared at my elbow, her face smeared with something that looked like chocolate but probably wasn’t.
“Not tonight, baby girl. He has work calls.”
“But he said he was going to show me his medal.”
“He’ll show you later. I promise.”
Katie’s lower lip jutted out in a pout that was pure Quin. “He always has work calls.”
The words hit me like a slap, even though she didn’t mean them that way. She was four. She was just stating facts.
But God, it hurt that those were the facts.
“Come on,” I said, scooping her up. “Let’s go find Perla. I bet she has some of those cookies you like.”
The distraction worked, because she was four and cookies were basically currency. But as I watched her run off toward the dessert table, I couldn’t shake the hollow feeling in my chest.
Dinner was good. The food was excellent, because Perla’s food was always excellent, and the company was warm, because these people had known me since I was the skinny girl from the struggling ranch next door who used to sneak over to watch Quin ride.
I laughed at Agustin’s jokes about the new hands.
I complimented Perla’s dress. I listened to Tomás talk about his sister’s new baby and pretended the empty chair beside me didn’t exist.
But by the time everyone left and I’d helped clean up and put Katie to bed, the hollow feeling had grown into something that felt more like anger.
I found Quin in his home office, which was exactly where I knew I’d find him. He was hunched over his laptop, phone pressed to his ear, barely visible behind the stack of contracts and reports that seemed to multiply every time I walked past the door.
“No, the deal needs to close by Friday,” he was saying. “I don’t care what their lawyers think, we have the leverage. Just get it done.”
I leaned against the doorframe and waited.
He didn’t look up.
I waited longer.
Still nothing.
Finally, I cleared my throat.
Quin held up one finger in a “just a minute” gesture, still focused on his call. I felt something hot flare in my chest but I tamped it down. Getting angry wouldn’t help. I’d tried getting angry before, and it just bounced off him like water off a duck’s back.
“Right, fine, but I want a full report by morning. I need to know where we stand before the board meeting.” A pause. “Yes. Good. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He hung up and finally, finally, looked at me.
“Hey,” he said, like I hadn’t been standing there for five minutes. “How was dinner?”
“You would know if you’d been there.”
He had the grace to wince. “I know. I’m sorry. This thing is a nightmare and I couldn’t…”
“You couldn’t call? Send a text? Let me know you weren’t coming so I could stop making excuses for you?”
“Clara.” He rubbed his eyes, and I noticed for the first time how tired he looked. Lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there a year ago. A tension in his shoulders that never seemed to release. “I said I was sorry.”
“I know you did. You’ve been saying it a lot lately.”
Silence stretched between us. I could hear the clock ticking on his desk, the soft hum of his laptop, the sound of my own heart beating too fast.
“I need help,” I said finally.
Quin’s eyebrows rose. “What?”
“With the ranch. I can’t do everything myself, Quin. You’re never here to make decisions with me. I’m running the household and managing Katie and hosting events you don’t attend and trying to keep the ranch running and I just…” I took a breath. “I need help.”
He was quiet for a moment, processing. Then he nodded slowly. “Okay. What kind of help?”
“Someone to assist with the ranch management. Someone I can actually consult with about decisions instead of just making them all myself and hoping you’ll approve later.”
“I can ask around,” he said, and I felt a spark of hope. He was listening. He was actually listening. “Actually, I might know someone. Eva.”
“Eva?”
“Eva Gardner. Her father’s on the board at the headquarters. She’s young, just out of business school, but she’s sharp. She’s been looking for hands-on experience outside the corporate world.” He was already reaching for his phone, probably to send an email. “I can set up an interview this week.”
I wanted to say that I didn’t need some board member’s daughter, I needed my husband. But he was offering something, and I was too tired to push for more.
“Fine,” I said. “Set it up.”
“Great.” He smiled, but it was distracted, his eyes already drifting back to his laptop. “This will be good, Clara. Eva’s great. You’ll love her.”
I waited for him to say something else. To ask how I was really doing, or to apologize again, or to offer to come to bed with me.
He didn’t.
“I’m going to sleep,” I said.
“Mm-hmm. I’ll be up soon. Just need to finish a few things.”
I walked to our bedroom on autopilot, changing into pajamas and going through my skincare routine without really seeing any of it.
Our bed was huge. California king, because Quin liked to sprawl.
It had seemed romantic when we first bought it, all that space to spread out and then inevitably end up tangled together in the middle.
Now it just felt empty.
I climbed under the covers and lay there in the dark, listening to the old house settle around me. Listening for the sound of Quin’s footsteps in the hall.
They didn’t come.
Hours later, or maybe just minutes that felt like hours, I heard the bedroom door open. The mattress dipped as Quin climbed in beside me. He was trying to be quiet, probably thinking I was asleep.
I kept my eyes closed. Kept my breathing even.
I felt him settle into his pillow. Felt the familiar warmth of him just inches away.
Then, almost like an afterthought, his hand found mine under the covers. His fingers curled around mine automatically, the way they always did, the way they had since our very first night sharing a bed.
I don’t think he was even fully awake anymore. His breathing was already evening out, his grip loosening as sleep pulled him under.
I lay there holding his hand in the dark, feeling the weight of it, the warmth of it, and wondered if this was all we had left. These unconscious gestures. These automatic reaches in the night. A body remembering what a mind had forgotten how to do.
I wondered if love could survive on muscle memory alone.