5. Clara
— ? —
Clara
Quin’s investigation into Eva lasted exactly one conversation.
I know because I watched it happen from the kitchen window, pretending to wash dishes that were already clean.
They walked the property together for about twenty minutes.
Eva gestured at various buildings and fences, her tablet tucked under her arm, her blonde ponytail swinging with each emphatic point she made.
Quin nodded along, his hands in his pockets, occasionally asking questions that made Eva smile and lean in closer to answer.
At one point, she touched his arm. Just briefly, just to emphasize whatever she was saying. And Quin didn’t move away.
He used to move away from other women who touched him. He used to angle his body toward me even when we were across a crowded room, like I was a magnet and he was helpless to resist. Now he stood there with Eva’s manicured fingers on his forearm.
I turned away from the window and dried my hands on a towel.
This became the pattern over the following weeks.
Quin was suddenly invested in the ranch again, more present than he’d been in months.
But all his presence, all his attention, all his enthusiasm flowed through Eva.
They had planning meetings I wasn’t invited to.
They discussed expansion projects I learned about secondhand.
The worst part was that I couldn’t even hate Eva properly. She was never openly rude. She never raised her voice or said anything overtly unkind. She just… maneuvered.
Some mornings I stood in the kitchen after Katie was off to daycare and tried to remember the last time Quin had sat at this table with us for a meal. The last time we’d had a conversation that wasn’t about schedules or logistics or Eva’s latest brilliant idea.
The rodeo felt like a lifetime ago.
***
I was in the horse barn that afternoon, brushing down Cinnamon, when I heard the commotion.
Shouting. Running footsteps. Agustin’s voice, raised in alarm in a way I’d never heard before.
“Clara! Clara, come quick!”
I dropped the brush and ran.
Agustin met me halfway across the yard, his face pale beneath his weathered tan. “It’s the boss. His horse spooked in the east pasture. Threw him hard.”
My heart stopped for one terrible second that stretched into eternity.
“Where is he?”
“Medical shed. Martinez is with him. It looks bad, Clara. There’s blood.”
I ran faster than I’d ever run in my life. The medical shed was a small building near the main barn, equipped for basic first aid and emergencies until a real doctor could arrive. By the time I burst through the door, I was gasping for breath and shaking so hard I could barely stand.
Quin was on the exam table, a gash on his forehead leaking blood down the side of his face. Martinez, our resident first-aid expert, was pressing gauze to the wound while Quin tried to wave him off.
“I’m fine,” Quin was saying. “It looks worse than it is.”
“You need stitches,” Martinez said firmly. “Maybe a CT scan. You hit your head pretty hard.”
“I’m not going to the hospital for a bump on the head. Just stitch it up here.”
“Quin.” My voice came out strangled. I crossed the room in three steps and grabbed his hand, needing to touch him, needing to feel that he was real and alive and here. “What happened?”
“Horse got spooked by a snake. Rookie mistake. I should have been paying more attention.”
“You should have been wearing a helmet.”
“Noted.” He tried to smile, but it turned into a wince as Martinez pressed harder on the wound. “I’m okay, Clara. Really.”
I wanted to climb onto that exam table and hold him until my heart stopped racing and my hands stopped shaking.
But before I could do anything, the door opened behind me.
“Oh my God, Quin!”
Eva rushed in, her cream slacks exchanged for designer jeans, her hair windswept like she’d been running too. She stopped at the other side of the exam table and her hand found his shoulder, squeezing.
“I came as soon as I heard. Are you okay? What can I do?”
I stared at her. Then I stared at Quin. Then I asked the question that was burning a hole in my chest.
“How did you know he was here?”
Eva looked at me with those wide, innocent eyes. “Quin called me. He said he fell and needed the medic here right away.”
The words immediately hit me.
Quin called her.
His horse threw him. He was bleeding from a head wound. And he called Eva.
I looked at Quin, searching his face for an explanation, for an apology, for anything that would make this make sense. He met my eyes, and I saw the moment he realized what he’d done. The moment he understood how it looked.
“Clara, I…”
“Why?” My voice was barely a whisper. “Why would you call her instead of me?”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’d just hit my head, and she was the last person I’d been talking to, and…”
“And what? I was too far away? Too busy? What?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. You’ve been worrying a lot lately.”
The words hung in the air. Like I was something fragile that needed to be protected from unpleasant realities. Like I wasn’t his partner, his wife, the person who should be the first call he made in any emergency.
Eva was watching us with an expression of careful concern, her hand still on Quin’s shoulder. I wanted to slap it away. But Martinez was still there, and the blood was still flowing, and making a scene wouldn’t change anything.
“I need some air,” I said.
I walked out of the medical shed and stood in the yard, breathing hard, trying to hold myself together. The sun was warm on my face. The horses were whinnying in the distance. Everything looked exactly the same as it had an hour ago, when I’d still believed I had a place in my husband’s life.
Behind me, through the thin walls of the shed, I could hear Eva’s voice. Soothing. Asking Martinez what she could do to help. Telling Quin she’d handle the afternoon meetings, not to worry about a thing.
Taking care of him.
I don’t know how long I stood there. Long enough for the shaking in my hands to subside. Long enough to understand that something had broken in that little room, and it wasn’t Quin’s head.
Nobody came out to get me.