21. Rafael
— ? —
Rafael
The tension was going to kill me.
Three days since the stable. Three days since Bree had climbed onto me in the hay and taken what she wanted and walked away without looking back.
Three days of working side by side, pretending nothing had changed, while every accidental brush of her hand against mine landed low in my gut and stayed there.
She wasn’t pretending as well as she thought she was.
I caught her looking. At the fence line when I was hauling posts. In the barn when I was mucking stalls. At dinner when Rosie was chattering and Bree thought I wasn’t paying attention.
Her eyes would linger on my shoulders, my hands, my mouth. And then she’d catch herself and look away, and the flush that crept up her neck told me everything her words wouldn’t.
She wanted me.
She hated that she wanted me.
I understood the feeling.
But wanting wasn’t enough. Wanting was what had gotten us into trouble the first time, the chemistry without the communication, the heat without the honesty. If I was going to earn her back, really earn her, I needed to prove I could be trusted with more than her body.
I needed to prove I could be trusted with her life.
So I kept a notebook.
It had started as a practical tool, a way to track the farm operations and the animals and the thousand small details that made this place run. But it had evolved into a record that looked a lot more personal.
Page one: the barn radio. Bessie milked better with music, some low country station Bree left it tuned to, and she was always forgetting to switch it on before the morning milking.
I’d started doing it for her. I’d gotten it wrong the first three times - wrong station, too loud, switched on too late.
Now I had it right, playing soft by the time she led Bessie in, without comment.
She never thanked me.
She never told me to stop.
Page seven: Rosie’s booster seat. I’d read the manual twice before installing it in my rental car, the one I’d finally acquired after Dot’s sister took pity on me and drove me to the dealership three towns over.
Every strap was positioned correctly. Every buckle was tested.
Bree had inspected it silently, found nothing to criticize, and said only, “Good.”
That one word had sustained me for days.
Page twelve: The school fundraiser spreadsheet.
I’d found it on Bree’s kitchen counter, a mess of numbers and categories that didn’t quite add up.
I’d fixed it quietly, reorganized the data, identified the calculation errors, left it where I’d found it without saying anything.
The next morning, Bree had looked at it, looked at me, and said nothing.
But she’d used my version for the committee meeting.
Page twenty-three: The parenting book. I’d bought it at the general store, the only one they had in stock, some paperback about raising emotionally intelligent children.
I’d annotated it in the margins, highlighting relevant sections, adding questions I wanted to research further, treating it with the rigor I’d once reserved for merger paperwork.
Rosie deserved a father who’d done the reading.
Now I was sitting at Dot’s counter, nursing my second cup of coffee, reviewing my notes on the upcoming hay delivery while Butterbean screamed at me through the window.
The pig had reached a new level of devotion. He’d started following me into town, trotting behind me through the streets of Marigold, announcing my presence to everyone within a half-mile radius. The townspeople found this hilarious. I found it oddly touching.
“That pig’s in love with you,” one of the regulars had said yesterday.
“The feeling is mutual,” I’d replied.
“Refill?”
I looked up. Dot was standing over me with the coffee pot, her expression unreadable.
“Please.”
She poured. Set the pot down. Didn’t walk away.
“You seem like you’re trying,” she said.
I waited.
“The way you are with the kid. The car seat. The way you look at her when you think nobody’s watching.” Dot leaned on the counter. “The whole town’s been watching, you know. Since you got here. Taking bets on how long you’d last.”
“How’s the betting going?”
“Most people gave you a week. You’re coming up on a month.”
“Do I get a prize?”
“You get a warning.” Her voice dropped, losing its casual edge. “You hurt her again, this whole county owns shovels. You understand what I’m telling you?”
“I understand.”
“Good.” She straightened, the lightness returning. “More coffee?”
“I’m good. Thank you.”
She walked away.
I sat there for a moment, processing the interaction. The town had accepted me, or at least accepted that I was trying. That felt important. That felt earned.
My phone rang.
The number on the screen made my stomach drop. The company’s main line, the one that went through the executive office and only rang when the building was on fire.
I answered.
“Mr. Grant.” The voice belonged to my assistant, Katherine, who’d worked for the company longer than I’d been alive. “I’m patching you through. It’s New York. They say it can’t wait. Please hold.”
“Wait, what-”
Music. Hold music. The kind that played during conference calls while everyone pretended to be important.
Then voices. Multiple voices, speaking over each other with the controlled urgency of people who had news they couldn’t wait to deliver.
“Rafael, finally.” That was Davidson, who had worked at my father’s side since before I was born. “We’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Busy?” Someone else now, someone I didn’t immediately recognize. “Rafael, Zurich is live.”
The word landed hard.
Zurich.
The deal my father had chased for thirty years and never quite caught, the one that had kept him at the office through every birthday and every Christmas of my childhood, the thing he’d wanted, my whole life, more than he’d ever seemed to want me.
It had collapsed four years ago, the same month my marriage did, and I’d assumed it was buried with everything else from that year.
“What do you mean, live?”
“It’s finally happening. After thirty years, they’re ready.” Davidson’s voice was tight with excitement. “But there’s a window. They want an answer by Monday, or they walk and it’s gone for good.”
Monday. Three days away.
“We need you here,” Davidson continued. “In person. Nobody else can carry it over the line, Rafael. It has to be you. It was always going to be you.”
I looked out the window. Butterbean was still there, snout pressed against the glass, eyes fixed on me with unwavering devotion.
“Think of what this would mean,” someone else was saying. “Think of your father’s face, Rafael. This was his whole life-”
“Rafael.” A new voice cut through the chatter. Familiar. Warm. “Rafael, darling, can you hear me?”
My mother.
“Mom?”
“I’m here with the board. We all agree this is too important to miss. Your father worked his whole career to make this happen. It would mean so much to him to see you finish what he started.”
My father had worked his whole career on a lot of things. He’d also spent most of that career absent from my childhood, chasing deals instead of coming to a single one of my games, sealing a deal in another time zone instead of sitting with me over my homework.
I’d sworn I wouldn’t repeat his mistakes.
“Mom, I can’t-”
“I know you’re taking some personal time. I respect that. But this is Zurich, Rafael. This is everything.”
Everything.
I looked around Dot’s diner, at the faded booths and the hand-painted sign and the coffee pot that had probably been brewing since 1987, at the regulars eating their eggs and reading their papers.
Outside, Butterbean scratched at the window.
“No,” I said.
Silence on the line.
“I’m sorry?”
“No. I’m not coming.”
The line went silent. A year ago I’d have been on a plane before they finished the sentence, briefcase already packed by an assistant who knew my habits better than I did.
“Rafael-”
“Send someone else. Send anyone. I don’t care who signs it. But I’m not leaving.”
“You can’t be serious.” Davidson’s voice was strangled. “This is the biggest thing this family will ever do. You’re going to throw it away for - what? Some farm? Some woman?”
“My daughter,” I said quietly. “And yes. I’m going to stay with my daughter.”
More silence.
“We’ll talk about this later, you and I,” my mother said finally. Her voice was careful, controlled. “Take some time to think it over. The offer stands until Monday morning.”
“My answer won’t change.”
“Rafael-”
I hung up.
For a long moment I sat there, staring at the phone in my hand. Zurich. The thing my father had spent his whole life reaching for. The prize I’d been raised, from the crib, to want.
I’d just thrown it away without a second thought.
And I didn’t feel anything except relief.
Dot appeared at my elbow.
“Bad news?”
“No.” I tucked the phone in my pocket. “Good news, actually. I’ll take one more refill.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon fixing the chicken coop. The work was mindless and necessary, replacing rotted boards, reinforcing the structure, making it stronger than it needed to be because Rosie loved those chickens and I wanted them safe.
The sun was warm on my back. The hammer felt good in my hand. Each nail driven home was a small victory, a small proof that I could build what mattered.
My phone buzzed.
I pulled it out, expecting Katherine with another urgent message. But the name on the screen wasn’t Katherine.
It was Camille.
I stared at it.
I’d been calling her since the night Bree had told me about the photos. Every day, multiple times, demanding answers, demanding explanations, demanding to know what the hell she’d done and why she’d done it.
She’d declined every call.
And now, suddenly, she was calling me.
The phone kept buzzing. I watched it vibrate in my palm, watched her name flash on the screen, felt the familiar tension coil in my gut.
I could answer, demand the truth right now, alone in this chicken coop with no witnesses and no complications.
Or I could wait.
I could wait until I was with Bree. Until she could hear whatever Camille had to say for herself. Until there were no more secrets between us, no more questions, no more shadows from a past that should never have happened.
I declined the call.
The screen went dark.
Behind me, Butterbean squealed triumphantly, having finally succeeded in catching the chicken he’d been chasing for the past hour.
I went back to fixing the coop.