Chapter 13 #2
Claire stood near her car, keys in her hand, talking on her phone. She’d turned away from the building, her free hand moving in a slow arc as she spoke. She wore a gray coat he hadn’t seen before, her hair loose and falling around her shoulders.
She’d been at the prayer meeting.
He hadn’t seen her. Not that he’d really looked for her, but lately he seemed to find her even without trying. She must have sat on the side of the room he’d positioned himself not to face.
He had not done that on purpose.
Well. Maybe he had. He had noticed that she preferred that corner of the sanctuary, except for the time when a few of the older women had all but dragged her down to sit behind him and his family.
Okay, so he’d absolutely sat with his back to the corner on purpose.
Self-preservation. That was all.
He pushed through the door and into the cool night air.
Claire turned at the sound. Her phone came down from her ear. She said something into it quickly and quietly and pocketed it. They stood ten feet apart in the parking lot with the church light behind him, her car behind her, and approximately a thousand unsaid things occupying the space between.
“I didn’t see you inside.” His voice came out steady, which was either a skill or a problem.
“Back corner.” She tucked her keys into her coat pocket. “I got there late. Granny Mama needed help with her medications before I left.”
“She doing okay?”
“Better.” Her chin lifted as she eased her hands into her coat pockets.
“Her doctor is happy with her numbers, and she’s been doing her exercises.
” A pause that might have lasted into infinity when a tiny smile crept out.
“She’s stubborn about it. Does them exactly as instructed, not one repetition more or less. ”
“Sounds familiar.”
Her gaze dropped to the pavement, the smile going with it before she lifted her head. “How’s the calf?”
“Integrated with the herd last week and doing really well.” Like her, he stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. “You’d never know he started out rejected.”
“That’s good.” She nodded. The night air carried the soft smell of rain that hadn’t fallen yet. Weather was building in the distance, bringing a hopeful beat.
He’d never been truly awkward around women. It wasn’t like they scared him.
Claire was different. Part of him wanted to impress her.
The other part warned him to keep this foolishness hidden away and let her go.
Which was easier?
His spine itched and prickled like the time he’d gotten a burr stuck in his shirt. He and Claire had never been awkward. They’d been tense, sometimes combative, but always careful, with the odd dose of vulnerability thrown in.
But never this kind of scuff-your-toe-in-the-ground awkward.
He racked his brain for something to say that would keep her here a little longer.
Nothing came to mind. He knew how to talk ranching. Horses and cattle.
Claire knew those things too, but it felt too much like business, and he’d had enough of that for a while.
He needed to talk to her as a person…as a woman who attracted him and made him do crazy things like admit feelings.
“I’ve been looking at some options.” Claire gathered up her hair as a brisk breeze sent the ends flying into her face. “Office spaces, mostly. Just getting a sense of the market.”
“Billings?” Somehow, he managed to make it sound like a curse word without even trying.
“A few places.” She pressed her lips together and nodded. “There’s a firm on the south side that reached out last month. They have a client list that would be interesting. Regional agricultural focus.” She paused. “The commute from Covenant Creek would be impractical.”
It hurt to nod. He did it anyway. His jaw worked once, and when he forced his lungs to work, the air burned going in. “That makes sense. Billings has more infrastructure for your kind of practice.”
“It does.”
The church door opened behind him. Two more families spilled out into the night. “Goodnight, you two.” The blended voices made it difficult to tell who spoke, but they all waved.
Claire returned the gesture, her whole face lighting up as she waved. It took Luke too long, and by the time his hand left his pocket, they were climbing into their vehicles.
Once they were alone, she returned to holding her arms close to her sides, her posture tense and almost anxious.
He had two choices.
He could say the hard thing. He could lay down the control and the fear and the carefully maintained distance and tell her what he’d known since Sunday dinner. The feel of her hand in his rushed through him with a blistering force. He could ask her, plainly and without strategy, to stay.
Or he could nod and say goodnight and get in his truck and drive home with his pride intact and his heart hollowed out.
“Well.” She extracted her keys and jingled them. “It was good to see you.”
“Yeah.” He drove his knuckles into the very bottom of his pockets, pushing until it threatened to rip the pockets off. “You too.”
She clicked the button on the fob to unlock her car.
The headlights flashed once in the dark, a single moment that highlighted her and sent her shadow stretching to join his.
She moved toward the driver’s side. He stood with his boots planted on the asphalt and every word he wanted to say arranged in a logjam behind his sternum.
“Claire.”
She turned.
He had nothing else. No plan, no careful framing. Just her face in the parking lot light, eyes patient and a little sad. Did she want him to say it?
“Drive safe.” His voice scraped out. “The roads get slick this time of night, and it looks like it’s about to rain.”
Her expression shifted. Not much, but enough that the ache in his heart took another beating.
Her chin dropped a fraction. Then she nodded. “Goodnight, Luke.”
Concrete boots would be easier to move than his own feet. They held him there, stone-solid, until her taillights disappeared.
Then finally managed to climb into his truck but didn’t have the energy to leave, so he sat in the empty lot with both hands on the wheel and sorrow building in his chest that had nowhere to go.
Drive safe.
He’d spent three weeks developing the courage to say something real and he spouted a weather advisory. Good grief.
Luke started the engine and pulled out of the lot. The truck’s headlights swept across the empty road, and he drove with the window down despite the cold because he needed the air to dislodge the pressure behind his ribs.
He’d been about to tell her to stay. No. Not tell her. He’d been about to beg her. It built in his heart a wave that almost drowned him, and then his need for control kicked in, rerouting the words before they reached air. It kept him safe. And alone.
His grandfather would have been disgusted.
The thought hit with almost the same force as his own regret. He didn’t try to soften it.
Claire scared him.
She showed him what could be possible if he’d open up, but fear of her rejection ensured his silence. What if he asked her to stay, and she chose Billings anyway?
If she chose Billings before he asked, that was her decision about her life and her career and her future.
But if he asked and she still chose Billings, that was a verdict. About him. About what this thing between them was worth against the weight of everything she’d built before she came back here. About whether the man he was becoming was enough to make someone rearrange her entire life.
Who in their right mind would upend their life like that? If the roles were reversed, wouldn’t he be tearing out of town at the first opportunity?
Every breath caught in the wind whipping in through the open window. He’d never known a broken heart made noise, but his did with every thump of protest.
The one place he’d learned to release control, the one area where he’d genuinely practiced trusting God with results, had never included his own heart.
He’d opened his hands around the ranch, the community relationships, the vendor partnerships, and the guest ranch expansion.
Add in his brothers’ opinions and his father’s health and the slow work of rebuilding what he’d damaged, and he’d done quite a lot of growing since the day he walked into his office and found Claire sitting there.
But not enough. Not anywhere near enough.
The ranch house came up on the right, lit against the dark. Luke pulled in, cut the engine, and sat.
His head dropped back against the headrest.
The problem with loving someone stubborn was that he couldn’t reason his way out of it.
Maybe he shouldn’t run mental gymnastics to admit he loved her.
Why try to hide the truth from himself? The cost-benefit analysis was clear: risk the ask, face the answer, accept the result.
Or maintain the distance, preserve the ambiguity, and spend the rest of his life wondering what he might have done differently.
Neither option satisfied him.
A groan sent his head forward thudding against the steering wheel. He rocked it side to side, which brought the entire front yard and house into view.
Caleb’s truck sat in its usual spot. Graham’s too. Light burned in the living room and spread through the window onto the flower beds out front.
Enough rolling around in pity.
He climbed out of the truck.
Caleb sat in the living room, holding a book with a cracked spine in front of his face. His eyes didn’t move, which meant he wasn’t reading as much as just staring at the page. He looked up when Luke came through and set the book with his pages splayed across the arm of the chair.