7. Scarlett
— ? —
Scarlett
The morning starts like any other.
I’m in the barn office by six, coffee in hand, breeding charts spread across my desk. Josie is with the nanny, Beck is home for once, and I’m trying to pretend that the last two weeks haven’t hollowed me out from the inside.
The radio on my desk crackles. That’s normal. The hands use it all day, checking in from the far pens, coordinating moves, asking questions. I keep it on low because I like knowing what’s happening on the ranch even when I’m buried in paperwork.
Beck’s voice comes through, and I look up.
“Yeah, I’m out at the east pens. Checking on that fence line Ruiz was worried about.”
He must have the handset in his lap, keyed open without realizing it.
It happens sometimes. We often joke about them being used by ghosts.
The ranch trucks are old, the equipment is older, and Beck has never been good with technology despite all his money.
Cons of always having someone do everything for you.
A woman’s voice answers but not through the radio. Through his phone, on speaker, loud enough that the open handset picks it up.
“How are things at home?”
Camille.
I set my coffee down.
“Oh, you know.” Beck’s voice is casual. The way he used to sound with me. “She’s an easy keeper. Set her out in a dry lot and she’d come back fat and happy.”
My hand freezes halfway to the radio.
Easy keeper. That’s a horse term. A horse that doesn’t need much. A horse you can ignore and it’ll still be fine.
He’s talking about me.
“Beck.” Camille’s voice is soft. Careful. “That’s not…”
“I don’t know what I feel about her anymore.” He says it like he’s talking about the weather. Like I’m nothing. “But the place runs. So.”
The place runs.
That’s what I am to him. The person who keeps the place running. The easy keeper who doesn’t need attention, doesn’t need care, doesn’t need him to actually show up. Just set me out in a dry lot and I’ll come back fat and happy.
“Beck,” Camille says again, and there’s something in her voice now. Warning, maybe. Or guilt.
The radio cuts out.
Someone in the shop killed the channel. Thank God someone had the decency to cut it off before I had to hear any more.
But it’s too late.
I stand up slowly. My legs don’t feel like they belong to me. I walk to the door of my office and open it, and Ellis is standing in the dirt yard, looking at me.
He heard it. They all heard it. Every radio on Lone Elm is tuned to the same channel, and every single hand on this ranch just heard Beck Cooper say he doesn’t know what he feels about his wife.
Ellis opens his mouth like he’s going to say something. Then he closes it. What is there to say?
I don’t cry. I want to, but I don’t. I just turn around and go back to my desk and sit down and stare at the breeding charts like they mean something.
The radio stays silent.
I work through lunch. I work through the afternoon. I answer emails and return phone calls and do all the things I’m supposed to do because that’s what an easy keeper does. She doesn’t make a fuss. She doesn’t demand attention or care or love.
She just runs the place.
At four o’clock, Dovey knocks on my door. She’s one of the older hands, been here since Beck’s father’s time. She doesn’t say anything, just sets a sandwich on my desk and gives me a look that says I heard and I’m sorry and I don’t know what to do about it.
“Thank you,” I say.
She nods and leaves.
At six, my phone buzzes.
A text from Beck.
I heard from everyone. Not what it sounded like. Had to run out to Salt Fork. Home tomorrow.
Not what it sounded like. As if there’s another way to interpret I don’t know what I feel about her anymore. As if context could make that better.
Had to run out to Salt Fork. Of course the first thing he did after saying that on an open channel was fly to the woman he said it to and won’t come home until tomorrow.
I put the phone down. I eat the sandwich even though it tastes like nothing. I finish the breeding charts and lock up the office and walk back to the manor in the dark.
Josie is already asleep. The nanny gives me a look I can’t read and disappears to her room. I stand in my daughter’s doorway and watch her breathe and think about what kind of life she’s going to have with a father who says things like that about her mother.
I go to our bedroom. I don’t turn on the lights. I just sit on the edge of the bed and look at the window and listen to the creek that runs through the bottom pasture.
He said it out loud. To another woman. On a channel that everyone could hear.
And then he left.
That’s the part that breaks something in me. Not the words, as much as they hurt. The fact that his first instinct wasn’t to come find me, wasn’t to hold my face in his hands and tell me he didn’t mean it.
His first instinct was to run.
To her.
I lie down on the bed without undressing. I pull his pillow against my chest because it still smells like him and I hate that I still want that comfort. I close my eyes and I try to sleep and I can’t, because every time I start to drift off I hear his voice again.
At midnight, I get up. I’m not going to sleep. I might as well do something useful.
I go downstairs and I make tea. I sit at the kitchen counter where he had me two weeks ago, where he made me forget what I was asking, and I think about all the times I let him do that. All the times I let his hands erase my questions. All the times I chose peace over truth.
No more.
I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I don’t know if I’m going to confront him or leave him or pretend I never heard it. But I know one thing for certain.
I’m done being the keeper who doesn’t need keeping.
Whatever happens next, I’m going to make him work for it. I’m going to make him see me. I’m going to make him answer for every single lie and every single absence and every single time he chose her over me.