Chapter Nineteen
I signed the postnuptial agreement on a Thursday afternoon. Nina signed as my counsel. Beckett’s attorney signed as his. The notary stamped three copies. That was it.
No music. No dramatic pause. Just ink on paper that said Harlow Creek belonged to me whether I stayed married for fifty years or filed for divorce the next morning. I expected relief. What I felt was grief.
Nina noticed.
“You can still change your mind about the marriage,” she said.
I nodded.
“This agreement isn’t a decision to leave.”
I looked at the papers.
“Then what is it?”
I looked at the copy in front of me.
“Proof I could.”
She nodded slowly.
“Sometimes that’s the only way staying becomes a choice.”
I hated when lawyers became wise. I drove back to Harlow Creek with the signed agreement on the passenger seat. Beckett texted before I reached the gate. BECKETT: My attorney says it’s executed. I won’t bring it up unless you do.
I stared at the message at a stop sign. Then typed: ME: Dinner tonight? I sent it before courage could turn into analysis. His response took forty-three seconds. BECKETT: Yes.
Then another message. BECKETT: Where would you feel comfortable? I smiled despite myself. ME: Miller’s Diner. 7.
BECKETT: I’ll be there. Miller’s was the least romantic restaurant in Montana. That was why I chose it.
Red vinyl booths. Laminated menus. Fluorescent lights. Pies rotating in a glass case near the register. Beckett was already seated when I arrived at 6:58.
He stood as I approached, then looked uncertain about whether to hug me. I spared us both.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
We sat. A waitress named Karen, who had known both of us since high school, appeared with two coffees.
“I brought yours black and hers with cream,” she said. “And I am professionally incapable of hearing anything said at this table.”
“Thank you, Karen,” I said.
“My pleasure. Pie’s fresh. Marriage advice costs extra.”
She walked away. Beckett looked at me.
“Small towns.”
“You built half your business here. Don’t act surprised.”
“I remain surprised by the efficiency.”
I laughed. The ease of it startled me. We ordered burgers. For the first few minutes, we talked about safe things. Sable was recovering.
The Harlow Creek quarantine horses were gaining weight. Poppy now allowed Tessa to groom one side of her body but not the other. Then Beckett set down his coffee.
“Why dinner?”
Direct. I appreciated that.
“Because I wanted to see you somewhere that wasn’t a crisis or a contract.”
His eyes held mine.
“Okay.”
“And because I signed the postnup.”
He nodded once.
“How does that feel?”
The question surprised me.
“Terrible.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Terrible?”
“It feels like admitting I needed legal protection from the man I married because love wasn’t enough to make power irrelevant.”
He absorbed that without reacting defensively.
“I’m sorry that became necessary.”
“Do you regret signing it?”
“No.”
“At all?”
“I regret that we didn’t have something like it from the start.”
I frowned.
“We were twenty-seven.”
“Exactly. We thought romance meant never needing boundaries.”
“You hated prenups.”
“My father loved them. I thought refusing one proved I wasn’t him.”
That was new. I had always assumed Beckett’s insistence on no prenup was a grand romantic gesture.
“Why did he love them?”
“Control.”
Beckett looked down at his hands.
“He said love was unreliable but leverage wasn’t. I decided I would be different by trusting you with everything.”
“Except information.”
His mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
“That’s ironic.”
“Painfully.”
Our food arrived. We ate for a while. Then Beckett said, “Can I ask you something that might make you leave?”
“That’s a terrible sales pitch.”
“Therapy is making me less charming.”
“You were never that charming.”
“I married above my level, apparently.”
I smiled.
“Ask.”
He folded his napkin once.
“When did you first think about leaving me?”
My appetite disappeared. I looked through the window at Main Street.
“Honestly?”
“Please.”
I thought back. Not the radio. Not the award dinner. Earlier.
“Three Christmases ago.”
He went still.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Mara.”
“That’s why. Nothing happened.”
I looked at him.
“You gave me diamond earrings.”
Confusion crossed his face.
“I remember.”
“Do you remember what I gave you?”
He looked away. I didn’t need an answer.
“A first-edition copy of that ranch memoir your grandfather used to quote. I spent six months finding it.”
His face changed.
“I have it in my office.”
“I know. You opened it and said, ‘That’s incredible.’ Then your phone rang. You left the room and spent forty minutes with a lender.”
He closed his eyes.
“I came back.”
“Eventually.”
“And you were asleep.”
“I was pretending.”
His eyes opened.
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to cry on Christmas.”
The waitress moved past our booth. Dishes clinked somewhere behind the counter. Beckett looked wrecked. I hated that part of me wanted to comfort him.
“I lay there thinking, if I disappeared tomorrow, he would be devastated. But if I stay, he can keep forgetting I’m here.”
His throat moved.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Good.”
He looked at me.
“Not because I want you hurt. Because I don’t want you to turn it into a solution.”
“I won’t.”
We sat with it. After a while, he said, “Can I tell you something without it being an excuse?”
“Depends what it is.”
“I remember that Christmas differently.”
I braced.
“I remember thinking you gave me the best gift anyone had ever given me. I remember calling the appraiser the next day because I wanted it insured. I remember showing it to Luis and telling him you were the only person who knew what I’d care about more than money.”
My chest ached.
“You never told me that.”
He looked down.
“So I spent three years believing you barely noticed.”
“I know.”
He rubbed his thumb over the edge of the table.
“I think I lived as if feeling something privately counted as expressing it.”
That sentence explained more than I wanted it to.
“It doesn’t,” I said.
“I’m learning.”
We finished dinner. Karen brought pie without asking and informed us it was “on the house because emotional labor burns calories.” Beckett left a tip large enough to make me scold him.
“You can’t buy discretion,” I said.
“That was for the pie.”
“The pie was twelve dollars.”
“It was excellent pie.”
Outside, snow had started again. We stood beneath the diner awning.
“Thank you for dinner,” he said.
“We split the check.”
“Thank you for agreeing to eat in the same building as me.”
“Better.”
He smiled. A snowflake landed in his hair. Without thinking, I reached up and brushed it away. My fingers touched his temple. We both froze.
Eleven years of muscle memory surged into one inch of contact. Beckett did not move.
“Mara.”
My name sounded rough in his mouth. I let my hand fall.
“Don’t.”
His gaze dropped to my lips, then lifted.
“I won’t.”
He meant he would not kiss me unless I asked. That restraint was almost unbearable. I stepped back.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
I drove home with my heart pounding like I had done something reckless. Maybe I had. I had enjoyed dinner with my husband.