16. Ramona
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Ramona
The lawyer holds the papers against the trailer counter while I sign my name. My pen stops after Ramona, and she waits without looking at my hand.
Outside, Dad shuts the back of his truck. He has my reading lamp wrapped in a horse blanket, with the shade sticking out above the boxes.
I finish writing Wyatt and put down the pen.
“You can take more time if you need it.” The lawyer turns the page to check my signature. “I don’t have to send these today.”
“I’ve had time.” I slide the papers toward her before I can pick them up again. “Please send them.”
She gathers them into her folder while I turn toward the open trailer door. Across the yard, a man is washing one of the black Wyatt trucks. Water runs beneath its tires and into the drain Julius had put in after I complained about the mud.
I can see the cottage beyond the fence. Someone has opened its curtains, and Dad has left the front door wide enough to carry my boxes through.
“Do you have the keys?” The lawyer closes her bag and waits for me to look at her.
“They’re in my pocket.” I touch them through my jeans. “Julius had somebody check the heating yesterday.”
“He’s agreed to you staying there?” She rests her hand on the counter.
“He offered it when I told him I wasn’t leaving the ranch.” I look back toward the main barn. “My animals are here. I’m not giving them up because I can’t live with him.”
She nods without asking me to explain further. When she leaves, Dad meets me at the bottom of the steps and takes my hand.
“Do you want to sit for a while?” He rubs his thumb over my cold fingers. “The boxes aren’t going anywhere.”
“I want to get them inside.” I keep holding his hand even after I start toward the truck. “I don’t want to stand out here where everybody can see.”
He opens the passenger door and stays beside it until I’m settled. Before he closes it, he reaches in and gently frees my bag strap from beneath my leg.
I turn toward the window before he sees me start crying again.
***
The reply comes while I’m clearing June’s stall.
I rest the shovel against the wall and take out my phone. The lawyer’s message says Julius has agreed to the arrangements I requested. I can stay in the cottage and keep using my truck. My access to the animals won’t change, and there is no request for another conversation attached to it.
June noses at my sleeve while I read, checking the pocket where I usually keep her treats. I put the phone away and rest my forehead against her neck.
“You’ll have to give me a minute.” I scratch beneath her mane while she shifts closer.
Julius has people who can spend days discussing where a fence should go. I expected questions. How long I meant to stay in the cottage, whether signing the papers meant I had stopped loving him. He has agreed to what I asked.
I straighten before June gets impatient with me and reach for the shovel. There’s still work to do, and I can do it without deciding how his answer makes me feel.
Dad arrives as I wheel the last load out of the barn. He has another box in his truck and a covered dish balanced on top.
“I brought the rest of your books.” He sets the food on the hood before lifting the box. “Somebody sent this along, too.”
“You can tell me who made it.” I leave the wheelbarrow beside the fence and come to help.
“She asked me not to fuss over you.” He lets me take the smaller bag from the seat. “I thought delivering food counted as keeping my mouth shut.”
I smile, but he keeps watching until I look down at the bag.
“There’s a room at my place, down by the lower barn.” He shifts the box against his hip. “It’s still his land, but you wouldn’t be looking at his kitchen window every time you step outside. You don’t have to stay close just to prove you can.”
“I’m not trying to prove I can.” I glance toward the cottage. “I need to be near June.”
“There’s a pasture below my barn. We can make room for her.” He speaks gently, but I shake my head before he finishes.
“I know you would.” I hold the bag against my stomach. “But this is my home, too. I helped build a life here. I shouldn’t have to leave all of it.”
A Wyatt truck passes at the far end of the yard. I check the driver before I can stop myself, and Dad waits until I turn back.
“Staying will be hard.” He adjusts his grip on the box.
“So would leaving.” I reach for his sleeve, stopping him before he heads toward the cottage. “I’m trying to keep what I can.”
He puts the box on the tailgate and hugs me. I press my face against his shirt, holding on while a hand walks past us with his eyes lowered.
“You don’t have to defend it to me.” Dad kisses the top of my head. “Tell me where you want the books.”
***
The hands have started letting me finish sentences I used to have to repeat.
I ask for more bedding, and nobody tells me June already has plenty. I walk into a barn, and men who have known me since I was sixteen suddenly need to check a latch.
By the time Wes comes up the track to the cottage gate, I have a bucket in each hand and no patience left.
“If you’re about to offer to do my work, please don’t.” I stop while he looks from the buckets to the bakery box he’s carrying.
“I was offering you a cinnamon roll.” He lifts the lid enough for me to smell them. “You can carry those while you eat, but it’ll be awkward.”
My stomach growls before I can answer. He looks politely toward the barn, and I tighten my grip on the handles.
“You can put them on the truck seat.” I nod toward the open window.
“They’re still warm.” He stays beside the gate. “Put the buckets down, Ramona. Nobody’s going to think you’ve stopped working.”
I look at his face, then at the box.
“Did Julius send you?” I ask before reaching for it.
The man’s smile fades, but he meets my eyes.
“I stopped in town and thought of you.” He holds the box closer so I can take it. “That’s all.”
I set the buckets beside my boots and accept the cinnamon rolls.
“Thank you for thinking of me, Wes.” I keep both hands beneath the box while he bends to pick up the buckets.
“Try eating before you decide we’re all annoying.” He starts toward the barn, leaving me beside the gate.
“I can eat and find you annoying.” I call after him, and he laughs without turning around.
I take a roll before the icing can set. Halfway through, I notice a smear of it on my empty ring finger and wipe it away with the napkin tucked beneath the lid.
***
Julius is working on the east fence when I bring water out to the hands.
I see his shirt hanging from a post before he straightens. There’s dirt above his waistband and a red mark across his shoulder where he’s been carrying the wood. He reaches for a tool, and I watch the muscles in his back move.
The crate gets heavier against my hip while I stand there.
You came to bring water. Keep walking.
One of the hands sees me and comes to take it. He thanks me while setting it in the shade, and Julius turns at the sound of my name.
His eyes move from my face to the crate.
“You could have asked us to come get that.” He starts toward me, then slows when I stay where I am.
“I was coming this way.” I look at the bottle he takes from the crate instead of his chest.
He opens it and holds it out. I accept because I’m thirsty, and because refusing a bottle of water would make this harder than it already is.
Our fingers touch around the plastic. I lower my hand carefully while he keeps watching me.
“You’ve got a splinter.” I point to his thumb before taking a drink.
He looks down and tries to catch it with his nail.
“You’re pushing it farther in.” I put the bottle on the post and take his wrist. “Let me see.”
He goes quiet while I turn his hand toward the light. The splinter is close enough to the surface that I can catch it with my nails, but it takes longer because I’m watching his face, and he doesn’t look away from me.
“There you go.” I release him and pick up my water. “Wash it before you forget.”
“I will.” He looks at his thumb, then back at me. “Thank you.”
A bead of sweat runs down his throat. I follow it until it reaches his chest, then turn toward the men still working along the fence, whose conversation has stopped.
“Did you get settled?” Julius asks quietly, bringing my attention back to him.
“I unpacked what I need.” I tighten the cap on the bottle.
“And the heating works?” He rubs beside the place where I removed the splinter. “It can get cold out there.”
“It works.”
He searches for another question.
“You don’t have to ask about the cottage every time you want to talk to me.”
His hand drops to his side.
“I don’t know what you want me to ask.” He finally looks directly at me.
“You can ask what you want.” I keep the bottle between my hands. “You have to be able to hear the answer.”
He nods, glancing toward the hand carrying a rail past us. Once the man moves away, Julius steps closer without reaching for me.
“Are you sleeping?” He keeps his voice low.
I look at the red mark on his shoulder.
“Some.” I turn the bottle between my palms. “You should put your shirt on before you burn.”
“I was going to.” He reaches for it, then stops when I begin walking away. “Ramona, I miss you.”
I stand with my back to him until I’m sure I can turn without crying. He is holding his shirt, waiting.
I want to go back and put my hand against his neck. I want to tell him I’m still sleeping on one side of the mattress, leaving space I know he won’t use.
“I missed you while I still lived with you.” I watch his fingers tighten in the shirt. “I don’t know what to do with hearing it from you now.”
He lowers his eyes, and I leave before he can find another question.
***
The cottage is dark, and I can’t stop thinking about him.
I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and hate myself for wanting a man who hurt me this badly. The sheets are cool against my skin. The window is cracked open, and the night air carries hay and horses.
I think about his hands. How they used to cup my face before he kissed me, his thumbs slow over my cheekbones. How they’d slide down my neck and my ribs without hurrying, because back then we had forever.
Then his mouth. How he’d start slow, kisses along my jaw and the hollow behind my ear, my name murmured into my skin while his lips went lower.
Damn it.
My hand slides down my stomach before I can stop myself.
In my head, he’s pushing my thighs apart. His breath is hot against the inside of my knee, then higher, and he’s looking up at me with those dark eyes while his mouth hovers where I need him most.
My fingers slip between my thighs, and I close my eyes.
“You’re already so wet for me.” His voice in my memory. “You want my mouth, sweetheart? Want me to make you come on my tongue?”
I circle my clit and bite back a moan. His tongue drags through my folds, slow and deliberate, like making me fall apart is the only thing he has to do today. His hands grip my thighs, holding me open and still while I try to rock against his face.
I push two fingers inside myself and my back arches off the mattress.
“That’s it.” His voice again, rougher now. “Fuck yourself on my fingers while I eat this pretty pussy.”
I’m panting, my free hand fisting the sheets. I imagine his tongue on my clit while his fingers curl inside me to the spot that makes me stop thinking, and the low groans he can’t hold back when he’s between my legs.
My hips rock against my hand, faster and harder.
“Come for me, Ramona.” His mouth against my clit. “Let me feel you squeeze my fingers. Let me taste how much you need me.”
I come with my face shoved into the pillow to muffle it. My whole body shakes, and it goes on until I’m gasping and wet from my thighs to my wrist.
The aftershocks are still rolling through me when the tears start.
I curl onto my side with my hand pressed between my thighs and cry into the pillow. The orgasm didn’t fix a thing. I thought I had the crying under control tonight. Not anymore.
My body doesn’t care that he broke my heart. It remembers every kiss and every touch, and all the times he made me the only person in the room. It wants him anyway, even after he chose someone else’s understanding over mine.
I wipe my face with the sheet and look up into the dark.
I’m not even close to being over him.
***
I stay in the main barn until there are no reasonable jobs left.
June’s brushes are clean, and I’ve checked her water twice. When I straighten the blanket hanging outside her stall, she reaches over the door and pushes her nose against my shoulder.
“I’m going.” I rub her neck. “You don’t have to send me home.”
Through the barn doors, I can see the farmhouse windows. One of the upstairs lights is on, and I stop with my hand against June’s neck.
Julius will shower before bed. He’ll leave his boots beside the chair even though there’s a whole room downstairs for them. If I walk in now, he’ll look up and hold out his hand before he says a word, and I know how it would feel to take it.
I can want him and still need to stay away.
June nudges me again, and I let go before she gets tired of waiting. I check her latch and turn off the light, then walk toward the cottage without looking back at the house.
The envelope is tied to the gate.
I stop beside it with my hand still around the key in my pocket. Julius has written my name on the front, carefully enough that the letters don’t lean into one another.
I untie the string and open the flap. His wedding ring drops into my palm. I catch it against my fingers, then look across the yard for his truck, and he isn’t waiting nearby.
A folded note remains inside the envelope. I open it with the ring held against my palm.
Ramona,
I read the papers. I’ve agreed to what you asked for.
You don’t need my permission to stay here. This is your home, too.
I want to ask you to come back, but I know you’ve already answered. I’m going to listen.
Keep my ring. I still have yours. I still want to be your husband. If you ever want to try again, I’ll ask you to put it back on me.
Julius
I read the last part again, then turn the ring until I find the worn place I used to rub with my thumb when he held my hand.
At the fence, he kept that hand close to the wood. I hadn’t checked whether he was wearing it. I’d been too busy trying not to look at the rest of him.
I reach for my phone before remembering I don’t have to tell him the envelope arrived.
I could ask when he left it. I could tell him he should keep wearing the ring himself. Either would give me a reason to speak to him, and I stand beside the gate long enough for the screen to dim in my hand before I put the phone away.
I fold his note along the creases he made and slide it back into the envelope. The ring stays in my fist while I unlock the gate, warm now from how tightly I’ve held it.
He has finally given me the space I asked for, and I want to walk back across the yard and tell him what it feels like. Instead, I go through the gate and close it behind me.
I’m still going ahead with the divorce. I take his ring with me anyway.