Scarlett Rose's Arc

Chapter 34 of 57

The morning after the doctor's visit, Scarlett sat at the kitchen table with the schedule Rose had printed. Weekly infusions. Two hours in a chair with a needle in her arm. A forty-minute drive each way. Clayton had cattle to move Thursday. Rose lived three hours out. Maya had the ranch office and her own week to run. Scarlett stared at the four Thursdays marked in red and felt the panic climb her throat. Missing one could drop her count low enough to hurt the babies. Clayton came in from the barn with mud on his boots and the mail tucked under his arm. He set the stack on the counter and looked at her face. "Talk," he said. "I can't get to all of them." She turned the paper toward him. "Not without pulling you off the ranch every week. Not without Rose driving six hours round trip." He read the page. He set it down. "Then we move the ranch," he said. "What?" "Not the cattle. Me. Thursdays are yours. I already told my foreman last night. He runs Thursdays through April. Maya takes the office those mornings. Rose comes the Thursdays she can. The rest I drive you myself." Scarlett's eyes filled. "You planned this before I even asked." "I planned it in the parking lot yesterday." He pulled out the chair beside her and sat. "You are not missing one. Not one." Rose called on speaker ten minutes later and confirmed she'd taken the first and third Thursdays. Maya texted that she'd already cleared her calendar and would sit with Scarlett through the infusions so Clayton could run errands in town. The plan closed around Scarlett like a fence going up. She breathed out for what felt like the first time in a day. Then Clayton remembered the mail. He walked to the counter and slid a padded envelope from the stack. His name on the front. Overnight sticker. He looked at Scarlett. "This from you?" She nodded. She had forgotten it was coming. He opened it at the table. The buckle caught the kitchen light, silver and gold, the letters curled across the front. He ran his thumb over the engraving once. Then again. He leaned across the table and kissed her, soft, careful of the coffee between them. "Thank you," he said. Then he tipped the buckle toward the window. "Scarlet. One t." "That's how you said it at the fair." He looked at her a long moment. "I know why I said it wrong." His voice dropped. "Why'd you keep it wrong?" "Because that's the day you started," she said. "I didn't want to fix the beginning." He closed his hand around the buckle and around hers. Thursday was covered. The babies were covered. And the man across from her was wearing her misspelled name over his heart on purpose now, the way she'd worn his for eleven years.