Scarlett Rose's Arc

Chapter 36 of 57

Two days out from the wedding, Scarlett woke before Clayton and couldn't get back to sleep. The vows were done. The dress hung on the closet door. The pavilion was booked. Every item on Rose's list had a check beside it except one line she'd added in pencil at the bottom: gift for the groom. Scarlett had given him the buckle already. That was for the infusions, for the week apart. It wasn't a wedding gift. She had nothing for the morning of the ceremony, and she couldn't stand in front of him at the altar with empty hands. She went to the kitchen and made tea and sat with the binder. She turned pages. Nothing on paper solved it. A watch felt wrong. Another buckle was a repeat. A framed photo was a card. She thought about what he'd told her over a year of coffee and late suppers. He talked his decisions out loud when he was alone. He'd almost bought a second property and pulled back because Duke went off his feed for a week. He said he wanted to grow what he had without breaking it. She walked out to the porch in her robe. The sun was coming up over his ridge. She thought about the fence between their two properties, and the years she'd waved across it, and the day the cattle came through. She thought about his grandmother's greenhouse ten minutes down the road, standing empty since the honeymoon plan. She went back inside and pulled the deed folder from the drawer. Her family's land ran from the creek to the ridge. The strip along the fence line was pasture she never used. Rose came down the stairs in her robe and stopped when she saw the deed spread on the table. "What are you doing?" "Giving him the fence line," Scarlett said. "Twelve acres along the border. In his name. So he can run cattle across it without asking anyone. So the ranch grows without him buying anything." Rose sat down slow. "Scarlett. That's your land." "It's ours now." She pushed the folder across. "Call whoever we need to call. I want the paper ready by Saturday morning." Rose read the deed twice. Then she got her phone. By noon a title clerk in town had the transfer drafted. By four, Scarlett had signed the pages and sealed them in an envelope with his name on the front. She tucked it inside the ceremony binder next to her vows. A pink butterfly bumped against the kitchen window and lifted away toward the ridge. Clayton came in from the barn at dusk and hung his hat on the hook. He asked what she'd done all day. "Nothing," she said. She smiled at her tea. He watched her a second longer than he needed to. Then he went to wash up. Two days. She had something to give him.