Scarlett Rose's Arc

Chapter 6 of 57

The coffee finished dripping. Scarlett poured two mugs and carried them to the table by the window. Rain sheeted down the glass. Clayton sat with his forearms on the wood, hat off, hair still dark from the rain. He took the mug she set in front of him and said thanks. She sat across from him. The clock over the stove read a quarter past four. She had watched him across a fence for eleven years. She had dropped a basket of eggs in her own yard because he said good morning. She had let him say her name wrong at the fair and smiled about it for a week. He was three feet away and the road was closed and there would not be another night like this one handed to her. Her sister's voice was in her head. Say it before you die of it. "Clayton." He looked up. "I need to tell you something, and I need to say it before I lose the nerve." Her hands stayed flat on the table. "I've been in love with you since I was nine years old. Since the calf. I watched you the whole two hours through the fence rails and I never stopped watching after that." He did not move. The rain kept on. She made herself hold his eyes. "I'm not asking you for anything," she said. "I just wasn't going to sit here another hour and not say it." Clayton set the mug down. He looked at his hands, then at her. "Scarlett." He said it right. "I knew your name at the fair." She felt the blood come up her neck. "I said it wrong on purpose," he said. "I wanted a reason to come back and try again. You didn't correct me, so I figured I had time." He almost smiled. "I've been figuring I had time for about a year." "You fixed my water line." "I did." "You stayed two hours." "I'd have stayed four. You didn't ask." She put a hand over her mouth and laughed once, wet. He reached across the table. He did not grab. He turned his palm up on the wood between them and waited. She put her hand in his. His fingers closed slow. "I'm not good at the front end of this," he said. "I'm better at showing up." "I noticed." Outside, the low crossing ran brown and full. The bloodhound pup was safe in the barn with the white mare and the cat. Inside, Clayton held her hand across the table and did not let go. "Road won't drop till morning," he said. "I know." "Then we've got time to figure out what comes after saying it." She nodded. Her hand stayed in his. The thing she had carried since she was nine was on the table between them, and he had not moved away from it. He had moved toward it.