After the meal, Ruth shooed them like stubborn livestock. “The guest room is upstairs, Clara. You sleep. These three can stare at each other if they’re restless.”
“Ruth,” Garrett warned.
Ruth only snorted. “Behave. Sunday’s coming.”
Clara climbed the stairs with her heart still beating too hard. The guest room was simple, clean, with a quilt that looked like it had survived a hundred winters through pure stubbornness. She set her bag down and stared at the bed.
She should have felt regret. She should have felt terror.
Instead, she felt something she hadn’t felt since her father died and the world turned sharp-edged and hungry.
She felt possibility.
A knock came at the door.
Clara froze. “Come in.”
Garrett ducked slightly as he stepped through, hat in hand, chestnut hair loose at his forehead. In the lamplight, his identical face to his brothers looked somehow different, as if being the eldest by minutes made him older by years.
