That's why the fire. That's why everything accelerated. "She's desperate," Clara said. "Desperate people make mistakes," Ethan said. He was looking at Clara when he said it.
And there was something in his voice that was not quite a smile, but was the closest thing to warmth she'd heard from him in a context that wasn't about his children. "They do," Clara said. Beckett gathered his papers. I'll file the formal complaint Monday. The hearing will be set within the month.
He looked at Clara directly. Your testimony is the linchpin. You understand what that means? It means she'll come at me with everything she has before I can say a word in that courtroom. Clara said, "Yes, good."
Clara said, "I'd rather have it in the open." Beckett looked at her for a long moment, that same look he'd given her the first time. The who are you look? And then he put on his hat and left. Ethan and Clara sat alone in the kitchen with the papers between them and the fire burning low.
"You're not afraid," he said. It It wasn't quite a question. "I didn't say that." You look it. "I am afraid," she said.
"I'm just also decided. Those two things can exist at the same time." He looked at her for a long unhurried moment. "Clara," he said. She looked up.
I need to say something. He stopped. Started again the way he started when the thing he needed to say mattered enough to get right. When you came off that train, I had a picture in my head of what I needed, what I'd asked for. And you didn't fit that picture.
And I said so in front of everyone. And I He stopped again. I've spent a long time thinking about what I actually need, what this family actually needs. And I was wrong about what that was, about what it looked like. Clara was still, "I was wrong about you," he said.
"Not just about what you could do, about who you are. You are the most capable, most honest, most." His jaw worked. "You are the best person I have known in a very long time, and I'm sorry it took me this long to say it plainly. The kitchen was so quiet, she could hear the fire."
Ethan," she said carefully, "I need you to be sure you're saying that because it's true, and not because you're scared of losing the ranch, and I'm the one standing between you and it." He looked at her, direct, unflinching. "Those things are both true," he said. "And they're separate. What I just said has nothing to do with the ranch.