Page 5 of Clara Knows Best

So he sat in the knickknack-cluttered living room and worked his methodical way through an enormous square of cinnamon swirl cake while the women discussed Nina’s winter formal. He didn’t know who Nina was and he didn’t care. He was so tired that he felt buzzed, and Clara was right: he was really, really hungry.

Clara was the spoiled princess all grown up. Her entire family from her grandparents to her little brothers had indulged and pampered her to a degree Jesse had never before seen, and the proof was in the pudding. Long, pearlescent-white fingernails studded with rhinestones, a big bow in her shiny, dark hair,casually driving a truck that probably cost a hundred grand, parking in fire lanes and getting free cake wherever she went—she was exactly the kind of woman he’d always imagined she would be: high-maintenance. Entitled. Expensive.

But she also had that unshakable confidence all the Wilders had that made a man wary of underestimating them.

And she was beautiful.

And funny.

And she kept smiling at him.

Jesse kept his eyes on the coffee cake and told himself that he needed sleep.

Twenty minutes later they were on their way again. As soon as he climbed back into the truck his eyelids drifted shut, though he did glance once or twice at Clara’s expression of concentration as she steered the truck and trailer out of the farmyard and through the gate. Only then did she turn on her music, and immediately began to sing along; not at all well, really, but alternating freely and without warning between earnest note-hitting and a ludicrous falsetto.

It was the way a normal person would sing while sitting alone in traffic or taking a shower, and Jesse considered it just more evidence of that Wilder overconfidence. Her mother, who disclaimed all musical ability, sang much the same way and didn’t care who heard her.

Her mother. Just thinking about Dr. Wilder was like a kick in the gut.

Clara’s voice wasn’t too bad and it was nice to have another person nearby as he settled into a doze. He liked napping in the doctor’s lounge at the hospital where he worked for that reason.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed—it felt like none at all, but at some point the noise and jolting of the gravel road had been replaced by smooth highway sounds—before he heardthe truck’s female computer voice say pleasantly, “Incoming call from Uncle Jim.”

Clara hit a button on the steering wheel. “Hello?”

“That you flying down my road?” her uncle asked sternly.

“I’m going sixty!” she defended herself.

“With four thousand pounds of hay?”

“It’s a straight shot!”

“You swear you’re going sixty?”

“All right, all right,” she grumbled, slackening her speed. “You’re a nosey neighbor, you know that? Guess it comes from being a narc.”

“Ha!” he retorted, and hung up on her.

“There he is,” she said to Jesse, and he looked where she pointed and saw a pickup in a distant field.

“Was he a narc?” he wondered.

“He was FBI in the ’90s. ‘Back when it was cool,’ he says.”

“Just thought he was a rancher. And kind of a gun nut.”

“Well, he’s all of the above. They’re coming for dinner tonight. To see you.”

It surprised him that Jim and his wife Liesl would go out of their way to see him. After so many years, Jesse had expected to be an outsider again. He had even gone so far as to think of this as a business trip, and had looked forward to meeting Dr. Wilder as a colleague.

That would be too easy. He had too much history in this town.

He glanced at Clara and she met his eyes and smiled easily. “Don’t be freaked out when you see my mom using a walker, okay? It’s temporary.”

She had a great smile, warm and genuine. She’d probably never gotten a ticket in her life. “I know it’s temporary.”

“I know you know. I’m just reminding you. It was, like, a shock, like I hadn’t realized she was an old person before.”

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