Lorraine Heath (11 page)

“Does that help?” Clay asked from the doorway.

She wondered if he was this polite to all trespassers or only those that amused him. She wished he’d release that smile he was fighting to hold back and be done with it.

“It helps immensely.” Rising onto her toes, she pivoted slowly, her arms outstretched. “I almost feel as though I’m outside.”

“Pa built it so we’d have a place to work. Seems people always die when it rains, and Ma didn’t like all the dust that cutting on rock stirs up.” He turned to walk away.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

He glanced over his shoulder. “To finish our chores and leave you to do whatever it was you tiptoed over here to do.”

“I only came to look at the granite.”

His smile broke free. “Yes, ma’am, I figured as much.”

He walked away with the twins following close on his heels.

Meg sat on the short stool and stared after them. Clay had the most beautiful smile she’d ever seen.

His small smiles of amusement had been distracting. His smile of pure joy was devastating. She’d have to pay more attention to her actions and make certain she gave him no further reason to smile.

With that resolution tucked away, she rose from the stool and looked at the rock. It hadn’t changed.

She was no longer certain why she’d come or what exactly she’d expected to see. She narrowed her eyes. The monument was buried somewhere within that stone.

She touched the rough surface, anxious to see Kirk again. Maybe Clay was as eager as she was to see the monument completed and would be willing to begin work today instead of waiting for Monday. After all, they were both here.

She strolled to the house, stepped on the porch, and, unnoticed, peered around the open door. Clay was crouching before the hearth. As though they were matching bookends, the twins squatted on each side of him.

“Did Miz Warner’s husband kill people?” one twin asked.

Clay took a deep breath. “Yes, he did.”

“You reckon he liked killin’ people?” the other twin asked.

“He didn’t like it at all.”

“Did he tell you that?” Meg asked from the doorway.

Clay shot straight up, banged his head on the stone mantel, swung around, jerked off the apron he was wearing, and waved the poker at her. “I had a tool in my hand!”

The twins rolled on the floor as though they were little bugs that curled into a ball whenever they were touched. Their guffaws echoed around the house.

“I couldn’t see beyond your back. I didn’t know you had anything in your hand. Besides, I thought you were referring to carving tools. I didn’t realize I needed to make certain you had nothing at all in your hands before I ever spoke to you.”

One twin stopped laughing. “Hey, Clay, you’re bleedin'.”

Blood trickled slowly along Clay’s temple. He touched his fingers to his head and winced. “I’m all right.”

Meg walked into the house. “Let me see.”

He wadded the apron and pressed it against his head. “I’m fine.”

Both twins stared, concern clearly reflected in their young faces. “Let her look, Clay. We don’t want you to die on us.”

“I’m not gonna die.” Scowling, he moved the apron away from his head.

“You’re too tall. You’re going to have to bend down so I can see,” Meg said.

“Maybe you’re just too short.”

“No one’s ever complained about my size.”

“No one’s complained about my height.”

“How many people talk to you?”

He bent his head but not before Meg saw that her teasing had cut him deeper than she’d intended. She’d assumed that he wasn’t bothered by people in the area shunning him. He continued to attend church, but other than that he kept to himself much as he had before the war.

Kirk’s mother had always used silence as her weapon whenever she was angry at anyone. Meg remembered how much it hurt the first time the woman refused to talk to her. She would have preferred yelling to the ominous quiet. She had assumed that the pain ran deeper because it involved family.

Perhaps Daniel was wrong. Clay didn’t need to have their fists pounded into his face to feel their hatred. Their silence pummeled him just as effectively.

Gently, Meg parted his hair until she could see the wound. “That’s some gash. Do you have a needle and thread? I could sew it up.”

He straightened. “It doesn’t need to be sewed.”

“You could use the needle and thread Clay was usin’ to fix the hole in my shirt,” one twin offered.

“It does need stitches,” she insisted.

He tightened his jaw. “Fine.” He walked across the room, dropped into a chair at the table, crossed his arms over his chest, and sat unmoving as though he’d become one of his statues.

The twin rushed to a sewing basket beside a chair and proudly produced the needle and thread.

“Which one are you?” Meg asked.

“Josh,” he said, his face beaming.

“I’ll never be able to tell you apart.”

“It’s easy. Joe’s got more freckles.”

“I do not,” Joe said as he climbed onto the table.

“What are you doing?” Clay asked.

“I ain’t never seen nobody sew somebody up before.”

“It’s no different than sewing cloth so get outta here.”

Josh scrambled onto the table. “Ah, Clay, let us have a look see.”

“You might make Mrs. Warner nervous, and she’ll end up sewing the tip of my ear to my head.”

Laughing, the twins punched each other on the arm. Then they grew serious. “Will we make you nervous, Miz Warner?” Joe asked.

She smiled. “No. Do you have any whiskey?”

“No, ma’am,” Clay said.

Gingerly, Meg lifted the strands of his hair aside. “Well, the blood probably washed out the wound.”

“Probably.”

“This may hurt,” she said quietly.

“That should make you happy,” he said.

He was right. She could jab the needle a little deeper than necessary, pull it through slower than usual, and prolong his misery. She took a deep breath to steady her fingers and poked the needle through his flesh.

He didn’t flinch. If Meg hadn’t known better, she’d think he’d turned into stone.

“Gawd Almighty! She stuck that needle right into your head, Clay. Look, Joe, all that blood looks like a red river runnin’ through a forest of hair. Ain’t that somethin'?”

Joe dropped to his backside and let his legs dangle over the edge of the table. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

“Do it outside,” Clay ordered through clenched teeth.

So he hadn’t turned to stone after all.

“Don’t that hurt, Clay?” Josh asked. “I’d be a hollerin'—”

“Then I’ll make sure I never lower the mantel over the hearth.”

The boy smiled. “Miz Warner, you gonna eat breakfast with us? We’re havin’ biscuits again.” His eyes filled with delight at the prospect. “Reckon Clay’d fix you one.”

“Or maybe I’ll just swipe his,” she said as her fingers nimbly worked to close the gash.

“He don’t make him one.”

“Why not?” Meg asked.

“He never eats much lessen he shoots a buck or somethin’ big. Then he eats like he’s got two bellies to fill.”

“Mrs. Warner isn’t interested in my eating habits,” Clay said sharply, but his tone didn’t take the smile off Josh’s face.

Meg had a feeling she knew why he ate heartily when the food was plentiful. The man probably didn’t eat at all when little graced their table. She had an irrational urge to bop him on the head.

“All done,” she said as she snipped the thread.

“I appreciate it.”

“I can’t have you bleeding to death on me. Who’d make my monument?”

He peered up at her and grinned slightly. “Right.”

“What’s that gawd-awful smell?” Josh asked. “Did you puke, Joe?”

“Nah, I didn’t puke. I swallowed it back down.”

Clay bolted from the chair and rushed to the hearth. “Damn.” Grabbing a heavy cloth, he pulled the pan of biscuits off a shelf set in the wall of the hearth.

“They look worse than what we had yesterday,” Josh said.

Clay thumped the blackened bread. “They are worse.”

“I suppose it’s my fault,” Meg said.

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Clay said.

“It just happened.”

“Still, I feel responsible.

I’ll make another batch.”

“I’ll bet she can make good biscuits, Clay. Will you let her?”

“I reckon.” He set the pan on the table and headed for the door. “I’ve already eaten, so just fix something for the twins.”

“Where are you going?” Meg asked.

“I’ve got chores to finish up.” He walked out of the house.

Meg smiled at the twins. “I’m not sure if I remember how to make just two biscuits.”

Clay had never known torture could be so sweet.

Meg’s fingers brushing lightly across his scalp had sent warmth flowing through his body clear down to his boots.

He wished she’d taken her time instead of rushing through the job, but he knew she hadn’t wanted to touch him any longer than necessary.

Part of him wished she’d never touched him at all.

A greater part of him wished she’d never stopped.

He laid his hand against the granite. He was accustomed to the feel of rough rock grating against his palms. He imagined every inch of Meg was unlike anything he’d ever touched. She was probably soft, smooth, and as warm as a Texas summer.

A couple of times while she was stitching him up, her breast had come close to grazing his cheek. He had held his breath, not certain what he’d do if she actually did brush against him. The moment never came, so he could only wonder what it might have felt like.

He hit the stone. He should have been paying attention to Josh, not Meg’s curves. The boy had a tendency to run at the mouth, speaking his mind and everyone else’s. As a result, he’d told Meg a lot more than Clay would have liked. How many biscuits he cooked was none of her damn business.

He walked around the stone, trailing his fingers over the gritty surface. Every morning he came to the shed and pulled open the windows to let in the first rays of sunlight. Then he touched the granite, getting a feel for the rough texture beneath his roughened hands. He’d spent hours imagining where he would first place his chisel, how hard he would tap his hammer. He thought about the sound of that initial crack and how much to cut away before he actually began shaping the figures.

A dozen times he’d picked up his tools with steady hands. He touched the chisel to the rock, studying the angle, determining how the stone would react to the assault. He could see every movement in his head and had been tempted to begin chipping away the unwanted stone.

But he’d refrained because Meg wanted to watch.

And now his palms were sweating so badly he didn’t think he’d be able to get a good grip on his tools.

He walked to a low table where he kept his tools laid out. He wrapped his hand around a chisel and felt it slide through his palm. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to disappoint her. He wanted this monument to be all that she thought it could be … and more.

Opening his eyes, he stared across the fields. That she sat in judgment of him didn’t bother him. That she might sit in judgment of his efforts within the shed did.

He lowered his gaze and watched as delicate fingers pushed a plate across the table. He slid his gaze over to Meg. “I said I’d already eaten.”

She shrugged innocently. “I’m used to cooking for three. Besides, judging by the weight of your biscuits, I’d say you used a lot more of your staples than I did. I wrote my recipe on a piece of paper and left it on the table in the house.” She tapped the plate. “Kirk always liked biscuits with honey. So eat it. You can’t afford to waste anything around here.”

He leaned his hip against the table and picked up the plate. He bit into the warm honey-drenched biscuit and nearly groaned. “This is better than what you cooked on the way back from Austin.”

“It helps to have soda and milk.”

“Soda?”

She nodded quickly, and the corners of her mouth tipped up slightly.

He shoved the rest of the biscuit into his mouth. No telling what else he hadn’t put in the batter that he was supposed to.

“I don’t suppose you’d start working on the monument today?” she asked.

He set the plate aside. “I was thinking about it, since you’re here.” He scattered a stack of papers across the table. “I’ve been studying the rock since we brought it home, trying to see it from all sides, from the corners, from the top, the bottom.”

She picked up a piece of paper. “And you think this is what it looks like on the inside?”

“It’s what I need to make it look like on the inside.”

She lifted her eyes from the drawing, and Clay captured her gaze. “Do you understand?” he asked.

“You look at things so hard,” she said in amazement. “Whenever you look at something, anything—the rock, the twins, me—you look so intense, it’s almost frightening.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I did that.”

“I know. Kirk told me you didn’t look at the world like everyone else does. He said when he looked at me, he saw a beautiful girl, but when you looked at me, you saw lines, curves, and angles that were beautiful. You look at things so hard because you try to figure out exactly what it is that makes them look the way they do.”

He nodded in agreement. “I stare a lot.”

“When we were growing up, I hated it when you stared at me.”

He lowered his gaze to the ground. “I didn’t mean to offend you … or anyone else for that matter.”

“It no longer bothers me that you look at things so hard.”

He dared to lift his gaze to hers. “It doesn’t?”

She shook her head and picked up the first drawing he’d sketched for her. “You remember everything because you study it. This is exactly what Kirk looked like the last time I saw him.” She held his gaze. “What did he look like the last time you saw him?”

Clay felt as though she had just slammed a chisel through his heart. He saw her chin quiver, and he couldn’t tell her the truth.

“Didn’t you see him when he brought you the letters? What did he look like then?”

He combed his fingers through his hair, wincing when he hit the gash she’d mended. “Tired. He looked tired.”

“Was he thin?”