by Sarah Sundin
Clay grimaced and rested his head back. He hadn’t meant to hurt them.
“Never mind that, Lupe. Water under the bridge,” Daddy said. “Congratulations, son. We’re happy for you.”
“Oh yes. We are . . . so happy. We’ve always wanted a daughter. What’s she like?”
That was better. Clay winked at his bride, who looked like a rabbit facing a stewpot. “She’s about the cutest little thing you’ve ever seen. No taller than you, Mama. Curly black hair and pretty brown eyes. She’s real smart too. She’s a librarian. I’ll send you our wedding portrait.”
“Was her family able to be there?” Mama asked. “I hope so.”
“She’s an orphan, so no. She was raised in an orphanage.”
Mama gasped. “Oh, the poor child. Put her on. Please let me talk to her.”
Clay held out the receiver. “They want to talk to you.”
Leah pressed back against the wall as if she wanted to bust a hole through and escape.
He chuckled. “They already love you.”
Her expression melted into wonder, and she took the phone. “Hello? Mr. and Mrs. Paxton?”
Clay could hear Mama’s excited jabbering.
“All—all right,” Leah said. “I’m from Iowa, from Des Moines . . . Since June. I started working at the Camp Forrest Library a few days after I graduated from high school . . . I’m eighteen . . . Yes, it’s been—a big change.”
Clay heard the operator’s warning. Only one minute remaining.
“Before I hang up, I want to thank you for raising Clay.” Leah lowered her face. “He—he’s the kindest, most generous man. Thank you . . . Good-bye.”
She handed Clay the phone, but she didn’t look at him. “They want to talk to you.”
Clay held the phone to his ear. “I’m back.”
“She seems like a very nice young lady,” Daddy said.
“She’s wonderful.” Mama’s voice choked. “Mijo, you’ve made me so happy. You believe you have a future again. I’m so glad—so glad you’ll go off to war with a reason to live.”
Was that what they thought? He stifled a groan. This hadn’t changed a thing, but if it made his parents happier for the remaining few months of his life, so be it. “I ought to say good-bye before we get cut off.”
“Yes. Good-bye and congratulations,” Daddy said. “Give that wife of yours a big kiss from us.”
“I’ll do that.” Clay hung up.
Now he had to keep that promise. He kissed Leah on the forehead, much safer than what Daddy had in mind. “From my parents.”
Big brown eyes turned up to him. “What does ‘mee-ha’ mean? Your mother kept saying it.”
Mija meant he had the best mother in the world. “Mija means daughter.”
Leah’s mouth dropped open.
“I’ll tell you what else it means.” Clay rested his forearm on the wall over her head and leaned closer so he could keep his voice low. “It means our baby will have doting grandparents to spoil her rotten.”
Her eyes shimmered, and she clapped her hand over her mouth.
Clay perched on the edge of the little bench beside her and offered his handkerchief.
“Thank you, but I don’t—I don’t cry.” Her voice broke, and she took the handkerchief.
He rested back against the wall while contentment filled every compartment of his soul. Not only was he giving Leah and the baby a comfortable life together, but he’d given them a big family that would keep loving and supporting them long after he was gone. He hadn’t even thought of that before the phone call.
He’d given his parents a gift too. Clay would die, and Wyatt and Adler might never come home again. But now Daddy and Mama had a daughter to cherish and a grandchild on the way.
Leah sniffed. “I suppose all brides say this, but this is the happiest day of my life.”
Clay couldn’t contain his grin. “Mine too.”
13
TULLAHOMA
SUNDAY, AUGUST 8, 1943
Leah held the tiny soap to her nose and inhaled cleanliness and luxury. She had a bathroom to herself, with no girls pounding on the door or crowding at the sink.
Clay’s canvas toiletry kit lay unrolled on a cabinet. Pouches held razor and blades, toothbrush and paste, shaving cream, soap, comb, and mirror. What a clever thing.
No sounds emanated from the bedroom. When she had awakened, Clay had been asleep on a blanket on the floor. How odd to sleep in the same room as a man. Yet the rhythm of his breathing had a comforting effect.
After Leah buttoned her yellow floral dress, she arranged curls and bobby pins the best she could.
Leah eased the bathroom door open. Daylight brightened the room through the drawn curtains. Holding her breath, she padded past Clay to the chair by the window.
Perhaps she could write a poem. Since the attack, her emotions had been too jumbled to put into words. She took her composition book from her purse, but the blank page mocked her.
Leah’s gaze drifted to Clay. Watching him sleep felt too private and intimate.
He lay on his stomach, one arm crooked above his head, a white T-shirt taut across his back. One bare leg protruded from under the sheet, as sturdy and muscular as the rest of him.
For the first time, words alone felt inadequate to describe the sight before her. If only she were an artist, so she could sculpt him in bronze.
His breathing became jerky, and his eyelids twitched. Was he dreaming? Now his cheek twitched, his fingers, his foot. Suddenly he exhaled, long and low, and his eyes opened.
Before she could look away, his gaze met hers. Dark eyebrows hiked up, and his face fell.
So did Leah’s heart. Was this how her biblical namesake felt on her bridal morning when Jacob discovered he’d married a woman he didn’t love? “Behold, it was Leah.”
Clay snuffled and pushed up to sitting, dragging the sheet across his lap. “G’morning.”
“Good morning.” She kept her voice cheery.
He leaned his head back against the wall. “Had that dream again.”
“Just now?”
“So real. Honestly thought when I opened my eyes, I’d see Jesus’s face.”
Instead he’d seen hers. No wonder he’d been disappointed.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then turned to her. “Say, you look as fresh as a daisy. How long have you been up?”
“About half an hour. When the sun rose.”
“Huh. I’m usually a light sleeper.” He stroked his jaw. “Reckon I should make myself presentable before church.”
It seemed a shame. He looked cute with his hair sticking up and dark stubble accentuating his jawline.
Clay wrapped the sheet around his waist, grabbed his trousers from the clothes rack, and entered the bathroom.
Leah turned pages in her composition book. So many unfinished poems, all in want of a lyrical word or a phrase with the right cadence or a final stanza to complete the thought—including her poem about three dancing muses.
Prickling pain dug in below her collarbone, and she pressed her fingers over the scar and crossed her legs hard. That poem was supposed to remind her of her little sisters—not of the wolf and his bite.
Clay emerged from the bathroom, his hair slicked back, his jaw shaven, and his T-shirt tucked into khaki trousers. He looked nice like that too, but so serious.
He plopped onto the foot of the bed. “Reckon I ought to brief you on my family, seeing as how you and my parents will be writing and calling.”
They would? How little Leah knew about families and marriage.
Clay leaned his elbows on his knees. “I warn you, it’s ugly.”
“All right.” He didn’t realize how many ugly stories she’d heard in the orphanage.
“How much did I tell you about my brother Adler?”
Leah sorted the details. “He’s the one who lost his fiancée, right? Then he blamed your brother Wyatt and tried to kill him. You stopped him, and he ran away. You sai
d something about him . . . stealing your girlfriend.”
Clay snorted. “I was being polite. It was the night Oralee died. After Dr. Hill and the sheriff took care of matters, we all returned to the house. Adler went outside to cool down, and I went upstairs to change. That’s when I discovered Wyatt had stolen my college savings.”
“Oh dear. The same day? How horrible.”
He strode to the clothes rack and picked up his khaki shirt. “Then it was my turn to go outside and cool down. I heard noises from the garage, and I found Adler and Ellen together. She was comforting him.” He spat out the word comforting.
“Oh no.” Did he mean what she thought?
Clay shoved one arm into a sleeve. “I’ve never been so angry. My parents heard us fighting and pulled us apart. Daddy was so disgusted, he told Adler to get out of his sight.”
That explained why Adler ran away. “And she—your girlfriend—ran away with him?”
He wrestled on the other sleeve. “If only she had. Would’ve saved everyone a heaping load of heartache.”
“What do you mean?”
Clay leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling, his shirt hanging unbuttoned. “He got her pregnant.”
“Oh my goodness.” Leah clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Her daddy’s a physician—Dr. Hill. He was my mentor. He figured it out when she was four months along. They kicked her out and left town. She showed up at my parents’ front door, begging them to take her in. And they did.”
How kind of them. Leah rested her hand on her belly, understanding Ellen’s dismay.
Clay buttoned his shirt. “Everyone in town thought the baby was mine. Rumors were flying.”
“That must have been dreadful for you.”
He whipped his tie around his neck and entered the bathroom. “I couldn’t go to college, couldn’t become a physician, had to stay at a job I hated, my girlfriend had betrayed me and was bearing my brother’s baby, and everyone thought I was the villain.”
The poor man. “No wonder you called it the pit.”
Clay stopped knotting his tie and met her gaze. “Yes, the pit. I couldn’t live under the same roof as her. I couldn’t. So I moved in with Uncle Emilio and Aunt Celia. My parents wanted me to marry Ellen for the baby’s sake, but we both refused. She said she loved Adler and insisted he’d come back and do right by her. He didn’t, of course.”
Sympathy for Ellen welled up, but she didn’t voice it.
Clay jerked the knot into place. “The second that baby was born, everyone knew he wasn’t mine—white skin, blond hair. No one demonized me anymore. Instead they pitied me.”
Leah’s sympathy flowed back to Clay where it belonged. “Is that when you were drafted?”
He stepped behind the door for privacy. “I wish. My job protected me from the draft. Boy, was I glad when they ended deferments for men under twenty-three and my number came up.”
Now she understood his eagerness to leave home. “Is Ellen still living with your parents?” What had she thought when Clay called after the wedding?
He leaned against the doorjamb, his shirt tucked in, his face softer and sad. “She died a few months after the baby was born. Driving too fast in the rain, went over the embankment into the Guadalupe River.”
Leah gasped. “Oh no. The baby?”
“Timmy was home with my parents. Still is. They’re raising him.”
They were indeed kind. “I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been. Thank you for telling me.”
“Thanks again for marrying me.” He flipped up a sad smile and sat on the end of the bed. “I can’t help wondering what might have happened if I’d talked Ellen into marrying me.”
If Leah had been his wife in more than name, she would have embraced him. “You wonder if she might have lived?”
He shrugged. “No way of knowing. But you gave me a second chance, a chance to do it right this time. So, thanks.”
She smiled into his warm eyes. Kindness ran in a thick vein in the Paxton family. What an honor to be a recipient.
CAMP FORREST
MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1943
In the early afternoon heat, Clay squeezed Leah’s arm. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Leah studied the library façade, once her dream, now her dread. “Yes.”
“You don’t have to. You’ll receive my allotment.”
They’d spent all morning on the business side of marriage, changing her name, combining bank accounts, and making her his beneficiary and next of kin.
She set her jaw. “I want to do my part, both for you and for the war effort.”
“All right.” One corner of his mouth puckered. “If I can, I’ll be here at nine thirty to walk you to the bus stop. If not—”
“I know. Leave when the library closes and only with an MP escort.” While she had still been in the hospital, Clay had talked to Miss Mayhew about having a night guard. Since the wolf hadn’t been snared, Leah didn’t argue. She fought off a shudder.
“Are you—”
“Absolutely sure.” She injected her voice with conviction. “You’d better report for duty.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Clay gave her a sharp salute. “I’ll see you later.”
She waved good-bye and headed toward the library.
While Clay remained in Tennessee, they needed to act like newlyweds. The lack of a good-bye kiss was appropriate on base, and his training schedule and her evening shifts would justify the lack of time together. Clay planned to put in frequent requests for leave, as a new husband would, and they might need to spend another weekend or two at the King Hotel for appearance’s sake.
Leah wouldn’t mind. After the initial awkwardness, their time together had been enjoyable and comfortable.
The door flew open, and Leah startled. How long had she paused on the threshold?
“Pardon me, miss.” A straw-haired soldier grinned at her and trotted down the stairs.
Not the wolf. Leah straightened her sage green suit jacket, entered the library, and inhaled.
Musk and onions and beer.
Her heart raced, and she slammed her eyes shut. No. She was safe. Safe. She breathed deeply until all she could smell was ink and ideas and imagination.
Bright lights banished the shadows, and she turned to the circulation desk. She angled her body so she couldn’t see the storage room, but her peripheral vision revealed the door was shut.
Thank goodness. Would she ever be able to enter that room again?
Her upper lip tingled, but she smiled for the librarian at the typewriter behind the desk. “Good afternoon, Miss Mayhew.”
The pretty brunette beamed at her. “I’m glad you’re back, Miss Jones. Are you feeling well?”
“I am.” Her fingers coiled around her purse strap. “Only my name isn’t Miss Jones anymore, but Mrs. Paxton.”
Miss Mayhew’s wrists drooped on the typewriter keys. “Mrs. . . . ?”
“Paxton. Mrs. Clay Paxton.” Her smile rose from the pleasure of bearing such a fine name. “The man who rescued me.”
“You . . . got married?”
“Yes, on Saturday.”
The librarian swiveled her chair, leaned her elbows on the desk, and massaged her temples. “You’ve been here less than two months, more than half that time in the hospital, and now you’re married.”
Leah winced. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I thought you wanted to go to library school.”
Grief swamped her, but she had to pretend she didn’t know she was pregnant and that her dream remained. “I do.”
Round and round went graceful fingers beside high cheekbones. “I never knew one married girl who graduated from library school. They had husbands to care for, then babies. They all dropped out. You should have thought this through more carefully.”
Leah had thought this through with exceptional care. She lifted a flimsy smile. “It all happened so fast.”
Miss Mayhew slipped cards inside po
ckets of new books, and she stacked the books with noise unsuited for a library.
Leah’s shoulders clenched. If she reacted like this to marriage, how would she react to pregnancy? Would she fire her on the spot? Leah had so little time to earn money, so little time to search the library for clues about her past.
“You might as well get to work. These have been cataloged and are ready to be shelved.” Miss Mayhew stood and passed the stack of books to Leah.
Pain wrenched through her shoulder and chest. She cried out, and the books tumbled. Loud thumps fired through the library. Chairs scraped over wood, and dozens of soldiers stood and stared.
Leah pressed her hands over the fire in her chest where she’d been stabbed. In this building. Only a month ago.
“Oh my stars. Miss Jones!” Miss Mayhew rushed from behind the desk. “I mean, Mrs. Paxton. Are you all right?”
Leah fought to catch her breath. “I guess I can’t carry that much weight yet.”
“Here. Have a seat.” Miss Mayhew guided her to a chair. “I’m so sorry. What was I thinking?”
“I’m fine.” Leah did her best to smile. “You were thinking I meant what I said, that I was ready to work.”
“Thoughtless of me.” She bustled behind the desk and pushed out the cart. “Use this and only when you’re ready. Please sit as long as you need.”
“Thank you.” She kept pressure on the wound as Clay had done that night.
Miss Mayhew knelt and picked up the books, straightening pages and closing covers. “I was rude and thoughtless. I didn’t stop to think what you’d been through.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. Why, I didn’t even congratulate you. How rude. And I’m very happy for you. You married a good man.”
The pain dulled, and Leah lowered her hands. “I did.”
14
CAMP FORREST
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1943
Clay stood at attention at the foot of his cot, his gaze fixed on the bare wooden barracks wall above Manfred Brady’s head. With all the turnover, Brady and Frank Lyons had been transferred into Clay’s platoon, to the other squad in his section. Even if Clay didn’t like those two, he had to admit they were good Rangers.