Stone captured a strength that wasn't always there. Stone contained no softness. Over the years, it had roughened his hands. He wished it had roughened his heart.
"I thought I'd find you here," a voice as soft as silk whispered through the night
Clay turned from the water and leaned against the boulder. Pressing his boot heel against a worn spot in the rock, making his knee jut out, he fought to appear calm.
Meg walked to the boulder and gazed at the pond. "It occurred to me that you lied to me," she said softly. "When?"
"When I asked you what Kirk looked like the last time you saw him."
"That's not the question I answered. You changed the question and asked what he looked like when he brought me the letters. I told you."
She placed her hand over his where it rested on the boulder. "What did he look like the last time you saw him?" Turning his palm up, he squeezed her hand. "Don't do this."
She tilted her face toward him, her eyes filled with tears that made them seem as deep as the water on the other side of the boulder. "Ah, Meg."
Moving around his knee until she was nestled between his thighs, she placed her cheek against his chest. "What did he look like?"
Clay brought his arms around her. She was so small. He didn't think he'd ever realized how small she was. "He looked"closing his eyes, he swallowed, swallowed the truth"he just looked as though he'd fallen asleep."
She lifted her gaze to his, the moonlight reflected in her tears. "I kept hoping someone had made a mistake, that somehow he'd been spared, and one morning I'd look out the window and see him walking home. But he's not going to come home, is he?"
Clay shook his head. "I'm sorry I didn't bring Kirk home. I should have at least brought him home, even if it meant carrying him on my back."
"They were his friends, his men. He organized them and had them all enlist together so they could fight together. He was their leader. They fought and died at his side. He wouldn't have wanted to leave them. Why didn't you tell us you'd buried them?"
"I didn't figure anyone around here would appreciate the fact that I'd touched their honored sons. You can't take a man off a battlefield without touching him. You can't bury him without touching him. I did what I did because those men had been my friends, and they deserved more than a mass grave. I didn't do it to please their fathers. The day you came to see me about making the monument, you didn't even want me to say Kirk's name. How would you have felt then if you'd known I'd held him in my arms and wept over him?"
"I would have hated you more." Touching her fingers to the white hair at his temples, Meg wondered if his quest at Gettysburg had aged him. She tried to imagine the horror he'd faced, wading through a field littered with bodies, searching for those he knew, smelling the stench that must have risen higher and higher with each passing day, and carrying mangled bodies to a place where they might rest in peace. Despite Clay's words that Kirk looked as though he'd fallen asleep, Meg could not imagine that death ever came silently during war. Kirk would have fought death as diligently as he'd fought the Union soldiers. Pressing her
face against Clay's chest, she released the agony of her grief, no longer certain if the tears she shed were for Kirk or for Clay.
Clay felt the small tremor travel along Meg's back. He tightened his hold on her. "Meg?"
Her trembling increased in intensity. Where were the twins when he needed them? What had they said to her? What could he say to her to ease her hurt?
She cried hard mournful sobs that rose from the deep well of her heart. He gazed at the stars. He supposed if she needed or wanted more from him than his arms around her, she'd tell him.
She sniffed inelegantly. "Do you have a handkerchief?"
"No, ma'am."
She lifted her skirt and blew her nose before wiping the tears from her cheeks. He caught a glimpse of white cotton and closed his eyes against the sight He'd never realized how alluring white cotton could be.
"It hurts to cry," she said, her voice raspy.
"It hurts worse not to."
"Did you cry?"
"For four days straight."
"Is that how long it took you to bury them?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said in a voice that sounded like stone grating against stone.
She looked to the heavens. "The moon's pretty tonight."
He wanted to tell her she was pretty tonight, but he didn't know how to phrase the words so he wouldn't sound like some love sick school boy.
She pressed her finger to his lips. "You said you spent a lot of time thinking about our kiss. I thought about it as well." She wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and threaded her fingers up into his hair.
"Meg" He wasn't certain what he'd planned to say, but he knew it couldn't have been important because the words drifted from his mind as soon as her lips lighted upon his. Her mouth was as warm as the shade in August and as soft as a piece of velvet that his mother had sewn into one of her quilts.
She touched the tip of her tongue to one comer of his mouth, then to the other. She nibbled on his lower lip, and he felt as though she were pulling him through the keyhole of hell into heaven.
He cradled her face between his hands, angled his mouth over hers, and welcomed the bliss she offered. Boldly, she gave her tongue the freedom to roam within his mouth. She sighed. He moaned.
He thought a man could become spoiled touching a woman. He might never want to touch stone again. Stone wasn't warm. It didn't alter its shape with the gentlest of pressures. Stone didn't breathe so he could feel its moisture on his face. Rocks didn't make soft sounds that he'd cany with him until the day he died.
She drew her mouth away from his, and he forced himself not to follow and reclaim what he wanted.
Her eyes were dark within the shadows of the night, but he felt the intensity of her gaze as strongly as he felt her fingers tighten their hold on his neck.
"I hate you," she whispered hoarsely.
He lowered his hands from her face. "I know."
"So why am I here?" She trailed her fingers over his face, touching every line, crease, and crevice. "Robert kissed me tonight." She rubbed her thumb over his lower lip. "And all I could think about was kissing you."
She returned her mouth to his. If this was hate, he'd probably die if the woman ever loved him. His heart beat so hard he was certain she could feel it thrumming through his shirt. Each breath he took carried with it the scent of
honeysuckle. Her hands, so small, slipped beneath the collar of his shirt. Her slim fingers moved gently, creating small circles on his neck that seemed to travel clear down to his toes. Then she parted her lips and gave him the greatest treasure of all: hot, moist, and silky, her mouth invited him home.
Meg felt Clay's hesitancy to follow her lead. She teased his tongue, suckled it, then drew it into her mouth. He groaned, and she felt a shudder run the length of his body. She found his uncertainty endearing. When it came to matters of the heart, he had maintained an innocence that she had seldom seen since the war.
She knew Kirk had kissed an abundance of girls before he ever kissed her, knew he had bedded others before he took her as his wife. He had taught her the pleasures to be found with a man, had given much more than he'd taken. He'd been a skilled teacher, she an apt student.
Yet now, she found Clay's lack of experience as intoxicating as she'd found Kirk's abundant knowledge. He moved his hands back to her face, his fingers lovingly tracing the curves of her cheeks, the lines of her brow, and the jut of her chin. He touched her as though she were as delicate as finespun glass. He touched her as though she were more precious than gold.
Drawing away from the kiss, she placed her hands over his. "Arc you trying to memorize my lines so you can carve the stone accurately?"
Slowly, he moved his head from side to side. "I could carve your likeness in stone if I were blinded. I've just never touched anything as soft or as smooth as you are. I can't get over how incredible you feel." His hands fell away from he
r face. "What's wrong?"
In the moonlight, she could see the barest of smiles touch his lips. "Wish I had different hands. Mine are so damn ugly, they shouldn't be touching you."
Wrapping her fingers around his hands, she lifted them to her lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. Releasing one of his hands, she turned the other over and skimmed her fingers over the roughened surface, a palm that was as unpolished as the stone it had caressed over the years. She placed a kiss in the center of his palm. "I tike your hands."
"Why?" he asked, and she heard the disbelief mirrored in his voice. "They're so big. They look and feel like stone."
She rubbed her cheek along his hand. "But they don't touch like stone. I watch the way you chip at the stone, and then you touch it as though you're apologizing for treating it so harshly, as though you don't realize you're doing it a favor and turning it into something of beauty. I've missed watching you work this week to the point that I've resented every thoughtful neighbor who stopped by to visit Mama Warner because I had to play hostess and couldn't sneak away for a few minutes. I don't mind caring for Mama Warner, but it wears me out to care for all the people who come by to see her."
"I've never felt lonelier in my life than I felt the day after I saw you here, and you didn't come to watch me work. I started carving Kirk's features because I thought it would bring you back to me."
"Will you stop working on his face now that you know why I didn't come?"
He shook his head. "No, I'll go ahead and finish it now that I've begun. Might have to carve your features as well, just so I won't feel so dadgum alone."
"I'd watch you work if I could, but Mama Warner has always been mere when I needed her. I can't leave"
"I know."
She pressed her check against his chest. "Don't stop working on the monument."
"I won't," he promised.
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
By unspoken agreement, they met at the swimming hole every night after that. Lying on a quilt, Meg gazed at the stars. Stretching out beside her, Clay looked at her.
She told him about her day, caring for Mama Warner. She never talked enough to satisfy him. He could have listened to her soft voice all night, well into the morning, if she would have stayed with him that long, but he always escorted her home around midnight, watching while she climbed in through the window, wishing he could boldly escort her to the front door.
The days were shorter when he had the nights to look forward to, but the nights were never long enough.
Perched on an elbow, he lifted the end of her braid.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"Wishing I was a painter. I'd use your braid as my brush, dip it in the colors, and create the most beautiful paintings in the world."
"And what would you do if I wasn't near you?"
"Ah, there's the secret I'd have to keep you near me."
She wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled him toward her waiting mouth. With no doubts, she initiated his favorite part of the night.
Rolling onto his stomach, he braced his elbows on either side of her to keep his weight off her, grazed his knuckles along her checks, and lowered his mouth to hers.
Words he dared not speak drifted through his mind, questions with answers he'd rather not hear taunted him. If she hated him, why did she meet him here every night? If she hated him, why did she welcome his touch? If she loved him, why did she meet him secretly?
If he loved her, why didn't he leave her alone instead of luring her into his world where hale overshadowed love, and battles were still fought over a war long over?
Moaning softly, she pressed her head back against the quilt, arching her throat. Clay had learned that she liked it when he used his mouth to blaze a trail along the ivory column of her throat. Each night he learned more what she enjoyed because each night, she gave a little more of herself to him.
Gliding her hands along his shoulders, she kneaded his muscles. "You feel so tight, you must have worked extra hard today."
"Worked extra long." He lifted his face, his gaze holding hers. "I want you to come and see what I've done before you go home tonight."
"I wish you could work at night."
"Lanterns wouldn't give me enough light I need the sun."
"You carved a headstone during a storm at night."
"That was different. It's smaller. I have to keep all the monument in sight Shadows at night would distort the stone. No telling what I'd end up carving."
She threaded her fingers through his hair and rubbed her thumbs in circles over his temples. "Have you made Mama Warner's marker?"
"I made it the day after I saw her."
"Is that what you want to show me?"
"No, making markers never brings me joy."
"What you did today"
"I think it'll bring you joy."
Walking through the moonless night, her hand wrapped firmly within his, Meg wanted to tell Clay that he brought her joy.
Watching Mama Warner grow weaker with each passing day, knowing she could do nothing but offer comfort and company, Meg went home exhausted each evening. Only the knowledge that she'd see Clay carried her through the long hours of the day.
She didn't know why she'd denied herself the pleasure of his company that first week or why she thought she was too tired to crawl out the window and run to the darkened swimming hole.
She enjoyed listening to his voice as he talked about his day. Carving, she discovered, was very much like plowing a field, only the crops he hoped to harvest grew from seeds planted in dreams. Mesmerized, she'd watch his hands create shapes in the air as she was certain they'd created shapes in the stone. He talked low, his voice a caress in the night She look the sound of his voice, the feel of his kiss into her dreams, drew strength from the small amount of lime that they had together each night.
They neared the shed, and he gripped her hand harder as he slowed his steps. He opened the shed door.
"You oiled it," she whispered.
"Yeah, sometimes I just come out here and sit, long before dawn. I prefer not to wake the twins when I do."
They stepped into the shed, and he released his hold on her hand. She heard scratching, then a flame flared, and he lit a lantern. Lifting it over his shoulder, he walked toward the statue.
Meg eased around him and lifted her gaze. "Oh, my."
He held out his hand. Slipping her hand into his, she stepped onto the stool. With trembling fingers, she touched the stone face.
"What do you think?" he asked quietly.
"It looks just like him," she said in awe. She worked her other hand free of Clay's grasp and touched both palms to Kirk's cheeks. She ran her fingers over the stone brow, along the eyes, and down the nose. "It's perfect."
"It's hardly perfect."
"You captured so well the man he was before the war. Look at the pride reflected in his face. He has no doubts. He believes in what he's doing." She sighed wistfully. "I wish Mama Warner could see this."
"Why can't she?"
"She's so weak, she can't even get out of bed, and you certainly can't drag the monument to her."
"I could bring her here."
"She's too frail. I don't think she could travel this far."
"She could if we used the wagon. I'll put a couple of mattresses and several blankets in the back. We'll go slow. I'll carry her to the wagon. Then I'll carry her in here."
"When would we do it?"
'Tomorrow?"
Meg knew it was unlikely that Mama Warner would live long enough to see the monument completed, but Clay had finished carving what she would care about most. "People arc traipsing in and out of her house all day. All we need is for one of them to tell Robert or Mr. Warner, and after you dared Robert to shoot you, what's left of the family would probably come after you with all guns loaded."
"We could do it in the evening."
Meg planted her hands on her hips. "So Robert wouldn't have to come lookin
g for you? He could just shoot you as you cross the threshold?"
"Not if he doesn't know I'm crossing the threshold. The man's gotta sleep some lime."
"You mean go late at night?"
"Why not? She's never put locks on her doors."
"And if we get caught?"
"I'm willing to risk it."
The following night Meg sat in the wagon, hoping she wouldn't regret what she and Clay were about to do. Their good intentions could easily bring harm Clay's way if they were discovered.
"Take off your boots," Meg whispered as she worked off her shoes.
"Why?" Clay asked.
"So we don't wake Robert when we're walking through the house."
"Does he wake easily?"
Meg snapped her head around. "I don't know, but Kirk did. I assume since they're cousins"
"Wish I'd known" he mumbled as he jerked off his boot.
The lantern resting at Meg's feet in the wagon cast its light on his large toe as it peered through a hole in his sock. He pulled the bottom of his sock over the hole and wedged it between his toes. Meg bit back her smile. She'd never in her life known a man as modest as this one.
He jumped off the wagon and walked around the mule. The moon was but a silver sliver in the sky, the stars sparkling like a thousand diamonds. She didn't know if they could have picked a better night for their clandestine adventure.
After helping her climb out of the wagon, he reached for the lantern. She laid her hand on his arm, and he stilled.
"Promise me if we wake Robert that you'll walk out the door."
"And leave you to face his wrath?"
"He won't get angry at me. In all likelihood, he'll shoot you."
He chuckled low. "I won't run, Meg."
"I'm not asking you to run. I'm just asking you to leave if we wake Robert."
"How will you explain what you're doing in the house?"
"I'll say I couldn't sleep and came to look in on Mama
Warner."
Bowing his head, he studied the ground. "Do you think
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