Heart of Clay (21 page)

“Oh, give him a break. Your mother told me
about all the cookies you used to snitch from her kitchen – and
still do.” Callan shot him a knowing look. “Ha, see I do know a few
of your secrets.”

He grinned. “What other secrets do you think
I’m hiding?”

“I don’t know. If I did they wouldn’t be
secrets, would they?” Callan forked her salad and took a bite while
Clay went to work on his sandwich. She loved spending time with him
in the middle of the day. Their schedules didn’t frequently mesh,
but when they did, she appreciated the opportunity to share lunch
with him.

When they finished eating, they discussed
their afternoon plans when Callan saw Jake with a couple of
friends. He seemed to be having a good time.

“Jake just walked in and I have an idea,”
Callan said, looking at Clay with a devilish gleam in her eye.

Clay loved the playful look on Callan’s
face.

“I’m listening.”

Callan grinned. “He hasn’t seen me since I
cut my hair. Do you think he’d recognize me from the back if you
were to give me a hug? I think…”

“That is a perfectly rotten and wonderful
idea.” Clay turned to watch Jake. “He’s been giving me grief in and
outside of class for weeks. It’s his turn to squirm. Just follow my
lead, okay?”

“I’m right behind you.” Callan stood as Clay
dumped their trash then walked behind him so Jake wouldn’t see
her.

Once Clay caught Jake’s eye and waved,
Callan stepped out with her back to Jake. Clay turned, threw an arm
around her and headed out the door. Leaning close, he whispered in
her ear. “He’s taking the bait.”

Jake couldn’t believe what took place right
in front of him. Clay, the person he had always looked up to, was a
complete louse. He was cheating on Callan, and at school, no less!
Incensed and disappointed, Jake followed Clay as he left the
cafeteria. When he walked outside the door, he saw Clay wrap the
woman in his arms in a close hug.

“Clay! What are you doing?” Jake grabbed
Clay’s arm and pulled it away from Callan. Agitated, he turned to
her with a sneer. “Do you know he’s married? His wife is the
sweetest lady I’ve ever met. I’m not going to stand by and…”

“Oh, Jake, you’re adorable when you’re
fuming.” Callan patted his arm, as both she and Clay laughed.

“Callan? Wow! What did you do? You look
hot!” Jake blushed from the roots of his dark hair past the collar
of his shirt.

“Just remember who she married, Jake ol’
boy,” Clay growled, slapping him on the back.

A blush tinged Callan’s cheeks at Jake’s
statement. Quickly recovering, she kissed his cheek. “I think that
is the best compliment I’ve had yet, Jake. Thank you. I hope you
aren’t mad we were teasing you.”

“Nah,” Jake said, still red in the face. “I
may have had it coming.” Turning to Clay, he shook his head. “I was
thinking a lot of things about you and none of them nice. I’m glad
to know they were mostly untrue. You know, if I’d been a few years
older when you met her, I’d have given you a run for your money,
old man.” Jake offered his cousin a cheeky grin. Throwing an arm
around Callan, he gave her a sideways hug. “Thanks for making me
cookies this morning. It was a great snack to tide me over until
lunch. You’ll have to make more next time if you want me to
share.”

“Sure, Jake,” Callan said, glancing at her
watch, surprised by the time. “Well, boys, I’ve got to go. Behave
yourselves this afternoon.” She gave Clay a quick kiss, patted Jake
on the arm again, then rushed out the door as both men watched her
leave.

“You are so lucky, dude.” Jake punched Clay
in the arm before rejoining his friends.

You bet I
am
, Clay thought as he walked back to his
classroom, grinning from ear to ear.

Young voices blended with Callan’s from the
vicinity of the kitchen as Clay walked inside the house and closed
the front door.

“Are there little strangers in my house?” he
called as he tugged off his boots and left them in the coat
closet.

“Uncle Clay! Uncle Clay!” Audrey and Emma
shouted as they ran toward him. He hunkered down, holding each of
them in an arm and picked them up. Although he was being strangled
from both sides, he loved every minute of it. A few sticky kisses
later, he stopped next to the dining table where the girls and
Callan had a mess of monumental proportions. “What are you ladies
working on?”

“Auntie Callan made us play glow,” Emma said
with a nod of her head and a toss of her blond curls. “We’s making
lots and lots of pretties, aren’t we, Auntie Callan?”

“We most certainly are, sweetie. We are
making all sorts of shapes with our play dough.” Callan beamed at
the girls. “When you get done making all the things you want to
create, we’ll put them in the oven and dry them out so they’ll last
forever. How will that be?”

“Goodie,” Audrey said, squirming to get
down.

Clay set both the girls down and raised a
questioning eyebrow at Callan. “So are you two going to be Auntie
Callan’s helpers all weekend?”

“Yes!” Emma said, nodding enthusiastically.
“We gets to help tonight and ‘morrow and we gets to sleep here.
Right, Auntie Callan? For one sleeps or two?”

“You get to stay for two sleeps,” Callan
said with a warm smile. “Uncle Clay and I are so happy to have you
come visit us. Aren’t we Uncle Clay?”

“You bet.” Clay placed a kiss on each little
curly head then tossed Callan a look that said she could explain
their unexpected guests later. They hadn’t really spent time with
the girls since Christmas vacation when they took them
sledding.

“Come make some play glow with us, Uncle
Clay.” Emma shoved her tiny hands into a mass of bright blue
dough.

“Please, Uncle Clay, please help us.” Audrey
added her own plea.

Callan gave him a hopeless look and a
shrug.

How could he resist? He rolled up his
sleeves and sat down next to Audrey then picked up a chunk of red
dough. After forming it into a lumpy heart, he got up and dug
around in a cupboard. He found a toothpick then drew two
intertwined “C”s in the dough.

He handed it to Callan and gave her a
dimpled smile. “You’ve always had my heart in your hands, Callan,
but here’s one you can hold.”

Callan choked back the tears that pricked
her eyes and clogged her throat. It wouldn’t do to get emotional in
front of the girls, but she hoped Clay would know how deeply the
gesture touched her. She grasped his hand and gave it a warm
squeeze then leaned over to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Thank
you.”

She wasn’t doing as good a job of hiding her
feelings as she thought because Emma jumped down from her chair and
climbed onto her lap.

“Don’t cry, Auntie Callan,” Emma said,
placing a hand on each side of Callan’s face. “I’ll hold Uncle
Clay’s heart for you.”

Laughing, Callan gave Emma a hug and a kiss.
She looked over Emma’s head at Clay as she spoke. “Thank you, Sweet
Pea, but I’m going to keep his heart in an extra special place,
where it won’t ever get broken.”

Clay ended up making both of the girls a
heart with their initials. He couldn’t tell one blob from another
that they had fashioned, but Callan oohed and aahed over their
assorted flowers, animals, circles and curlicues. She put
everything on a huge baking sheet and popped it into the warm oven
to dry out so the girls could keep their treasures.

“Now it’s time to play clean up. Who wants
to help?” Callan asked brightly.

“Me, me, me!” came the chorus from the two
girls. Clay knew the clean up created twice the mess and took three
times as long as it would have if Callan had done it herself, but
the little helpers made it so much more fun.

When they sat down to a dinner of macaroni
and cheese, warm bread, fruit and veggie sticks, Callan and Clay
listened to the girls chatter about all the things that were
important in their little world.

Audrey had a new friend named Deena who
lived down the street and had two white kittens with blue eyes that
were “gorgeous.” Emma, on the other hand, was more interested in
the little green frog she found outside that morning and wanted to
know why it had funny shaped legs, why it hopped, why it was the
same color as grass, and why she couldn’t keep it in her room.

Callan looked up at Clay and caught his eye,
trying not to laugh. Tenderness spread through his chest. The two
little girls brought warmth and light to a dark place in his heart
and he was sure Callan felt the same.

After dinner, they retired
to the family room couch where they watched
Sleeping Beauty
. Audrey insisted she
had to sit on Clay’s lap and Emma nestled into Callan’s.

Every time something she deemed scary
appeared, Emma buried her face in Callan’s shirt. Clay thought
she’d missed more than half of the movie. Audrey thought everything
was “gorgeous” and wanted to grow up to be a “gorgeous”
princess.

“But I want to look like Auntie Callan so I
can have a prince just like you Uncle Clay,” Audrey stated with an
affirmative shake of her head. “You’re extra nice.”

“Thank you, Audrey. Auntie
Callan
is
a
gorgeous princess.” Clay gave Callan a wink. “But I think you’ll
grow up to be a beautiful one, too.”

“Really?” Audrey asked, staring at him
intently.

“Absolutely.” Clay turned her upside down
and tickled her tummy, setting both girls into a round of
giggles.

“Oh, Clay, don’t get them wound up. It’s
almost bedtime,” Callan warned, watching the excitement level take
off in both girls.

“Too late for that, girl.” The girls grabbed
his hands and dragged him onto the floor where they rolled and
played.

Callan went to get a bath ready for them and
came back to find Clay pretending to be a horse while Emma and
Audrey rode on his back.

“If you ladies wouldn’t mind dismounting,
it’s time to head to the trough,” Callan teased.

“Please, Auntie Callan, can’t we play just a
little bit longer?” Audrey begged. “Please?”

“How about if your trusty horse gives you a
ride to the tub?” Callan asked.

“Yes!” both girls squealed, giving Clay a
series of kicks that would have sent a less stalwart horse to the
floor with a bruised kidney or cracked rib.

Clay hauled his riders into the bathroom
where Callan peeled the girls off his back and plopped them into a
tub full of bubbles.

He returned to the family room and sank into
his recliner to rest his back and ears. He had no idea how two
girls could make so much noise and be so tiring.

Nearly asleep in his chair, his eyes popped
open when two wiggly bodies flopped on top of him. After a series
of hugs and warm little kisses, the girls were finally ready to be
tucked into bed.

“You have to help Auntie Callan tuck us in,
Uncle Clay. She said she isn’t sure she knows how to do it all by
herself.” Audrey said, tugging on one hand.

“Yep. You’ve gots to help her,” Emma said
with a serious frown puckering her little brow while she tugged on
his other hand.

Clay pretended to drag his feet, letting
them try to pull him across the kitchen floor. Their tiny toes
peeking out from their ruffled nightgown hems were just too
cute.

Unable to tug him across the carpet in the
hall, they gave up trying. Clay picked up both girls and carried
them to the guest room. Callan had a lamp on by the bed and a
storybook in her hand as he gently tossed the girls into bed. Their
curls jumbled all over their faces and they giggled so much he
didn’t think they’d ever settle down.

Callan gave him a dark look. “I see Uncle
Clay did a good job of winding up you two little clocks again.”

“We’s not clocks, Auntie Callan,” Emma
giggled. “Me and Audrey are girls!”

“That you are, Sweet Pea.” Callan pulled the
covers up and smoothed back their hair. She sat down on one side of
the bed and motioned for Clay to sit on the other with a tilt of
her head. He sat down and waited. Bedtime rituals of little girls
were not in his catalog of experiences.

Callan started to read the story about a
fairy princess and her friends in a slow, low voice. It didn’t take
long for Emma’s bright blue eyes to grow sleepy, followed by
Audrey. Within just a few minutes, both girls were asleep and
looked more adorable than Clay thought possible.

Callan kissed both girls, rose to her feet,
turned off the lights, and pulled the door mostly shut. She flipped
on a light in the guest bathroom across the hall then motioned Clay
to follow her. They returned to the family room where Callan sank
down in her rocking chair and set it moving back and forth at a
furious pace.

Clay could tell she was upset about
something.

“You won’t believe what Mel and Ted did
today,” Callan said as he watched her anger grow with every rock of
the chair. “I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things
for the weekend. I was just coming out when I ran into Mel, Ted,
and the girls. They were fighting and the girls were both crying. I
asked them if there was anything I could do to help and they both
told me to mind my own business. The girls, of course, both came to
me, sobbing. I asked Mel if I could bring the girls home for the
weekend while they tried to work things out. After more arguing,
they decided it wasn’t a bad idea. Mel gave me her house key so I
picked up a few of the girls’ things and brought them home. What’s
wrong with them? Don’t they realize what a blessing they have with
those two babies? I can only imagine what goes on at home.”

Callan sighed and distractedly shoved a hand
into her hair. “I was so irritated. I know I should have called and
asked you before I offered to bring them home, but I couldn’t leave
them there.”