Heart of Clay (4 page)

When Callan finally started for home, snow
covered the roads and fell with unrelenting force. Carefully
maneuvering on the slick roads, she wondered what caused Mother
Nature to decide they needed weeks of a winter wonderland in
Tenacity. They rarely had more than an inch or two of snow the
entire season, but this year looked like it would be a
record-setting snowfall.

When she turned off the main road, the car
slid several feet before she got it under control and headed
straight again. She hated driving on slick roads and pulled into
the driveway with a tense neck and white knuckles from gripping the
steering wheel in a tight grip.

At least Clay left the yard light on and
shoveled the walk. She appreciated his consideration. Even if they
didn’t see eye to eye these days, she felt like they still
respected each other, at least most of the time. An unspoken pact
existed that neither one of them would air their dirty laundry
anywhere except at home, with each other. The problem seemed to be
that instead of airing it, they packed it away and all the baggage
grew unmanageable.

Near the front door, Callan slipped on a
patch of ice and her backside hit the pavement before she even had
time to blink. Caught by surprise, she let out a gasp as Clay stuck
his head out the door.

With the roads growing steadily worse, he'd
been watching for her and thought he saw her lights in the
driveway.

“Callan, are you okay?” he asked with real
concern in his voice. He hurried out to where she tried
unsuccessfully to stand. Her long coat and skirt hampered her
attempts to gain footing.

“Give me your hands.” Clay bent over to help
her rise. He grasped both her hands and pulled her to her feet
then, with an arm around her, led her inside the door.

“Thank you.” Tears filled her eyes as she
looked down at her hands. Clay glanced down and saw her palms were
scratched and raw. A cut near her thumb bled. He wondered why she
wasn’t wearing her gloves or her snow boots. Knowing Callan, she’d
probably been too absorbed in her work to bother with putting them
on before she left her office.

“You hit the sidewalk pretty hard, didn’t
you?” Clay gently removed her coat, throwing it across the couch.
He put his arm around her and led her to their bathroom where he
rinsed her hands under a stream of warm water, poured disinfectant
on her cut, and finished it off with a bandage.

Callan remained mute while he worked,
keeping her head down. The sensations he stirred with his closeness
left her unsettled while the scent of his aftershave teased her
nose.

“All better.” He’d missed the feel of her
soft skin against his work-roughened palm and wanted to keep the
contact as long as possible. He offered her a teasing grin. “If you
were so tired you couldn’t make it into the house, you could have
called on your cell and let me know you needed help. You didn’t
need to just plop down on the sidewalk.”

Callan tried her best to keep from getting
emotional, but she released a choppy laugh and gave Clay the first
real smile he’d seen in a while.

“That patch of icy, cold sidewalk looked so
comfy and inviting, I just couldn’t resist.” She offered him a
sassy grin of her own.

Clay ran his hands up her arms and looked
her in the eye, attempting to ensure she wasn’t just pretending to
be fine. “Are you sure you’re okay? Are you hurt anywhere
else?”

“I’ll be fine. I think my pride received the
most damage. Good thing it was dark out or I would have provided
quite a show for the neighbors.”

“If you give a repeat performance, let me
know. I’d like a front row seat.” Clay winked and hugged her
lightly. “Have you had any dinner?”

“I had some crackers and an apple.” Callan
stepped away from him, moving into the bedroom and kicking off her
shoes. “I think I’m ready for bed. I’ll just get a glass of water
and turn in.”

“Okay.” Clay wished she hadn’t pulled away
so quickly. He walked through the house, turning off lights and
locking doors.

Callan shuffled stiffly into the kitchen,
partly because of her still smarting backside and partly because
she dreaded seeing the pile of dishes in the sink. To her surprise,
the dishes were gone, and the sink and counters had been
scrubbed.

She removed a clean glass from the cupboard
and looked around in shock, smiling. After admiring the clean
kitchen, she carried the glass of water to the bathroom. She took
some pain reliever, changed into her nightgown, washed her face,
brushed her teeth, and quickly braided her long hair before slowly
climbing into bed.

Clay was already sprawled across his side of
their king-sized bed. His idea of sharing was to give her one-third
to his two-thirds of space. He had operated on the same
space-sharing theory when they had a queen-sized mattress.
Unintentionally, he’d pushed Callan out of bed more than once. The
last time she awoke as she hit the floor was when she decided they
had to get a bigger bed. She wondered how they would have managed
their current state of cold-shoulder if there wasn’t such a
wasteland of sleeping space between them.

As she slid between the cold sheets, she
couldn’t suppress a shiver. Clay was always warm at night and liked
to sleep in a cool room. She was always cold and slept with an
extra blanket on her side of the bed.

Inexplicably chilled, Callan worried her
teeth would chatter if she didn’t get warm soon. She contemplated
getting up to put on a pair of sweats and socks when Clay rolled
over and gently pulled her up against him, sharing his body
heat.

In recent months when he attempted to draw
near to her, she’d stiffened and moved away. Tonight, she reveled
in the feel of his arms wrapped around her. Sinking into the
security and warmth he offered, she released a tired yet contented
sigh, eager to rest in the haven he provided.

For the first time in a long while, she
drifted into a deep sleep.

Clay awoke before the alarm blared. Callan
remained in his arms, sleeping peacefully for the first time in
months. She must be exhausted to let her guard down and snuggle up
to him without any hesitation.

He remembered her fall right before bed and
wondered if she wasn’t hurt more than she let on. She excelled at
hiding her physical pains as well as bottling up her emotions. He
tried to remember when that had changed.

When they had first wed, Callan seemed as
emotional as any female, or so he assumed. Other than his
even-tempered mother, he’d never lived with one before and he
wasn’t sure what to expect. That first year or two they were
married, he never knew if he’d find her laughing or crying because
odds were high it could go either direction at a moment’s notice.
She was all fire and spirit, light and warmth back then. He
wondered, not for the first time, when that girl had
disappeared.

Slowly shifting, he brushed her auburn hair
back from her face and felt a rush of longing engulf him. What had
happened to the passionate, happy girl he had married?

She still had the dusting of freckles across
her nose that kept her from ever looking too serious, despite her
attempts at always being professional. Her eyelashes were thick and
curled up at the ends, creating feathery shadows across her smooth
cheeks.

He wished, as he had so many times, that he
could inhale her scent. He imagined it was soft, enchanting, and
lovely, just like Callan. At least, like she used to be before she
turned cool and distant.

Clay noticed that even while she slept,
fatigue seemed to bracket her mouth and hang in the dark circles
under her eyes. He contemplated just how much more Callan could
take and why she continually shut him out.

It seemed like she attempted to carry the
weight of the world on her shoulders. He supposed he hadn’t been
much of a help, either. If he cared to admit it, he’d been
resentful and jealous of her event planning business, even somewhat
childish the past several months.

She put in long, stressful hours almost
every day but managed to keep the house nearly spotless. His
clothes were always clean, ironed, and neatly put away. She also
took care of paying the bills and did most of the shopping. Things
she could order and control.

His wife held the reigning title as queen of
organization and detail.

Emotions and feelings were the things she
had trouble handling. He wished he could remember when she had
changed or think of the reason that might have caused her to close
herself off from him. She hadn’t always been this way. He’d never
have fallen for her if she’d been so controlled, so detached.

After giving Callan one more longing glance,
Clay placed a tender kiss on her forehead and got out of bed.

He took his time to getting ready for work,
ate breakfast, then went out to start his pickup. Several inches of
snow accumulated during the night, so he took the extra time to
brush off Callan’s car and scrape the windshield, then shovel the
snow and spread de-icer on the walk before running back inside.

Clay decided to make a little effort at
mending their broken fences. He put a bag of her favorite tea in
her favorite mug, which was now clean, and set them next to the
toaster along with the sugar bowl, a bag of English muffins Callan
liked, and the butter dish. He couldn’t wait to see if his battle
plan was a tactical error or would provide an opportunity for
advance.

Quietly leaving the house, it wasn’t until
he sat at the stop sign, ready to turn onto the main road, when he
realized he didn’t have to go to work. Clay was dean of the
agriculture department at the community college and classes had
finished earlier in the week. Yesterday was the last day any of the
staff would be at school until after the holidays.

Amused by his error, he decided to go into
town and complete his Christmas shopping since he was already
headed that direction. With his thoughts so entangled with his
wife, he had completely lost track of time and place.

Cautiously driving into town, Clay let his
thoughts drift back to the first time he saw Callan. She thought it
was at the county fair where her aunt Julie was in charge of the
sorority club’s ice cream booth.

He’d never bothered to set her straight, but
the first time he saw her was about a month before the fair. Clay
happened to be at the community college looking into a job opening
for a teaching position in the agriculture department. He’d
finished all his teaching credentials the previous year and filled
in as a substitute teacher whenever he could to gain experience.
Eventually, he wanted to land a position that would lead to
something more permanent.

As he sauntered toward the parking lot after
dropping off his application, something caught his attention out of
the corner of his eye, causing him to turn his head. Clay stopped
and watched the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen walk beneath the
shadows of the trees lining the sidewalk.

She was tall and curvy with long tanned legs
that seemed to go on forever. A gentle breeze stirred her skirt
around her knees with every step she took. Her hair, appearing
brown in the shade, turned into a fiery temptation of auburn shot
with gold when she moved out into the sun. It hung in a long
cascade of curls down her back that practically begged for Clay’s
fingers to bury themselves in the shiny strands.

Quickly moving behind a tree so he could
continue spying on her, he watched as she stopped to speak to
another girl. She waved her hands around while she talked and he
caught the bright glimmer of a white-toothed smile. Although the
dark sunglasses she wore kept him from seeing her eyes, an aura of
passion and excitement surrounded her.

Clay was awestruck.

She turned and continued to the parking lot
with the other girl. Before he could gather his wits, she was gone.
Panic tightened his chest. The girl of his dreams had just waltzed
right in front of him and he didn’t even know her name.

He hurried to his pickup and thought maybe
he could follow her, or at least find out where she was going. By
the time he got onto the street, she was nowhere in sight. The only
thing he knew was that she drove a red car.

That tidbit of information wouldn’t prove
extraordinarily helpful in tracking down the girl he had taken
scant minutes to decide he would someday marry. It looked like half
the cars on the campus were red. Not knowing what else to do, he
turned his truck toward home.

His home, also known around the area as,
“The Ranch,” was nearly twenty-thousand acres of wheat, hay, and
cattle that had been in the Matthews family for more than a
century. The original little homestead sat on the back of the
property, maintained with loving care. Clay’s grandparents built a
huge sprawling house that sat on a hill overlooking a pond and
rolling pastures not long after they wed. Steve and Bobbi Matthews,
Clay’s parents, moved into the homestead cabin when they first
married. Clay even had a few sketchy memories of living there when
he was a little buckaroo. As an only child, Steve inherited the
place when his parents died in an automobile accident and moved his
family into the big ranch house.

Clay drove down the tree-lined drive of the
ranch feeling bereft and alone, wondering if he would ever see the
girl in the red car again. His dad waved to him from the shop so he
pulled in and noticed Big Jim Carver worked to repair one of their
tractors.

Everyone liked Big Jim, although his name
was misleading. The man stood about five-foot-four if he stretched,
and was thin and wiry. He had a smattering of freckles across his
weather-creased face and the hair he had left was a combination of
carrot-red and silver.

From what Clay understood, the nickname came
from Big Jim’s easygoing attitude and giving heart. If someone
needed help, Big Jim was usually one of the first to show up and
among the last to leave. He had been coming out to fix their
equipment ever since Clay could remember. Big Jim loved to tell
stories almost as much as he loved to mechanic. From the looks of
things, it appeared he told Steve Matthews a whopper. Clay parked
the truck and got out, grinning as his dad bent over in
laughter.