Lorraine Heath (30 page)

Yawning, the boys shuffled to their room, their bare feet dragging along the floor. Josh stopped in the doorway. “Wait here, Miz Meg, and we’ll holler when we’re undressed and under the covers. We know it don’t bother you seein’ our backsides since you’re a widow and all, but it’d sure bother us … even though you’ve seen ‘em before. We kinda like to keep ‘em to ourselves.”

Meg bit back her smile. In the worst of circumstances, these boys held a view of the world that charmed her. “You take the lantern, and I’ll wait here.”

Taking the lantern, Josh ducked into the room. She heard the scuffling, the whispers, and a small laugh.

“We’re ready, Miz Meg!”

She walked into their room. Josh had set the lantern on the table beside their bed. With angelic faces, they peered at her. She pulled the quilt to their chins. She wanted desperately to lean over and kiss each and every freckle dotting their cheeks and noses, but they weren’t accustomed to having a woman in their life, and she didn’t know if they’d welcome the affection she wanted to bestow upon them.

Tonight, they’d grown up more than any child of ten should ever have to.

“Miz Meg?”

“What, Josh?” she asked.

“How’d you know it was me talking?” Josh asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve just been around you for so long that you don’t look the same to me anymore.”

He grimaced. “I got the most freckles.”

She smiled. “I know, and I love every one of them.”

“Miz Meg, would you mind terribly if we was to give you a hug?”

Sitting on the edge of their bed, she shook her head and held out her arms. They bolted upright and flung into her embrace. She held them close, inhaling their scent of dirt, leaves, and bats at twilight.

“We love you, Miz Meg,” one of the twins rasped.

She didn’t know which one had spoken, but she knew it didn’t matter. “I love you, too.”

They wriggled out of her embrace. “You gonna go home now?” Joe asked.

She cradled their chins in her hands; their faces, their eyes were as easy to read as the pages of a favorite book. “I’m going to stay right here until you fall asleep; then I’ll sit with Clay until he wakes up.”

“Bet we could fall asleep faster if you was to sing to us,” Josh said.

She tweaked their noses and folded her hands in her lap. “Do you know why I play the organ at church?”

They sneaked glances at each other before shaking their heads.

“Because I can’t sing. I sound like a mule that’s had its backside kicked.”

Laughing, the boys fell back against their pillows. She brought the quilt over their quaking shoulders, and they snuggled into the center of the bed.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “It’s my secret.”

“We won’t,” they promised.

If anyone else had promised her something with that much snickering, she wouldn’t have believed it, but she knew the twins understood the value of their word.

They rolled onto their stomachs, and she rubbed their backs.

“I like this better than listenin’ to someone singin',” Josh said. “Don’t you, Joe?”

Joe answered with a light snore. Josh struggled to keep his eyes open, but soon surrendered the fight and joined his brother in slumber.

So many battles to fight. She combed their fine red hair off their brows. So many battles to lose. She lowered the flame in the lantern. So many battles to win.

She glanced at the rumpled bed where Lucian had no doubt been sleeping before the hooded riders swept into their world. She wondered where he’d gone and if he had his own battles to fight.

Held at bay too long, the anguished sobs rent the still night air. With the dew seeping through her nightgown, Taffy rocked the man curled against her as if he were a newborn babe.

“I need you, Taffy,” was all he’d whispered through her window and all she’d needed to hear to climb into the night.

Lucian dragged his hands down his tear-drenched face and took a shaky breath. “He didn’t even hesitate, Taffy. He just went out there. I’ve called him a coward behind his back, called him a coward to his face. I wouldn’t have gone out there.”

“You can’t say that, Lucian. A person never knows what they’ll do until the time comes. If they’d called you out, you may have gone.”

Moving away from her, he swiped his hand beneath his nose. “No, Taffy, I wouldn’t have gone. I told Clay he was a coward so he wouldn’t see that I was one. I was glad when Ma and Pa died. I thanked the Lord because their deaths left me as the oldest on the farm. I didn’t write and tell Clay they’d died because I didn’t want him coming home. I didn’t want to go off and fight I’m the coward, not him. He never was a coward. The day the army came for him, he didn’t run. He just stood in that field and waited. I knew then he wasn’t a coward. When Ma and Pa died, I hid behind their deaths. Clay never would have done that.”

“You can’t be sure,” she said quietly.

“Yes, I can, and I ain’t hiding anymore, Taffy. He’s my brother, and I’m gonna stand by him like I should have done from the beginning. I wanted you to know because it’ll mean I won’t be welcomed in most homes around here.”

She intertwined her fingers with his. “You’ll always be welcome in my arms.”

He laid her on the damp earth and kissed her as tenderly as only a man who’d just conquered the enemy within could. Victory, he discovered, was sweeter when shared.

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt to think.

It hurt to love.

Clay studied the small hand and delicate fingers curled on his chest. They reminded him of a tiny trusting kitten napping in the shade on a warm afternoon.

He’d been wrong to fall in love with Meg, to expect her to stand by his side and weather the gale of a storm that he was no longer willing for even his brothers to endure.

Her avoidance in church had sliced into his heart as easily as a bayonet through his flesh. He’d felt betrayed and, like a wounded animal, had struck out at the one he loved above all others.

Yet here she remained, as though she were a rag doll plopped into a chair. Unable to sit upright, she had spilled forward onto the bed, with her face nestled in the mattress next to his side, her eyelashes tickling his skin, her breath warming his scarred hip where the quilt had fallen away.

Cautiously, he lifted his hand and touched the ebony wisps of hair that were no longer threaded through her braid.

His words following the attack had only deepened the wound piercing his pride. The emotional pain would eventually lessen, and his wounded pride would scar, but he’d rather carry the self-inflicted scar than ever again witness the agony and fear he’d seen in Meg’s eyes.

He had a strong desire, a stronger need to wake Meg, pull her into his bed, apologize for his harsh words, and love her one last time.

Instead, he gently moved her hand off his chest and eased out of bed, holding his breath against the shards of pain traveling through his arm, chest, and head.

Getting dressed was no easy task, and he contented himself with getting his trousers over his hips and buttoned. He’d never intended for anyone to know how harshly he’d been treated. Some people in the area would have reveled in the knowledge, some would have pitied him, others would have agonized over the way he had been treated. He wanted none of those emotions directed his way for what he’d willingly accepted and brought on himself.

But gentle, caring hands had exposed the scars. Raising his arms nearly caused him to reel over with the pain, so he knew it would be impossible to pull his shirt over his head. His shirt remained as she’d left it: draped neatly over a chair, the blood removed, the damp ends touching the floor.

Quietly he walked around the bed to where Meg slept. He’d probably never again awaken to find a woman asleep near him. He placed a light kiss on her cheek before leaving the room.

As she awoke, Meg arched her spine to get the knots and tightness out of her back and shoulders. She should have gone with her instincts and crawled into bed with Clay, but she was afraid she’d cause him further pain if she rolled against him in her sleep.

Easing back in the chair, she rubbed her neck, opened her eyes, and stared at the empty bed. She hopped out of the chair and frantically searched the room. Having just awakened, she needed a minute before she realized that the room gave a man no place to hide.

She darted into the living room area. Nothing stirred. She crossed to the other bedroom and glanced inside. The twins were sleeping. Sometime during the night, Lucian had returned, for he was sprawled over his bed, his clothes and boots still on.

She rushed outside. With feathery fingers, dawn was creeping over the land. The door to the shed was open.

Hurrying to the shed, Meg tripped over her clumsy feet. Picking herself off the ground, she brushed the dirt off her hands and continued. Her heart pounding, her breathing labored, she reached the doorway and came to a dead stop. Clay was slumped against the granite, his eyes closed, his mouth turned down. In the dim light spilling in through the doorway, he looked as though something as heavy as the monument weighed upon his heart.

She walked into the shed and knelt beside him. He cradled his wounded hand. The pristine white bandage Dr. Martin had wrapped around his hand was now crumpled, bloody, and loose fitting as though Clay had discarded it and retrieved it without care.

He heaved a melancholy sigh that sounded as mournful as the wind that preceded the first storm of winter. “I wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t carry a rifle.”

He opened his eyes, and Meg fell into the dark brown depths, which had aged considerably since yesterday. Lightly touching the white wisps of hair at his temples, she understood at last that it was the harshness of other men that had aged Clay, not the passing years.

“They hung some men by their thumbs to convince them carrying a rifle was what they should do,” he said hoarsely. “I listened to those men scream, and I prayed they wouldn’t hang me by my thumbs. I was afraid if my thumbs were pulled free of my hands, I wouldn’t be able to hold my tools, I wouldn’t be able to carve when I got home. A damn selfish thing to pray for, but they never hung me by my thumbs.”

She trailed her fingers along his roughened cheek. She wanted to shave him, trim his hair, prepare him a nice warm bath, and never let anything harsh touch him again. “They hurt you in other ways,” she said quietly.

She watched his Adam’s apple move slowly up and down. “They deprived me of sleep, deprived me of my mother’s letters, and branded me a deserter.”

“Dr. Martin said they’d planned to execute you.”

“Changed their minds. They wrapped heavy chains around my ankles and kept me prisoner at a fort instead.”

“Is that where Kirk visited you?”

He nodded slightly. “You’d written him that my ma and pa had died. He thought if he showed your letter to the officer in charge, he’d send me home.”

She felt the anger swell inside her at the injustice. “But he didn’t release you.”

“I asked him not to show him the letter.”

Stunned, Meg sat back on her heels. “Why?”

“Your letter was four months old. Lucian was coming up on the age when they would have wanted him to enlist. Figured since I hadn’t heard from him, that maybe he was content where he was. Our parents’ deaths gave him an honorable reason not to enlist—”

“It gave you an honorable reason to return home.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t sure how Lucian felt about the war, but I took his silence as a plea not to come home. Maybe that was wrong on my part, but they’d already done all they were going to do to me. After Gettysburg, I stayed with Dr. Martin and helped him tend the wounded till the war ended.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this sooner?”

“What difference does it make? You’re no different than the Confederate officers. You want a man who’s willing to kill. I won’t. I told them I’d tend wounded, but Captain Roberts had gone to West Point with Robert E. Lee’s son, and by God, every man under his command would carry a rifle.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, ma’am. Figured if I held a rifle, the day would come when they’d order me to shoot it, so I never gave them the chance.”

She touched her fingers to the scar that marked him as a deserter. “I’m so sorry they did all this to you.”

“Are you, Meg?”

She felt as though a frozen river had just traveled along her spine. “Of course I am.”

“I’m not so sure. I may have figured out why you wanted me to make the monument.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Why did you ask me to make the memorial?”

The reasons raced through her mind: her reasons in the beginning were vastly different from her reasons now. She’d planted the seeds for retribution, and they’d flourished, but the harvest in no way resembled the bitter fruits she’d expected. She knew she’d waited too long to answer his question when his eyes dulled and one corner of his mouth lifted mockingly.

“You place a man’s dream within reach, and then you do all in your power to see he never touches it. That’s why you wanted the marble instead of the granite, why you came here every day. You didn’t want to watch me carve the monument, you wanted to see me fail.”

“Perhaps in the beginning—”

“And when you realized I wouldn’t fail, you decided to make me suffer—”

“No!”

“You just happened to be here last night—”

“I was here because you didn’t meet me at the swimming hole.”

“If I’d been at the swimming hole, would they have taken their vengeance out on my brothers?”

“I don’t know.”

He glared at her. “Is that why you made love with me the other night? So I’d know exactly what it was I’d never have?”

“No!”

“I could have done it, you know. I could have given you a monument to honor Kirk, Stick, your brothers, and all the other men who sacrificed everything in the name of honor.”

“You still can. You can finish the monument—”

He shook his head, his dark brows knitting together over the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes tighter. “I can’t close my hand.”

“Because it’s bandaged.”

“I took off the bandage.”