Page 25 of I'll Be There
He slid his hands over hers, entwined her fingers.
He’d scooted up until his chest pressed against her back, cocooning her in his embrace. He smelled of the rain, tonight’s campfire, and his own musky fragrance.
Muscle memory had her reaching out, wetting her hands, then moving them to the clay. “You have to center it, or it will be lopsided on the wheel, and you won’t be able to form it.” She moved her hands over the clay body, then she slipped them out from beneath his and pressed his hands lightly against the form. “Gentle. It doesn’t take much pressure, just steady and kind.”
He had amazing hands. Strong, the nails trimmed, the skin slightly tanned. Scarred from the nightmare of the accident that took his parents. She squeezed out the sponge over his grip, then guided his hands, helping him cup them over the clay, forming a ball.
“Can you feel the rhythm of the wheel, how the clay moves under your hands, ready for forming?”
He hadn’t shaved, and his beard rasped against her cheek as he nodded.
“Now, you simply work it into the shape you want.” She pressed his thumb into the center of the form, repeating her previous movements, drawing out the bowl with his fingers, then positioning them across the lip, his forefinger smoothing it out.
“Sometimes I can’t believe you agreed to marry me.”
“Why? You’re an amazing man. Brave, smart, a man of faith.”
“No, babe, you’re the brave one. And you’re the one with faith. Watching you, loving you, makes me love Jesus more.”
It did? She cupped his hands, drawing them over the top, building the walls of the bowl into a strong foundation.
“With you, I see the future I want. The future that’s waiting for us.” He dipped the sponge in the water, squeezing itout over her hands as she drew the bowl up, his other hand still entwined in hers.
“Me too,” she said in the quiet of the work, her heart settling into a beat with his.
She barely noticed as he ran his hand over her arm, his thumb riding her scar. The wetness in his grip soaked into her skin, the clay hardening there. Despite the plastic surgeon’s attempts to minimize it, the scars on her right hand betrayed the way the animal had held it in his mouth, crushed the delicate bones. Another scar started just below her elbow, ran up her arm, dark pink, as wide as her pinky finger in places where the claw had dug bone deep.
She stilled, her hands on the bowl as Conner traced her scars with light fingers, first her hand, then the trail up her arm as they curved around her elbow, then through her bicep. He leaned forward and kissed the puncture scars on her shoulder.
She swallowed, her pulse thundering in her ears.
“Does it still hurt?”
She loosed her breath. “Sometimes.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes.”
He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. “You’re safe now, Lize. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She turned in his arms and found his gaze roaming her face, falling to her lips.
When he didn’t move, she nodded, aching for him to kiss her. Touch her. Calm her racing heart.
He swallowed. “I should go.”
Oh. “Um...”
He pushed away from her. Got up, and the separation raised gooseflesh across her chilly skin.
“Conner—”
He looked down at her, gray paste up to his wrists.
“Could you—” She closed her eyes, looked away. No, he needed the Liza he knew. Put together, healed.
He crouched in front of her. “What?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
