Page 104 of Always to Remember
“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.”
“The pain—”
“I fought the pain. I can’t close my hand.”
“Once it’s healed—”
“It won’t make a difference.” He struggled to his feet. “They say you reap what you sow. Well, take a good look at your monument, Mrs. Warner. They took away my ability to finish it, and they left you with nothing but shadows to honor those you loved.”
Seventeen
MEG CRAWLED THROUGH HER BEDROOM WINDOW. SHE WALKEDto the washstand and splashed the cool water on her face, but it couldn’t wash away the dark circles beneath her eyes or the heaviness that had settled in her heart.
