Page 105 of Always to Remember
She needed to cook breakfast, and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and cry, long and hard, until she was so exhausted that she’d sleep without dreaming of Clay.
Lethargically, she walked to the kitchen and took a pot off the wall. Her father and brother would have to be content with porridge because she didn’t have the energy to fix anything else.
She heard Daniel coming down the hallway whistling “Dixie.” Perhaps his hatred toward Clay would be less if her father had let him leave and be the drummer boy for the Confederacy that he’d wanted to be. Unfortunately, drummer boys had died as well.
“Mornin', Meg.” He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “What are you fixin'?”
“Porridge.”
“Sounds good.”
Smiling, she looked at him over her shoulder. Porridge was his least favorite meal. “You seem awfully happy this morning.”
“Yes, ma’am. You don’t have to worry about that yellow-bellied coward touching you no more.”
Meg’s heart constricted so tightly she thought it might stop beating. “What?”
He released her, dragged a chair out from the table, and dropped his body into the seat. “We took care of him last night. Didn’t we, Pa?”
Meg spun around. Her father averted his gaze as he took his chair. “That’s right,” he said quietly.
Daniel planted his elbows on the table. “He won’t be touching any of our women any time soon, that’s for damn sure. My brothers would have been proud of us.”
Meg thought she was going to be sick to her stomach. The room began to spin and tilt.
A hard knock sounded on the door, and Meg took a deep breath, trying to right her world, wondering if anything would ever feel right again.
Robert stepped into the kitchen, and Meg knew from the sadness in his eyes what was coming before he spoke.
“Mama Warner’s taken a turn for the worse.”
Easing onto the bed, Meg brushed the wisps of silver hair away from the wrinkled brow. “Were you here with Mama Warner throughout the night?”
“Where else would I have been?” Robert asked.
She lifted her gaze to the man standing beside her. “My father, my brother, and some other men attacked Clay last night. They put a knife through his hand. I think they did it because he touched me after church yesterday.”
Robert knelt beside her. “What is Holland to you, Meg?”
She felt the tears well in her eyes.
Reaching out with his thumb, he captured a fallen tear. “So that’s the way of it, is it?” He smiled sadly. “I suppose I’d be wasting my breath if I asked you to marry me.”
“I love him, Robert. I didn’t want to. Things would certainly be simpler if I’d fallen in love with you.”
“Would it have made a difference if I had two arms?”
She cradled his cheek. “No.”
He laid his hand over hers. “I didn’t think my loss would matter to you. You’re a special lady, Meg. You don’t look like you’re aware of that this morning, but you are.” He stood. “Once word gets out about Mama Warner, we’ll have more company than we can shake a stick at. I’ll try and keep as many as I can out of here because you sure don’t look like you need company today.”
“Thank you, Robert.”
He walked from the room, and Meg took the frail hand into her own. She leaned over Mama Warner. “Can you hear me, or are you too close to heaven to hear us anymore? I feel like I’m in hell.”
She studied the pale features that time had lined with wisdom. “You knew Clay wasn’t a coward. If you’d told me, I wouldn’t have believed you, but he showed me in so many ways. The irony is that he’s the only one among us who isn’t a coward. I think that’s why we all hated him so much. He is exactly what we believed ourselves to be.”
Lucian had a strong urge to punch Clay in the jaw. Not out of hatred, but out of love. He wanted to knock some sense into his brother.
