Page 24 of Always to Remember
Shaking his head, Clay looked across the way to the granite. “I can’t explain it, but I know I can cut the granite into what I sketched out for you. This—” He touched the marble. “It wasn’t meant to be a statue. It’d do fine as part of a building, but I think you’ll be disappointed if you ask me to carve it into something it was never meant to be.”
“Then you’ll just have to work doubly hard to make certain I’m not disappointed.” She began to walk away, stumbled, and cursed under her breath.
“You don’t give a damn about the statue, do you?”
Abruptly, she spun around. “Of course I do.”
“If you did, you’d let me pick out the best piece.”
“I’ve explained why I want the marble.”
He stalked over until they stood toe to toe, and she was forced to tilt her head back to look him in the eye.
“You want this little project to be as hard on me as you can make it. Fine. Get the marble. I’ll cut it, but if you’re thinking to torture me with your obstinacy and your pert little nose in the air and your ‘we’ll do it my way’ attitude, think again. I can hold my own against any torture that’s handed out.”
Torture.
Lying in the soft bed, Meg wondered why Clay had chosen that word. She wanted to punish him, but torture sounded much harsher than what she’d intended.
They’d arrived at Austin near dusk. Clay had secured a hotel room for her, then curtly told her to sleep on her decision, and he’d see her in the morning.
His abrupt departure suited her just fine. She didn’t care where he was or where he slept. For all she cared, he could sleep on that hunk of granite to which he was so partial.
Pounding her fist into the pillow, she refused to follow his order and rethink her decision. Since she had commissioned him to make the monument, he should make it to please her, not himself. The marble was the best choice. If he didn’t understand that by the light of a new day, he would when he completed the statue.
When he finished cutting it.
When it responded to his touch.
Squeezing her eyes shut did not take away the haunting reminder of Clay’s hands caressing the granite. Her mind danced with her memory of the sketches, intertwining them with the granite until the lines disappeared, and she could no longer see the monument.
The monument was inside the rock, and she wanted desperately to see it. She imagined Clay cutting the stone away to reveal the monument. She saw him shape the woman, carving her face … carving her throat … her shoulders … her breasts …
Throwing off the blankets, she shot out of bed and nearly tripped on the hem of her nightgown. She scrambled to the window and leaned forward, breathing deeply, relishing the outside air fanning her cheeks.
Pulling quickly back into the room, she peered cautiously into the alley. A man, silhouetted by the lantern hanging outside the hotel, sat with his back against the mercantile. The knife that he was methodically wielding over an object in his hand caught the lantern’s glow.
She wondered if that object responded to his touch the way he wanted. Her eyes were again drawn to his hands, weaving in and out of the shadows as he worked. She didn’t need to see the hands to know they were scarred. She didn’t want to see him set the knife aside and touch his long fingers to the carving as though his flesh and not his eyes could tell him if he’d shaped what he’d intended.
Would he touch the stone in the same manner after he cut it? Would he trail his fingers along her throat after he carved it?
She pressed her fingers against her throat and thought about watching him work. He always caressed what he carved.
She remembered the first time she saw him carve something into stone. His knuckles had been too big for his fingers, but she had loved watching his hands work.
Until that day, she’d never known despair. Clay and his skilled hands had eased her pain.
Why had she forgotten?
She was ten when she went with her father to the Hollands’ farm. She stood in the doorway of a large shed, not daring to step inside where they made things associated with death.
“What are you doing here?” a young voice asked.
She turned to see Clay leaning against the building, his hands stuffed into his pockets. “My ma died.”
Compassion filled his eyes. Only now, years later, did she realize how he was accustomed to people standing on his land with tears in their eyes. “I’m sorry.”
She lifted her trembling chin because her father had said if she kept her chin up, everything would be all right, but the simple act never seemed to make anything all right. “My pa went lookin’ for your pa. He’s gonna ask him to make Ma’s marker.” She crinkled her nose. “He wants a lamb and something from the Bible on it.”
