Page 31 of Always to Remember
She walked toward it, knocked against something hard, and yelped as pain ricocheted through her shin.
“It helps if you open the windows,” a deep voice boomed behind her.
Meg screamed, tripped over the object, and fell flat on her face. Breathing heavily, she rolled over and stared at the man in the doorway, silhouetted against the approaching dawn. She heard him swallow his laughter. “Damn you! What are you doing here?”
Lazily crossing his arms over his chest, Clay leaned against the doorjamb. “I live here.”
Meg scrambled to her feet, brushed off her backside, and angled her chin. “You said you were going to take the oxen back to Austin. There is no way that sorry mule of yours could have gotten you back here so quickly.”
“You’re right about that. Lucian offered to take the oxen back to Austin.”
“How generous of him. I wouldn’t have expected him to do you a favor.”
“I don’t think he saw it as doing me a favor. I think he saw it as an opportunity to get off the farm for a few days.” He uncrossed his arms. “It does help if you open the windows.”
He disappeared from the doorway. She heard him tell someone to help him raise the shutters. She groaned. Obviously, the twins had been waiting nearby to discover who was inside the shed. As though she were a small child, Meg wanted to run home and hide her face beneath the pillow. Moaning and creaking filled the shed as cracks appeared in the wall. Slowly, the morning light filtered through the widening crevice.
Pulling a rope, Clay became visible on one side of the window. Huffing on the other side, the twins strained to raise the window covering.
When they’d opened the shutter fully, they secured the rope on the outside. Then the twins leaned in through the large open window. She wondered if all little boys had grins that reached from one ear to the other.
“We surely are glad to know it was you we saw, Miz Warner. We thought you was a spook. Nearly scared us to death.”
Meg wished she was a spook so she could turn into a mist and disappear.
Clay patted the boys on the shoulders. “Come on, let’s get the other sides up.”
They raised the shutters covering the windows on the remaining two sides. A breeze wafted through the building, and the sun chased away the shadows.
Along one wall, stone peered out from beneath tattered blankets. Shelves lined the lower walls of another side of the building. She could see now that she’d stumbled over an extremely short stool with four broad legs attached to a square top. It came no higher than her knee. She couldn’t imagine that it served much purpose.
“Does that help?” Clay asked from the doorway.
She wondered if he was this polite to all trespassers or only those that amused him. She wished he’d release that smile he was fighting to hold back and be done with it.
“It helps immensely.” Rising onto her toes, she pivoted slowly, her arms outstretched. “I almost feel as though I’m outside.”
“Pa built it so we’d have a place to work. Seems people always die when it rains, and Ma didn’t like all the dust that cutting on rock stirs up.” He turned to walk away.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. “To finish our chores and leave you to do whatever it was you tiptoed over here to do.”
“I only came to look at the granite.”
His smile broke free. “Yes, ma’am, I figured as much.”
He walked away with the twins following close on his heels.
Meg sat on the short stool and stared after them. Clay had the most beautiful smile she’d ever seen.
His small smiles of amusement had been distracting. His smile of pure joy was devastating. She’d have to pay more attention to her actions and make certain she gave him no further reason to smile.
With that resolution tucked away, she rose from the stool and looked at the rock. It hadn’t changed.
She was no longer certain why she’d come or what exactly she’d expected to see. She narrowed her eyes. The monument was buried somewhere within that stone.
She touched the rough surface, anxious to see Kirk again. Maybe Clay was as eager as she was to see the monument completed and would be willing to begin work today instead of waiting for Monday. After all, they were both here.
