Page 102 of Always to Remember
They wriggled out of her embrace. “You gonna go home now?” Joe asked.
She cradled their chins in her hands; their faces, their eyes were as easy to read as the pages of a favorite book. “I’m going to stay right here until you fall asleep; then I’ll sit with Clay until he wakes up.”
“Bet we could fall asleep faster if you was to sing to us,” Josh said.
She tweaked their noses and folded her hands in her lap. “Do you know why I play the organ at church?”
They sneaked glances at each other before shaking their heads.
“Because I can’t sing. I sound like a mule that’s had its backside kicked.”
Laughing, the boys fell back against their pillows. She brought the quilt over their quaking shoulders, and they snuggled into the center of the bed.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “It’s my secret.”
“We won’t,” they promised.
If anyone else had promised her something with that much snickering, she wouldn’t have believed it, but she knew the twins understood the value of their word.
They rolled onto their stomachs, and she rubbed their backs.
“I like this better than listenin’ to someone singin',” Josh said. “Don’t you, Joe?”
Joe answered with a light snore. Josh struggled to keep his eyes open, but soon surrendered the fight and joined his brother in slumber.
So many battles to fight. She combed their fine red hair off their brows. So many battles to lose. She lowered the flame in the lantern. So many battles to win.
She glanced at the rumpled bed where Lucian had no doubt been sleeping before the hooded riders swept into their world. She wondered where he’d gone and if he had his own battles to fight.
Held at bay too long, the anguished sobs rent the still night air. With the dew seeping through her nightgown, Taffy rocked the man curled against her as if he were a newborn babe.
“I need you, Taffy,” was all he’d whispered through her window and all she’d needed to hear to climb into the night.
Lucian dragged his hands down his tear-drenched face and took a shaky breath. “He didn’t even hesitate, Taffy. He just went out there. I’ve called him a coward behind his back, called him a coward to his face. I wouldn’t have gone out there.”
“You can’t say that, Lucian. A person never knows what they’ll do until the time comes. If they’d called you out, you may have gone.”
Moving away from her, he swiped his hand beneath his nose. “No, Taffy, I wouldn’t have gone. I told Clay he was a coward so he wouldn’t see that I was one. I was glad when Ma and Pa died. I thanked the Lord because their deaths left me as the oldest on the farm. I didn’t write and tell Clay they’d died because I didn’t want him coming home. I didn’t want to go off and fight I’m the coward, not him. He never was a coward. The day the army came for him, he didn’t run. He just stood in that field and waited. I knew then he wasn’t a coward. When Ma and Pa died, I hid behind their deaths. Clay never would have done that.”
“You can’t be sure,” she said quietly.
“Yes, I can, and I ain’t hiding anymore, Taffy. He’s my brother, and I’m gonna stand by him like I should have done from the beginning. I wanted you to know because it’ll mean I won’t be welcomed in most homes around here.”
She intertwined her fingers with his. “You’ll always be welcome in my arms.”
He laid her on the damp earth and kissed her as tenderly as only a man who’d just conquered the enemy within could. Victory, he discovered, was sweeter when shared.
It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt to think.
It hurt to love.
Clay studied the small hand and delicate fingers curled on his chest. They reminded him of a tiny trusting kitten napping in the shade on a warm afternoon.
He’d been wrong to fall in love with Meg, to expect her to stand by his side and weather the gale of a storm that he was no longer willing for even his brothers to endure.
Her avoidance in church had sliced into his heart as easily as a bayonet through his flesh. He’d felt betrayed and, like a wounded animal, had struck out at the one he loved above all others.
Yet here she remained, as though she were a rag doll plopped into a chair. Unable to sit upright, she had spilled forward onto the bed, with her face nestled in the mattress next to his side, her eyelashes tickling his skin, her breath warming his scarred hip where the quilt had fallen away.
