Page 79 of Always to Remember
His laughter abruptly died. He rubbed his hands on his thighs. “You,” he whispered.
“I don’t remember kissing you. Was it during one of the hay rides we had at harvest time? I kissed a few boys then, but I don’t remember—”
“No.” He studied the small patch of ground between her knees and his. Damn honesty. “Today.”
“You never kissed a girl before today? Don’t you kiss women when you make love—”
“I need to go.” He started to get up and froze when she grabbed his ankle.
“Please stay. It’s none of my business.”
Reluctantly, he dropped back to the ground. Before the war, he’d had no one special in his life, and a bought woman hadn’t appealed to him. Now, he didn’t have the money for the only women who would suffer through his touch.
“What’s your favorite kind of cake?” she asked as she parted her hair into thirds and began braiding it.
“I like pies.”
“What kind?”
“Pecan.”
“I hate shelling pecans.”
He shrugged. “I don’t mind shelling them.”
She tossed the thick braid over her shoulder. “Shell me a bowl of pecans sometime, and I’ll make you a pie.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Shell me two bowls of pecans so I can keep one pie. That’ll make it fair.”
The quiet eased around them like a comforting blanket. Clay glanced around a place he’d once enjoyed. “God, I miss them,” he said in a ragged voice. “Kirk, Stick, all my friends. It hurts to think about them sometimes.”
“But you wouldn’t stand by their sides.”
“The war wasn’t about us standing together. It made each of us take a stand for what we believed. Kirk didn’t believe in slavery, but he believed a state should have the right to secede.”
“And you didn’t believe we should have seceded.”
“No, ma’am, I did not. Neither did Governor Sam Houston, but no one hung him by his thumbs when he opposed secession.”
“Did someone hang you up by your thumbs?”
“No, I was spared that indignity, but I know plenty who weren’t.”
She picked up her shoe, and he figured she was going to throw it at him. She dropped it. “The morning Kirk left … what did he say to you?”
“He asked me to ride with him.”
She bowed her head and clenched her fists. “I knew it. I knew he wanted you by his side. Damn you. Damn you, for betraying his friendship.”
Clay chuckled.
She snapped her head up, anger blazing in her eyes. “What’s so damn funny?”
“It’s just odd that the thing I admire most about you is the very thing that makes you hate me so much.”
“What’s that?”
