Kirk’s father hefted it off the table. “I appreciate it.” He headed for the door and stopped. “I was here that night.”
Most of his life, Clay had paid a great deal of attention to silhouettes and shapes. The flour sacks had hidden their faces the night of the attack, but the midnight shadows had revealed their identities. “Yes, sir, I know.”
“Kirk told me you weren’t a coward, and I called him a damn fool. I was wrong. It’d mean a lot to my ma if you’d come to her funeral tomorrow.”
The steady rain began at sunset. The thick branches laden with their autumn leaves shielded Clay from the force of the storm. All he felt was an occasional raindrop as it traveled along a leaf and fell to the earth.
His arms shielded Meg as she pressed her back against his chest. She hadn’t come to see him today, but then he hadn’t expected her to. He knew she’d be helping the Warners deal with their loss, would be grieving herself. She’d been as close to Mama Warner as he’d been.
But he’d also known he’d find her here this evening, waiting on him. They had shared their deepest emotions at the swimming hole. In spite of the rain, they had felt a need to come here to grieve. They’d wept, held each other close, and now they watched the rain fall.
“Did she go peacefully?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. It was as though she just went to sleep.”
“I’m glad, but I sure do feel her loss.”
“Mr. Warner showed me the headstone. It’s beautiful with the buffalo grass carved in it, so simple and down-to-earth like she was.”
“I couldn’t carve the date.”
“Maybe in time—”
“Maybe.”
The lightning flashed and its brilliance revealed the place where they’d first made love.
“Will you go to her funeral?” Meg asked.
“Haven’t decided. She doesn’t deserve to have hatred surrounding her when she’s laid to rest.”
“She’d want you there.”
“I don’t know, Meg.”
Turning in his arms, she laid her head against his chest. “We could go together.”
“No,” he said gruffly.
“I thought after last night—”
“Last night didn’t change anything, Meg. Just like the night we spent together here didn’t change anything. I’m still the coward of Cedar Grove. That’s all these people will ever see. I’ve been fighting their opinions and hatred for years now. It hasn’t made a damn bit of difference, and it won’t make a damn bit of difference tomorrow. It’s best to just surrender. Hurts less that way. Hurts those I love a lot less, too. When we finish the monument, I’ll be moving on … alone. If you were smart, you’d start spending your mornings with Robert.”
“Do you love me?” she asked softly.
“More than my life.”
Nineteen
MEG’S HANDS TREMBLED AS SHE PLAYED THE ORGAN. SHEthought she’d released all her tears last night as she stood within Clay’s arms. But she was wrong.
Now, she yearned for his compassionate embrace more than she longed for Reverend Baxter’s words of solace.
Her tears increased as she unexpectedly pressed the wrong keys. The resounding chords more closely resembled the wail of a lost child who suddenly realizes she’s alone than the comforting strains of “Amazing Grace,” which she was supposed to be playing in memory of Mama Warner.
The last notes lingered as she clasped her hands in her lap and bowed her head. Tears clung to her eyelashes. She remembered the touch of Mama Warner’s gnarled fingers as she gathered Meg’s tears the day she cried because Kirk had grown a beard. She remembered the woman’s smile as Clay lifted her into his arms, and the peace that radiated through her as she trailed her hands over Kirk’s features carved in stone. She held the remembrance of Mama Warner even closer to her heart because woven throughout the memories were moments shared with Clay.
Quietly, the minister eulogized a woman who had touched the hearts of many and helped to shape the destiny of Texas.
