He jammed his battered hat onto his head, released the brake, and lifted the reins. Hell, he’d go without her. He wasn’t certain if Schultz would have anything available at the stone quarry he mined near Austin, but Clay wanted to look. Then when Meg Warner showed her face in a week, or a month, or a year, he could tell her what he’d seen.
Flicking the reins, he knew the prospect of judging the quality of stone hadn’t kept him awake most of the night. His inability to sleep had resided in the scented promise of honeysuckle surrounding him as he journeyed to Austin.
He was damn insane to anticipate something as simple as a woman’s scent. Maybe he had lost his mind while he was a prisoner. After the execution that never came, they’d sentenced him to hard labor. On days when they couldn’t find anything useful for him to do, they made him pound rocks for no good reason except that it caused his back to ache and his hands to blister. He was certain his jailers never realized how difficult it had been for him to see the potential within a rock just before he had to smash it into white powder.
Now Meg was giving him the opportunity to shape a hunk of rock into something of value.
And it scared the hell out of him.
He’d been cutting into wood, stone, and his own fingers since he was a boy. He’d gathered his informal education at his father’s knee whenever his father found time to show him the craft thathehad learned from his father before him. But his father’s tutelage had never satisfied Clay’s hunger. It always left him craving more knowledge, yearning to create the images that filled his mind.
He’d discovered his own technique through trial and error, nurturing his innate skill, learning from his failures, reveling in his few successes. He knew he’d drawn something on paper that he probably couldn’t create with his hands, but, damn, he wanted to create it for all the reasons Meg had stated … and more.
He heard the galloping hooves and glanced over his shoulder to see the dirt rise and swirl around the horse and rider as they barreled down the road.
Without an apology or explanation, Meg slowed her horse until it was walking beside the wagon. She was wearing Kirk’s faded flannel shirt, woolen trousers, and crumpled brown hat. Beneath the hat’s wide brim, Meg’s pert little nose strained to touch a cloud. He wondered if he’d imagined the gentleness of her tears the day before as she’d studied his sketches, wondered why he’d thought the tears were strong enough to melt away her hatred. With his thumb, he tilted his hat off his brow. “Morning.”
She slid her gaze over to him as though she’d just seen a snake slither under a rock. Her nose went up a fraction higher, and this time he couldn’t help himself. He smiled.
Her eyes widened just before she averted her gaze and fidgeted with something on the other side of her saddle. “I am not here to provide you with company. I simply want to make certain you make the best choice.”
“Know a lot about rocks, do you?”
She swung her gaze back to his. “I know what I like.”
He eased the smile off his face. “And what you don’t like.”
She gave a brusque nod. “Especially what I don’t like.”
Heaving a sigh, he stared ahead at the dirt road he’d traveled a dozen times with his father. He had a sinking feeling this trip would be the longest he’d ever taken, and he sure as hell couldn’t smell any honeysuckle. “Did you bring the money?”
“Certainly.”
Against his will, he found his gaze returning to Meg’s slender form. She sat on a horse with a measure of grace and confidence that came from weathering life’s storms and bending so naturally with the force of the wind that it could never conquer her. Maybe he should have sketched her and not Kirk, sitting astride the horse.
Only he wanted to capture her as she was before the war had destroyed her innocence and hope. He wanted to capture her resilient spirit, a spirit that had survived even when the war snatched away the dreams she shared with another. “Is it the money your husband was saving to purchase his farm with?”
Her blue eyes widened until he thought they rivaled the sky in beauty. “He told you about the farm he wanted?”
“We were friends. He told me a lot of things.”
She wiggled her backside in the saddle, and Clay was tempted to toss a blanket over her lap. They were probably safer with her traveling dressed in her husband’s clothes, but she looked decidedly different in trousers than Kirk had looked. Without a doubt, however, she’d made alterations to the clothing so that it fit. Kirk had been straight as a board from his shoulders to his toes; he’d never possessed those curves. But the clothes didn’t seem to mind one bit. As a matter of fact, the trousers were hugging her as though they cared for her deeply.
“What did he tell you?” she asked.
He wrenched his eyes up to her face where they should have been all along. He had no business letting his gaze wander to her hips. Since she hadn’t slapped him, he figured his hat was shading his face so she couldn’t see exactly where he’d been looking. “What?”
“What exactly did Kirk tell you?”
“Lots of things.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “He told me if I dug a hole when the moon was full I’d have enough dirt to fill it back in.”
“Why would you dig a hole at night?”
“I wouldn’t.”
