He turned from his task and met her gaze. "I haven't thought through the particulars yet, but we'll find a

way to get it to town without anybody knowing. You can tell folks you had some fellow back cast make it."

"You're not going to put your name on the backside?"

"I thought we'd agreed this memorial would reflect the names of those who died fighting for their convictions."

"We did."

"Well, now I didn't die, did I?"

"And you didn't fight either," she reminded him.

"You think the only battles fought are done so with rifles, and the only wounds that kill draw blood. You think courage is loud, boisterous, and proud. Mrs. Warner, I don't think you have a clue as to what this memorial truly represents."

Chapter Ten.

Sitting on toe porch swing, Meg watched clouds drift across the moon as her thoughts slowly wandered to Clay.

With his gaze always riveted on the granite stone that was slowly materializing into three distinct shapes, he worked from dawn until dusk with the steady determination of a man who wanted to rid himself of a despised burden. His rare smiles and occasional teasing no longer surfaced. He seldom stopped chiseling to rest, and when he did, he walked out of the shed.

Meg suspected he dunked his head in a bucket of water drawn from the well because he always returned with water dripping from his hair and his shirt collar soaked as though it alone had stood in a storm.

Each day, he acknowledged her presence with a "Mom-ing" when she walked into the shed. At the end of the day, he stepped off the stool, walked to his low table, set his tools down, stared out the window, and spoke to her once more. "I'm done for the day."

Meg loathed the days that dragged by more than she hated the days when she'd waited in dread for news of Kirk. She felt as though she resided in a prison, a prison that she herself had built, using hatred for bricks and revenge for mortar. She had wanted to punish Clay, but she too ended up suffering.

She didn't want to sit in that shed where silent voices loomed and the steady clinking of hammer to chisel echoed, but she couldn't stay away.

Every day, his hands revealed more of the shadows. The muscles along his neck, back, and arms strained with his efforts. Then they gradually relaxed, and he touched the stone as though to apologize for his harsh treatment and to promise it would all be worth it.

He hit the stone with enough force to send the sound of a crack ricocheting around the shed. Then he glided his palm over the granite creating a rasping whisper.

The whisper stayed with her long after she left the shed. It haunted her dreams, along with the memory of his hands creating mesmerizing shapes from simple stone.

Sometimes, she felt an apology rise in her throat, and she'd clamp her lips to keep them from filling the shed with remorse and regret She wasn't the one who had hurt him. It was his cowardice and his failure to recognize it that caused his pain. He thought she should stand by his side even though he had been unwilling to stand beside Kirk.

She'd laugh at the irony if it didn't hurt so badly.

She watched a silhouette move through the night.

"What are you doing out here, Meg?" Daniel asked as he stepped onto the porch.

"Just thinking. Where have you been?"

Shrugging, he combed his fingers through his dark hair and dropped to the porch, pressing his back against a beam. "Me and Sam Johnson had some talking to do. Where's Pa?"

"He fell asleep in the chair."

"I reckon that's belter than the barn."

"I suppose." She sighed. "I guess we all grieve in our own way."

"I want to do more than grieve, Meg. I want to do something for my brothers. I should have gone with them. I could have been their drummer boy."

"Drummer boys died, too, Daniel. Then who'd help build the Wrights a barn tomorrow?"

He gave her a wry smile in the darkness. "You think Stick would approve of Caroline marrying John?"

Everyone called Caroline's first husband Stick because he'd been so tall and thin. They teased him about

it, claiming that as long as he marched into battle sideways, the bullets would whiz right past him. But the

bullets hadn't missed him.

John Wright had spent two years in a Union prison. In a tattered gray uniform, he had been heading home to a little fork in the road west of Cedar Grove. Weary from his journey, he stopped beneath the shade of a tree on Caroline's property. He never reached the fork in the road.

He had married Caroline two weeks ago, and now the community had a reason to celebrate and a barn

to raise.

Meg held fond recollections of Stick, memories she'd never shared with Kirk. "Yes, I think he would have approved."

Shortly after dawn swept the dew from the ground, Meg arrived at the Wright homestead with her father and brother. Helen Barton, who took charge of anything that needed to be taken charge of, assigned Meg the momentous chore of keeping the children away from the desserts.

Having risen long before dawn to make many of the pies and cobblers that now adorned the table, Meg should have welcomed a task that required nothing more of her than to wave tiny, dirty fingers away from cakes and cookies.

Instead, she discovered that the chore left her hands with little to do and her mind with less than that. She tried to enjoy the gentle breeze wafting among the trees surrounding ALWAYS TO REMEMBER.

Caroline's house, but then she would find herself imagining that same breeze blowing through three large windows of a shed. She wondered if it had stirred Clay's hair before it traveled to work her own strands free from their netting.

She'd captured her hair in a delicate chignon instead of wrapping it into a tight bun. She wasn't accustomed to the weight of her hair brushing along her neck and shoulders.

The hammers echoed in the distance as the men worked to build the bam, and she compared the staccato beat to the steady rhythm Clay used to hammer the stone. She knew she should enjoy the sound of men working together on a common project, but she longed to hear the solitary strains that one man produced as he worked alone, expecting no praise for his efforts.

She glanced at the long table of desserts. Watching desserts held no appeal. She'd rather watch Clay. Yesterday, when she told him she planned to spend the day at the Wrights' farm, he merely nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. They both knew the need for willing hands to build a bam did not include his.

She wondered if he had begun cutting the stone at dawn-or had he waited? Kirk's shoulders were a

visible silhouette in the stone now. She wondered if he'd work down to Kirk's waist first or carve her

shoulders.

The desserts weren't going anywhere. She could sneak away for a few hours, and no one would notice.

She'd just peck inside the shed and see how much progress he'd made-

"Hello, Meg," a solemn male voice said, vibrating behind her.

Spinning around, she stared at Kirk, her heart thumping so loudly she no longer heard the distant

hammers. He had the same blond hair, but deep crevices resembling furrowed fields touched the corners of his blue eyes. He appeared much older and more mature. His beard, darker than his hair, was thick. Not at all the way she'd

envisioned it.

"I don't know if you remember me," he said. "I'm Kirk's cousin, Robert."

She felt her breath rush out and pressed her hand to her throat. "Of course. We met at the wedding."

Against her will, her gaze flitted to his empty sleeve.

"Left arm at Shiloh," he said with a sad smile that implored her not to pity him.

With tears in her eyes, she tilted her chin and returned his smile. "But you're safe now, and that's all that

matters." She wrapped her arms around his neck and felt his arm go around her waist. "You reminded me of Kirk," she whispered in a raw voice.

"I'm sorry he didn't come home."

Releasing her hold, she wiped away her tears. "So many didn't. None of the young men who went with Kirk returned. It's left so many fathers without sons, wives without husbands, and children without fathers. We're extremely grateful for those who did come back."

"Yeah, well, nothin's the same. That's for damn sure." He blushed. "Pardon my language."

"How's your farm? It was somewhere north of Austin, wasn't it?"

"It was, but I didn't have the money to pay the taxes on it, so I had to give it up. Came here to help my

uncle with his farm."

"Are you living with Kirk's parents then?"

"With that mean-spirited mother of Kirk's? No, ma'am. I'd rather be in a Union prison than inside the

walls of their house when she gets a bee in her bonnet. I'm living with Mama Warner."

"I visited her recently. She didn't tell me you were there."

"I've only been here a few days, and she didn't know I was coming until I showed up on her doorstep. She told me you frequently stop by. I was looking for

you."

He uttered his words with such sincerity that Meg almost wept.

"I hope my being there won't stop you from coming by to see Mama Warner," he said. "She enjoys your