"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."

Chapter Nineteen.

Meg's hands trembled as she played the organ. She thought 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 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.

Glancing toward the back of the church, Meg saw the door open slightly. Clay slipped in as quietly as a snowflake falls to the ground. With his hat in his hand, he slid into the last pew and bent his head until his hair fell forward and obscured his eyes.

She had little doubt that he had closed his eyes and fought his tears and grief as strongly as she did. When the final words of the eulogy drifted into silence, Meg would receive comfort from Kirk's father and Robert, from her father and Daniel, from Helen, and Sally and every other person to whom she'd ever given comfort.

Who would comfort Clay?

With his large scarred hands, he had cut the names of their children, their parents, and their loved ones into wood or stone so they would be remembered. He'd rescued their slain sons from a mass grave and buried them with dignity.

The monument she'd asked him to carve paled in comparison to the testimony of his love that he'd already given them, that he continued to give them. He had touched the people of this town in a way more profound than the sculpting of any monument, and yet none of them knew of his actions, and if they had known, their hatred would not have allowed them to acknowledge the gift.

Just as her hatred had prevented her from daring to reach beyond the wall of despair to grasp another chance at happiness.

She knew Clay would leave after the closing prayer, before she played the final hymn. He held within his breast a deep respect for people, a respect that had been denied him.

Searching the mournful faces of the congregation, she wondered how many men believed in anything as strongly as Clay believed in his convictions. How many would stand alone?

How many women believed strongly enough in the man sitting by their side to stand beside him when the whole town stood against him?

These women had surrounded her, their fingers working as busily as hers, to sew gray uniforms for their husbands and sons. They had ripped the seams on silk gowns they'd worn on happy occasions to make a flag honoring the most terrifying day of their lives. In the lamplight, they'd gazed into each other's eyes and known that none of (hem wanted their men to leave.

With meticulous stitches and perfect seams they'd sewn their doubts into the cloth, so that when they met the gazes of their soldiers that final morning, nothing was visible but their love and their belief in that love.

Clay was right. Meg didn't know what had driven Kirk to enlist. She knew only that he believed in what he was doing, and his belief was all she had needed to stand at his side. The bench scraped across the floor as she moved back. The reverend stopped speaking and snapped his head around to stare at her. Meg took a deep shaky breath, gave him a tremulous smile, and rose from the hardwood bench. If possible, the congregation became quieter, and she felt their silence wrap around her like a heavy suffocating shroud. Her legs trembled and her knees felt as though they'd turned into the sandy bottom of the swimming hole in which she swam at midnight.

Skirting the bench, she somehow managed to descend the stairs without tripping. Each step she took echoed off the rafters and vibrated against the stained-glass windows as she walked down the center aisle. She halted beside the last pew, and she could have sworn she heard necks pop as people strained to see what she was doing.

Clay stared at a knothole on the back of the bench in front of him.

"I'd be honored to sit with you," Meg said in a voice that rang through the building.

The brown depths of his eyes pleaded with her as eloquently as his words. "Don't," he rasped with raw

emotion. "Don't do this, Meg. Not here. Not now."

"I said those same words to you once. I was wrong to say them then. You're wrong to say them now. I love you, Clayton Holland."

Gasps sounded, hymnals thudded to the floor, groans, moans, and sighs rose from the crowd like a

psalm thrown toward the heavens.

Clay sprang to his feet "You're grieving today. You don't know what you're saying." He strode past her to the door.

"I know exactly what I'm saying," she called out, but he closed the door on her final words. She rushed

through the door after him, with the disbelief of the congregation echoing in her ears.

She staggered across the porch as someone pushed past her. She glanced over her shoulder. "Daniel!"

"I'll take care of it, Meg!" he called as he stalked toward the waiting wagons.

Meg felt a moment of panic and then relaxed. They never brought rifles or guns with them to church. Clay

was striding toward the muddy road that went past the church and through the center of town.

Meg stepped off the porch. With a force that caused her to bite her tongue, she found herself jerked back and held in her father's ironclad grasp.

"What the hell is going on here, girl?" he bellowed as people gathered around them.

She twisted but couldn't break free of her father's hold.

"Meg, are you crazy?" Helen asked. "The town coward-"

"He's not a coward." Stretching her neck, she peered over her father's shoulder to the road. She was

afraid she'd see Daniel attacking Clay, but Daniel was nowhere in sight. Clay was trudging away... alone once again.

"Clay! You've never run away from anything in your life! Don't run away from me now! Don't run away

from our love!"

He came to a dead halt in the middle of the road and hung his head.

"I won't have you running after a coward," her father growled, tightening his grip on her arm, and giving

her a small shake as though he could shake some good sense into her.

The voices and words swarmed around Meg as people surrounded her, blocking her view. "He wouldn'tfight-""Coward's what he is-""Why's she chasing him?"

"Yellow streak a mile long-""Didn't enlist-""Coward-"Through the ragged gaps left between elbows and shoulders, she saw Clay raise his hand, and although his back was to her, she knew he'd slipped his fingers between the buttons on his shirt and was rubbing the "D" they'd burned into his chest.

"I love you!" she cried over the reminders of his cowardice that people continued to throw at her.

He spun around. His voice, deep with pain, carried his words across the churchyard even though he didn't yell. "I have nothing to offer you, Meg, but loneliness, and I love you too much to give you that."

His words effectively parted the crowd, and Meg had a clear view of him standing in the road. She wanted desperately to be at his side. "I'd rather spend my life with one man surrounded by love than the ignorance and hatred surrounding me now."

Slowly, he shook his head. "You can't imagine how much it hurts to be ignored by people... you respect.

You don't know how loud the silence is or how deeply it cuts. It's bad enough watching the hatred touch my brothers. I'd rather die than see it touch you."

Thunder rolled in the distance. People turned their attention toward the sound. Standing in the wagon, Daniel urged the horses through the water-logged road toward Clay.

"Daniel, no!" Meg screamed as she jerked free of her father's grasp only to be caught by someone else.

For a brief moment, indecision crossed Clay's face, and then he began running toward the barreling wagon, toward Helen's daughter, Melissa, as she played in the muddy road, oblivious to the approaching danger.

Meg heard a scream and didn't know if it was hers or someone else's. Clay flung himself over the child as

the wagon neared.

She heard other screams and wails as Clay and Melissa disappeared beneath the hooves of the horses and the wheels of the wagon. When the wagon passed, all she could sec was Clay lying face down in the mud.

Fear gave her the strength to break free of the man holding her.

Fear drove her to rush to Clay's side and drop into the mud beside him.

"Don't move him!" Dr. Martin cried as he threaded his way through the silent crowd casing to the center

of the road.

Helen knelt beside Meg. "Oh, God, my baby."

Dr. Martin worked his way to the ground. Gingerly, he rolled Clay over to reveal Melissa's tiny

mud-covered body.

She started blinking her eyes and turned her mouth down before she released her first wail. Helen lifted her from the mud and pressed her against her breast, rocking and cooing to her daughter.

Using her skirt, Meg gently wiped the mud from Clay's face. "He's bleeding," she whispered as she

watched the blood mingle with the mud.

"Looks like the mud shielded him somewhat so nothing's broken, but he took a blow to the head," Dr.