hadn’t even thought of that before the phone call.
He’d given his parents a gift too. Clay would die, and Wyatt and Adler might never come home again. But now Daddy and Mama had a daughter to cherish and a grandchild on the way.
Leah sniffed. “I suppose all brides say this, but this is the happiest day of my life.”
Clay couldn’t contain his grin. “Mine too.”
13
TULLAHOMA
SUNDAY, AUGUST 8, 1943
Leah held the tiny soap to her nose and inhaled cleanliness and luxury. She had a bathroom to herself, with no girls pounding on the door or crowding at the sink.
Clay’s canvas toiletry kit lay unrolled on a cabinet. Pouches held razor and blades, toothbrush and paste, shaving cream, soap, comb, and mirror. What a clever thing.
No sounds emanated from the bedroom. When she had awakened, Clay had been asleep on a blanket on the floor. How odd to sleep in the same room as a man. Yet the rhythm of his breathing had a comforting effect.
After Leah buttoned her yellow floral dress, she arranged curls and bobby pins the best she could.
Leah eased the bathroom door open. Daylight brightened the room through the drawn curtains. Holding her breath, she padded past Clay to the chair by the window.
Perhaps she could write a poem. Since the attack, her emotions had been too jumbled to put into words. She took her composition book from her purse, but the blank page mocked her.
Leah’s gaze drifted to Clay. Watching him sleep felt too private and intimate.
He lay on his stomach, one arm crooked above his head, a white T-shirt taut across his back. One bare leg protruded from under the sheet, as sturdy and muscular as the rest of him.
For the first time, words alone felt inadequate to describe the sight before her. If only she were an artist, so she could sculpt him in bronze.
His breathing became jerky, and his eyelids twitched. Was he dreaming? Now his cheek twitched, his fingers, his foot. Suddenly he exhaled, long and low, and his eyes opened.
Before she could look away, his gaze met hers. Dark eyebrows hiked up, and his face fell.
So did Leah’s heart. Was this how her biblical namesake felt on her bridal morning when Jacob discovered he’d married a woman he didn’t love? “Behold, it was Leah.”
Clay snuffled and pushed up to sitting, dragging the sheet across his lap. “G’morning.”
“Good morning.” She kept her voice cheery.
He leaned his head back against the wall. “Had that dream again.”
“Just now?”
“So real. Honestly thought when I opened my eyes, I’d see Jesus’s face.”
Instead he’d seen hers. No wonder he’d been disappointed.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then turned to her. “Say, you look as fresh as a daisy. How long have you been up?”
“About half an hour. When the sun rose.”
“Huh. I’m usually a light sleeper.” He stroked his jaw. “Reckon I should make myself presentable before church.”
It seemed a shame. He looked cute with his hair sticking up and dark stubble accentuating his jawline.
Clay wrapped the sheet around his waist, grabbed his trousers from the clothes rack, and entered the bathroom.
Leah turned pages in her composition book. So many unfinished poems, all in want of a lyrical word or a phrase with the right cadence or a final stanza to complete the thought—including her poem about three dancing muses.
Prickling pain dug in below her collarbone, and she pressed her fingers over the scar and crossed her legs hard. That poem was supposed to remind her of her little sisters—not of the wolf and his bite.
Clay emerged from the bathroom, his hair slicked back, his jaw shaven, and his T-shirt tucked into khaki trousers. He looked nice like that too, but so serious.
He plopped onto the foot of the bed. “Reckon I ought to brief you on my family, seeing as how you and my parents will be writing and calling.”
They would? How little Leah knew about families and marriage.
Clay leaned his elbows on his knees. “I warn you, it’s ugly.”
“All right.” He didn’t realize how many ugly stories she’d heard in the orphanage.
“How much did I tell you about my brother Adler?”
Leah sorted the details. “He’s the one who lost his fiancée, right? Then he blamed your brother Wyatt and tried to kill him. You stopped him, and he ran away. You said something about him . . . stealing your girlfriend.”
Clay snorted. “I was being polite. It was the night Oralee died. After Dr. Hill and the sheriff took care of matters,