Silk and Stone (45 page)

“Where were you?” Jake asked. They sat at the edge of the spring with their bare feet immersed in the cold, clear water. He always called it his granny’s spring, and said how much she’d loved it. Sam knew she would enjoy looking down the slope at it from the wide windows of their front room. That room, like most of the house, was empty. But she had plans. A couch facing that window. Rugs on the floor. A tapestry over the stone fireplace.

“Where were
you
?” she asked, squeezing his hand and gazing into the spring innocently.

“I was doing what a man is supposed to do the day before his wedding.”

“Buying new underwear?”

“Maybe I don’t wear any.”

“I’ll have to see about that.”

“Hmmm. I let you go through my closet already. I’ve got no secrets.” He emphasized
secrets
as if he knew she was thinking of her visit to Highview. But he couldn’t know. Sam laughed as casually as she could. “You’ve got a bunch of threadbare old shirts and jeans with lopsided patches sewn inside them. I can’t wait to get my hands on your clothes.”

“I’ll be glad to sit around naked and watch you sew. The question is, will you be able to concentrate on your stitchery?”

Sam couldn’t help giving him a sloe-eyed look of promise. “I doubt it.” She feigned an interest in the top buttons of his faded blue shirt. “Look at those buttonholes. Torn at the edges. I can’t understand how the buttons stay caught in them.” She crooked a finger under the first one, and it popped open. “See there?” He watched her with a hooded gaze that was growing more intense by the second. Her fingers lingered on the soft swath of black hair revealed in the open space. Slowly her finger slid to the next button. It popped from its ragged fastenings just as easiliy. “No hope for that one either,” she said in a breathy voice. “I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

The forest formed a private hollow for them, a dark green cavern where they could escape the chaos of people and wedding preparations that had taken over his parents’ house during the past few days. Visitors from Cawatie were camped all around the main house. Tonight there would be a barbecue over an open pit in the yard, and bluegrass music, and dancing.

They would have to go there soon. This was their last few minutes alone together, before tomorrow. Sam bent her head and, pushing his shirt open, rested her cheek against the center of his chest. “The next time I get to do this,” she whispered, “I won’t stop at two buttons.”

He laughed under his breath. His heart was beating quickly. She felt the accelerated rhythm under her cheek. “You’re making our good intentions hard … hard to remember.”

“This is your bachelor party. Mine too.”

“Oh?” She lifted her head as he trailed a hand across her shoulder and toyed with the buttons of her blouse. Her buttons were neatly trapped in place, but then, his large, blunt fingers had amazing abilities. One button slipped quickly out of its moorings. His fingertips felt like fire against her skin. Sam lost herself in his eyes. A second button went the way of the first. She felt the cool forest air on the tops of her breasts. “Two for two,” he said in a throaty voice that dissolved her bones. He eased her blouse open, then bent his head. Sam heard herself make a low sound of pleasure as he placed slow kisses just above her bra. He drew back, his face flushed, a tortured half-smile soothing the tight angles of his face. Sam felt one moment of shyness. “I don’t have big ones, you know. Nothing fancy. Thirty-four Bs.”

He arched a black brow. “If we’re going by measurements, I’ll get a tape. Maybe you better check all of mine too.”

“Oh, I’ve sized you up. I’ve got a good eye for estimates.”

Both of them were speaking in intimate tones, as provocative as a caress. “Think I’ll make a good fit?” he asked.

“The best.”

He draped his hands over her breasts, molding his fingers to them gently. “Look at that. My hands are
exactly
size thirty-four B.”

The sensation of his palms pressing against her brought a soft cry of delight, and the serious teasing threatened to end in a pre-wedding honeymoon there on the edge of the spring. He put his arms around her and she leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. He was trembling. “Glad we got that settled,” he said hoarsely. “But I might have misjudged by a quarter inch or so. I’ll have to check again. Better wait until tomorrow. Can’t think too clear right now.”

“All you want. Everything. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” Jake held her tightly, rubbing his face against her hair. He knew where she’d gone today; she kept thinking about Alexandra. It was hell to know it but not be able to ask her.

“I went to see Alexandra,” she said. She lifted her head and looked at him with apology. “She sent me a note through Patsy Jones. I didn’t want to tell you.”

“You know I wouldn’t have let you go alone.”

“I’m not worried about anything she can do. Not anymore. Maybe I had to prove it to myself today.”

“What did she say? What did she want?”

“To give me a house, and money. And legal custody of Charlotte.” Sam paused, then added grimly, “And all I have to do in return is give you up.”

“Stay away from her. And Tim. Promise me.”

“She can’t change our lives. I told her so. Do you think I’d leave you?
Ever
?”

“No. But promise me you won’t go there alone again.”

“I promise.” Sam took his hands. “Let’s not talk about her anymore.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

“I didn’t intend to. Because it isn’t important, and I knew it would make you furious. You
look
furious now. She’s my relative, and when I think about you hating her, I feel dirty. Stained. Like I need to wash her out of my blood before I can marry—”

He startled her by scooping a hand into the spring. He brought the water to her face, stroking cold rivulets over her forehead and cheeks. He repeated the strange action on his own face. “You’re clean. No need to ever think about it again. Come on. I’ll show you what I was doing today.”

Without another word he pulled her to her feet. They walked, barefoot, up the hill to the house. It sat atop the knoll like a comfortable log crown, at ease with the forest, the windows gleaming in the afternoon sun. He led her through the bare, woodsy-smelling front room with its high ceilings and massive fireplace, its heart-pine floors, down a hall, past the open door to the large bedroom they would share, to the closed door of a smaller bedroom.

“Close your eyes,” he ordered softly. When she did, he pushed the door open. “Now look.”

“A loom.” She uttered the words in a prayerful whisper.

“I copied Clara’s. It’s even made of chestnut. I bought the wood from an old man at Cawatie, who was tearing down a barn. The trees it came from stood at the edge of a village. People would pick up chestnuts under them in the fall. The babies slept under the trees on woven mats of cane while their parents worked.” When Sam looked at him curiously, he frowned and added, “At least, that’s how it could have been.”

“It’s wonderful.” Her hands pressed to her lips, she hurried to the loom and sank down on a smooth wooden bench. He had lined one wall with simple shelves. She pictured them filled with skeins of yarn. During the past few weeks Mrs. Big Stick had taught her how to thread a loom, and she touched the loom’s empty frame longingly.

Jake eased over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You like it,” he said with relief. “It’s just what you needed. I thought it’d be a good wedding gift.”

She placed her hand over his and looked up at him with stark adoration. “Everything here is exactly what I need.”

They were married outdoors, by his grandmother’s cool, enchanted spring, on a beautiful June afternoon. A hundred people clustered before the pool of water, making a small path up the center of the group for her. Sam wore a simple white dress overlaid with old lace Sarah had given her, a lace veil floating down her back. She walked up the path alone, carrying no bouquet, her veil drawn back, the hem of the dress moving gracefully around her ankles. She was vaguely aware that the crowd included Mr. Gunther, who was grinning, and Mrs. Big Stick, who sat on a tree stump away from the others, looking solemn. Sarah, Ellie, and Charlotte stood together, and Charlotte cried and smiled at her constantly.

But she could not take her eyes off Jake, who waited for her and held her gaze with an intensity that took her breath away. He wore his beautiful black suit as if he’d always been at ease in such elegant attire, and stood stock-still, his head up, beside his father and a minister from the church at Cawatie. Bo crept out of the crowd as unobtrusively as a huge, baggy-faced bloodhound could. Someone had tied a white bow around his neck. He lay down at Jake’s feet. People laughed.

Sam took Jake’s outstretched hands and faced him. The world narrowed to just the two of them, a small, intimate space in which nothing mattered but their certainty and faith. The minister, his brown face glistening with earnest perspiration, his gray hair pulled back in a long braid, read the ceremony in Cherokee and then English, and through a haze of emotion Sam heard herself repeating the vows, and Jake echoing them.

They traded plain gold wedding bands engraved with their initials and the date. The minister reached the
I now pronounce you
moment, and Jake said, “Wait.”

Sam stared at him, bewildered. His hands tightened on hers. “Your sister is my sister,” he told her. “Your parents are my parents.”

Sam choked up. “Your sister is my sister,” she replied. “Your parents are my parents.”

“Your home is my home.”

“Your home is my home.” Bo chose that tender moment to rise from behind Jake’s feet, edge over to Sam, and lean heavily against her legs. Sam staggered, glanced down at him, then back at Jake. “Your dog is my dog,” she added.

Jake smiled. “Now, that’s love.”

“I pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister intoned. “Kiss her quick, Jake, before Bo knocks her down.”

They stood in the shadows, quietly watching the party that had spilled out of Sarah and Hugh’s house after dark. Sam’s thoughts shimmered with the newness of it all—the anticipation, the unspoken intimacy between her and Jake. He had one arm around her shoulders, and she had hers around his waist. It was time for them to go back to their own house, alone, for the first night. She hadn’t quite decided how to mention it, and she dreaded the coy looks they were going to get when they told everyone good night.

Lanterns were strung in the trees, casting pools of light under the dark, huge limbs. The bluegrass band had closed up shop at midnight. But people were still dancing; someone had brought an enormous tape deck and speakers. The music varied wildly—country, then rock ’n’ roll, then pop. No one seemed to notice. The old people did their two-steps; the younger ones bounced around as if the dewy grass were a disco floor. The sleepy ones, and the drunk ones, were snoring in the porch rockers and along the perimeter of the darkness, propped limply against tree trunks.

Sam smiled. “When we lived in Germany, my dad took us to Oktoberfest one year. I’d never seen so many grown people sleeping under shrubs before. It looked a lot like this.”

Jake laughed. “The last time I went in the house, Charlotte was asleep in a chair next to the cake table. With a spatula in one hand.”

“Do you want to go now? You’ve been so quiet. I thought you might be … well, nervous.”

“I wanted to shoo everyone away and carry you off right after the ceremony.”

“And do what, after that?” Her heart was pounding, and the question held breathless mischief.

“Sit on the bed awhile and look at you. Pretend to be suave. Try not to gawk and wink.”

“Oh, you stole my plan.”

They bent their heads together and laughed softly, the tension momentarily broken. “Samantha Raincrow,” he said slowly, as if tasting the name and liking it. “Let’s go say our good nights, and then let’s go home.”

She kissed him.