You Belong to My Heart (3 page)

“Really?” Dark eyebrows shot up as if he were surprised. He looked pointedly at her dirty face, her tangled blond hair. “You could sure have fooled me.”

He laughed and threw shielding arms up before his face when she stuck out her tongue and slapped at him. Clay never really thought of Mary as a girl; she was his friend. It was the same for her. Clay was her pal, her playmate, her confidant.

Through the years they attended school together, they studied together, they played together as if they were the same sex. Finally, however, the day came—first for Clay, later for Mary Ellen—when they realized fully that they were indeed of opposite sexes.

The revelation came unexpectedly for Clay one bitter New Year’s Day when he’d walked from his house in the cold to welcome Mary Ellen back from a long holiday trip she’d taken with her parents.

The Prebles had gone to South Carolina to spend the Christmas season with Julie Preble’s family. They were to arrive back at Longwood sometime that Monday afternoon, the first day of the brand-new year, 1845.

When their carriage rolled up the pebbled drive before Longwood, Clay rushed out to meet it.

Mary Ellen, her blond curls gleaming in the weak winter sunshine, was the first one out of the big brougham. She bounced eagerly from the carriage, rushed the few short steps to him, and, as she’d done a thousand times before, threw her arms around Clay’s neck and gave his tanned jaw a big kiss.

She squeezed him tightly and said, “Miss me?”

Outwardly Clay reacted just as he always had when the impulsive Mary Ellen displayed affection for him. He pulled a sour face, raised his hand, and made a big show of wiping her kiss from his cheek.

“Not really,” he told her. “Been pretty busy myself.”

But his heart misbehaved, skipping a couple of beats.

Mary Ellen giggled happily, wrapped both her arms around his right one, and drew him with her toward the house, saying, “No use pretending, Clay. I know very well that you missed me just as I missed you. Tell me you did. Say it or I’ll pinch you.”

He finally grinned. “A little, maybe.”

That night, long after he had left Longwood and Mary Ellen, Clay couldn’t get the memory of that unsettling moment out of his mind. He was puzzled by what had happened to him. Mary had kissed and hugged him a jillion times and he’d never been the least bit affected. Now here he was, wide awake in his bed long past midnight, remembering the touch of her soft warm lips against his cold cheek, recalling the fresh, clean scent of her glorious golden-white hair.

By the time Clay turned fifteen, he was already head over heels in love with Mary. But he didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell anyone. He carefully kept it to himself—would keep it to himself until Mary was older and came to realize she loved him, too. If she ever did.

If not, then he’d keep it to himself forever.

The days and weeks that followed were sweet agony for Clay. He and Mary were still together all the time—but it was different now.

At least for him.

Each time she smiled at him, said his name, touched him, he felt weak in the knees and it was all he could do not to gather her into his frightened arms and hold her close against his wildly beating heart.

Summertime came and with it new torture.

“Let’s go swimming,” Mary Ellen said the first really warm day Clay visited Longwood.

“Ahhh, no, I…I don’t think we should, Mary.”

“Why, Clayton Terrell Knight, why ever not?” Mary Ellen asked. She couldn’t believe what she’d heard. Her lovely, childlike face turned up to his, she said, “Don’t we go swimming every year as soon as it’s warm enough?”

“Well, sure, but…” He fell silent.

“But what?”

He looked into her dark, arresting eyes, shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m no dunce. Try me.”

He laughed nervously. He wasn’t about to admit the real reason. He said, “Look, Mary, I don’t want to go swimming and that’s that.”

“Then be a big sissy,” she said flippantly. “
I
am going down to the river for a refreshing swim.”

She started to flounce away. He caught her arm, drew her back. “You know very well you’re not allowed to go swimming alone.”

“I know”—she flashed him her most persuasive smile—“so you’ll
have
to come with me. Please. Please, Clay.”

They went swimming.

They went down to their favorite spot on the river. Five summers before, they had discovered the secluded inlet around a bend in the winding waterway, three-quarters of a mile downstream from the busy Memphis port. They looked on it as their own private, tree-shaded lagoon, the secret cove that was theirs alone. It was shielded by a narrow, jutting rise of the Chickasaw Cliffs marching almost entirely across its entrance, so that once inside its narrow, underbrush-concealed opening, they could neither see nor be seen from the main Mississippi riverbed.

Her fair face flushed with rising excitement, Mary was kicking off her shoes the minute they got inside the bay. Unselfconsciously she yanked her dress over her head, stepped out of her lacy petticoats, and stood on the narrow banks in her camisole and pantalets.

“Last one in’s a rotten egg,” she shouted, and, pinching her nose together with thumb and forefinger, eagerly leapt into the cool, clear water.

Clay didn’t move a muscle to get undressed. He stood on the banks, hip cocked, weight supported on his right foot, reluctant to strip down to his white linen underwear. Even more reluctant to get too close to the beautiful girl who
had
stripped down to her underwear.

He knew Mary too well. If he jumped in, she’d want to play, to duck him and ride on his back and horse around just as they’d always done. He wasn’t sure he could stand it.

Slowly he sank to a crouching position on his heels. “I believe I’ll pass this time.”

“Whew, it’s soooo cold!” Mary Ellen shouted, teeth chattering as she dreaded water anxiously. “Why did you have to go and force me to jump in?” she teased him. “It’s not hot enough yet for swimming!”

Clay grinned, said nothing.

“Cl…Clay, I’m fr…freezing.”

Clay picked up one of the big bath towels they’d brought from the house, rose to his feet, stepped down to the very edge of the water. “Maybe you ought to get out now.”

“Ooooh, I think you’re right,” she said, and swam toward him.

He leaned over, reached for her hand. Mary Ellen took it and allowed him to pull her onto the bank. Even with the sun directly overhead, she was shivering from head to toe. Clay looked at her, and suddenly he was as hot as she was cold.

His sweet, beautiful Mary stood there directly before him in her childish innocence, thoughtlessly displaying her budding feminine charms. Her arms raised above her head, hands twisting the long rope of white-blond hair to wring out the excess water, she was totally oblivious of the fact that her wet white underwear clung seductively to her slender body.

But Clay wasn’t.

His dark face burned like fire while he stared helplessly at the tight nipples of her small breasts pushing against the soggy, clinging fabric. He could no longer breathe when his treacherous silver gaze slid downward to the hint of downy blond growth between her pale, slim thighs.

He stared openly only for a split second, then hastily swirled the large, covering towel around Mary Ellen’s shivering shoulders, shielding her from the hot eyes that longed to stay on her forever.

“Dry me off,” she said, snuggling into the warmth of the towel.

“Dry yourself off,” he said, sounding unfamiliarly gruff.

He turned around quickly, stepped away from her.

To his back Mary Ellen said, “Is something wrong? Are you mad at me about something?”

His eyes now closed in misery, his hands balled into tight fists at his sides, he managed, “No. No, nothing’s wrong, Mary. Please…get dressed and let’s go.”

Mary Ellen was more impetuous and impulsive than Clay. So when the day came she realized she loved him, she felt compelled to tell him the minute it dawned on her. Only trouble was, it happened at school one morning during English class.

The teacher, Miss Zachary, a thin, bookish woman who wore wire-rimmed spectacles and drab, shapeless dresses, taught English literature to two classes at once. Although Mary Ellen was a year behind Clay in school, they shared the same class for this particular subject.

It was the middle of the morning on a cold bleak February day, and Mary Ellen was beginning to feel very sleepy in the stuffy, overheated classroom. Miss Zachary had been calling on students to take turns getting up before the class to read aloud their favorite short essay or poem or sonnet. Too drowsy to pay close attention, Mary Ellen was glad she sat in the last row at the very back of the room.

Vaguely she heard Miss Zachary call Clay’s name. But she put her chin in her hand and allowed her heavy eyelids to shut fully before he stood up.

Half asleep, she heard Clay’s calm, familiar voice as he began to read one of his favorite poems, a sonnet about the sea. His enunciation flawless, his inflection dramatic, he was spellbinding. The whispering among the restless students stopped immediately. The rustling of clothes ceased as pupils quit squirming on the seats. There was no sound in the room save the soft, yet clear, commanding voice of Clay Knight.

Mary Ellen’s eyes opened in wonder. She stared fixedly at Clay. He stood at the front of the room, framed by the powdery blackboard. His face was deeply tanned even in the cold of this Tennessee winter. His hair, slightly rumpled, was as black as the darkest moonless midnight. His eyes, beneath the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a boy, were a startling silver gray, almost opaque. He was tall—taller than the other boys his age—and he was slim, almost too thin, but his shoulders were quite wide.

He wore a neatly pressed shirt of freshly laundered white cotton and trousers of dark brown corduroy. He stood with his feet slightly apart, his right arm bent, hand raised, long tapered fingers holding the dog-eared, well-worn book as if it were a priceless first edition. As he spoke the words, he glanced up frequently, as though he knew the Lord Byron work by heart.

“Roll on, thou dark and deep blue ocean. Roll on…”

Mary Ellen Preble trembled.

She looked on the handsome face of the boy she had known for almost as long as she could remember. She saw him now as if for the very first time. Right then and there she knew. She was in love with Clay Knight! Further, she knew that she would love him until she drew her last breath.

And she could hardly wait to tell him.

Soon as the last bell rang that afternoon and noisy children poured out of the old red schoolhouse, Mary Ellen dashed out the front door, looking anxiously about for Clay. He was, as usual, waiting for her.

He was leaning against the exterior of the school-house, his shoulders pressed against the rough red brick. He stood there in the cold, his black hair ruffling in the winter wind, his arms crossed over his chest.

His pale eyes immediately lighted when he caught sight of Mary. He smiled and pushed away from the building. His smile slipped a little when he saw the solemn expression on Mary’s perfect features.

“What is it?” he asked, stepping close, searching her serious face for clues. “Something’s happened,” he said, and felt his chest tighten with worry.

“Yes,” Mary Ellen confirmed, nodding, “something’s happened. There’s something I must tell you.”

“So tell me,” he said, trying to sound calm, to keep his tone level. “What? What is it?”

Mary Ellen shook her blond head forcefully. “No. Not here. I can’t tell you in a crowd.” She indicated the pupils swarming down the steps around them.

“Then where? And when?” he asked. “You know I have to go straight to the cotton office.” Clay now worked after classes to save money for his preparatory school education.

“I know.” Mary Ellen glanced at the street, saw the big black brougham with the Preble crest on the door. “Sam’s here waiting with the carriage to collect me. We’ll drive you to the cotton office. I can tell you on the way.”

Once inside the roomy carriage, Clay leaned comfortably back against the smooth claret velvet seat, attempting to conceal his growing nervousness. “Now what is it?” he said. “What’s troubling you, Mary?”

The carriage wheels began to turn. The big black brougham pulled out onto the busy thoroughfare.

Mary Ellen’s dark, expressive eyes met Clay’s squarely. She took hold of his right hand in both of her own and said in a clear, girlish voice, “I love you, Clay.”

His breath caught in his chest, but only for a second. Certain she meant that she loved him just as she had always loved him—as a friend—he replied evenly, “I know you do, Mary. And I love you.”

“No, no, you don’t understand.” Excitedly she squeezed the tanned hand she held, then drew it up to clasp it to her bosom. “I mean I am
in
love with you. I want to be your sweetheart, I want you to love me back. Will you?”

It was the moment he’d been waiting for for more than a year. Now it had finally happened, and he was so dumbstruck, he couldn’t react. For a long moment he stared at this beautiful young girl who had just confessed her love for him and wondered if he were dreaming. Had she really said it? Did she really mean it?

“Mary,” he said finally, his gray eyes soft and warm, “you
are
my sweetheart. My very own precious sweetheart. I have loved you for as long as I’ve known you. I’ve been
in
love with you since that January day last winter you came back from South Carolina and kissed me.”

“Since I came…But, Clay,” she said, incredulous, “that was more than a year ago.”

“I know.”

Mary Ellen giggled happily then, just like the very young girl she was. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Clay lifted his free hand, touched the silky pale hair at her temple. “I was afraid. Afraid you might not feel the same way. Afraid you were too young and—”

“Too young?” she scoffed. “Too young! Why, I’m fifteen years old.”

“I know,” he said, smiling, so totally charmed, so much in love with this pretty child-woman, it was all he could do to keep from wrapping his arms around her and squeezing the very life out of her. “I know, sweetheart.”