Lenora Worth - The Wedding Quilt

She’d thought about him enough in the past few days to conjure him up at any given moment, during work, during prayer, during play with the children. She’d thought about him, and wished she could just get the man out of her mind. She wanted to forget the way he’d held her; she wanted to remember the feeling forever.

Rosemary reminded herself that he was a drifter, a wanderer. His work was important to him, and because of that work, he couldn’t stay in one spot for long. In spite of their closeness, she sensed an aloofness in him. Kirk held himself away from people, like a casual observer, watching and analyzing. He had to keep moving. And she had to stay here. Besides, if Kirk knew the real reason Clayton treated her so coldly, he’d turn away from her, too. And she couldn’t bear to have him do that.

She told herself these things as he approached her now, looking like an ancient warrior from long ago. He wore hiking boots and jeans, and a torn T-shirt. His unruly hair was having a high old time playing in the wind off the hillside. His eyes, though, oh, his eyes. They held her, making her forget her pragmatic logic, making her forget her own self-disgust and guilt-laden remorse, making her long for something intangible and unreachable.

Automatically, Rosemary gripped the sun-warm gray stone of her mother’s headstone, as if asking for counsel. The silence answered her, as it always did when she came up here to visit her mother’s grave. Only the wind and the chipmunks and the swallows gave her any conversation. Now, even nature’s comforting forces seemed to go silent.

There was an intruder in the woods.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Kirk said as he came up the hillside to the level incline where Alba had buried its dead for two centuries. “I can leave if you’d like.”

“No, don’t,” she said in a rush. As she lifted up, he reached out a hand to help her, causing her to feel the same disruption in her equilibrium as she usually felt when she reached the top of the mountain.

Kirk took her hand in his, then shifted his gaze from her face to the gravestone in front of them. “Your mother?”

She nodded, her gaze falling across the etched roses centered on the stone.

Kirk read the inscription: Eunice Grace Brinson. Born 1942. Died 1996. Beloved Wife and Mother. “And in heaven, the angels are smiling down on her, watching her sleep.”

“That’s beautiful, Rosemary,” he said, still holding her hand.

“She used to tell us that,” she explained, her gaze settling on the inscription. “She’d read to us from the Bible, then she’d say, ‘Time for bed. The angels will be smiling down on you now, watching you sleep.’“

Not knowing what to say, Kirk just held her hand. Finally, he asked, “Do you come up here alone a lot?”

“At least once a week,” she replied. “When I need to talk, when I need to get away.” She looked around at the mountain laurel spreading like a pink-and-whitepatterned quilt across the distant hills. “It’s always so hushed, so peaceful.”

“Would you like me to go?”

“No, I was just about to head back down. I’ve got to get supper fixed.”

Not wanting her to leave just yet, he said, “I was planning on hiking the mountain. Want to come?”

She recoiled instantly, like a blossom settling in for the night. “No. I…I get so dizzy. I’d better go on back home.”

“Come with me, Rosemary,” he said, his hand tight against hers, his body pulling her toward the peak. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I know that,” she said, believing it to be true. “I’m afraid, is all.”

“Afraid of the mountain, or me?”

“Both,” she admitted, laughing shakily to hide her discomfort. “I feel so foolish after the way I acted the other night.”

“Don’t,” he said. “You have no reason to feel uncomfortable with me. I don’t judge people.”

She gave a little huff of a laugh. “You’d be the first not to judge me, then.”

That remark caught him off guard. “I can’t believe anyone in this town would hold ill thoughts about you. You seem to keep the whole church together.”

She laughed again. “I have a hard enough time holding myself together. But you’re right. People here are good and strong, supportive. They’ve helped me through some rough spots, and…they’ve forgiven me.”

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