Part 7 (1/2)
She didn't believe that for a second. She took a bite to see for herself. Salt. The frosting was delicious, but the cake itself tasted awful. Rachel nearly gagged. She couldn't imagine how Clint managed to sit there, pretending it wasn't so bad.
Suddenly, it was all just too much. In a twinkling, she remembered every disastrous mistake she'd made since coming there. Now, to add insult to injury, she had ruined Clint's birthday. Even Cody looked at her with accusing eyes.
”I'm sorry,” she whispered to no one in particular. ”I'm so-sorry.”
The final blow occurred when Rachel turned to flee the house. Useless was lying on the floor behind her, and with tears blurring her already poor vision, she mistook him for a rug, tripped over him, and sprawled face first on the floor. Matt reached her first. He was the one to help her stand, the one to check her hands for sc.r.a.pes and brush her off. The others hovered around, all of them making sympathetic noises, none of them saying what she needed to hear. What that might nave been, Rachel didn't know. She just knew she was humiliated to the marrow of her bones.
Looking up at Matt through her tears, she remembered his saying that he'd once advised Molly to run along home, not because he wished to hurt her, but because she needed the prompting. For different reasons, Rachel wished he'd given her the same advice. Anything to have avoided this.
With agonized movements, she retreated toward the door. With each step she took, all their faces became less distinct. Except for Clint's, of course. His, she decided, had been carved in her heart, never to be forgotten, never to blur, no matter how far away she was from him.
With a low sob she couldn't stifle, she jerked open the door and fled. She couldn't go on like this. It wasn't just she who was suffering; all of them were.
9.
For at least a full minute after Rachel fled from the house, no one spoke. Then everyone tried to say something at once. Clint held up his hands.
”I'll go get her.”
Cody ran up to hug his leg. ”Tell her it don't matter. We can make another cake.”
”Sure we can!” Daniel agreed.
”She just needs more practice cooking,” Jeremiah insisted.
Glancing around at all their faces, Clint realized that his brothers were as hopelessly in love with Rachel as he was, albeit in a different way. He ruffled Cody's hair. ”I'll bring her back, tyke. Don't you worry.” Glancing at Jeremiah, he added, ”This could take a spell. While you guys are waiting, why don't you whip up another cake real fast?” He glanced meaningfully at Cody. ”A birthday party just isn't a birthday party without cake.”
Jeremiah nodded. ”Sure, Clint. Just don't expect much. My cake may not taste much better than Rachel's.”
Clint nearly said that anybody's cake would taste better than Rachel's, but he bit back the words. The less said, the better, he decided.
He found Rachel hiding in the barn loft. She was weeping copiously, her sobs deep and tearing. Just listening to her was enough to break Clint's heart. Swinging a leg over the top ladder rung, he stepped off into the loose hay and made his way toward her. Where bales were missing, there was no bottom to the softness, and he lurched. Dust particles seared his nostrils.
The instant Rachel sensed his presence, she held her breath to stop crying. Crossing his ankles, he dropped to a sitting position beside her, propping his elbows on his knees. After a long moment, he said, ”You know, Rachel, none of us care if you can cook.”
With a catch in her voice, she cried, ”What do you mean, you don't care? That's why you brought me here! To cook and clean and make the house nice.”
”And you've done that.” He recited a list of things she'd done. ”Seeing Cody all cleaned up for supper every night, havin' flowers on the table and the place all s.h.i.+ny clean, those are the things that matter. You bein' a great cook doesn't.”
”You're just saying that!” she said shakily.
Clint turned his hands to gaze at his palms. As he listened to her stifled sobs, he curled his fingers into tight fists. ”Rachel, I'm not just saying it. You've no idea what it was like around here for the boys before you came. Daniel and Cody used to have terrible dreams almost every night about our folks dyin' and the hard times we went through after. Now they hardly ever wake up crying.” He waited for a moment to let that sink in. ”Your bein' here has given them a sense of security, that everything is okay in their world. And-” His throat went tight. ”And, all that aside, I think I'm falling in love with you.”
She went instantly silent and turned to look at him. Clint met her gaze steadily.
”You'll stop thinking so the minute you hear the truth,” she informed him in a tremulous voice. ”I'm not just a bungler, like you think. I can't see.”
”Can't see what?”
”Anything! I'm nearly blind. To see, I have to wear spectacles over a half inch thick.”
”I thought you said you didn't have poor eyesight.”
She cast him a look that spoke volumes. ”That wasn't a lie. My eyesight isn't poor, it's downright awful.”
Clint regarded her for several long seconds, remembering all the times she'd looked up at him just as she was doing now. Before, he'd always believed she was enthralled and hanging on his every word. Now he realized she looked at him with that wide-eyed intentness because she was trying to see him.
”My G.o.d?...” he whispered. There had been so many signs. Now that she'd told him the truth, he couldn't believe he'd been so blind. ”Why haven't you been wearing your gla.s.ses then, sweetheart?”
”They got broken. I always carry them hidden in my skirt pocket and only sneak them out when I have to. When I fell in the church, they got shattered. At home I have extra pairs, but here I don't.”
”You should've told me! I would have gone to town and gotten your spare spectacles, honey. I can't believe you've gone around all this time unable to see.” He signed. ”As soon as I can get away-let me see-Sat.u.r.day, I reckon. That's only four days. I'll take you into town and we'll get your spare spectacles. Can you wait that long?”
Her chin started to quiver, and her beautiful eyes filled with sparkling tears. ”You wouldn't mind?”
”Mind what?”
”My wear-” Her voice broke. ”The spectacles? How ugly they make me look? You wouldn't care?”
It hit Clint then, like a fist in his guts. This girl that he was coming to love so much had been badly hurt, and he had a nasty feeling it had been by a man. He caught her small chin in his hand. ”Rachel, you couldn't look ugly if you tried.”
”Yes,” she squeaked.
That single word imparted a wealth of pain. Clint bent to kiss the tears from her cheeks. ”Not in spectacles a half inch thick or even an inch thick. You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, Rachel, and I'd like to kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who told you otherwise. Who was he?”
”n.o.body. n.o.body important, anyhow. He left town after I told him about my eyes. He sort of eloped without me.”
Word by word, Clint dragged the story out of her and then pieced it all together. It sounded to him as though Rachel had come perilously close to being seduced by an opportunistic scoundrel. She'd been fifteen, only a year older than her sister Molly. The man, a Bible salesman who peddled tonics on the side, had reneged on his promise to marry her when he realized she had poor eyesight. The way Clint saw it, that had probably been Rachel's lucky night. A man like that would have used her, then abandoned her along the wayside somewhere.
”No wonder you went after Matt with such vengeance when you thought he'd deliberately hurt Molly.” Clint drew her into his arms. ”You were getting revenge for yourself as well.” He ran a hand up her back. ”Ah, Rachel. So many wasted tears. Don't cry any more, sweetheart. I'll think you gorgeous in spectacles, I promise.”
”You will?”
”Absolutely.”
She sniffed. ”I won't wear them except for when I have to. Like when I'm cooking and stuff.” She drew back slightly. ”I'm really not a bungler that often when I can see what I'm doing.”
Clint smiled slightly. ”You can wear your eyegla.s.ses all you want. I'll be so busy thinking about other things when I look at you, I probably won't notice.”
”What other things?”
”Let me show you.” It was all the opening Clint needed. Bending his head, he settled his mouth over hers. ”Oh, yes, Rachel, girl,” he whispered against her lips. ”Let me show you.”
Rachel...As their kiss deepened, her name was like a song in Clint's mind. He peeled off his s.h.i.+rt and spread it over the hay to protect her from the scratchiness. Then, so sweetly he could scarcely credit it, she surrendered to him. Over the years, Clint had heard lovemaking described in every possible way, but this was the first time he had ever thought of it as sacred.