His thoughtfulness left Meg free to spend the mornings working with Clay. Their progress was slow because Clay took long moments to study the rock after they chipped off each small piece. He told her it was because he found it strange not to hold the chisel himself, and he didn’t feel as close to the stone, but she suspected that the real reason was his anxiety about her hands. And he had reason for that. Meg hadn’t lived a soft life, but her hands had never worked so hard. She wasn’t accustomed to gripping a heavy piece of metal and holding onto it when harder metal slammed against it. Sometimes, she thought her teeth would rattle loose from the impact. Then she’d glance at Clay’s hand covering hers, and she’d keep her complaints to herself. The wound was still puckered and red as it mended and scarred. She had a strong urge to place a kiss on the scar, which ran across his palm and traveled along the back of his hand. She imagined that his agonized cry that night had come not so much from the pain, but from the realization that they had killed his dream.
