Clay (25 page)

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I meant Lainey,” he answered with mischief glowing deep in the rich blue of his eyes.

That required retaliation, of course, which took some minutes and left them both flushed and breathless. Only the fear of being interrupted by the return of the swimmers prevented them from carrying it into the bedroom. In an effort at remaining presentable enough for company, they turned their attention to their coffee.

After a moment, Clay said, “Seriously, I think Wade would look after Lainey here at the house for a week or two. He’s home between engineering projects and at loose ends. He told me earlier that if I ever intended to take you on a honeymoon, now’s the time.”

“Did you intend to?” she asked hopefully.

The look he gave her carried enough wattage to light up Turn-Coupe for a year. “I thought about it.”

“So did I,” she said, her voice not quite even.

“That’s settled then. What about afterward?”

“Afterward?”

He took her hand, meshing their fingers, fitting their palms together. “You’ve put your work on hold these past few weeks while taking care of me and Lainey. One day soon we’re going to be settled down here. I’ll have to think about making a regular living now that I have a family. That means getting serious about marketing my nature photos, doing freelance stuff for
National Geographic
, getting the new book out on time, developing a line of notecards and calendars from some of my special prints, and so on. You don’t have to do anything, if you’d rather not, but I thought you might be ready to go back to that line of fabrics that you were working on at the camp.”

“I’d been thinking about it, to tell you the truth.” It was funny that they really hadn’t discussed this before now. There’d been so much else going on, of course, so much else to find out about each other.

“You’ll need a studio,” he said with a nod. “There’s room for one next to mine, in the left wing there.” He indicated the door that led into a hallway on the far side of the living room. “It’s available until Wade or Adam decide they want to move back home for good. We may have inherited this place together, but I’m chief caretaker.”

“That would be wonderful,” she said, her voice soft. It was yet another example of how much he
thought about her needs, how much he cared about her.

“One more thing.”

“Yes?”

He disentangled himself and got up, pulling her to her feet beside him. “Come on. I have something to show you.”

“What is it?” Janna glanced at him, puzzled by the intensity in his expression, as she allowed herself to be led toward the door.

“You’ll see.”

They descended the back steps and took the path made of old bricks that divided the backyard into squares. At a long flowerbed that lay between the walkway and the house, he stopped. Clasping her hand tightly, he gestured toward the low-growing vegetation that filled the bed in a luxuriant, dark green mass. “There it is.”

The plants stirred no recognition, though they appeared to be perennial and bore some resemblance to common houseleek. “I don’t understand.”

“The Aphrodite’s Cup.”

It was the dye plant he’d told her about weeks ago, the one for which she’d searched high and low and given up as nonexistent. “You mean…it was here all along?”

He inclined his head in assent.

“And you knew it.” She needed to be absolutely clear on that point.

“It’s truly uncommon these days, a species seldom
found in nature anymore. But if you still want it, then here it is.”

If she wanted it
. The words, and especially the quiet assurance of his voice, were another way of saying that anything he had, everything he had, was hers. Her irritation that he had kept the plants from her until now drifted away on the gentle summer breeze. “Oh, Clay,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I didn’t find it.”

The taut sound of his voice disturbed her. “Who did then?”

He met her gaze, his own troubled. “It was Matt. He found it the last time he was home, during the few days we had together just before he died. He brought in this handful of weeds, grinning over them because they reminded him of someone, he said, a woman who was interested in special dyes but would need more than just a sprig or two of these plants if she was to do anything with them. We planted them here by the back steps, he and I. Matt dug the bed for it. I hauled the compost and turned it into the soil while he rested. Together, we put the sprigs in the ground and watered them. He said when we were done that we had planted the Color of Love.”

“Oh, Clay,” she said over the tightness in her throat. “You could have told me before. It wouldn’t have mattered.”

“I know,” he said simply. “That’s why I can tell you now. Matt loved you, Janna. He’d never have left you to bring up Lainey alone, not if he’d had a choice.”

It was proof that he understood he was no replica in her eyes. It was also a declaration of love finer than anything she’d ever known. “You’re a rare man,” she said, her smile trembling a little at the corners.

“No. Only one who loves you.”

“Yes,” she contradicted him, her voice growing stronger. “And because of it, we’ll let the Color of Love stay just as rare, if it’s all right with you. There will be other colors, other designs, other fabrics, but this one will remain ours alone. Aphrodite’s Cup can grow here at Grand Point always, as a reminder. And one day I’ll give a sprig of it to Lainey to grow at her home, and to all our other children.”

“All of them?” he asked with a lifted brow, though the bright hope in his eyes belied the lightness of his words.

“All of them,” she said firmly. Then she drew his arm around her waist and walked beside him back into the house.

Write what you know, authors have always been told. A recent fan letter alerted me to the fact that some readers may not realize that I’ve been doing just that with my Louisiana gentlemen series. Many of the place names given in the books are real—though not necessarily attached to the locations indicated. Chemin-a-Haut for instance, is the name of a state park in my section of Louisiana. I used it as the name for the house in
Luke
because I’ve always enjoyed the way the syllables whisper through the mind. So-called “dog-trot” openings were a special feature of many old Louisiana homes, and I included a house with that feature and name in
Roan
to counterbalance the Greek Revival splendor of the Benedict houses in
Kane
and
Luke.

Along the Louisiana bank of the Mississippi River are several oxbow-shaped lakes that were formed when the river abandoned a watercourse, as described in the series. One of these is Horseshoe Lake where my family often fished when I was a child. However, the various descriptions of the lake in this series were taken from the interconnected Black and Saline Lakes, with their creeks and swamps, in central Louisiana where my mother and father had a fishing camp
at one time. Regardless, neither Horseshoe Lake nor Black Lake have the fine old plantation homes built along their shorelines similar to those supplied for the Benedict clan around fictional Horseshoe Lake. This honor belongs to another oxbow lake known as False River that is located near Baton Rouge.

There is no Tunica Parish in Louisiana. However, the Tunica Indians once roamed the swamps and woodlands along the Mississippi River in the northern and central portions of the state. They were also resident in our sister state of Mississippi where there is a town called Tunica. As for the name Turn-Coupe, Louisiana has a Pointe Coupee Parish, an old French designation that means cut-off point. There is also the town of Cut-Off, a real place name on Louisiana road maps that came about, like Pointe Coupee, from having been “cut off,” or displaced from the main flow of the Mississippi River, when the great waterway changed course during flood. Turn-Coupe is designed to be an amalgamated version of these two place names. The town itself is fictional as a matter of convenience, since that means I can make it just as it needs to be to fit my stories. It has its basis in reality, however, since many small communities in Louisiana, or across the South for that matter, share Turn-Coupe’s blend of vices and virtues, dinginess and beauty, not-so-good-old-boys and true Southern gentlemen.

I’ve been asked many times if the men in my books, particularly my Louisiana gentlemen, really
exist. They do and they don’t. Though Kane, Luke, Roan and Clay are figments of my imagination, they are solidly based on the men I’ve known all my life: my dad and my brothers, the boys I went to school with, acquaintances made over the years, and especially my husband, Jerry Maxwell. The Benedict clan has its counterpart in my husband’s family, a large one with four girls and four boys. When our children were small, the four brothers all built houses on land that had been deeded to them by their father, so we lived in a family enclave of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins not unlike that of the Benedict’s in feeling. Because Maxwell is a Scots name, we referred to ourselves in aggregate as the Maxwell Clan. We’ve scattered since those days, and our families have grown exponentially, but we still reside in the same community where we have occasional clan gatherings and get along amazingly well. Family resemblance is easily traced, much like the Benedicts.

The background for the Benedict clan, on the other hand, is taken in part from the legends and stories of my own family. For instance, my great-great grandfather, Reddick Blake, married a Native American woman of the Choctaw nation and established a landholding with her in the 1830s in what was then the frontierlike backcountry of north-central Louisiana. It was another branch of my mother’s family, however, that descended on the same isolated area a short time later in a party that included four brothers. They were
only a jump or two ahead of the law, so the old folks say, due to the mysterious death of a sister’s abusive husband. So it goes, in the odd way that a writer will often take a piece here, a piece there, and weave a story using strands of truth.

Speaking of truth, I should point out the Aphrodite’s Cup is purely fictitious. The plant, its history and the blue color derived from it exist only in my mind.

The friendships that writers make often effect their work as well. I met Kathie Seidick, to whom this book is dedicated, on the online listserve for the Novelists, Inc. As a result of that meeting, she loaned me a copy of her book
Or You Can Let Him Go
, the story of her son’s fight against renal disease and his eventual triumph over it with transplant surgery. The story in
Clay
would have been incomplete without this haunting addition. In token of Kathie’s generosity, and as a result of the intensive research into renal disease required for this book, I’ve made a pledge to sign an organ donor card when I renew my driver’s license. Since my blood type is O positive, I hope this will one day shorten the wait for transplant of two renal patients, children or adults, and perhaps even save a life. It’s such a small thing compared to the good it can bring. It would give me immense pleasure to think that you, as a reader of this book, may sign a donor card as well.

Finally, although the characters in
Clay
had little time to cook, I can’t leave out my usual recipe. This
one came originally from the kitchen of a good friend and quilting buddy, Mary Rasberry. My family enjoys it, not least because it partakes of that fine Louisiana tradition, the sharing of great-tasting food between friends. Please accept it in the same spirit.

Sauté the ground meat in oil. Season meat well with your favorite seasoning (such as salt and pepper or some other commercial spice blend). Add chopped onion, celery and smoked sausage. Cook until onion and celery are clear, about 10 minutes. Combine the meat and all the remaining ingredients and place in a large casserole dish. Cover and back at 275 degrees for 2 hours, stirring halfway through the cooking time.

The recipe makes a large amount, so is an excellent dish for church suppers and other covered dish
events. It reheats well in the microwave but does not freeze well.

Warmest wishes for happy reading, and cooking, always,

Jennifer Blake
www.jenniferblake.com