The Tender Vine (Diamond of the Rockies #3)(96)

Carina could do nothing but stare through tear-streaked eyes in a face smudged with dirt. The sight was not lost on Mr. Pierce.

“But perhaps now is not a good time?”

She laughed bleakly. “Now is certainly not a good time, Mr. Pierce. But as for the sketches, you’ll have to ask Quillan.”

“Is he . . . Forgive me, Mrs. Shepard, are you in trouble? Can I assist you?”

She looked into his earnest face. “I’m such a sight, am I?”

“Please don’t think me untoward.”

Again she formed a weak smile. “At this time my husband . . .” How much longer could she use that word to describe Quillan Shepard? How could he ever be anything else? “My husband will be at Schocken’s quarry.”

Waving her arms, she told him how to get to the quarry.

“Shall I leave this?” He held out the paper. “I have another copy.”

She looked at the extended paper, slowly took it in her hands.

“Thank you.”

He tipped his hat. “Until next time, ma’am. I hope it will be soon and under better circumstances.”

She smiled. A likeable man, though he did show up at the worst of times.





Quillan eased the wagon into the shade of the rock bowl, from which they blasted and cut the basalt cobbles. He set the brake and jumped down. His right shoulder sent a twinge from having been slept on without moving—the sleep of emotional exhaustion. He had awoken missing Carina with everything in him, but almost as strong was the sense that he didn’t suffer it alone.

The verses he had read that morning from the prophet Isaiah left him no doubt that God knew, that Jesus understood personally all his grief. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Quillan had dropped to his knees, thinking of his own rebellion, his own rejection of the Jesus Cain had tried to make him see. Then he’d read on.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Just as everyone had assumed Quillan’s guilt, imagined wickedness where there was only want.

But He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. Quillan didn’t want to think how many wounds he had personally added to the Savior’s pain. The hateful thoughts, the bitter self-absorption. He was all too aware of his failings. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. The chastisement of our peace. Quillan pondered those words. He had felt the peace of God’s presence, an inner trust of complete abandonment he’d never known before. Because Christ had borne the chastisement.

And with his stripes we are healed. That verse had brought tears. Again. Why would God himself take the whippings Quillan deserved upon himself? Why would Jesus succumb for the likes of him? Before, Quillan had felt he owed nothing to anyone. He went his own way, living by what conscience he had, with a fierce ingrained need to protect the weak, the mistreated. But for himself he’d refused redemption. Now he basked in it. God understood his failings and suffered with him. An awesome and incomprehensible thought.

That was the vine to which he clung, the vine that gave him life. He needed nothing more, yet . . . human weakness still made him ache with thoughts of Carina. Would that ever end? Surely even a branch shuddered at the pruning knife.

Quillan had already watered the horses, so he took the feed bags from the bed and hooked them over each animal’s head in turn, with a soft word and stroke to their necks. Jock nuzzled him affectionately, and Quillan held the horse’s muzzle to his face, then gave him his feed. He reached up to the box for the flat leather bag that held his own bread and cheese and his journal.

He perched on a gray heap of basalt, away from where the others ate, talked, and sent him dark looks. It mattered less today than it had before. He is despised and rejected of men. At least he was in good company. Quillan wasn’t even sure why he had shown up at the quarry, except that he had taken the job, and until he was certain he should leave it, he meant to do it.

He was a man of action. Sitting around undirected would make him crazy. At least at the quarry he could work the strain away, something he’d learned early and employed nearly every day of his life. Others might long for empty time, but that was Quillan’s enemy. His body was strong, his mind active. Both required work. He suddenly thought of Mae telling him he must learn to be still. Not likely. He bit hard into his bread.

He was halfway through the bite when he saw Flavio. The instant tightening in his chest quelled any thoughts that he was delivered from this present strife. There was the man who stood between him and his wife. If not for Flavio, Dr. DiGratia might think more kindly on him.

More than that, it was Carina’s own lingering connection Quillan fretted over as he looked at the figure Flavio Caldrone cut.

There was something fine in both build and manner that made him starkly out of place among the sharp hewn rocks and rough hewn men. But Flavio walked among them with an easy grace, confident of both their acceptance and respect. What was his story, Quillan wondered. A rich aristocratic family? Plenty to eat, plenty to wear, all the blessings of God and man at his disposal?

He watched Flavio draw the laughter of the men and wave it off as his due. Oh, to be so confident of approval. Had he won his way back into Carina’s heart? He’d possessed the better part of an evening to do it; the Garibaldi House had been loud with frolicking well into the night.