LITMIR.BIZ

      Lightning flashed. Thunder cracked, rumbled away. Clayton pushed away from his desk and crossed to the window. Rain coursed down the small panes of glass in torrents, making the barely visible trunks of the trees in the yard look liquid and flowing. He had not seen a storm this bad in years. He frowned and rubbed at the tense muscles at the back of his neck. Hopefully it would pass over soon. If not, the weak wall they were working to reinforce at the lock might not hold. And if it collapsed it would put them weeks behind the time he had scheduled for the repairs.

      Clayton shook his head and turned from the window. There was no sense in worrying—or praying. He knew that from all those wasted prayers he uttered when he found out Deborah was expecting his child. What would be, would be. And he could do nothing until morning. He might better spend his time sleeping because, one way or another, tomorrow was going to be a hard day. He snuffed out the lamps, left his study and headed for the stairs. The sight of his hand on the banister evoked the memory of Sarah Randolph’s white-knuckled grip as she had climbed. She had trembled so beneath his hand, he had expected her strength to give out after a few steps, had worried she might fall. But she had made it to the top. And to the nursery. He had listened to make sure.

      Clayton cast a quick glance down the hallway to the nursery door. All was quiet. He entered his bedroom and crossed to the dressing room to prepare for bed. What could have happened to make Sarah Randolph so terrified of a storm? Something had. When he noticed her pale face and asked if she liked thunderstorms she had answered, Not anymore. Yes, something frightening had definitely happened to Miss Sarah Randolph during a thunderstorm. But what?

      Clayton puzzled over the question, created possible scenarios to answer it while he listened to the sounds of the storm’s fury. It was better than dwelling on the possible damage the weak locks were sustaining.

      Chapter Four

      “Tompkins, start those men digging a runoff ditch five feet back from the top of the bank, then follow me.” Clayton slipped and slid his way down the muddy slope and turned left to inspect the lock under repair. One quick look was enough. He squinted up through the driving rain at his foreman and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Tompkins, get some men and timbers down here! We need to shore up this wall.”

      His foreman waved a hand to indicate he had heard him above the howling wind and ran off to do as ordered.

      Clayton swiped the back of his arm across his eyes to clear away the raindrops, tugged his hat lower and sloshed his way across the bottom of the lock to check the other side. The pouring rain sluiced down the fifteen-foot-high wall to add depth to the water swirling around his ankles. He turned and slogged along the length of the wall, checking for cracks or weak spots, but the gravel and clay loam they’d used to reinforce it was holding up well beneath the deluge.

      Lightning rent the dark, roiling sky and sizzled to earth with a snap that hurt his ears. Thunder crashed and rolled. Sarah Randolph’s pale, frightened face flashed into his head. He frowned, irritated by the break in his concentration, but could not stop himself from wondering how she was handling the storm. Perhaps it was only at night—

      “Look out below!”

      Clayton pivoted, squinted through the rain to see a heavy timber come tumbling down the wall on the other side. Men at the edge were poised to drop another. He cupped his mouth. “Stop! Hold that beam!”

      His voice was lost in another loud clap of thunder. The two men holding the beam upright at the top of the lock wall gave a mighty shove and leaped aside. The beam tumbled down end-over-end, hit one of the horizontal beams of the form for the new stone wall and knocked it askew. Clayton broke into a run, shouting and waving his arms, trying to catch the attention of someone on the opposite bank before the carelessness of the unskilled laborers caused the unfinished wall to collapse.

      Water splashed over the top of his boots, soaked his pant legs and socks as he ran. Rain pelted his upturned face, coursed down his neck and wet his shirt. Lightning flashed. Another beam came tumbling down the wall. No one was paying him any attention.

      He ran faster, angling toward the bank where he could climb in safety. His hands and feet slipped and slid as he scaled the slope, adding the offense of mud to his sodden clothes. He heard a loud crash and rumble, stopped climbing and looked to his left. There was a gaping hole where a section of the newly placed, but unsecured, stones of the wall under repair had collapsed.

      Clayton glanced up, saw the men who had pushed the last beam over the wall waving other men forward and pointing down at the damage it had caused. He sucked a long breath of cold, damp air into his laboring lungs and resumed his climb, wishing, not for

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