She pushed him against the wall. "You sit right there and don't make a sound. Reverend Crane said to watch you and that's what I'm going to do."
Wendell squatted in the corner, facing the wall. Tears came to his eyes at the thought of his failure. Not only had he not denied the fountain to Reverend Crane, his actions had led the reverend here. It's my fault, he thought.
"We shouldn't be up here," he says.
Fiona kisses him on the lips, her dark hair falling all around him like a veil. "You worry too much," she says. "Daddy is out with the flock. He won't be back until supper. And Mum is visiting Mrs. McCracken. No one will see us."
Wendell looks over the edge of the hayloft at the stone floor below. "That's not what I meant. I meant we're awful high up. If we fall-"
"I know what I'm doing," she says.
"How many boys have you brought up here?"
"Just Angus Macleod. We were only eight at the time and he's since moved on to Glasgow. He wasn't anywhere near as handsome as you, though."
"You didn't think that at first," Wendell says. "I think your first words were, 'He smells bloody awful.'"
"You did smell bloody awful."
"I had been lying in a ditch."
"There you are. To be honest, at first I thought Mum was bringing me a little sister with all that hair of yours. But I must say you cleaned up very nice."
"Thank you, I suppose." He kisses her and runs his hand through her hair. These last two months with Fiona have given him a renewed passion for life. The first time he saw her standing in the doorway of the Connolly's house he fell in love with her. Her lithe, sprite-like body with the sparkling green eyes enchanted him. He thought she must be younger than him, but he found out she was fourteen. She knew all too well the ridicule and patronizing from people mistaking her for a much younger girl.
He didn't have the courage to approach her. Then one day when her parents were both out, she ambushed Wendell in the barn and kissed him. She disappeared a moment later so that as he sat there, he wondered if he had dreamed the whole thing. Only later did she creep into his bedroom to apologize. "I'm sorry about kissing you in the barn. I've been wanting to kiss you for so long now, I had to do it."
Thus began their secret meetings wherever and whenever they could find the opportunity. Wendell wishes they could tell Fiona's parents, but she insists they'll throw him out if they find out. "They're very protective," Fiona said once. "Mum wanted to put me in a convent until she realized I wasn't nun material a couple years ago. Now she wants me to find a proper husband. Proper meaning someone with money."