Hope Springs (2 page)

Chapter Two

Katie had a long-standing acquaintance with death. She recognized its icy breath slithering down the back of her neck as she tended to Ian. The air hung heavy with the very real possibility that he would never awaken.

Biddy had refused to leave Ian’s side, not allowing herself even a moment’s rest since the evening before. But the long hours had taken a toll. She’d dropped off into a fitful sleep in the same chair she’d occupied for the last twenty-four hours, her hand still holding Ian’s.

Katie laid a cool, damp cloth over his badly swollen right eye. They’d no ice left, only cold water from the river. She hummed a quiet and gentle tune. Music soothed her; it always had. If she hadn’t had some tune to help her through her ministrations, she’d have been weeping out of frustration and exhaustion. The past twenty-four hours had felt like twenty-four days.

“How is Ian this evening?”

She looked up at the sound of Joseph Archer’s voice. How the man managed to sneak up on her unnoticed time and again, she’d never know.

“Much the same,” she answered. “His breathing is steady and deep. His pulse continues on as it should. He moves about now and then, but he doesn’t talk or seem aware of any of us. He hasn’t opened his eyes.”

Joseph stopped beside her, looking down at Ian. “I would be surprised if he was able to open his eyes, considering how swollen his face is.”

Katie had told herself as much again and again as she’d tended to Ian. ’Twas as if he hovered just on the other side of awareness, unable to cross that divide.

“Ian’s a peaceable man. Why would the Red Road do this to
him?
There are so many others who jump into every fray, who antagonize the Reds at every opportunity.” She immediately realized how that might be taken. “Not that I would wish this on any person.” ’Twas exactly the kind of phrase her mother would have crossed herself while saying.

Joseph shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, his eyes never leaving Ian. “Hate is never logical.”

She slumped in her chair, too tired to even sit up straight. She pushed out a deep and weary breath. Pain pulsed in her temples.

Joseph sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, facing her. “When did you last eat?”

She rubbed at her gritty eyes a moment, thinking. “We got a bit of broth down Ian an hour ago.”

“I didn’t ask how long ago
Ian
ate. I asked about you.”

“Mrs. O’Connor saw to it we all had something to eat before she had to go.”

“How are you holding up?” He leaned his bent arms on his legs. There were moments, like now, when his eyes seemed to look into her soul, searching out answers for themselves.

“I am so very tired, Joseph. And worry is gnawing at me. I’m so turned about I can’t say whether it’s on my head or on my heels I’m standing.”

He reached out a hand, gently brushing his fingers over hers before seeming to recollect himself and pulling back once more. He often did just that, as though a comforting touch were the most natural thing in the world—until he remembered who she was.

She’d sat in that room alone, fretting for hours on end. The O’Connor family, in their distress, had turned to one another for comfort. Though the need felt selfish, she’d longed for someone to reach out to
her,
to touch her, even for a moment. That he’d pulled back so quickly, so entirely, only deepened her loneliness.

“I’ll sit with Ian,” Joseph said. “You need to rest.”

A surge of guilt rushed over her at the thought of walking away from her duties in the sickroom. “Mrs. O’Connor means to come take my place in a bit, as it is. I can wait until then.”

“Mrs. O’Connor will not begrudge you a moment’s respite, Katie.”

While that was, no doubt, true, Katie couldn’t help feeling as though she would be breaking a promise by stepping away.

Joseph sat, watching her, as though he had nowhere else in the entire world to be and nothing else to do with his time. Clearly he meant to sit there until she gave over.

“I suppose a moment away wouldn’t be going back on my word entirely.” She rose from her chair. “And you’ll be here to tend to Ian, so it’s not as if I’m abandoning him altogether.”

“Oh, were you expecting me to stay here?” Joseph sounded surprised, though the slightest hint of a smile tipped his mouth, enough to add something resembling laughter to his expression.

She shook her head, feeling a touch of amusement creeping over her own face. Joseph Archer could frustrate her like no one else, but he did, on occasion, make her smile in spite of herself.

“You’ll not be too put out with me, will you, for having your dinner on the table late again tonight?” She’d not been so remiss in her housekeeping duties at the Archer home in all the months she’d been with them as she had since Ian’s injury. “I know it’s hard on the girls to be hungry longer than they’re accustomed.”

He shrugged as he moved to the chair she’d just left. “If they complain too loudly, I can always fire you again.”

They’d worn that teasing comment near to threads. That he’d fired her twice on her first day in Hope Springs had become a source of amusement to them both. She knew he valued her and the work she did too much to let her go so carelessly. She would be moving out in another month’s time as it was; his new housekeeper was set to arrive then.

“And wouldn’t I just love to see you try to get on without me.” She pointed a finger at him. “You’d be pained with hunger and your clothes too filthy for company. Let that teach you to appreciate me.”

Though Joseph faced the bed, Katie could see enough of his face to tell he smiled.

’Twas good to be needed. She’d been in service from the time she was eight, but until coming to Hope Springs, she’d never been anything important to anyone.

She pushed aside the colorful quilt hanging in the doorway of Biddy and Ian’s bedroom and stepped out. The first time she’d visited Biddy’s home, it had been filled with smiles and laughter and joy. Now, it sat quiet and empty, a testament to the somber state of things. For a moment she’d forgotten how bad things truly were. A young father lay in the next room, beaten nearly to death. Half a town lived in constant worry over who would be next.

The front door opened, something that had happened again and again during the past day and a half. The O’Connor clan was plentiful and close-knit. All of Ian’s siblings had come by many times, and his parents had only left his house to return to their own in order to sleep and tend to the most necessary chores on their farm.

’Twas Tavish who stepped inside. He spotted her on the instant and gave her one of his heart-melting smiles. That exact look on his face had claimed a rather permanent place in her heart.

“Good day to you, Sweet Katie.” He tossed his wide-brimmed hat onto a nearby bench and shook the dust from his night-black hair with a quick swish of his hand.

“You’re filthy, Tavish O’Connor. I’ve seen potatoes come out of the ground with less dirt clinging to them than you have just now.” Katie delivered the scold with too theatrical a tone to be at all taken seriously. “You come dragging in the whole of the earth with you and likely expect someone else to sweep up after.”

His blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “You want me to go back out and take my dirt with me, leaving you here all by your lonesome?”

She shrugged as if his coming or going mattered not at all to her and received a laugh for her efforts. She loved this playful side of him. Even in her darkest hours, he could lighten her heart and take away the weight of the world sitting on her shoulders.

“You’re a troublesome woman, Katie Macauley.” Tavish crossed to where she stood. “What am I to do with you?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m hoping you’ll throw yourself in the river and wash up a bit in hopes of impressing me.”

He brushed a hand along her cheek. Katie felt a blush follow his touch.

“The river’s too cold for that, Sweet Katie.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder, though her arms remained folded. She’d long since learned the simple joy of resting her weight against him, letting him prop her up a moment while she regained her strength.

He wrapped his arms protectively around her. “How’s my brother this evening?”

“The same.” She closed her eyes, shutting out the world.

“Then we’ll simply have to be grateful he’s no worse.”

She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head, a loving gesture he’d first adopted some weeks earlier. She’d not grown entirely comfortable with shows of affection, having not known many during her life. But his attentions were so kind and gentle, she had come to love them. He put her a bit away from him, though his hands lingered on her upper arms.

“You’d best go see to cleaning your own self up a bit.” He gave her an overdone look of disapproval. “You’re fair covered with dust and earth and who knows what else.”

She glanced down at the front of her dress and found it just as he’d declared. She was dusted with the dirt he’d brought in from the fields.

Katie shook her head, even as she smiled at him.

“That is just what I hoped to see,” he said, tapping her under the chin with his finger. “Trouble hates nothing so much as a smile.”

“But a smile won’t cure this.” She nodded in the direction of Ian’s bedroom.

“Perhaps not,” he said. “But neither will tears. I can do little to make my brother well again, but I mean to do all I can to see that smile of yours keeping company with your face. The two shouldn’t be parted for anything in the world.”

“So you plan to carry all my burdens for me, is that it?”

He nodded slowly. “I’d have followed you back to Ireland, you know that.”

“I do.” He’d fully intended to do just that, and she was still stunned by the enormity of that sacrifice.

“But since you’ve decided to stay, I’m making it my life’s mission to see that you’re happy here.” He pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. “Now, I’m going to see if Ian’s dragged his lazy bum out of bed yet.”

When she’d first met Tavish, Katie had taken his teasing remarks as a sure sign he wasn’t serious enough about the realities of life. She’d since learned to know him better. Laughing was his way of dealing with the difficulties.

“You get yourself in there, you unfeeling brother.” She even laughed a bit herself. “Perhaps his first act upon coming back to his senses will be to belt you hard in the gob.”

Something of his humor faded for a moment. “I’d welcome it, I would. Seeing him fit enough to deliver me a fast fist to the face would do my worrying soul a great deal of good.”

He slipped into the bedroom, letting the quilt fall behind him.

Katie stood a moment in the silent room, her heart heavy. She wrapped one arm around her middle and rubbed at her weary face with the other.

She had no medical training, but had spent the day caring for a man too broken to do more than wince or moan deep in his throat. No words. No eye contact. Biddy had turned to her with such trust, such complete confidence. Katie didn’t at all feel equal to that responsibility.

“Losing Ian would destroy Biddy,” she whispered, knowing it to be true.

Ian and Biddy were halves of a whole, two people who seemed at their happiest when with each other. If Ian did not survive, Biddy would carry a burden every bit as heavy and soul-crushing as the one Katie had carried since her sister’s death. Heavier, even. Katie’s heart ached at the thought of her friend hurting so deeply and permanently.

She pushed back the blanket in the bedroom doorway, peeking silently into the room. Biddy still slept in the chair near the bed. Tavish stood at the foot of the bed, watching his brother.

“If he doesn’t pull through this,” Tavish said to Joseph, “Biddy will need extra time to make her payment on the land.”

Katie hadn’t even thought of the money troubles the O’Connors would have. Would the difficulties never end?

“Ian is my best friend, Tavish. I’m not so heartless I would evict his family in the face of so much tragedy.” Joseph slumped in his chair.

“What’ll that do to your neutrality? The Red Road will be up in arms if you show us any mercy.”

Joseph shook his head. “I have helped plenty of them through difficult times. Doing the same for Ian and Biddy won’t be any different.”

Tavish pushed out a breath heavy with tension and sat on the trunk at the foot of the bed. “They won’t see it that way. You know they won’t.”

Joseph didn’t answer, didn’t argue.

Tavish rubbed at the back of his neck. “This will get far worse before it gets better. I’m worried about Katie living off the Irish Road. The Reds have never been happy about that.”

He hadn’t talked to
her
about that worry. Indeed, he’d been optimistic and more lighthearted than Katie had managed to be. His concern didn’t exactly surprise her. His brother lay at death’s door. He had every reason to be afraid, worried, uncertain, yet his concern still extended to include her. She was touched by that kindness.

“I know you don’t have a replacement housekeeper yet,” Tavish continued, “but if Katie’s not safe—”

“Katie would fiercely object to being sent away before she feels she has fulfilled her obligations.”

“And
I
would fiercely object to her being the next one of us beaten within an inch of her life.”

She let the blanket fall back into place, her insides coiling with those words. Would the Reds truly attack her?

“It won’t come to that, Tavish.” Joseph’s firm voice reached her from the other side of the quilt.

“This feud has driven people away.” Tavish sounded wearier than he’d allowed himself to appear since discovering Ian unconscious in town. “But no one’s yet died. I worry that’s about to change. If not here in this room, then somewhere and someone else.”

Katie closed her eyes. The simple path of life she’d thought stretched out before her had, in a few short days, turned winding and twisting and filled with fear.