Longing for Home (42 page)

From her rocking chair Mrs. Claire called out, “Just in case either of you were wondering, I have me eyes closed firm and tight. So if you’re wanting to undertake a fine bit o’ kissing, you’ll not have an audience to fret about.”

She felt Tavish laugh. “Well then, Katie. How about a ‘fine bit of kissing’?”

He raised her hand to his lips, putting her frayed cuffs right in her line of sight. She tried tucking her hand away, but Tavish didn’t let go. He pressed his lips to the back of her hand, then smoothed her sleeve and cuff as though they were of the finest silk and lace.

“You’d be beautiful in anything, Katie. Don’t be weighed down by it.”

Katie leaned her cheek against his, pressing her hand to the other side of his face. She could hardly think for the pounding of her heart. “You are a good man, Tavish. Your granny was right on that score.”

Tavish kissed her forehead, lingering over the gesture. Katie simply sighed. Mrs. Claire had been right on another score; she had, indeed, fallen in love with Tavish O’Connor.

The matter of Joseph Archer was another thing entirely.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Katie looked happier. Joseph didn’t know what had changed in the past two weeks, but she smiled more. Worry remained in the back of her eyes but didn’t weigh her down as it once had. Perhaps she hadn’t heard about the shoves and insults some Irish and Reds had exchanged a few times since Seamus Kelly’s fire. She would fret all the more if she had. He worried they had all put too much store by her bread-baking success in Hope Springs. She would likely think any setback would be disastrous for everyone.

She’d stopped asking about keeping her job, but he was certain she still thought about it.

Joseph hated that. He had already offered the position to a qualified candidate in Baltimore. He expected her acceptance to arrive any day, and the woman herself to follow shortly thereafter. But he knew Katie didn’t have anywhere to go yet. He’d had to bite his tongue again and again to keep from giving in and saying she could stay.

Tavish came by now and then, talking with her in the kitchen. Though he felt like an idiot, Joseph couldn’t keep himself away from the kitchen while Tavish was there. He knew he was acting out of pure jealousy, but Tavish had every advantage. Katie wasn’t living under his roof. He wasn’t paying her salary. He didn’t have to worry that the slightest show of interest would ripple as whispers and aspersions on her character.

Joseph couldn’t make his own case so long as she was still his housekeeper. There was an ethical line there he simply couldn’t cross, not to even mention the rumors that would start. But he wasn’t about to sit back and let Tavish claim her entire regard by default.

He came in from the fields late in the afternoon almost three weeks after the Irish party he’d attended. No one had named names, but everyone knew the Red Road was responsible for cutting the tail of Tavish’s horse. And though no one could be as certain as they were in the matter of the horse, Joseph fully suspected the blacksmith’s fire was no accident. He hoped this round of feuding would prove different from those in the past, that tempers wouldn’t flare to the point of widespread violence.

Biddy and Katie were sitting on the porch as they often did.

“Is this a ladies-only gathering, or am I allowed to join you?” Any of the O’Connors could have come up with something more clever than that. Joseph had never been particularly adept at casual conversation.

Katie looked up at him, a welcoming smile hovering on her lips. She couldn’t be entirely indifferent and look at him that way. There had to be some degree of affection behind it.

“Come sit,” Biddy instructed. “We’re only gabbing.”

He sat down on the porch steps, facing the yard and his giggling daughters. They had blossomed since Katie came. Even Emma ran and jumped and laughed like a little girl ought to. It was nothing short of a miracle.

Joseph was grateful to see them outside. “Should we ruin their fun by reminding them how soon the snow will come?”

Biddy shook her head immediately. “I am trying not to remind
myself
of that.”

“Does Hope Springs get a great deal of snow, then?” Katie looked from Joseph to Biddy and back again.

Joseph laughed.
Does Hope Springs get snow?
He’d had no idea what snow really was before moving to Wyoming.

“We were snowed in for only four months last year,” he said.

“What?” Her eyes grew wide. “In your houses?”

“No,” Biddy answered. “Snowed in to the valley. Only a few weeks of that saw us unable to visit each other.”

Katie’s lips twisted in thought, an expression she wore often. Whether or not she realized it, Katie was a thinker. That was one of the first things that had drawn Joseph to her. She possessed a keen intellect, an absolute must in a woman.

“’Tis no wonder, then, the town is at each other’s throats so often,” she said. “I’ll likely be climbing the walls by the end of the winter.”

“You’ll grow more accustomed to it with each passing year,” Biddy said.

Katie gave her a half-smile. “So by my third or fourth winter, I’ll not be the least surprised to see snow piled to the rooftops?”

Her third or fourth winter. Joseph liked that she’d begun talking of being in Hope Springs for years.

Katie’s gaze shifted to him, tension pulling at her mouth and eyes. “Will the snows be bad enough I won’t be able to make my deliveries? Begorra, Joseph.” Her words came faster and higher. “In a few more weeks my bread will be all the income I’ll have. If I can’t even walk down the road—” A shaky breath cut off her words, evidence of the panic she’d kept all but hidden for weeks.

He missed the smile she’d worn only moments earlier. Tavish would tease her; Joseph had personally seen that happen many times in the last two weeks. He didn’t have Tavish’s ability in that area. But he could try.

“If only you had a friend with a sleigh.” He shook his head, even rubbed his chin. Dramatics weren’t really his style, but he tried. “That would be a very good thing, I would imagine. If only . . .”

Katie’s tense shoulders eased noticeably. “You don’t happen to have a sleigh, do you, Joseph Archer?”

He leaned back on his elbows, legs stretched out over the porch steps. “I do so happen.”

“And you do consider me a friend, don’t you?”

Friend?
He cleared his throat. “‘Friend’ isn’t the word I would use.”

He could see his mistake instantly reflected in her face. “I didn’t mean ‘friend’ exactly,” she said. “I . . . I realize I’m only your servant. I didn’t mean to sound overly familiar.”

Joseph looked over at Biddy. “My words didn’t sound the way I meant them to, did they?”

“I certainly hope not.”

“Don’t fret over it.” Katie’s lack of concern sounded forced. She stood. “I should probably . . . check on the stew I have in the oven.”

Joseph reached up and took her hand. “Don’t go, Katie.”

He’d made a mess of what should have been a friendly conversation. He never had been good at such things. If she would only listen long enough for him to try to extricate his foot from his own mouth, he might undo the damage he’d done.

He tugged on her hand. She lowered herself onto the step beside him. Her look of uncertainty held a bit of fear.

“I truly didn’t mean to presume upon your kindness,” she said. “I know I only work here.”

He might be obligated to keep the depth of his feelings hidden, but he would not allow her to think she was nothing to him but a servant.

He leaned in to speak to her. She looked ready to jump out of her skin. He felt much the same way but probably not, he was forced to admit to himself, for the same reason.

“I don’t want you to think I don’t like you.” He lowered his voice. Biddy sat close and he didn’t want to admit to even as little as he was about to if she could hear every word. “I do like you, Katie. We all do,” he quickly added. “When you move on, we’ll . . . we’ll miss you.”

He propped his elbows on the stair behind him. “Have you found a place to live yet, down the Irish Road?”

“I’ve asked around, and no one has a room to let or an oven they don’t mind letting me use for hours on end, day after day. By the time I pay for a room and food to eat and the use of someone’s oven, I’ll be out of money. I simply don’t have enough left after paying for baking supplies.”

He held the words back. So many times he’d been on the verge of tossing out his own sanity and chances for winning her over and rashly offering to let her remain. Katie turned a bit and leaned against the railing. She didn’t raise her eyes to his again.

He knew what she needed—the security of a place to stay in the long term—but he couldn’t give it to her. She was miserable and worried. And he couldn’t help. Sitting there, helpless, was not an option. Joseph stood and moved away.

“Uncle Tavish!” Mary O’Connor’s squeal of delight filled the yard.

Katie looked up immediately. Joseph could have cursed, no matter that he was in mixed company. He had never before set himself to compete with Tavish O’Connor in anything remotely social. Tavish would win.

Seeing Katie light up at Tavish’s arrival drove home a painful realization. Tavish had likely won already.

Tavish grabbed Mary about the waist and tossed her into the air, catching her easily in his arms. She giggled and grinned. He whispered a quick request in her ear before setting her back on the ground.

Mary ran over to the steps and spoke to her mother, using that air children adopt when reciting something they’ve committed to memory. “Uncle Tavish says that he’d be much obliged if you wandered off a bit so he could sit by Miss Katie and whisper sweet words to her.”

Tavish grinned. Mary couldn’t have delivered the message better. Biddy shot him such a look of scolding. ’Twas Katie’s smile, though, that filled his vision. Heavens, but he’d missed her over the past few evenings. A man knew he was truly caught when a woman filled his thoughts when they were apart.

“Seems to me I’d best wander about.” Biddy’s tone fell somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. She walked down off the porch, whispered, “Be good” to him, and made her way out to where the children were playing.

Tavish glanced once at Joseph before sitting down beside Katie. Something had happened before he arrived that had the usually calm Joseph Archer a bit on edge. An argument?

“Good day to you, Katie.”

“Good day?” She gave him a scolding look. “I’ve not seen you since the céilí
,
and all you have to say to me is ‘good day’?”

He took her hand. “Missed me, did you?”

“Perhaps.”

She was not one to make things easy on him. He enjoyed that about her.

“Are you here to make up sweet to me?” she asked him. “Or have you come on business?”

Make up sweet to her? Katie would never have even joked about such a thing three months ago. “Both, Sweet Katie.”

“What’s your matter of business?”

“I should be offended you’re more interested in my business than in getting sweet with me.”

Katie bumped his shoulder with hers, smiling through her heightened color.

“My business.” Tavish watched the children playing with Finbarr. Tavish sat close enough to Katie to touch shoulder to hip. Sitting with her that way was well worth losing time at his harvesting.

You’re caught, and no denying it.

“I hadn’t heard you found a place to live when the new housekeeper arrives.”

Katie slumped against him, defeat heavy in her posture. He felt her shake her head even as she leaned it against his shoulder.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she whispered. “So much depends on me not failing, and I don’t even have anywhere to live.”

Anxiety crackled in every word. Poor Katie. He suspected she’d been holding back that panic for some time. The Irish had put a heavy burden on her.

He took her hand in his. “I think I know where you might find a room.”

She went very still. “Do you, truly?”

Tavish rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand. She was tense yet. He hoped his idea would prove a good one.

“I haven’t said anything to her yet,” he said, “but would you consider staying with my granny?”