Conor's Way

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  I'll stay long enough to help you bring your crop in.

  He couldn't stay. He'd made Olivia a promise, and he couldn't keep it.

  He saw her eyes again, and guilt washed over him in a smothering wave. He hadn't even finished fixing her roof. He thought of her trying to go up on that roof and finish the job herself. Damn, damn, damn.

  Conor straightened on the seat. "Stop the wagon."

  "What?"

  "I said, stop the wagon."

  The farmer yanked hard on the reins and brought the wagon to a halt. He watched Conor jump down, and he shook his head in bewilderment. "Mister, I thought you wanted a lift to town."

  "I changed my mind," Conor replied, certain he was going to regret his sudden attack of scruples. He always did.

  18

  It was nearly dark by the time Olivia returned to the house. The girls were in the kitchen, and they looked up hopefully when she walked in. "He didn't come back here?"

  "No, Mama," Becky answered, pulling a pan of corn bread from the oven. "I've finished making supper."

  Olivia glanced at Carrie and Miranda, and saw their disappointed faces.

  She crossed the room and put an arm around Becky's shoulders. "Thank you, honey. We'd better eat."

  They did, and the supper table was unusually quiet.

  It was Miranda who finally broke the silence, voicing aloud the question that was on all their minds. "Did Mr. Conor run away from home, Mama?"

  "Mr. Conor wouldn't do that!" Carrie cried, drop­ping her spoon into her bowl of gumbo with a splash and giving her younger sister an indignant scowl. "He wouldn't leave without saying good-bye. I know he wouldn't."

  Olivia reached out and put a comforting hand on Carrie's arm. "I know you like Mr. Conor, but he might have left. This isn't his home, remember."

  "We should look for him," Carrie said. "He might have fallen or something. He might be hurt."

  "I looked everywhere," Olivia answered gently. "Besides, it's dark out now. We can't go searching for him in the dark." She saw Carrie's crestfallen expres­sion and added, "We'll look again in the morning."

  After supper, she put all three of her gloomy daugh­ters to bed. She went into the kitchen and put the iron on the stove to heat. She might just as well get some work done, and there was always plenty of ironing. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep yet. Not until he came back. If he came back.

  It was silly. As she worked, she told herself that he was probably halfway to Shreveport by now, and she ought to be glad. He was a man who didn't need any­one, who could easily pick up and move on without so much as a backward glance. Besides, the girls had become far too attached to him. She was glad he was gone.

  A noise outside had her flying for the door with a cry of relief. She flung it open, ready to lay into Conor Branigan for worrying them all to death. But there was no one there.

  Olivia stepped outside. Walking as far as the porch steps, she peered into the blackness beyond the square of feeble lamplight that shone through the kitchen win­dow. But she could see nothing. He hadn't come back.

  She turned to go back into the house, but a move­ment in the shadows caught her eye. She froze, watch­ing as a man emerged from the darkness, stepping into the pool of light surrounding her porch. It wasn't Conor.

  "Evenin', Olivia." Joshua Harlan moved closer, his gait a bit unsteady. Planting one boot on the bottom step, he grabbed the rail and grinned up at her. The wad of tobacco in his cheek bulged out.

  That grin sent a tiny shiver of apprehension dancing along her spine, and she remembered Oren's admoni­tion to be careful. All the Harlan boys were bullies, and she knew by his slurred speech and unsteady move­ments that Joshua was drunk. But she met his gaze squarely, remembering the days when his family had lived just the other side of Sugar Creek and all the times when Joshua and his brothers had teased her, and pulled her hair, and tried to intimidate her. It had worked back then, but it didn't work anymore. "Evenin', Joshua. Bit late for a walk, isn't it?"

  He shrugged and thrust his other hand into the pocket of his trousers. "Nice night for it, though. Wouldn't you say?"

  "No, I wouldn't. Too hot and humid, if you ask me." She folded her arms across her ribs. "What do you want, Joshua?"

  He turned his head and spit, sending a stream of tobacco juice across the dirt. "Vernon's gone on busi­ness for a few weeks, but he asked me to drop by your place while he was gone and see if you might have changed your mind."

  How often did she have to repeat her answer before they accepted it? "No, I haven't."

  "He also told me that he's willing to up his offer by another hundred dollars."

  "The answer's still no. You tell Vernon it doesn't matter how much money he's offering, I'm not selling my land."

  He nodded, moving the wad of tobacco to his other cheek. "I'll tell him." He glanced back over one shoul­der in the direction of the orchard. "How're your peaches doing these days?"

  She stiffened. "My peaches are just fine, Joshua. You tell Vernon that, too."

  She turned to go back in the house, but she'd only taken two steps before he caught her by the arm, swing­ing her around to face him. "Now, I'm mighty glad to hear that. They're right fine trees, and it'd be a shame if anything happened to 'em. A fire, for instance."

  She tried to yank her arm free. "Let go of me!"

  "A fire could ruin your whole crop." His grip tight­ened. "Why don't you just sell that land now?"

  "I said no, Joshua, and I mean it." She raised her free arm to hit him, but he caught her wrist. Shoving her back against the door of the house, he leaned closer. "I think you'd be smart to take Vernon's offer. Real smart."

  The smell of moonshine and tobacco made her want to retch. She turned her face away. For the first time in her life, Olivia felt truly afraid of Joshua, and she had no idea what to do.

  But before she could decide, she was suddenly free. Joshua let out a yelp of surprise as he was hauled away from her, and Olivia turned her head just in time to see Conor wrap an arm around the smaller man's throat from behind.

  "I don't think she's interested, boyo," Conor said through clenched teeth, yanking Joshua's arm and twisting it back. "Shall I be needin' to tell you what the word 'no' means, lad?"

  He jerked the pinned arm higher up Joshua's spine, and the other man let out a squeal of pain, shaking his head in answer. Olivia watched in shocked relief as Conor hauled him to the edge of the porch and trapped him against the rail. He grabbed a fistful of Joshua's shirt with his left hand, then drew back his right arm and slammed his fist into the other man's face.

  Olivia heard the awful crack of bone against bone, and she winced at the sound, watching as Conor lifted Joshua over the rail and sent him tumbling into the dirt with a thud.

  "I believe you're trespassin'," Conor told him, lean­ing over the rail. "Now, get the hell out."

  Joshua staggered to his feet. "Irish bastard," he moaned, raising one hand to his face. "You broke my nose."

  Conor moved to go over the rail after him, more than happy to break the rest of the other man's face, but Joshua turned and fled, disappearing into the darkness.

  Olivia let out her breath in a gasp of relief, sagging against the door.

  "Are you all right?" Conor asked, crossing the porch to stand in front of her.

  "I'm fine." She started to straighten away from the door, but then she began to shake with reaction, and her knees started to buckle.

  He caught her, pulling her against him to hold her steady. Her arms slid around his neck and she clung to him, her face buried against his chest. "I heard a noise," she said, her voice muffled by the front of his shirt. "I thought it was you. He just grabbed me, and I didn't know what to do."

  Conor thought of what might have happened had be been only minutes later, and renewed rage pulsed through his body. His arms tightened around her pro­tectively. "Did he hurt you?"

  She shook her head. "No. He was just drunk and bein' ornery."

  Cono
r slid one hand up and down her spine in a soothing caress, and all his rage dissolved into some­thing totally different and unexpected. Tenderness. "It's all right now, love," he murmured, his lips against her hair. "It's all right."

  "I know," she whispered.

  He held her for a long moment, savoring the warmth of her body against him and the softness of her hair beneath his jaw. When she started to pull away, he knew he should let her go, but he didn't want to. He had to force himself to lower his arms and step back, freeing her.

  She straightened her apron and brushed at a loose wisp of hair that touched her cheek, looking so flus­tered and self-conscious, it made him want to smile. "Thank you. I'm fine now." Without looking at him, she added in a low voice, "We thought you'd left for good."

  "I did."

  She lifted her face. "Why did you come back?"

  He didn't tell her why. "Nobody came by to give me a ride," he lied.

  "I'm glad you came back," she whispered. "Thank you."

  "Who was he? Did you know him?"

  She sighed. "Yes, I know him."

  "What did he want?"

  Wrapping her arms around her ribs, Olivia walked past him to the porch rail and stared out into the dark­ness. "It's a long story."

  "Time is something I seem to have a lot of these days. What did he want, Olivia?"

  "He wanted to frighten me. Imagine Joshua thinking he could scare me." She laughed, but it sounded a rather shaky laugh to Conor.

  "Frighten you?" He frowned. Crossing the porch, he reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. "Why?"

  "He works for a rich and powerful man who wants to build a railroad through here and who wants my land to do it. I'm the only one around here whose land he hasn't been able to get on the proposed route."

  "He must be willing to buy it from you?"

  "Oh, yes." A wry smile touched her lips. "He's made quite a generous offer. But I'm being rather stubborn about this, I'm afraid. I won't sell. So, he's trying to intimidate me into selling. I'm sure he sent Joshua out here just for that reason."

  Conor almost wanted to laugh at the irony. He'd spent most of his life watching as people were terror­ized, starved, and evicted, all for some piece of land. He'd seen people toil ceaselessly on their little farms until it broke their backs and their spirits, only to pass it down to children who would toil on in their place. He'd traveled halfway around the world, only to watch it all happen again. Didn't any of them see that it wasn't worth it?

  "It's just a piece of land, Olivia."

  "No!" She looked up at him, a hard determination in her face he'd never seen before. "It is not just a piece of land. It's my home. My family has lived here for over seventy years. Five generations of Monroe folk have been born here, five generations have poured their blood and sweat into this land. My brothers died defending it. Peachtree is my legacy and my responsibility."

  "But if they're threatening you—"

  "Nonsense. I won't be driven off my land by empty threats from greedy carpetbaggers and scalawags ."

  He studied the determined set of her jaw, and he wondered how many faces like hers he had seen in his life. Dozens, maybe hundreds. All of them thinking that roots and family ties were more important than any­thing else, all of them passing down land and traditions from one generation to the next, all of them believing that someday things were going to get better—if not for them, then for their children.

  But Conor knew things never got any better, and that you couldn't fight the battle forever. Tenants got evicted, railroads got built, homeless children went hungry, and life was bloody unfair.

  "So, you'll not be driven off your land, Olivia?" There was a hint of mockery in his voice. "Just how are you going to prevent it?"

  "I'll ignore them."

  "Oh, that's brilliant, that is. Next time this Joshua fellow comes around, I'll just let him manhandle you, and watch you try to ignore it."

  She shot him a fierce look that told him she didn't appreciate the sarcasm. "I'll fight them."

  "How?"

  "I don't know. Somehow."

  He looked into her proud, determined face, and he wondered how long she'd be able to hold out against their threats. Men who were rich and powerful wouldn't let one stubborn woman get in their way. She had no idea what she was up against.

  He opened his mouth to tell her the bitter truth, but in her face he saw a tiny glimmer of all his own lost ideals, and he didn't have the heart to tell her that the carpetbaggers and scalawags of the world usually won.

  Conor awoke the next morning thinking he must have been daft the night before. Just plain daft. There was no way Olivia could fight those land speculators, and he should have told her so.

  He decided to talk to her about it after breakfast. She'd said those men had made her a generous offer for her land. If she sold it to them, she could use the money to buy herself another piece of land, complete with a house that didn't have sagging fences and a leaky roof. That was the only sensible solution, and he figured it was up to him to make her realize it.

  He found her in the barn, putting down fresh straw in one of the stalls.

  She glanced at him over the top of the stall. "Mornin'."

  He decided to get right to the point. He crossed the barn to the opening of the stall. "Are you still planning to fight those men?"

  She leaned on the pitchfork in her hand and brushed a loose tendril of hair back from her forehead. "Of course."

  "I was hoping you might have done some thinking about it and changed your mind."

  She shook her head. "No," she answered, and turned away, plunging her pitchfork into the pile of straw by her feet. "Why would I?"

  "Because they have money and you obviously don't. Because they have power and you don't. Because it's a losing battle."

  "I told you, this is my home. I won't be forced off my land."

  "You're not being sensible."

  She stopped working and turned toward him. "What would be sensible?" she asked softly. "Take the money and move on? That's what you'd do, isn't it?"

  He thought about all the times he'd fought that bat­tle within himself, knowing the sensible course, unable to follow it, rebelling against it. And he always regret­ted his rebellions afterward.

  "Yes," he said. "That's what I'd do."

  "Well, I'm not like you," she said, and resumed her task. "I'm not going anywhere."

  "So, what are you planning to do? Stand by your front door and tell the bad men to go away?"

  "There's no need to be sarcastic."

  "For God's sake, woman!" He stepped forward and yanked the pitchfork out of her hand, forcing her to give him her attention. "This isn't a church social," he said, leaning the pitchfork in one corner of the stall. "That man last night wasn't here for a cup o' tay."

  "I told you, I've known Joshua all my life. He wouldn't have hurt me. He just wanted to frighten me."

  "Right. And what happens if the next time he comes around, he decides to frighten you a little harder?" He watched her lift her chin, and he figured he'd never met a more exasperating woman in his life. "What are you going to do? He's a man. You're a woman. Christ, do I have to explain this in graphic detail?"

  She blushed a deep pink. "Well, you're here. He won't get the opportunity."

  "I'm only staying long enough to help you harvest those peaches," he countered. "After that, I'll be gone. Then what will you do?"

  She pressed her lips together and didn't answer.

  "What will you do?" he asked again.

  "I don't know!" she shot back, glaring up at him. "But I'm not going to let Joshua Harlan bully me."

  "What about the girls? Are you ready to risk their safety?"

  "Joshua's not going to do anything to the girls. He's just Vernon's hired gun, and Vernon wouldn't order him to hurt me or my girls."

  Conor heard the name and sucked in his breath as if he'd just been kicked in the stomach. "Who?"

  "Vernon Ty
ler. He's the man who wants my land."

  Conor raked a hand through his hair. "No, no, no," he groaned, shaking his head. "'Tis a dead man, I am."

  She frowned, perplexed. "What are you talking about?"

  He turned away, paying no attention to her question. "Of all the insane, idiotic things I've ever done . . . Vernon Tyler. Oh, Christ." He thought of the farmer's wagon that could have taken him out of here, and he wanted to kick himself in the ass for being so stupid. "Should have bloody well kept going."

  You ever cross my path again, boy, I'll snap you into pieces like a dry stick and use you for firewood.

  "Conor?" Olivia walked to his side and placed a hand on his arm.

  He shook it off with frustrated violence. Punching Vernon's hired gun last night would probably get him beaten again, or worse. He'd leave again, he decided, for good this time. Keeping a promise to a woman wasn't worth it.

  "Conor?"

  Her soft voice broke into his tumultuous thoughts. He turned around and leaned back against the side of the stall. "Vernon Tyler is the man who had me beaten."

  "What? In heaven's name, why?"

  Conor scowled. "Because I was an idiot. A dumb bastard who didn't like being told what to do."

  "What are you talking about?"

  He rubbed a hand across his jaw and let out his breath on a sigh. "Vernon was the one who arranged the boxing match I was in against Elroy Harlan."

  "Yes, I know. I saw an advertisement for the match in the mercantile."

  "Vernon financed the betting, he was the book­maker. When the odds came in, he knew he'd lose money if I won the fight, so he ordered me to go down."

  "I'm afraid I don't know much about gambling. What does that mean?"

  "Take the fall. Lose on purpose. I let Elroy get in a really good punch, you see. I fall to the floor, with a few groans and moans to make it look convincing. Elroy wins the fight; Vernon makes a nice profit; I make my twenty-five dollars anyway; and everybody's happy."

  "But that would be cheating."

  He let out a bark of laughter at her shocked disap­proval. "Well, what do you think, that Vernon is an upstanding citizen who would never do anything dis­honest?"