by Jane Porter
“It wouldn’t have made a difference. I wouldn’t have let you help me.” Her pale slim shoulders rose and fell, her hunched spine revealing every knobby vertebra. She reached up with a trembling hand to swipe beneath her eyes. “And I still don’t want your help but it seems I have no choice.”
She might be thin, and trembling, but there was still fight in her voice. He was glad she couldn’t see his smile. “Why don’t you want my help?”
“Because you’d say something rude about my hair being filthy and that’s why it’s such a mess and I’m tired of feeling bad. I don’t like feeling this way.” She pressed the towel tighter to her chest. “So will you please just cut the brush out and let me finish washing my hair so I can get out of this tub and begin making a meal for people I don’t want to see?”
“Why don’t you want to see them? They are your friends.”
“Johanna is, but the others aren’t. Her brother dumped me—” She broke off, lips compressing. “It doesn’t matter. I just can’t believe people are coming and I’ve ruined my hair, and I liked my hair. I loved my hair and now it will be chopped short and I’ll look like a boy, and not just a boy, but an orphan boy, and I don’t know what we’ll eat—” She broke off again as he laughed.
Her head tipped back and she looked up at him, outraged. “Why are you laughing?”
There were men who would probably think her most beautiful when dressed in one of her fine gowns with the jaunty bonnets that showed off her bone structure to perfection, but he didn’t think she’d ever been so appealing as she was now, with her bare skin and soft, pink mouth, and her green cat eyes shimmering with tears. Angry tears.
“Because even orphans need love,” he answered gravely, praying his lips didn’t twitch.
Her eyes grew brighter, fiercer. She clutched her towel tighter. “Do not mock me!”
“I can’t help it. You are so fierce and prickly. You remind me of a cat in the bath.”
“I beg your pardon!”
Thomas reached for the stool, dragged it toward the tub and sat down, the tub between his thighs. “Let’s get this brush out of your hair, shall we?”
“Just cut it. We don’t have time for this.”
“We have time,” he answered.
“It’s too tangled, I promise you.”
“Do you want me to cut your hair off?” he asked, aware of her gaze sweeping him, and lingering for a moment on his thighs before she blushed and looked away.
“No! But at the same time, I don’t want guests arriving and finding me still in the bath with a rat’s nest on top of my head.”
He smiled inwardly. Hellcat. “What if I told you that no guests were arriving?”
She froze. “Is that true? Did you cancel the invitation after all?”
“Mmm,” he answered noncommittally. “Now sit still, be patient, and let me see what I can do about this brush you’ve attached to your hair.”
He was the one, in the end, who proved his patience. Untangling the brush took at least a half hour of painstaking work, unraveling the bristles hair by hair, lifting the brush a smidge up, and then down, and once he finally had the brush free, he took a comb to the rest, working at each knot, even the hopelessly thick ones that had proven impossible for her to remove earlier when she’d first tried to shampoo and detangle her hair.
“You never invited them,” Ellie said suddenly, breaking the silence. “You didn’t cancel the invitation. You simply never invited them in the first place.”
She couldn’t see his face but she could have sworn he was smiling.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“Because you wouldn’t board up the kitchen before people were coming. You wouldn’t want them to see that.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I don’t care what people think. Never have.”
“Yes, but I just don’t think you’d do that now. I think you were trying to scare me. Rouse me to action. Am I right?”
“Did it work?”
She exhaled in a rush. “Thank goodness. I’ve been panicking about what to make for supper and if I could get away with serving sliced ham and bread and summer fruit.”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t. I’d be happy with such a meal. It sounds perfect after a hot summer day.”
“It is hot outside, isn’t it?”
“It’s warm here on the valley floor, but if you ride up in the hills it’s nice.”
“Is that where you went today?”
“Yes.”
“I miss riding.”
“Join me next time.”
“Do you ride well?”
“You probably ride better.”
“And shoot better,” she added smartly.
“I don’t know about that, but I’m sure you’re a better shot than my sisters were. They never even handled a gun before, much less had one of their own.”
“You had sisters?”
“Yes. Four.”
“And brothers?”
“Four.”
“There were nine of you?”
“Yes. I was the fifth,” he answered working at yet another impossible knot. “I remember how our mam would introduce us. She’d always go in order. Joseph, James, Mary, Martin, Thomas, Eliza, Catherine, Patrick, and Biddy.” He paused as he took the edge of the comb to the knot, trying to ease the tangled strands of hair. “I never knew Martin, he died when I was just a baby.”
She stayed quiet as Thomas kept talking. She sensed he was trying to distract her from the tedious task as he told her how his oldest brother, Joseph, had left home at sixteen, going to London to apprentice himself in trade.
In the beginning, Joseph sent money home regularly. Not a lot, but he always made a point of sending something, but then he was arrested for stealing, and found guilty, and before he knew it he was on a ship to Australia, and they never heard from him after that.
She twisted around to look at Thomas then. “What happened to him?”
Thomas shook his head. “We don’t know.”
“What did he steal?”
“Meat or pies, I was never sure which.”
Ellie frowned. “That’s terrible.”
He shrugged. “James, the second oldest, had always been very tight with Joe, and so despite my mam’s objections, he indentured himself so he could go to Australia to look for our Joe.”
“Did he ever find him?”
“No. But James landed on his feet once there. He worked for a farmer on a big sheep station. Lots of red dirt and sun but James took to it okay and when he was done working off his fare, he kept on working for the McCully’s, and he saved his money so that he could bring me out and maybe one day we’d have our own farm together.”
“So why didn’t you go out there?”
“Because he married a woman who didn’t like the Irish.”
“Have you stayed in touch with him?”
“It’s been a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“Five years, maybe more.”
She was silent a moment, digesting this. “So you came to America because of an uncle?”
He took the comb and used a tooth to pick at one of the worst knots just below her nape. He didn’t say anything for awhile. “Not because of him,” he said at length, “but because of what he said about Montana. About the mountains and the sky and how there were valleys so pretty it hurt your eyes.”
She felt her lips curve. “Your uncle sounds like a poet.”
“Give an Irishman enough drink and he’ll become a poet.”
“So you left the rest behind... what’s the name of your town?”
“Rathkeale, it’s in County Limerick, not far from Kerry. Kerry is pretty. Rathkeale not so much. It’s home to tinkers—”
“Tinkers?”
“Gypsies.”
“That sounds romantic.”
“It’s not. Trust me. They have a different code of conduct than you or I. You can’t bargain with them, or trade with them, because they won’t
honor it. The only people they are loyal to are their own.”
“And you left your mother and sisters behind with them?”
“I didn’t leave them—” He broke off, set the comb down and rose. “It’s getting dark in here. I can barely see what I’m doing. Let me light a lantern.”
When he returned, he set the lantern on a chair next to them, the soft yellow light creating a warm golden glow.
“My oldest sister, Mary, married and moved to Dublin. The rest of us—me, Eliza, Catherine, Patrick and Bridget, who we called Biddy—were still at home. I was the oldest of those still at home, and I worked on a big estate near our house. I didn’t earn a lot, but my wages were necessary and made sure we at least had something to eat. We’d grown up without much, and our neighbors didn’t have much, and that was just the way it was.”
“So you were happy?”
“Happy enough,” he answered, hands gentle as he worked at yet another knot, careful not to pull at her hair or scalp. “I don’t think we really thought about it. And then Mary came home from Dublin sick. Her husband sent her and the baby back to us, thinking that rest and fresh air would help her cough. Eliza and Mam took care of Mary while I went to work each day, and then when I came home, I’d take over in the evening so they could rest.”
Ellie pressed her chest to her knees, sensing that the story was about to take a dark turn. She hoped she was wrong.
“Five weeks after Mary returned home, Catherine started to cough, and then almost immediately Patrick and Biddy. Mary and her baby died first. A month later we lost seven-year-old Biddy. Biddy was the family darling. And they just kept dying... Catherine. Patrick. Mam.” He swallowed hard. “Eliza was the last.”
For a moment there was just silence, a heavy aching silence that made her realize how much he missed his family, and how much he still grieved for them. But she didn’t know how to comfort him, or if he even wanted her to comfort him, and before she could think of something vaguely appropriate to say, he’d risen from the stool and crossed the room, leaving her.
Shivering, Ellie hugged her knees, watching him walk to the cupboard. He stood there for awhile, not doing anything, and she chewed the inside of her lip, feeling the hurt that hung in the room. He was trying to gather himself. And just when she was about to thank him for his help, and let him know she could manage the rest on her own, he was reaching into the cupboard for a bowl, and then a glass bottle and then an egg from the small wooden crate on the counter.
He cracked the egg into the bowl and took a fork to it, whisking it. “This was my mam’s recipe for the girls’ hair. My sisters had the thickest, shiniest hair in our town.” His voice rasped, his accent strong, making the words sound lilting.
He’d loved them so much.
Her eyes burned and her chest squeezed, smashing the air in her lungs. And still she couldn’t think of the right thing to say. Maybe it’s because there was nothing right that one could say. Sympathy didn’t bring back the dead, or ease the loss.
In the glow of the lantern, he looked big and alone, and yet for the first time it struck her that he hadn’t been raised to be a solitary man. He’d been part of a large, tight-knit family.
She watched as Thomas poured a generous measure of the bottle into the bowl, and immediately recognized the smell as castor oil. He began whisking again as he walked toward her. “You’re not going to make me drink that, are you?”
The corner of his mouth slowly lifted. “No.”
“Thank goodness. I’d have to fight you.”
“As if you don’t already.”
She adjusted the towel, making sure it was firmly sandwiched between her chest and her bent knees. “You’ve seen nothing yet.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that.” He sat down on the stool again, the tub between his long legs, his powerful thighs on either side of her. “But the good news is that the brush is out. Most of the tangles are out. There are still lots of small matted pieces, but this will help. I’ll rub it in and leave it on for quarter of an hour and then begin combing it through. It should help detangle the rest, and it’ll condition your hair, too.”
“Cutting the brush out would have been faster.”
“That was never an option. I love your hair. It’s too beautiful to chop off.”
She was filled with warmth, and she blushed at the compliment. “I bet you didn’t know you’d be spending hours messing with my hair today.”
He lifted the rough weight of her hair, and poured some of the egg and oil into it, massaging it in. “I knew you were going to wash it today. I just didn’t know I would be involved.”
“How did you know I would be washing it?”
“It was on my to-do list.”
His confidence astounded her. Ellie tipped her head back to give him a setdown, but when she looked up, he was smiling and he arched a black brow, making him a little too handsome and rakish.
“Tis true,” he said, giving her head a nudge, so he could pour more of the mixture onto the top of her head, before quickly working that in as well.
No one had washed her hair since she was a little girl, and it was altogether too intimate having his strong fingers massage her hairline and scalp. It wouldn’t bother her as much, though, if it didn’t feel so good. He seemed to find each of the pressure points on her head, and he’d knead at them, easing tension and sending rivulets of pleasure through her.
She’d never felt anything half so good in all her life. The man had wickedly talented hands. Clearly, he’d done this before and she felt a stab of jealousy that other women had enjoyed his ministrations.
For long minutes, he continued to massage the egg and oil into her hair, focusing first on her temple, and then above her ears, below her ears, along her nape and then slowly worked his way up the back of her skull to the top, making her melt. Perhaps her new husband wasn’t completely useless...
“What did you say?” he asked, his deep voice close to her ear.
She stiffened and looked up. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You did. It was something along the lines of not being completely useless.”
Had she really spoken her thought aloud? Mortified, Ellie flushed, heat washing through her, from her belly up to her breasts, neck, and cheeks. “I was referring to the castor oil,” she said quickly. “That it’s not completely useless.”
He said nothing.
“I would have never thought of it as a hair tonic,” she added, wishing she’d just stop talking.
“Hmm,” he answered, his tone suggesting he thought the same thing, too.
Ellie wanted to shrink into the tub and disappear.
“Lean forward,” he said, scooping up her long hair to better work the oil and egg into the ends before reaching for the comb with the widest teeth.
Thomas heard her soft sigh of pleasure as he slowly drew the comb through her hair. He worked her hair in sections, first the ends, then the middle, and then finally from the top to the bottom, stopping when he hit a knot and then he’d carefully remove the knot, and try again.
“Are you sure you weren’t married before?” Ellie asked him in a soft voice.
Thomas smiled faintly. His wild cat was practically purring. “Not married, but I had those four sisters. Usually they’d wash each other’s hair, but after they were sick, I’d do what I could to make them comfortable.”
And suddenly, just like that, his throat had closed, and his chest was hard, and tight, and it hurt to breathe.
From the moment he’d uncapped the castor oil, he’d thought of them all, the smell taking him immediately back to Rathkeale. His mother used to threaten the younger ones with it when they wouldn’t eat, or if they misbehaved. He’d only had to drink it once, and the intense laxative property had cured him permanently from giving his mam sass.
The only one who’d never had to take it was Biddy. Biddy was the family baby, and the most affectionate of them all.
Biddy’s death had broken his heart. She adored hi
m, and he her. But Eliza... Eliza wasn’t just a sister; she was his friend and confidant. She knew him better than any, and she’d nursed the others tirelessly. When she became ill, Thomas made deal after deal with God—spare her, and Thomas would go to Australia. Or spare her, and Thomas would take her to America with him. Spare her, and he’d marry a local girl and set up house and Eliza would live with them...
But she wasn’t spared and when her coughs produced blood, she apologized to him for making him worry. She was sorry to be a problem, and even sorrier that he’d have to manage things on his own.
If he closed his eyes, he could still see her. She looked the most like him, but instead of brown eyes, hers were blue. She was always smiling, always in good spirits. Like Biddy, Eliza was quick to laugh, quick to encourage, easy to hug.
He missed his sisters. And little Patrick, so serious, so determined to be a man. Patrick, with his old soul, was going to be a priest, and do good, and heal the sick, and feed the poor.
His eyes stung, and his stomach cramped and for a moment he couldn’t do anything but close his eyes and will the pain away.
The memories were too much. It was easier not thinking of them, easier not remembering, and yet at the same time, if he didn’t remember them, then it was as though they’d never existed and that wasn’t fair... not to them, and who they were, and how important they’d been to him.
“Did you have a favorite sister?” Ellie asked in a small voice.
“I was very close with Eliza.”
“She was the one who died last, wasn’t she?”
He winced. “But I doted on Biddy,” he said, his deep voice harsh to his own ears. “We all did. She had the sweetest, kindest disposition. A little angel, my mam called her.”
Ellie said nothing more.
“I’m going to get a bucket of fresh water to rinse your hair.” He rose and walked out.
Ellie watched him leave, a lump in her throat, realizing she could no longer dismiss him as a cold, hard man. That wasn’t a fair or true assessment, as Thomas had layers to him, layers and layers, and beneath all, just maybe a heart, as well as the patience of a saint. She wouldn’t have been able to do what he’d done this afternoon—detangling her hair for hours, and never once criticizing her for allowing it to happen in the first place. She owed him her gratitude, and probably a light supper.
