Ian didn’t budge. “Tell me, Tavish, which is most likely to set gums flapping? A beautiful young lass arriving alongside the town’s most sought-after bachelor or sitting up next to a man everyone knows to be quite happily married?”
So Ian was a husband, was he? That improved Katie’s opinion of him. Tavish, however, was not, which didn’t help his cause in the least.
The brothers’ argument ended there. Tavish handed her up into the wagon. Katie snatched her hand back in the first possible moment.
He did not climb in with the crates and burlap sacks in the back. Instead, he sat directly beside her on the narrow bench.
She slipped her trusted hatpin from her bonnet as discreetly as she could manage and held it hidden within her clenched hands. She’d learned a thing or two about preparing for the worst in the eighteen years she’d had no one but herself to care what happened to her.
The wagon lumbered northward. Katie kept quiet and pulled herself in as small as she could. The bench wasn’t large, but so help her, she’d do her utmost to avoid actually touching either of her traveling companions.
Tavish waited only a minute or two before speaking again. “Would you care to make a wager, brother?”
Ian shot him a questioning look. “About what?”
“On just how long it’ll take after arriving in Hope Springs for Miss Katie Macauley here to start a war.”
Chapter Two
This Katie Macauley clearly thought he was exaggerating, but he knew full well her arrival would stir up trouble in town. Not only were single women thin on the ground in Wyoming but another Irish settler in Hope Springs would be greatly frowned on by those who didn’t hail from the Emerald Isle.
“Don’t take it to heart, Miss Macauley,” Ian said. “He’s stretching the truth a bit, as usual.”
Tavish shot his brother a look of pained betrayal he knew didn’t look at all sincere.
Katie set her gaze forward once more, pointedly not looking at either of them. A stubborn lass, he’d quickly discovered.
“I’ve not taken to heart a thing your brother’s said, I assure you,” she said firmly.
Ian chuckled, the traitor. “Took your measure right quick, she did.”
Tavish leaned a touch closer to her and nearly laughed out loud to see her clutching that nasty-looking hatpin tighter in her fist. Did the woman think he meant to toss her in the back of the wagon and ravish her right there and then?
“I’ll thank you to keep a proper distance, Mr. Tavish O’Connor.”
He managed to keep his grin tucked firmly away as he moved back a bit. “My apologies, Miss Katie.” The woman clearly had no idea how amusing her show of defiance was. She made quite a show of appearing as though he didn’t worry the very life out of her. “Seeing as I have but an inch to spare on this bench here, do you consider this a proper enough distance, or shall I get out and run alongside the wagon?”
She didn’t so much as glance at him. Did she mean to ignore him through the entire two-hour drive to Hope Springs? They’d just have to see about that.
“Do the world a favor, would you, Miss Macauley,” Ian said. “Belt him hard in the gob and see if you can’t shut his mouth for a while.”
Tavish’s attempts to keep his laughter in check proved entirely insufficient after that comment. He had a feeling Miss Katie Macauley could belt him a good one and would, too, if the need arose. He’d lived his entire life with a large family of feisty women; he wasn’t easily intimidated.
“You wouldn’t really knock my teeth out, now would you, Sweet Katie?”
“Sweet Katie?” She repeated the name he’d thought up for her as though it were a rotten potato.
He shrugged. “I think it suits you, despite the fine show you’re making of being all prickles and thorns.” Truth be told, he wasn’t sure if she was anything but prickles and thorns, but he was intrigued enough to find out.
“My prickles and thorns are no concern of yours. And I’ll thank you to call me Katie, plain Katie, as that be my name.”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think I could do that. The Katie part suits you, but you’re not the least bit plain.”
That was the truth, with no twists or turns to it. Her clothes were worn with heavy use and hardly of the latest fashion. Her overly serious expression might have discouraged some. But her eyes had pulled at him from that first moment behind the Garrisons’ wagon. A deeper, richer brown he’d never seen in any woman’s eyes. He had his suspicions that if she would only smile, the stubborn colleen would be stunning.
She adjusted herself to sit full forward once more. Here was a woman who could make a statement without a single word. She didn’t like him. Not in the least.
“He’s only teasing you,” Ian said.
“I don’t care for your brother’s teasing.”
“Then you’re the first.” Ian’s tone held not a note of brotherly loyalty.
“But likely not the last,” Katie muttered.
Ian laughed. “I like you, Katie Macauley. Maybe with you around, Tavish’s head’ll shrink back down to normal size.”
Leave it to a brother to take a woman’s side against his own kin.
“Don’t you listen to a single word falling out of his mouth, Sweet Katie. Ian isn’t the brightest of us all. ’Tis not his fault, I suppose. He was such an ugly baby, Ma was startled every time she picked him up, and she dropped him on his head a great deal.”
Ian grinned, just as Tavish knew he would. With five years between them, they’d grown up with just enough of an age difference not to be rivals but with few enough years between them to get on rather well.
Tavish kept an eye on their quiet passenger as the wagon rolled on. He felt certain she was listening, though she pretended to pay them no mind whatsoever. He turned the conversation to the townsfolk and saw with satisfaction that she glanced from one to the other of them covertly. She was curious about her destination, then. Not so indifferent as she pretended to be.
This Katie Macauley was a full mystery to him and an intriguing one at that. He’d never known any woman who so quickly and readily pushed him away. She wasn’t quite as cold to Ian. So was she wary of strangers in general, or was there something about him in particular that she didn’t like? These were questions a man needed answers to.
“You’re keeping right quiet, Miss Macauley,” Ian said after they’d talked for nearly the entire two hours. “Tell us of yourself. Have you any brothers and sisters?”
“I’ve three brothers,” she said in the tone of one who’d said all she meant to say.
Clearly Katie didn’t wish to discuss her family in greater detail. Bless him, Ian didn’t allow her to leave it at that curt response.
“And are they still in Ireland?”
She gave a quick shake of her head. “In Manchester.”
“And why is it you’re not in England, as well?”
Katie’s hands clenched so tight Tavish wondered if she’d managed to bend that vicious hatpin.
“Ours were different paths, I suppose.” She cast her eyes directly in front of them. “How close to those mountains is Hope Springs?”
Tavish shot his brother a surprised look. Katie had just executed an enormous and graceless change of topic. Apparently discussing her family was even more unwelcome than his earlier teasing. He easily interpreted the question in Ian’s eyes: should he move on and follow her lead?
Tavish shrugged.
“Hope Springs sits a good distance from them,” Ian said. “They’re just tall.”
“Very tall, I’d say.” Katie’s tone of curiosity rang a bit false.
She grew more intriguing all the time. He didn’t doubt she was as strong and independent as she’d let on, but there was something in her tense and uneasy demeanor that struck him as terribly vulnerable. A contradiction she was.
“I’ve seen nothing in Wyoming but distant mountains and a vast brown emptiness,” she said. “How does one farm in a place as dry as
this?” Her thoughtful frown was surprisingly endearing. She was too serious by half.
A bit of teasing seemed more than called for. “Dry? Why, it looks like rain even now, and we had rain only last week.”
“Aye.” Ian nodded. Tavish knew that look of feigned seriousness. “A mere ten days ago.”
“I heard a rumor that an ark’s being built back behind the mercantile,” Tavish said. “Should it rain again in ten days, we’ll have farmers lined up by the twos, we will. Three downpours in a month’s time. ’Twill be the end days, it will.”
Katie’s posture grew stiffer at his teasing. “I don’t like you, Tavish O’Connor.”
How could a man not grin at such a declaration made with such an overdone look of displeasure? “I know.”
Katie clutched her hatpin tighter and kept her gaze on the road ahead. If ever a woman were determined to dislike a man, she was. It was that stubborn effort at disapproval that piqued his interest.
Over the next quarter-hour, he watched Katie’s expression flit between confusion and irritation, worry and no interest all. She likely had no idea how much of her thoughts showed in her face. She was nervous but didn’t want them to know. More likely than not, she didn’t want him to know.
Did he truly frighten her as much as he seemed to, or was she simply set on keeping everyone at a distance?
“You’re determined to make everyone your friend, Tavish,” Da had often said over his growing-up years. “Not everyone’s goin’ to like you.”
To which he’d always replied, “But more of them will than if I ignored them all.”
And most people did decide in the end he was worth being called friend. Katie Macauley, though, didn’t seem like most people.
“Keep your eyes fixed on that bonnie wee mountain just ahead.” Tavish pointed directly in front of them at the hill that hid the town. They didn’t get many visitors; a person had to know where Hope Springs was to find it, so well was it hidden from view. “Just on the other side runs a river. Over that river stands a bridge. Beyond that bridge you’ll find Hope Springs.”
For the first time since they’d taken her up in the wagon, stubborn Katie Macauley didn’t make a show of ignoring him. Her gaze took in the very sights he pointed out. She didn’t argue, didn’t turn her back. She was curious enough to drop her defenses for a moment.
The wagon went around the low point between two hills and into a vast valley.
“Here we come, Sweet Katie. Just ahead.”
“You’ve told her that once already, you looby.” Ian shook his head. “Shut your gob and let her enjoy a moment’s peace.”
Leave it to Ian to ruin the one moment of attention their companion had paid him in the entire two hours they’d been together.
Into view came the very outskirts of the tiny town the O’Connors had called home for ten years. Would Katie think it quaint and picturesque, or insignificantly small? He tried to see it through a stranger’s eyes. The river ran slow and lazy as it often did in the heat of summer. The wooden bridge was made of rough-hewn wood, perhaps less than pleasing to the eye. The town itself could boast nothing beyond a single street with a building on either side.
He tried to gauge Katie’s reaction to it. But she’d closed her expression up tight. The window to her feelings was shuttered and locked.
The wagon rolled over the bridge.
“Sit up nice and tall, Sweet Katie. We’re about to parade you through the center of town.”
Her mouth tightened in an annoyed line. “I’ve asked you not to call me that.”
“Too late, I’m afraid,” he answered. “The name fits, and I suspect it’ll stick.”
Indeed, he meant to call her that for as long as he knew her, if only because it pulled her from her determination to be standoffish and unapproachable. He was generally good at reading people, and he firmly suspected Katie Macauley was not the cold, unapproachable woman she worked hard to appear.
Ian led his team directly down the street through the center of their town. Katie grew noticeably uncomfortable.
Ah. There is a bit of her puzzle, then. She doesn’t care for scrutiny.
“You couldn’t see fit to go a back way, I suppose,” she murmured.
“And miss the chance to be seen riding about with a lovely young lady?” Tavish said. “Not on your life.”
He expected her to blush. She only looked further put out with him. Stubborn lass.
“Actually, there is no way to reach any of the farms in this valley except right through the center of town. So nothing happens here that doesn’t spread as gossip faster than a wildfire in the dry season.”
They rolled slowly down the street. The few people in town would take note of them immediately. By nightfall every farm nearby, the far-off ranches even, would know the O’Connor brothers had arrived with a young lady alongside them.
Katie’ll hate that. Perfect.
“The first building way up ahead is the mercantile.” He gestured toward the very thing he spoke of. “Across the way from that is the blacksmith. The white building farther down a piece is the schoolhouse and church on Sundays.”
“And this stretch of dirt we’re riding on is the road.” Ian gave him a quick look of annoyance. “The woman’s got eyes, Tavish. No need pointing out every little thing.”
He shot him a pleading look he knew his brother wouldn’t believe for a moment. “Don’t take away my chance to brag a bit. She’ll think me whip smart for knowin’ so much.”
“More likely she’ll think you talk too much about nothing. I’m saving you from your own self, if only you’d listen.”
Katie glanced between the two, brow knit and mouth twisted a bit. “Do you always bicker this way?”
“Not bicker, Sweet Katie. ’Tis banter, this is. Banter.”
Ian came terribly close to rolling his eyes. “When we were growing up, Da would take a switch to us for bickering. But banter was permitted.”
“Put on your airs if you got them,” Tavish said under his breath as they reached the edge of town. “We’re about to be the very center of attention.”
As predicted, all eyes turned in their direction as the wagon slowly rolled down the town’s one and only road. Those walking about stopped and turned to watch, studying the wagon’s occupants. Seamus Kelly stepped out of the blacksmith shop and leaned against a post holding up the overhang. A gaggle of women stood outside the mercantile to watch them pass.
Katie kept her eyes forward, her back straight and chin up. She clearly meant to tell the entire town that their opinion of her mattered very little. But if she truly didn’t care what they thought, why make such a show of it?
She glanced behind her at the town as they left it behind. For someone so indifferent, she certainly kept her eye on things.
“’Tis a bonnie wee place, is it not?” Tavish said.
“‘Bonnie wee?’ I lived in Ireland all my life and never once heard anyone actually say that.” She shook her head. “I’m beginning to suspect you’re only pretending to hail from Erin’s Isle.”
He grinned mischievously. “Around here we like to make quite a deal out of being Irish. Perhaps we’ve come to overdo it a bit.”
“Aye. A bonnie wee bit,” she said under her breath.
“Well turned, Katie,” Ian said. “Well turned.”
Well turned, indeed. There was intelligence under that stubborn mask. She would be a joy to know, if only she’d give him the opportunity.
“There’s Archer’s place.” Tavish motioned with his head directly in front of them.
Katie turned forward again, eyeing the white, two-story home with dark blue trim and a gabled roof, sitting in the midst of a neat and orderly yard. The Archer home was by far the nicest in the area. No rough plank walls and river-rock chimneys for the wealthy Joseph Archer. He owned the largest home, the most fertile fields. He alone had the means of hiring servants to see to the keeping of his house. Tavish tried very hard not to envy the man but didn’t
always succeed.
Ian pulled the wagon up in front of the barn. Almost the next moment their youngest brother, Finbarr, stepped out and glanced up at them. The lad had worked for Archer these past three years. During that time, he’d grown from a scrawny, timid boy to a quietly confident young lad of sixteen. If for no other reason than that, Tavish had long since decided not to hate Joseph Archer.
“Is Joseph about?” Ian asked.
Finbarr nodded and motioned to the barn behind him.
“Tell him we’ve come with something he’s been looking for.”
The boy’s eyes shifted immediately to Katie, curiosity clear on his face. She fidgeted under the scrutiny. She’d best grow accustomed to that. The entire town would be wondering about her.
“He is an O’Connor, I daresay.” She sounded more irritated by the realization than anything else.
“The youngest of us,” Tavish said.
“Aye, but that one knows how to hold his tongue, something I hadn’t thought was an O’Connor trait.”
Ian, who’d begun climbing down from his perch on the wagon, stopped midway and smiled across at her. “I’ve a feeling you’re going to get on quite well with my wife, Biddy.”
Tavish hoped that proved true. A friendship between the two meant he’d see more of this intriguing Katie Macauley.
Joseph Archer emerged from his barn, walking with determined step toward the wagon. Ian greeted him a few paces away. “Good day to you, Joseph.”
“That’s Joseph Archer?” Katie asked Tavish in a low whisper. She sounded both surprised and unhappy with the thought.
“Aye. Joseph Archer he is.”
Her expression pulled tight with surprise. “He’s younger than I expected.”
“How old did you think he’d be?”
“Nearly ancient.”
Just what in his letters had made her think that? Tavish wondered.
Ian and Joseph approached the wagon. Katie kept herself quite still, studying her employer, a look of dissatisfaction written all over her face.
Longing for Home: A Proper Romance Page 2
