Longing for Home: A Proper Romance

by Eden, Sarah M.

  “And the Reds?” Katie could easily imagine how such a small thing could grow bigger than them all. Blame and vengeance rarely led to clear-headed decisions.

  “None have admitted to anything, though they aren’t exactly weeping over the damage to Seamus’s establishment.”

  Katie paused in her sweeping, her mind too burdened for anything but thinking on their troubles. Hers was the only other Irish business. ’Twas no wonder they so desperately needed to see that she hadn’t given up. If she and the smithy were both brought low, it would be a blow to the Irish confidence indeed.

  “No more of this heavy talk, now,” Tavish said. “Tonight’s a céilí night. There’ll only be smiles and light hearts this evening.”

  She tossed him a challenging look. “And who’s to make certain of that, I’d like to know.”

  “Are you doubting the joy of my company, darlin’? I think you know full well that you shouldn’t.”

  “Just how would I know that when I’ve had so little of it lately?”

  He chuckled. “We’ll remedy that tonight, sweetheart.” And he slipped out.

  “That is a man who knows just exactly how charming he is.” Katie looked to Mrs. Claire. “Seems a dangerous thing to me.”

  “’Tis only dangerous if the man himself is dangerous.” Mrs. Claire rocked slowly, her look a little more contented, if not entirely happy with the world. “Excepting my own sweet, departed husband, Tavish O’Connor is the very best of men.”

  Katie swept out the corners around the stove. She’d do as thorough a job as she could. “The very best, is he? And you’re not a little partial to your grandson?”

  “He’s not my grandson.”

  Surprise stopped Katie on the spot. Not her grandson? “But he calls you Granny.”

  “He was engaged to my granddaughter Bridget before the fever took her.”

  Katie wondered why she’d not made the connection. Their last names were the same, after all. Then again, Tavish had never spoken to her of his late fiancée, so she really knew very few details about her. “I am sorry you lost your granddaughter.”

  “She and her brother and her parents—my son and his wife—and my dear husband all died within two days of each other.”

  Katie’s heart ached at the thought of so much pain. How much she hurt at losing but one member of her family. This woman had lost five in a matter of days. She’d been even more alone in life than Katie.

  “I’ll tell you, I fully expected Tavish to cut the connection between us. But he still calls me his granny and treats me with such love and kindness as some don’t receive even from their own kin.”

  For all his teasing, Tavish was proving himself a man of dependability and kindness. “Anyone can see how much he loves you.”

  “Perhaps I’m stepping beyond myself,” Mrs. Claire said, “but I might say those same words to you, Katie.”

  The dustpan she held hit the floor with a clank.

  Mrs. Claire laughed long and heartily. “You weren’t expecting that, now were you?” She pressed a hand to her heart as she kept laughing and rocking. “And that there is the look of a woman plagued with uncertainty.”

  “I’m not plagued.” She swept up the scattered dust. “A bit bothered, yes, but not plagued.”

  “Leave the floor be, Katie, and come sit with me a piece.”

  She pulled a spindle-legged chair up next to Mrs. Claire’s rocker. “Is there something I can do for you other than the floors?”

  Mrs. Claire patted her hand. “I do thank you for the work you’ve done, but just now I’m wanting company more than a clean house.”

  “Don’t give me that pitiful face, you old schemer.” Katie could have laughed at the dramatic look she was receiving. “It’s not company you’re wanting but a chance to tease me about Tavish.”

  “Perhaps a little.” Mrs. Claire leaned a touch closer. “Mostly I want to know what it is you’re uncertain about, your own feelings or his?”

  Katie laid one arm over the back of her chair and turned to face Mrs. Claire a little more. “There was a time I’d not have believed a word he said to me. All he ever did was tease.” Heavens, she’d not even liked him at first. “But I’ve come to know him better.”

  Mrs. Claire nodded. “And now when he tells you he cares, you believe him.”

  “Aye.”

  “Then it’s your own feelings that you remain uncertain of?”

  “No. I’m well on my way to being in love with him.” Likely more than simply “on her way.”

  “But I can see you hold back.” Mrs. Claire studied her. All at once her ponderous gaze filled with understanding. Her brows shot up, her mouth forming a small circle. “Aye, now that does make a great deal of sense.” She nodded. “Joseph is a complication, is he not?”

  Heavens, had she been so obvious? “I—”

  “Don’t go fretting, dear. I doubt anyone’s pieced it together.” Mrs. Claire’s sharp gaze narrowed on her. “I can see you’re trying to decide where your heart truly lies.”

  Katie nodded. “I do like them both. They’re fine men and kind, and I enjoy their company. And Joseph’s little girls—”

  “You don’t marry a man for his children, dear.”

  Marry? When had things moved to that point?

  Mrs. Claire laughed deep and loud. “Frightened you a bit, did I?” She laughed all the more as she rocked back and forth. “You’ll forgive an old woman for giving you advice after advice, but I’ll tell you, sweet lass, both Joseph and Tavish are fine men, and you’d do well to give your heart to either one of them. But take time to sort it all out. An important decision should never be made in haste.”

  Tavish came inside in the next moment, his arms full of firewood. “There is a storm brewing outside, and no mistaking.” He set a load down in the basket near the stove.

  Katie couldn’t look up at him. She’d been too tossed about by Mrs. Claire.

  Tavish dropped the rest of his armful of wood at the fireplace. “How long has your back door been catching?”

  “I’d say things’ve been sticking for some time now.” Mrs. Claire gave Katie such a look of mischief. “And isn’t that a terrible thing, Katie? To have so much that’s sticking? Not moving in any useful direction. Terrible, terrible.”

  “Stop it,” Katie muttered but found a smile creeping up from deep inside. She peeked over at Tavish. Did he have any idea his granny was teasing her about him?

  About him and Joseph Archer. She really did need to straighten her heart out.

  Tavish brushed dirt from the wood off his hands. “Would you mind if I come by on Monday morning and plane it properly?” Apparently he’d not noticed his granny making mischief.

  “I’d be appreciative if you did what you could to straighten things out.” Mrs. Claire actually wiggled her eyebrows at Katie.

  Tavish finally seemed to catch the undercurrent. “Have I missed something?”

  “A few of the windows stick too.” Mrs. Claire suddenly took up his topic of conversation.

  Tavish looked from one to the other but finally shook his head. “’Tis likely the change in weather. I’ll check them all on Monday.”

  “That is very good of you, Tavish.”

  “‘Good of me’?” His denial was humorously overblown. “I’m only after doing this so when you’re dead, your ghost won’t haunt me.”

  Mrs. Claire laughed, her sweet face wrinkling in the happiest of lines. How easily he pleased his granny, a woman who was not actually his kin. ’Twas little wonder Katie loved the man. His was a kind and giving heart.

  “I don’t know what that look is, Sweet Katie, but I like it.”

  She crossed to where he stood by the fireplace. He took her hand between his.

  “You’re a good man, Tavish O’Connor.” Perhaps the best she’d ever known.

  His smile turned amusedly doubtful. “Says the woman who sat with a vicious hatpin in her hand the entire first two hours she knew me.”

 
“You noticed that, did you?”

  “I noticed everything about you.” He cupped her face with his hand. “I noticed you were scared half out of your mind.” His thumb brushed her cheek. “That you listened to what we said, but pretended you didn’t. That you had the deepest brown eyes I’d ever seen in all my life.” His eyes crinkled at the corners as his smile grew. “And that you hated me on sight.”

  She had hated him. She’d thought him arrogant and untrustworthy and a man best avoided. How very wrong she’d been. Katie leaned against his shoulder. There was such immediate comfort in his nearness.

  “Well, now.” Tavish wrapped his arms around her. “This is a fine way to spend an evening.”

  She closed her eyes and committed the feeling of the moment to memory. His embrace was warm and gentle. And, heavens, he smelled good.

  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 l
isten 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.