Hope Springs (18 page)

“Pompah, this isn’t our house.” Ivy tottered in from the hall, one eye closed, the other heavy with sleep. She rubbed a fist against the eye she hadn’t opened. “This is Mrs. Claire’s house.”

Joseph looked up at Katie from his position kneeling in front of Emma. “She will be difficult today if she’s tired.”

“She will be fine.” Katie spoke with a confidence that contrasted sharply with her full-bodied uncertainty the first day she met the girls. “Let her have a good-bye.”

He had to drop his gaze away from her beautiful brown eyes. She distracted and tortured him, and she had no idea.

Katie knelt beside Ivy, wrapping a protective arm around her. Ivy leaned her head on Katie’s shoulder. Emma wandered to Katie’s side, her gaze continually dropping to his watch.

There they were, side by side, the three people in all the world he would miss more than anyone else over the next week. A quick good-bye seemed best. Ivy would be too sleepy for protests. Emma had found some solace in keeping his watch with her—the tears that hovered in her eyes seemed to have dried. And Katie was there beside them both. She would offer them the comfort they needed.

“Good-bye, sweet girls.” Reminding himself to be quick and on his way, he pressed kisses to their cheeks. “And thank you, Katie.”

She nodded. He flattered himself that she looked sad to see him go.

He stood and stepped out. Emma and Ivy gathered in the doorway, with Katie right beside them. Joseph made his way up the walk.

Still within sight, he turned back one more time, wanting a last look at his girls before he left. They waved. He waved as well, and set himself firmly back on the path.

He’d only gone a step or two when the sound of swishing fabric and quick footsteps stopped him. He turned back. Katie reached him and, without warning, threw her arms around his neck.

His heart lodged in his throat, pounding painfully. His mind couldn’t settle on a single thought, couldn’t focus on anything except Katie, in his arms, embracing him.

He stood a moment, too shocked to move an inch. But she didn’t pull away. He slowly wrapped his arms around her, fully expecting her to object. She didn’t. He wasn’t complaining; he was only very, very confused.

He somehow managed to find his voice. “What has brought this on, Katie?” Whatever it was, he’d make certain to do it again and again.

She pulled away enough to look into his face. He kept his arms close about her.

“You looked back.” Her voice quivered a bit. “The girls were standing there, missing you already, and you looked back.”

She’d tossed herself into his arms because he’d glanced back over his shoulder? But the answer came in the next moment.
Her
father had left her, never intending to return. And he hadn’t so much as looked back at her one last time.

Joseph rubbed her back, remembering with clarity the heartache in her eyes when she’d first told him of being left behind. How long had she been waiting for someone to regret leaving her? The painful longing lingered in her eyes.

He let his mind memorize the moment. Loving her was sometimes a physically painful thing—it too often felt pointless.

“Thank you, again,” he said, “for watching the girls while I’m gone.”

She smiled at him, and his heart cracked that much more.

“Have a safe journey, Joseph Archer,” she said. “Come back to us whole.”

He lightly touched her face. He couldn’t help himself. Color touched her cheeks, but she didn’t flinch.

“I’ll see you in about a week,” he said.

She gave a small nod. Her eyes never left his face. He thought he saw a question there, but he couldn’t be sure.

He stepped back. She dropped her gaze. An odd tension pulled between them, an awkwardness that was not usually there.

A week.
In another week he could begin making his case in earnest. Maybe, just maybe, he would be permitted to hold Katie Macauley in his arms again.

Chapter Sixteen

Katie was a mess.

She’d bid Tavish farewell, his good humor turning what would have otherwise been a painful departure into a morning of smiles and laughter. Even the girls, still longing for their father, had giggled a great deal. Tavish brought joy everywhere he went. She missed that about him when he was away, and he was often away.

Why, then, in the two days since the men had left to take their crop to market, had her thoughts turned as often to Joseph as to Tavish? What kind of woman had a heart so fickle it felt pulled by two men at the same time? Tavish had been willing to give up so much for her. He had touched her heart, and that heart, she’d firmly believed, had chosen him. So why was there suddenly room in her thoughts and longings for Joseph?

There had been a time not long before when she’d admitted to growing feelings for both men, but she thought she’d put that confusion behind her.

What was she to do?

“Quit daydreaming and get back to work,” Mr. Johnson snapped.

Katie jumped at the interruption.

“Lazy foreigners,” Mr. Johnson muttered.

She quickly set back to sweeping the floor. Wind had driven dust in under the door the day before. Katie had been at work two hours and had done nothing but dust off tables, counters, baskets. She’d only just turned her attention to the floors. Two hours of working dirt out of the narrowest grooves of the furniture and still she was labeled lazy.

But I can speak two languages.
That had been her silent response to all Mr. Johnson’s complaints lately. It never failed to calm her mind and set her at peace again. She found she could even smile.

Katie passed the tidy display of ankle boots. She’d taken to brushing her fingers along the leather upper-soles, letting herself dream for the most fleeting of moments that she could afford to buy herself a fine pair of new shoes.

“Don’t even think about stealing them.”

She looked back at her employer. “Stealing them? The shoes?”

“Did I say you could talk?”

Katie managed not to roll her eyes as she turned back to her work. He’d been very particular the last few days about her not speaking. The man was even more grumpy than usual of late.

“I’m making you shake out your shawl before you go,” Mr. Johnson said. “I can only guess how many things you’re planning to sneak off with.”

Katie didn’t comment. Didn’t defend herself despite the unfairness of the accusation. Ignoring Mr. Johnson and focusing on her work had seen her through many difficult mornings at the mercantile. It’d do again.

Marykate Kelly stopped to talk to her on her way home from the mercantile that day, thanking her for all she had done for the Irish. Katie had not had many conversations with Seamus’s wife, finding her a touch too embittered by the feud and their difficulties.

“’Tis more than merely keeping prices down,” Mrs. Kelly said. “Mr. Johnson is . . . well, not exactly friendly, but he seems easier to deal with.”

“I don’t know that I can take credit for that.” She’d not really noticed such a change, but hoped it was there just the same.

“Well, I cannot deny you’ve done something.” For the first time since Katie had known the woman, Mrs. Kelly’s expression lightened, as if the tiniest glimmer of hope was beginning to break through years of darkness. “Mr. Johnson’s changed a bit. More than that, even, the Irish are doing better.”

“Because of the prices?” They walked side by side down the Irish Road.

Mrs. Kelly half shook her head, half nodded. “You’ve given them reason to keep fighting. For the first time in memory, we’re not losing this battle.”

Those words stayed with her through the frustrations of working at the mercantile. Keeping in mind the difference she was making helped her survive. She put on a brave face every day before returning home. The girls didn’t need to know of her troubles. They were doing well, considering they still missed their father. Katie had warm biscuits ready for Emma when she reached the house after school each day; she walked to and from with Michael O’Connor and a few of the other Irish children.

The fifth morning after the men in town had left, Katie stood on the mercantile’s porch, sweeping. She paused in her work, watching Emma in front of the school. The children were playing. Some were skipping rope or chasing each other around the yard. Emma was walking about with little Marianne Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson’s eight-year-old daughter.

Marianne had shown herself a sweet-hearted girl. She offered a “hello” whenever their paths crossed, though she immediately clamped her mouth shut and sent a nervous look in her father’s direction. Clearly the little one had been warned against being friendly to the unwanted Irishwoman.

Katie had liked Marianne from the first time the child had smiled at her. There was something in the friendly greeting that was purely natural, untainted by the hatred around her. But to see that Marianne was a friend of Emma’s solidified her good opinion. Being blessed with a friend to walk about the schoolyard with and a sister who played with her at home and a father as loving and kind as Joseph, Emma would never be as alone in the world as Katie had always been.

She smiled, watching the girls chatter as they made a wide circuit of the schoolyard. If Marianne’s parents weren’t so set against the Irish, Katie would have eagerly extended an invitation for Marianne to come home with Emma so the girls could spend the afternoon together. But the Johnsons would never allow their daughter to set a single foot on the Irish Road.

“Standing around again?” Mr. Johnson stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He pointed a finger, jabbing it in her general direction with each word. “Lazy, every last one of y’all.”

Katie knew the rest of the complaint and said the words silently in her head, perfectly timed with his declaration.

“Lazy, no-good foreigners.”

He took a step out onto the porch. His gait swayed oddly. Was he unwell?

“I won’t take pity on your sniveling friends in exchange for you standing around all day doing nothing.” The words, slow and oddly toned, melted together a bit. “Is that clear, Paddy?”

Looking at his watery, red eyes and swaying posture, and noticing the unfortunate smell of him, something became even clearer than his threats. The man was drunk.

Katie had never seen him drink so much as a drop of spirits while working. He’d always been perfectly in control, entirely sober.

“’Tis quite clear, sir.” She watched him closely, confused by the change in him.

“Don’t say
’tis
.” His words pulled and lisped awkwardly.

She kept quiet and nodded.

He stumbled back inside.

Blazing drunk, he is.

Though she had no high opinion of the man, seeing him walloped had her worried for him. A man of business wouldn’t risk being full drunk while open to customers. He was too responsible for such a thing.

Katie took up her broom once more, but her thoughts continually drifted inside. Was she working for a drunkard after all? She’d known a few people over the years who loved their liquor too much. Some became violent, others overly sad. What kind of drunk would he be? What if he made drinking a habit and proved himself a dangerous person to be around?

Placing herself in harm’s way day after day would be a steep price to pay for her neighbors’ well-being. Yet she couldn’t turn her back on their needs.

You’re getting quite far ahead of yourself there, Katie. No use greeting the devil ’til he’s knocking on your door.

Down the road, the school bell rang. Reverend Ford stood on the step outside the school building where church was held on Sundays. All the children made their way inside, some very slowly and reluctantly.

Katie watched Emma, smiling to herself as she did. Emma moved with more enthusiasm than most of the other children. She enjoyed school. She’d told Katie as much every day.

The preacher brought the children in from their lunchtime play at precisely the hour Katie’s time at the mercantile ended. She carried her broom inside, ready to make her way back to Granny’s house.

The shop was very quiet. Usually Mr. Johnson was moving about. Often he had a few choice words for her within moments of her arrival into his line of sight.

Nothing. He wasn’t even agonizing over his ledgers as he so often did. Perhaps she could just slip out without enduring his usual end-of-day lecture about all the ways in which she fell short of his expectations. ’Twould be a fine change from the usual.

Katie stepped lightly toward the storage room. If she didn’t make much noise, Mr. Johnson might not realize she was leaving. She set the broom in the storage room, then turned to tiptoe out of the mercantile.

But she caught sight of Mr. Johnson sitting on the floor behind the counter.

“Have you misplaced something, sir?”

He didn’t seem to be looking for anything, only sitting, his back to the cupboards, his head dropped into his hands.

“Leave me be, you filthy Paddy.”

A fine “thank you for your concern” that was. He sounded even more drunk than he did ungrateful. Perhaps it was the hard drink that had him sitting on the floor like a beggarman.