Megan Chance (23 page)

Conor smiled. "A very pleasant dream."

He was surprised to see Charles's face darken. The man rose abruptly, stretching his legs and walking distractedly to the window. "It is getting late."

Conor thought of Sari upstairs. "Yes."

"Would you like to come to the back house? To share a pipe?"

Conor was startled by the question. Charles had never asked him to his soddy before. He had the impression the place was the man's retreat, that even Sari didn't go there often. It was an honor, no doubt, but one he didn't want to take the old man up on. The picture of Sari in bed came to him again. His breath quickened.

"It
is
late," he began.

Charles nodded shortly. "
Ja
. But there is still enough time for a smoke. Come along."

It was an order, then. Conor got to his feet, sending a remorseful glance into the loft. A soft light glowed up there. She was reading, as he'd thought. Perhaps she'd even fallen asleep, her arm crooked over the book.

He cleared his throat. "Good night, Sari."

Her answering good night was so quiet, he barely heard it. Damn, he wished Charles would just say he was too tired for a smoke.

But the older man was pulling on his coat, and reluctantly Conor did the same. Charles blew out the lamp on the table and called a quick “
Gute Nacht, Liebling
” before he opened the door and motioned for Conor to follow him into the cold night.

There was still snow left from the blizzard, and it crunched beneath their feet, slick from the day's melting and the night's frigid winds. But the sky was cloudless, dark blue and heavy with stars. Conor thought he saw the shadows of the mountains in the distance, but it could just as easily be a trick of the high mountain air and the deep darkness of night.

It was silent except for the wind and the sound of their footsteps. The wind whipped his hair into his face, and Conor buried his chin farther into the collar of his duster. He glanced toward the barn. It looked dark and lonely suddenly, especially in light of the dim yellow glow coming from the house window. He was chilled to the bone, and wondering what Charles wanted to talk about left him tense and edgy. It was not a good night for a long, companionable smoke.

They reached the smaller soddy, and Charles shoved open the creaking door and went quickly inside. Conor followed him, standing back in the shadows of the door until the sputtering of a lamp echoed in the darkness and the room burst into pale light.

The room was still warm. The coals in the sheet-metal stove held their heat from hours ago. Charles threw open the grating and tossed in straw that had been braided into logs, coaxing the makeshift fuel into fire. Then he took off his coat and motioned toward one of the stiff wooden chairs that bordered a small table in the corner.

The room was hardly as elaborate as the main house. There was no loft, the ceiling was low, and the muslin that covered it billowed inches above their heads. A narrow bed had been built into one corner, propped up at either end with heavy wooden crates and covered with nondescript wool blankets. But farming journals lined a shelf that ran the length of the wall above the bed, and a framed tintype showed a beaming Charles and glowing Bernice. There was not much else decorating the room. Charles's soddy was utilitarian, a bedroom only, and not a home.

Conor took off his coat and sat in one of the chairs at the table, watching while Charles dug in a small wooden cupboard for a tin box. He pulled it out triumphantly, setting it on the table with a hollow clank. He pried off the lid, taking out a healthy fingerful of fragrant tobacco and packing it into a pipe.

He lit it with expertise, puffing life into it and taking several deep drags before he handed it to Conor with a sigh of relief.

"It is good to have another man around the place," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Sari will not admit it, but she feels so too."

The smoke coursed down Conor's throat, rough and soothing at the same time, and he let it curl around his lungs before he blew it out in a long stream. "Does she?"

Charles nodded and took the pipe. "She is afraid of the sleepers, though she is too proud to say so."

"There's nothing wrong with being afraid. Especially not of them." Conor paused, remembering.

"
Ja
. They are ruthless."

"I'd be ruthless too if there was no money and nothing to eat." Conor took the pipe again and inhaled. "Nothing worse than a man whose children are hungry." He made the apology before he thought about it, and started at the realization of what he'd said.

"That is not an excuse," Charles said harshly. "When I was mining in Lancaster—years ago—we were poor and starving, too. Even then you did not find good Deutschmen killing one another."

"There were different reasons," Conor insisted. He remembered when he was playing at being a Molly, how easily that desperation crawled inside him—even when he knew he didn't have to endure it, even when he knew he wasn't going to stay.

"You are defending them?" Charles's eyes narrowed.

Conor took an uneasy breath. "No," he shook his head. "No." But he knew it wasn't as simple as that. They weren't all like Michael Doyle, like Evan Travers. Many of the Mollies had been decent, hardworking men who'd tried the only way they knew to change things; that it had been a bloody and violent way may have been inevitable. Once, Conor had viewed that way as evil—as something that needed to be stopped. But after two years in the coalfields he only knew that he didn't know anything. Morality was as accommodating as an innkeeper, it all depended on who was paying for the room.

"Evan," Charles began slowly, puffing on the pipe, "Evan was not a man who cared for compromise. Violence would always have been his way, and that of his friends."

Conor remembered the man he'd once called a friend. "Evan knew what he wanted."

"And he took it." The bitterness in Charles's voice was startling. Conor glanced at him in surprise. The old man's thin lips were pulled into a frown.

"Some would call that decisive."

"Some did not have their daughter as the prize." Charles shook his head, handing over the pipe. "Oh, I know Sari is not my daughter, though she came to us when she was just a child and I have always loved her as if she were my own. She was a good child, with a quiet strength." He smiled. "Bernice used to say that Sari was as strong as a bull, with the gentleness of a lamb."

Conor liked the whimsy. It fit her.

"But even as a child she was sad," Charles continued. "Bernice and I worked to make her happy, to be her parents. When she began to smile again—that was a fine, fine thing." He sighed. "Evan was all bluster and no substance, but he caught our Sari. She was a child, she could not know what Evan was. She married him, and every day I saw her become again the child her mother failed. Her joy was gone, she was not my Sari."

The pain in Charles's voice tore at Conor. He recalled the way Evan had treated his wife, the way he barely spoke to her, always ignored her. The one rime Conor had seen Evan touch Sari, she appeared so surprised, Conor had been sure it was his imagination. He almost wished Evan were still alive so that he could kill him with his bare hands. He wanted to watch the blood drain from Evan's face, slowly and torturously, to kill him the way Evan had killed Sari.

Or tried to. She was so much stronger than any of them realized.

Charles was still talking. "... and I do not wish it to happen again."

Conor blinked, wondering if he missed something important. The tobacco made his head fuzzy. He said the first words that came into his head. "I understand how you feel."

"Good." Charles nodded satisfactorily. "Then you will understand when I ask what your intentions are."

Conor stared at him blankly. "My intentions?"

"Toward
meine Nichte
.”

Conor swallowed, unable to answer. He was still wondering himself. He wanted to be so careful this time, not to lead her to believe he could give her what he still wasn't sure he could. "I—I don't know."

"I see." Charles took a slow drag off the pipe. "I am not blind. You were alone during the blizzard, when 1 was in Woodrow. I can only guess what happened, but I cannot be far from wrong."

"No." Conor said roughly. "You're not wrong."

"It is for Sari to decide what she wants, but I would have her get the choice. You will ask her to marry you? I thought you might have done it in Pennsylvania, if Evan was gone."

"I was doing a job in Pennsylvania."

"So you say."

Conor's voice was harsh. "I'm a Pinkerton operative, Charles. I'm not sure I can stop being that."

"You are telling me you care nothing for her?"

"No," Conor shook his head. "I'm telling you nothing of the kind."

"Then?"

"I can't tell the future, Charles. I don't know what's going to happen." He took a deep breath. "I'm trying to take things a step at a time. I don't want to hurt her."

"You will stay with Pinkerton, then?" Charles asked.

"I don't know." Conor spoke slowly, trying to think, grabbing answers from thin air. "I'm riot sure I can be anything else. Sari doesn't deserve that. No one deserves it."

"What about love?"

"What about it?" Conor looked away. "Does a man have to learn how to love, Charles? Or does it just come naturally? I don't know the answers. I don't know if I can love Sari." He shook his head, and the sadness of his own words made his chest ache. "I don't know if I can leave behind years of lying."

"Have you tried?"

"What do you think I'm doing? I don't have any experience with this."

"I think you have more experience than you know," Charles said quietly. "I have faith in you, Conor Roarke. Now you must have faith in yourself."

C
harles's words haunted Conor—he thought of them during the short, freezing walk to the barn, and later, when he lay curled in his bedroll, listening to the frigid winds whip around the building and the soft snorting of the animals below.
"Now you must have faith in yourself "
Such easy words. Sentiments he'd heard before, echoed in his father's gentle voice.
"You must believe in yourself, Conor."
At twelve Conor had scoffed at them, believing the old priest had no concept of the life Conor lived, that those words had no bearing on any reality he had ever known.

And now he was still scoffing.

Conor folded his arms beneath his head, staring up at the darkness. He had always thought he wasn't the kind of man who would ever have a family. The job took everything he had. The best Pinkerton operatives were single men, men who had no connections, hardly any family. Men willing to take risks because they had so little to lose.

He thought he'd been a man like that. He'd taken the risks and thought he was invulnerable. And then his world had crashed in on him in a hail of plaster and wood and ash, and he'd realized just how vulnerable he'd been.

Conor squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the tears start behind them—still tears, even after so many months. He didn't want to lose that again. He didn't want to love someone enough to hurt.

But he wondered if he even had a choice anymore. He wondered if maybe Charles was right, if Conor could be the man Sari wanted, if he could love her enough to change. It meant being something he wasn't sure he could be, becoming the kind of man who could take satisfaction in working the land, in the warm security of a family, of children.

It meant giving up vengeance.

He thought of Sean Roarke's face, of those kindly eyes, the wizened features, and waited for the anger to come. And though it was there, though he felt it growing in his heart, the regret was stronger now, a sadness that tightened his throat and burned his eyes. Sadness now, more than anger, and Conor realized that his anger had been lessening bit by bit— since he'd arrived at this farm, since he'd looked into Sari's eyes and seen a forgiveness he hadn't wanted, a trust he didn't deserve. She had reason enough for distrusting him, and yet she didn't. She had opened herself to him again, had trusted that he was telling her the truth.

And he paid her back by deceiving her.

He thought about those days during the blizzard, the things he'd learned about her, about Evan, and realized nothing was black and white. Conor no longer believed Sari had deliberately betrayed him. She had told Evan nothing, and if she had warned Michael away, well, he was her brother. He was her only family. Conor would have done the same.

He believed her when she said she'd washed her hands of Michael, that she hadn't seen or heard from him in a year. She had never believed in their cause; she had despised the violence of their ways. He had heard her speak harshly of her brother in Tamaqua, and Conor had no reason to think she was lying now. No reason except for his own foul—and foolish— suspicions.

He'd been a Pinkerton agent too long. Had grown used to distrusting people, to attributing motives to those who had none. He'd grown used to lying and pretending, had given so much to the job that honor and love were emotions he'd forgotten how to have.

Or had he?

The wind was screaming. He heard the whisper of icy snow blowing against the door. It was a cold, cold night. But his heart... his heart felt warm again. For the first time in a very long while.

A
t first the knock blended with the howl of the wind and the hiss of snow—a soft tap, a muffled scrape. But then it grew in intensity, and Sari sat up in bed, fumbling with the lamp.
Conor
, she thought, and her heart leaped at the hope that he'd come to her.

Hastily she grabbed the lamp and hurried from bed, nearly stumbling down the ladder in her excitement. It had been so long—three days now—and the thought of touching him again, of feeling his warmth against her, made her almost giddy.

She fumbled with the door, a greeting ready on her lips, and pulled it open. It was barely cracked when he pushed through it, bringing snow and wind with him, shoving her back before he collapsed against the rocking chair.