He was very confused. But, Katie was there, with him. He’d made her laugh. That was something.
She leaned back enough to wipe her wet cheeks. A wobbly smile tugged at her lips. “I have a confession. I didn’t bring the rolls only as a bribe.”
“What, then?”
She shrugged a single shoulder. A bit of color touched her pale cheeks. He was glad to see it. “I couldn’t think of a good excuse to come talk to you, and I wanted to.”
“Did you?” He could tell he was smiling like an idiot. He couldn’t help it.
“I knew you wouldn’t scold me or tell me I couldn’t hold up under my burdens. I needed to talk to someone who would just listen.”
The girls clambered back into the kitchen. Katie slipped out of his embrace. He felt empty the moment she stepped away.
Katie had a smile for the girls, quite as if she hadn’t been struggling under the weight of the world only a moment earlier.
In a flurry of excitement and almost maternal fussing, she had the girls seated at the table with a sweet roll and a glass of warm milk set before each of them. If he hadn’t stopped her, she likely would have brought him his food as well, as if she still worked for them instead of being a guest for the evening. He saw to his own roll and milk while she rinsed out the girls’ dirty dresses in the sink.
The girls were beside themselves with praise for Katie’s rolls. They’d endured his cooking for too long. Katie smiled in her quiet way and hung their damp dresses over the back of a chair pulled up near the warm stove.
“I do need to be getting back to Mrs. Claire’s house,” she said.
The girls protested. She gave them each a kiss on the top of their heads. She spared a moment for Emma, telling her how she hoped to hear all about school and the wonderful things she would be learning. The look of threatening tears in Emma’s eyes flitted away, replaced by a contented smile.
Joseph walked Katie to the edge of the back porch.
“Thank you for letting me talk,” she said. “I’m certain my grumbling wasn’t what you hoped to endure tonight. But . . . but I needed it so badly.”
In that moment she looked lonely. She, who had the entire Irish Road cheering over her decision to stay in Hope Springs, who had sacrificed her sleep and peace of mind to save her neighbors from starvation, seemed nearly desolate.
“Come talk any time, Katie. Any time at all. No sweet rolls necessary.”
“Thank you, Joseph Archer.” She stretched up on her toes and, without even the tiniest hint of warning, kissed his cheek.
Kissed his cheek.
Then she was gone, leaving him staring after her. Katie had come to him with her troubles. She had cried on his shoulder, had laughed with him. He thought she left less burdened than she’d arrived. His home had felt whole and warm again with her there.
What if you are best for her, after all?
Chapter Twelve
Tavish tucked Katie’s fiddle under his arm. He gave Granny Claire a quick kiss on the cheek before sending her off in his little sister’s care.
Granny said Katie had gone to Joseph’s house on a matter of business. Tavish meant to bring her home for a much-needed bit of merrymaking. She needed it. And he needed her.
He turned back, fully intending to fetch her from the Archer place, only to find her not many paces off, walking toward him.
She waved as she drew closer. “A fine good evening to you, Tavish.”
Heavens, it was nice to see her smiling again. She had been fatigued and burdened the last time he’d seen her. He’d tried convincing her to end her employment at the mercantile. She needed the sleep and some time to herself. She most certainly didn’t need Johnson’s insulting and belittling treatment.
“What’s that you’re carrying?” she asked.
“This?” He held up her fiddle case. “It’s a fiddle, Sweet Katie. An odd contraption with strings that makes music.”
She gave him a look of scolding that held a heavy hint of amusement. “I know perfectly well what a fiddle is. And that fiddle looks like mine.”
“Probably because it is.”
“But why are you carrying my—” Absolute panic entered her expression. “Has something happened to it? Please tell me it’s not broken. I can’t lose it. I need the music.”
He set his free hand on her arm. “Your fiddle is perfectly sound. I’ve simply come to take it—and you—to the céilí.”
The explanation didn’t appear to settle in for the length of a breath. Relief followed. Close on its heels came a whisper of eagerness.
“There’s to be a céilí tonight?”
Tavish nodded. “The Irish have reason to celebrate. Ian is out of bed and looks likely to eventually recover. The harvest promises to be plentiful. And, perhaps the greatest miracle of all, there’s been no more feud violence.”
Katie’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “I’ve worried about that. And about Ian, and the harvest.”
He slipped his arm about her waist, pulling her close to him as they walked on.
“I suppose I worry too much,” she said with a sigh.
Tavish pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“Is that a ‘yes, you do,’ then?” Katie asked.
“That is an ‘I can’t possibly answer without getting myself into trouble.’”
He thought he felt her laugh a tiny bit. That did him a world of good. Katie ought to laugh and smile more.
He leaned in close and spoke softly. “Tonight you are to do nothing but smile and laugh, play your music if you wish, and enjoy your friends’ company.”
“And your company?”
He grinned back at her. “Thought of me first thing, did you?”
She threw him a saucy look. “Second or third thing, at least.”
“You’re in better spirits than you have been of late,” he said, grateful to see it.
“I feel better—less weighed down,” she said. “And to have a céilí is a fine thing.”
They turned in at Ma and Da’s place where the céilís were always held. Such a look of peace entered Katie’s expression.
“’Twas these parties that first made Hope Springs feel like home to me. These parties and these people.” She smiled fondly as she looked over the crowd that had already gathered. “I would have died a bit to leave it all behind.”
“And there is yet another reason I’m happy you’ve chosen to stay.”
She looked up at him. No one but Katie had ever worn such a look of mingled determination and weariness. “I fully intend to be happy here, Tavish. No matter what it takes.”
Tavish pressed a kiss to her forehead. He couldn’t say when he’d begun doing that, but he’d found he liked it very much. Something in the simple tenderness of the gesture felt very right.
“Enough of that, lad,” Da said.
Tavish pushed out an amused and exasperated breath. “Why is it you always seem to be sneaking up on me just when I’m having a tender moment with this sweet colleen?”
Da kept his expression stern, though an unmistakable twinkle shone in his eyes. “Is it not a father’s duty to look out for his girl?”
“Aren’t you meant to look after your son as well?” Tavish matched his da’s teasing tone.
Da shrugged. “I like our Katie better than I like you. So you can just look out for your own self.”
Katie slipped from Tavish’s side. She gave Da a hug, something Tavish would never have expected her to do only a few short weeks earlier.
Da returned her embrace, smiling at her fondly. “Biddy’s been asking after you, hoping you meant to come to the céilí.”
“Biddy is here?”
Da nodded. “My wife’s sitting with Ian so Biddy could have some time away.”
“Let’s find her, then,” Katie said. She turned back and held her hand out to Tavish, an invitation he readily accepted.
They walked amongst their neighbors. Every single soul they passed had a word of greeting
for Katie. How quickly she’d become an indispensable part of their lives.
They spotted Biddy not far from the tables of food. Katie was off in a rush. She and Biddy embraced each other, falling into easy conversation.
“She has been a good friend to Biddy,” Da observed. “And such a comfort to her since Ian was laid low. Visits her every day, she does. I don’t know how Biddy could have endured all she has without Katie at her side.”
Tavish remembered how standoffish Katie had been the day she met Biddy and smiled.
“How is your courtship going, lad?” Da asked.
“It would be going vastly better if a certain nosy Irishman didn’t keep interrupting me.”
Da chuckled. He slapped a friendly hand on Tavish’s shoulder. “See if you can’t get the lass to play her fiddle tonight. She does the lot of us a world of good with her music.”
Tavish kept to Katie’s side the remainder of the evening. For a woman who had arrived so utterly alone, she had made the entire Irish Road her friends. She played her fiddle for them all, filling the cool night air with the tunes of home played to perfection.
Seamus took up the usual storytelling, and Katie took up her place at Tavish’s side, leaning against his arm as the evening drew out. The air turned more and more chill as night fell. He wrapped his arm about her, pulling her close. As the tales gave way to the quiet tunes that always ended their céilís, Katie’s head grew heavy against him.
Though Tavish would have followed her to Ireland, he was grateful she’d chosen to stay. As she’d said, Hope Springs was home.
Chapter Thirteen
Katie stretched up on her toes, trying to reach the very highest shelf in the mercantile’s storeroom. She’d spent every minute of the past seven mornings, excepting Sunday, among the shelves and boxes.
She’d nearly finished organizing the storeroom. A week of carrying boxes and cans and heavy bags across the room, pulling them off shelves only to lift them onto others, had left her sore and tired. She’d taken the chaos she’d found in the storage room and created structure. Mr. Johnson would know in a glance what was there, how much, where to find it. ’Twas an enormous improvement.
She slid a box off the highest shelf. It was lighter than she expected, but awkward coming from as high up as it was. The stepladder teetered once as she climbed back down. She set the box on the ground and pulled it open.
Handkerchiefs. The pile out front was down to three.
Katie tucked the box under her arm and stepped out of the storage room. The mercantile was empty, just as it had been most of the week she’d worked there. Harvest kept the residents of Hope Springs busy and away from town.
“What are you doing out here?” Mr. Johnson skewered her with an accusatory look. “Get in the back where you belong.”
“I’m only—”
His livid expression stopped her on the spot. Mr. Johnson only permitted her to speak in whispers. Her accent, she’d been told many times over the last week, made “his ears bleed.”
“I’m putting out the handkerchiefs.” She kept the words barely audible. “There are but three remaining in the display.”
“But tree remaining?” He mimicked her pronunciation with an obvious desire to offend.
Katie kept still and quiet.
“Fine. But be quick about it.” He returned to his ledgers.
She crossed to the long table where the Johnsons displayed gloves and scarves and handkerchiefs. She laid her box on the table and pulled out one square of linen at a time, setting each out very precisely. Not a single handkerchief was so much as a hair’s breadth farther to one side or the other than the one before it.
Mr. Johnson was very particular about everything she did. She’d spent a full hour arranging a display of shiny leather boots the morning before, only to have him topple them over because one of the rows wasn’t as straight as he wanted it to be. Just that morning he’d kicked over her bucket of mop water for missing a bit of dirt.
The door chime sounded. Katie looked up from her work and straight to Mr. Johnson. She wasn’t supposed to be out when customers came around. But there was no way of returning to the storage room without passing by the new arrival.
Mr. Johnson jabbed his finger in her direction. “Not a word. Keep to the corner.”
Katie nodded. The last thing she wanted was trouble. She returned to laying out the handkerchiefs. Surely the table sat far enough in the corner to satisfy Mr. Johnson’s edict.
“Have you come by for a treat?” Mr. Johnson said to his customer.
Katie kept her head down and her hands moving. She’d had an employer very much like Mr. Johnson before. Her first job in Derry had been filled with beatings and angry, insulting words. She’d learned then to work hard and keep out of the way. She flexed her fingers as she stood in the corner of the mercantile. Her first mistress had beaten her hands so many times for the smallest things that she still bore the scars.
At least Mr. Johnson hasn’t resorted to that. She was belittled and yelled at but hadn’t yet been beaten.
“Katie?”
She knew that voice in an instant. Emma.
The sweet child stood at the display of candies, smiling across at her. Was she the customer who’d come inside? A happy surprise, that.
Katie pressed her lips together to keep from calling out a greeting. She did, however, give the tiniest wave of her fingers and a smile she hoped communicated her very real pleasure at seeing Emma again.
Emma’s face lit up. She came to the corner where Katie was working.
“Hello, Katie.”
“Hello, sweetheart.” She kept her voice quiet. “What brings you to the mercantile? Are you here on your own?”
She couldn’t imagine Joseph would leave Emma to fend for herself.
“Papa came to get me from school and gave me a penny for a sweet.” She held her hand open, palm up, with a single bronze coin lying there. “He said I could pick whatever candy I wanted.”
Katie smiled. “A butterscotch, I’d wager.”
“You remembered.” Emma actually seemed surprised by that.
“Butterscotch sweets. Chocolate cake. Potato-and-leek soup.” Katie counted off the items on her fingers. “I think I remember most of your favorites.”
“When will you come see us again? We never found the tune I liked.”
Emma had overheard her playing her fiddle one night and became particularly attached to a tune she’d played. Though Katie had spent many evenings playing through the tunes she knew, they hadn’t yet found the one Emma wished to hear again.
“Perhaps your papa will let you come visit me at my new house and we can have a wee little céilí of our own.”
“I told you I won’t have you using any of your asinine Irish words in this shop.”
Katie hadn’t even heard Mr. Johnson approach. She looked quickly at Emma. The girl was sensitive. Had Mr. Johnson’s angry tone upset her? But Emma looked more confused than upset.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson. I’ll—”
He stopped her short with the same look of warning she received every time she spoke. He stood there glaring at her, a small box under his arm.
Katie bent lower, so she could speak to Emma while keeping her voice low. “Go pick out your sweet.”
Emma nodded, her eyes darting between Katie and Mr. Johnson. She moved slowly back toward the candy display, glancing repeatedly over her shoulder as she went.
“I told you not to talk to the customers. If you can’t follow simple instructions—”
“She came and spoke to me. I kept to the corner just like you told me to.”
Though Katie thought her reasoning was sound, Mr. Johnson didn’t seem satisfied. His lips all but disappeared as his mouth narrowed.
He slammed his small box on the table. “What is this?”
She glanced inside. “Ribbons, Mr. Johnson.”
“And who put the ribbons in this box?”
“I did, sir.”
/> “Why would you put ribbons in a box that is clearly labeled ‘laces’? Are you trying to sabotage my business? Make me look like a fool?”
Heat flamed across Katie’s face even as her stomach dropped to her shoes. She’d seen the lettering on the front of the box and, looking inside to find a single spool of ribbon, had assumed the word was “ribbon.”
“I’m not meaning to make you look foolish at all, I assure you. I’d not meant to place the ribbons in the wrong container.”
His eyes were hard and disbelieving. “You ‘didn’t mean’ to put ribbons in the lace box? Are you a simpleton, then? You can’t understand that lace goes in the lace box and ribbons in the ribbon box?”
“I am not stupid.” She spoke quietly but firmly.
“You’re either stupid or playing me for a fool.” He snatched up the box and tipped it upside down, dumping the rolls of ribbon on the floor. “Put the ribbon in the ribbon box and the lace in this one. Are those instructions simple enough, or do I need to use smaller words?”
Katie lowered her eyes, a position beaten into a servant until it became an instinct as deeply rooted as breathing itself. “I don’t know where the ribbon box is, sir.” She had thought the box now sitting upturned on the table was the ribbon box.
“It is on the display shelves where this one was. Everything is labeled. This should be simple.”
Katie clasped her hands in front of her. She kept her head down. “I can’t read the labels, sir. I’ve been looking inside the boxes to see what goes where.”
“Are you commenting on my wife’s handwriting?” Was the man determined to be offended by everything she said? “She has fine penmanship.”
“Aye. I’m certain she does.”
“Do not say ‘aye.’ If you can’t speak proper English, you’ll be out on the street quick as lightning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now get back to work.” He pushed a spool of ribbon toward her with the toe of his shoe. “And do it right this time.”
“Yes, sir.”
He grumbled as he walked off. Katie stood in frustrated silence. After all she’d accomplished in the storeroom—she hadn’t taken anything out of their boxes, so she knew she hadn’t misunderstood any labeling there—and the fine displays she’d created out in the shop, she was rebuked over a box of ribbons. Are you a simpleton? She could endure his complaints about her work, but she hated being treated as though she were stupid.
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