“There are no guarantees in love, Tavish. You be who you are, and you love her the best you can. If you’re what she needs most, she’ll choose you.”
There were no guarantees in love or in life. Tavish knew that well. But he’d learned long ago that giving up never solved anything.
Mornings came far too early during harvest. For weeks, they’d all been in the fields day after day, cutting and bundling grain, hauling it around by the wagonful, praying for the dry weather to continue. Long days of backbreaking labor, followed by minimal amounts of sleep, took its toll quickly.
Tavish hadn’t slept well that night in particular. Katie still weighed on his mind too much for rest. Though Da had insisted he need only be himself to make his case, he felt a greater urgency than that. He wanted her to see what she meant to him. He intended to purchase the lumber he needed to build a proper bedroom onto his one-room house. Katie had told him she’d always longed for a room of her own, and he meant to give her one. While he built it, he’d put more effort into turning Katie’s heart fully in his direction. Once he had that, he’d ask her to marry him.
Tavish pulled on his overcoat and stepped out into the crisp morning. He pushed open the door of his barn. He’d become quite adept over the years at hitching up his horse in the dimness of an early-morning barn. Even with questions heavy on his mind, he went through the motions with hardly a thought. He pulled the bridle off its hook and opened the stall door.
His horse was not inside. How had he not noticed that? Apparently worrying about Katie was turning him just a touch daft.
Perhaps more than a touch. Looking about, he could see his cow was gone as well. He’d not even noticed how very silent the barn was. But where had the animals gone? They weren’t wandering about. The barn door had been closed. In his experience, livestock didn’t close the door behind themselves.
He stepped outside once more, looking out over the brightening horizon. Where were his animals?
“Ériu.” His horse could generally be counted on to nicker in response to her name, provided she was near enough to hear it. There was nothing but silence.
He wandered out to the road, hoping to see some sign of his animals. Nothing. Perhaps they’d gone in search of water. He would look down at the river first, then try the lake at the back of his property. If he didn’t find them there, he had no idea where to search next. The animals had never gotten loose before, except a few weeks earlier when the Red Road cut Ériu’s tail and set her to run wild in her panic.
Tavish stopped in the middle of the road, an uneasy thought settling in his mind. His horse had never slipped out before except as part of the Red Road’s mischief, and the animal was out now. It was not at all unreasonable to wonder if the Reds were behind this as well.
As he walked down the road in the direction of the bridge, he kept an eye out in both directions. He didn’t spot his animals, but saw several of his neighbors out and about. Harvest had the entire area up early. The morning air nipped at him, even through his jacket. Soon enough he’d need his heavier coat.
He whistled “When a Man’s in Love” as he walked along. ’Twas the song most often in his head of late.
“You’ve a fine whistle, Tavish O’Connor.”
The sound of Katie’s voice floating on the brisk dawn air tugged him in all different directions. She was up early, likely on her way to the mercantile. She began her hours there before the shop even opened. Perhaps he could walk with her.
She kept to her spot as he approached, watching him with that half-smile of hers that always made him ponder just what it would take to bring it fully into blossom.
“You look cold, Sweet Katie,” he said as he came closer.
“The mornings here in this town of yours are right frigid, I’m discovering.”
“Oh, darling.” He shook his head, trying not to laugh. “We’ve not even reached autumn.”
Dread filled her expression. “I don’t like to be cold.” She shuddered as if an arctic wind were beating against her.
Tavish simply pulled her into his warming embrace. Saints, she was cold to the touch.
“How long have you been standing out here, love?” He rubbed her arms and back, hoping to drive away some of the chill.
“Mr. O’Donaghue’s trying to find his horses and cow. I’ve been looking about Granny’s place for them.”
He set her away from him enough to look her in the face, while still rubbing her cold arms. “O’Donaghue’s animals have gone missing too?”
“Too? Are you missing animals? I mean other than all the chickens that disappeared a few days back.”
Tavish nodded. “And I suspect O’Donaghue and I aren’t the only ones.”
“This is Red Road mischief, then?”
“As always. I think I’d best check at Ciara and Keefe’s.” He motioned his head in the direction of his sister’s home. “D’you want to walk up with me?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Certainly.”
He wrapped an arm about her waist. Heavens, she felt good right there beside him. The distance he’d worried was growing between them felt far narrower just then.
“Biddy tells me you’ll be gone for a full month making your deliveries.” She leaned a bit against him as they walked.
“Aye.” He’d never before dreaded making his deliveries. In the past he’d found the endeavor rewarding, the fulfillment of all his work and planning. But, one day out from his annual trip, the miles ahead of him felt long and lonely. “Of course, if the entire Irish Road spends the day trying to find our animals instead of finishing the last of our preparations for the journey, we may not be leaving in the morning after all.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
He’d be willing to wager every cent he’d make on that year’s crop that the Red Road had most certainly “thought of that.”
“My guess is whoever took it upon themselves to sneak about our barns and let the animals out did so late into the night. The animals could have been wandering for hours. It’s possible some of them won’t ever be found.”
“What a terrible thing to do.”
The Reds had done it before. Ian had lost a fine milk cow a few winters back. ’Twas a hard thing for a family with wee ones to be without milk all winter, but there hadn’t been time to replace the animal before the snows had come.
“Every man, woman, and child down the Irish Road’ll be wearing their shoes thin today rounding up animals.” Tavish shook his head in frustration. “An entire day’s work lost, most likely. And the Reds’ll be preparing for their journey completely at their leisure.”
They’d reached Ciara’s house. Keefe stood at the barn doors, hat in his hands, a look of boiling anger on his face.
“Yours as well?” Keefe asked.
Tavish gave a quick nod.
Keefe slapped his hat against his thigh, muttering a few words in Gaelic that would have earned Tavish a lashing from Da when he was younger.
“How well do you remember your Gaelic, Katie?” Tavish asked.
In perfect, almost poetic Irish, Katie told him she remembered quite well.
To hear the old tongue in her dear voice brought such a flood of memory. He missed home in that moment. “When I get back from the harvest run, I think we should have an Irish Day.”
He loved that she looked curious. “What is an Irish Day?”
“I am so pleased you asked. We’ll spend a day being as Irish as the two of us can manage. Irish food. Irish tunes. And speaking only the proud and beautiful Irish language.”
She smiled. “I left Ireland only two years ago, Tavish, and I served on a very Irish staff there. I spoke Gaelic every day until I came to America. I’m not sure your Irish is up to the challenge.”
Even if he made a fool of himself, he’d enjoy that day. “I look forward to finding out.”
“Perhaps for now we should look about for some missing animals,” Katie reminded him.
Yes. The matter at hand. To his
brother-in-law, he said, “We’re likely looking for Ian’s animals as well as our own.”
Keefe stuffed his hat on his head. “I’ll follow the river north. The two of you can follow it south.”
A good plan. Tavish turned about, intending to make his way to the bridge to begin the search. Katie kept up with his quick pace without speaking a word.
They reached the bridge. Tavish turned south. Katie caught his arm.
“I can’t stay and help,” she said. “I’ve got to get to work. I’m nearly late as it is.”
“I hate that you work for Johnson, Katie.”
She gave him such a look. “Do not scold me, Tavish.”
“I wasn’t scolding.” He squeezed her hand. “I only worry, is all.”
“No one will starve this winter, Tavish. That is the most important thing. No one will be hungry.”
He cupped his hand under her chin. “You are a good woman, Katie Macauley.”
She blushed a little, smiled a little. “Thank you.”
Thank you. Leave it to Katie to thank him for simply telling her the truth.
“I do need to go.” She at least looked reluctant. “No use giving Mr. Johnson a real reason to fire me.” Her eyes darted between Tavish and the bridge and the Irish Road stretching out long and far. “I wish I could stay here instead.”
“I wish you could as well.” For quite a few reasons. Staying meant she would avoid Mr. Johnson’s poisonous barbs. Staying meant they’d have time together. He summoned a smile, not wanting her to leave thinking he was put out with her. “Go quickly so you’re not late.”
Katie slipped away before he could say anything else. He stood on the spot where she’d left him, watching her go. Katie paused halfway over the bridge, turning back to wave at him.
He gave her a wave and smile in return. She wrapped her shawl more closely around her shoulders.
I should have given her my jacket to wear. Next time.
Just the thought of “next time” brought a smile to his face. The few moments they’d spent together that morning had returned the smile to her face and restored a connection between them that he had feared was slipping away.
Chapter Fifteen
Joseph could sense the tension as he drove his buggy down the Irish Road. No one in Hope Springs was unaware of the chaos reigning on both sides of town. The morning before, all the Irish had woken to find their animals missing. That morning, every single horse on the Red Road had mysteriously lost their shoes overnight. The Red Road, instead of leaving to take their grain to the depot, had spent hours lined up at the blacksmith shop, having their horses shod.
Seamus Kelly, to his credit, hadn’t raised his prices—he’d done that in the past during crises—but he’d certainly made a pretty penny off the suspicious circumstances.
The Irish had spent the day catching up on the work they’d missed doing the day before while chasing down their livestock. The two groups would be leaving the same day after all. Years ago they’d decided to take different routes to different depots in order to avoid open warfare on the trail. He hoped everyone would keep to that agreement.
The renewed hostilities had left him with a dilemma. He’d intended to leave the girls with Mrs. O’Connor while he was gone, but doing so would likely be seen as taking sides with the Irish. Leaving the girls with the Kesters would look like siding with the Reds. He absolutely could not leave them on their own, and he couldn’t take them with him.
His only hope was Katie. She lived among the Irish, but worked, once more, off the Irish Road. She was as close to a neutral choice as he was likely to find. And he trusted her without reservation.
Why, then, he wondered, standing at Mrs. Claire’s front door, shifting his hat nervously around in his hands, was he so afraid she would say no? He’d brought the girls with him as an added bit of convincing. They had Katie wrapped around their adorable little fingers, whether or not she realized it.
Mrs. Claire peeked through her window. She had a smile for Joseph and a wave of invitation to come inside.
“Now, mind your manners,” he reminded the girls.
He turned the knob and opened the door. The smell of fresh bread hovered in the air. He had missed that smell. Was there anything that he didn’t now associate with Katie? The smell of bread and coffee. Music. The quiet stillness just before dawn when she used to talk to him in the kitchen.
“Is Katie here?” he asked Mrs. Claire, trying to keep himself focused.
“Standing right over there, or aren’t your eyes working today?” Mrs. Claire seemed to be laughing at him.
Katie spotted them in the next instant. “Why, girls, have you come to see me at last?”
Emma and Ivy rushed across the small room and threw themselves at Katie, wrapping their arms about her legs. She stroked the top of their heads, smiling down at them.
“What brings you by?”
“Pompah bringed us.”
Katie looked up at Joseph.
He pressed ahead. “I’ve come to talk to you about something.”
All the lightness left her eyes. She looked instantly wary. “Have you, now?” Katie turned to address the girls. “I’ve a plate of fresh rolls on the table just over there. You can each have one if your father agrees.”
Joseph gave a quick nod. The girls scampered off.
“What is it you’ve come to talk to me about? Have I done something wrong?”
He shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Truly?” She was clearly unconvinced.
“Do I generally come by to criticize you?”
“Our Katie’s had a great many visitors today,” Mrs. Claire said from her chair by the window.
Obviously their conversation wasn’t as private as Joseph might have liked. “A lot of visitors?” He pieced that together in the next moment. “And they have come with criticisms.”
Katie pushed out a puff of breath. “‘Katie Macauley, you have to march in to town with banners flying or you’re no countrywoman of ours.’ Or ‘Katie Macauley, if you don’t act as a spy at the mercantile, you’ve betrayed us all.’ And the Reds come into the mercantile all the day long and help Mr. Johnson point out everything they could possibly say I’ve done wrong, and he threatens to toss me out. I must apologize at least twenty times every single morning.”
Joseph didn’t want to add to her burdens. Would she agree to watch the girls out of a sense of obligation? Perhaps if he talked to her more privately, gave her the opportunity to say no if she really needed to without an audience.
“Would you take a little walk with me?” He hadn’t been this nervous the first time he’d asked his late wife to ride out with him. Perhaps because he’d known she would agree. Nothing was ever that certain with Katie.
She nodded, but without enthusiasm.
“Off with the both of you.” Mrs. Claire shooed them away with a wave of her hand. “The girls and I will get on famous without you.”
He held the door for Katie. She passed through without a word. Silence was the theme of their walk as the minutes dragged on.
Katie was hurting. He couldn’t ask another favor of her.
After a time, she sighed. “Things have grown difficult, Joseph.”
“Tell me.”
She picked a long blade of wild grass, using it to swipe at the grass growing around her. “I couldn’t help the Irish gather up their missing animals because I had to work. The Irish were disappointed in me for that. And Mr. Johnson is mean as a cat that’s had its tail stepped on.”
He could easily believe that.
“I am growing terribly weary of being called a half-wit simply because I don’t know all the fancy words he uses. I am convinced within myself he does that in order to confuse me. He likes having reason to make me feel stupid.”
“You know that you aren’t, don’t you?”
She rubbed her arms through her shawl and gave a half shrug. “He makes me feel . . . small.”
He pulled off
his jacket and set it around her shoulders. She pulled it tight around her. They walked on for a while. Joseph didn’t know quite what to say. He wouldn’t tell her she had no reason to feel the way she did; Johnson was trying to make her feel stupid and unimportant. That was one of Katie’s particularly tender topics, so arguing that she was one of the sharper people he knew would likely seem to her like empty flattery.
“I should start dropping in Gaelic words once in a while when I talk to him. Then he would be the one who didn’t know the words being said to him.”
There was the resilient Katie he knew.
“You make a very good point, Katie. He can say all he wants about your intelligence, but he can’t argue with the fact that you speak two languages while he knows only the one.”
“Hmm.” Her steps slowed a bit. After a moment she looked at him again. Her lips turned up a little until she fully smiled. “Now, isn’t that a fine discovery. I know something he doesn’t.”
“Not just something. An entire language.”
She laughed. “Maybe that is why he doesn’t want me to use any Irish words, because it makes him feel stupid.”
Katie slipped her arms into the jacket sleeves. She looked adorable, so undersized for his coat. And she was smiling again. He’d longed to see that smile every day since she’d left.
She set her fingers in his, though they only just poked out of the jacket sleeve. She had reached for his hand. He adjusted their hands enough to hold hers properly. She didn’t pull back, didn’t object.
He’d been wondering for some time if he ought to try to win her affection. He had debated with himself, arguing that she had chosen Tavish, counterarguing that letting his feelings be known wouldn’t be a bad thing. But that moment, walking alone with her, hand in hand, he knew he couldn’t simply walk away.
“I wish you would come visit more often, Joseph Archer.”
He intended to. But right then, he had particular business to attend to.
“I’ve come for more than a visit,” he confessed. “I’ve come to ask a favor.”
“What is it?”
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