No one did.
Her eyes cast down, she could only feel him as he and Ed came back around the table; Ed resuming his seat on her left, and Pete taking the spot on her right, just across from Ellie. Atherton returned to the head of the table.
“Golden nuggets, Pete,” Ellie said, dragging Pati’s eyes up from her congealing food. “What brings ya here? I figured ya’d stick ta yer homemade smoked jerky and solitude.”
She couldn’t help it, Pati glanced at Pete through the fan of her lashes. His dark gaze flicked to her, then to Ellie.
“I decided it was time to stop hiding in the woods…maybe spend more time in town.” His words, spoken with that deep rumble of his, cascaded over her. When his gaze landed on her again, her belly flipped, sending her supper into her throat.
Swallowing, Pati was never more thankful for Atherton than when he broke the sudden strained silence with a clatter of his spoon in his bowl. With great effort, she pulled her attention from the man beside her.
“Well, I don’t care why you’re here, Pete, I’m just glad you are.” Atherton said, slapping the table, his grin big enough to eclipse the sun.
“Here, here!” the chorus rang out, and Pati felt the air simmer with potential.
Hot breath caressed her neck, just beneath her ear, and she shuddered.
“I need to talk to you…after supper,” Pete whispered against her skin, his velvet tone carrying a promise.
Chapter 17
The rest of supper crawled along and by the time the last dishes were empty, the sun had long set. Pati’s heart had pounded itself into fine powder in her chest. What did Pete want to talk about? Too many questions bounced around in her head.
Might as well just get it over with.
Dabbing at her mouth with her napkin, Pati offered Millie a genuine smile. “Millie, delicious as always.” She turned to Ed and Ellie. “And the company was as wonderful as always.”
“You’re a delight, Pati. You know we love havin’ you,” Millie said, returning Pati’s smile.
“Thank you.” Standing, she placed her napkin on the table and pushed her chair out. “It’s late, I should get home.” Strange that thinking of the shanty as home didn’t stir the angst it used to.
Atherton made to stand—as he usually walked her home in the evenings—but Pete stood before Atherton could. “I’ll see her home.”
Atherton’s white brows snapped up. “You sure?”
Pati glanced at Pete and his face was set in a determined expression. “Yes, I’ll take her. You stay here and enjoy Ed and Ellie just a little longer.” Was that a smirk on Pete’s lips? It was gone too quickly for Pati to be sure.
“Well…you do know how much I love jabberin’ with these two,” Atherton replied, grinning. “All right, then. Pati, we’ll see you tomorrow. Pete, you keep her safe, you hear.”
“I intend to,” Pete drawled. His gaze flicked to Pati, and Pati’s heart skipped a beat. She heard more in those three words than Pete had said—or she was imagining things, which was quite possible since she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since kissing Pete Jones.
July nights were warm, but not so hot you could boil a pot of water on a rock. So when she stepped out onto the porch, she couldn’t account for the shudder that moved through her when she felt Pete behind her.
The porch lamp was lit, so she could see him as he came up beside her. He wasn’t wearing his hat, which allowed her to see his ear unobstructed. Politeness dictated that one couldn’t wear a hat to the table, so she wasn’t surprised when Pete removed his hat before sitting down to eat. She’d avoided looking at his ear, because she knew how sore he got about it. However, she was surprised he hadn’t hidden it the moment he left the house, once he could wear his hat again. Even hatless, Pati couldn’t see his eyes; the shadows cast by the lamp danced over his face.
“Shall we?” he said, raising his arm as if pointing the way. She nodded, crossing her arms and taking her elbows in her hands. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. They walked together every day, how was now any different? Well, it was dark…he said he wanted to talk, and there was something different about him. Something she couldn’t put her finger on. So, yes, of course she was nervous. Any woman would be.
But I’m not any woman! I’m an O’Connor woman!
Bolstered by that thought, she dropped her arms and stepped off the porch before turning to wait for Pete. “Shall we?” she imitated him, smiling up at his shadowed face.
Pete stepped of the porch and they began walking east, toward her shanty, along a trail she’d trod into the forest floor with her own boot heels. She knew the way with her eyes closed, but she’d let Pete lead…because she liked it.
The sky was clear so the bright moon overhead cast ethereal light over them, and the forest seemed to come alive under the soft blue illumination. Pete was a tall, strong presence beside her, walking slowly enough that she could keep pace. It felt as though he were thinking, probably about what he was going to say once they reached her shanty. Would she invite him in? Since moving in, she’d been able to purchase a small stove from the mercantile. It had come in dented, and the man who ordered it didn’t want it. Ed offered it to her for one-fourth the original price. She couldn’t pass that up. So, now she had a cot, a stove, a small table, and a chair. It wasn’t much—certainly not as comfortable as her cottage in Cork—but it was slowly becoming home. Her home. A home she’d made from hard work, determination, and grit. And she was proud of the ramshackle shanty.
When the shanty came into view, Pati’s heart stuttered. This was it. She’d finally know what it was that had been percolating within Pete all evening. At her door, she turned to Pete, tipping up her chin to meet his gaze. His black eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight.
“So, what is it you wanted to talk about?”
Though it was dark out, Pati thought she could see Pete’s mouth draw up into a nervous smile. Good, at least he was nervous, too.
“Well…I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier, about how fair is fair…”
She remembered it like it was a second ago.
“What about it?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as eager as she felt.
He sighed, then ran his fingers through hair so dark, Pati could barely make it out in the blackness around them.
“I was a captain in the army; I’d enlisted because I was the youngest of three brothers and not at all interested in staying in Baltimore and working in my father’s law practice. My first deployment was to Fort Brown along the Rio Grande…” Pati listened, and she could hear the catch in his breath as he inhaled. “I was shot in the head during an ambush.”
Shocked, she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “Pete, oh! That’s terrible.”
Another sigh, this one deeper, heavier. “That wasn’t the worst of it.”
Pati couldn’t fathom anything worse, but she waited for him to continue.
“Once I’d healed enough, I wanted to return to the field, to regroup and strike back at the hombres who’d nearly killed me and had succeeded in killing fifteen of my men.”
The urge to reach out and touch him surged. Pati shuttered. “Oh, Pete…I am so sorry…” Her heart ached for his loss, and for his pain. And for the pain he still carried with him. Was this why he held himself back from others, why he hid away in his room off the security office?
“But by then, word had spread about Trist and his treaty with the Mexican government. The war was over, and I hadn’t had the chance to find the men who’d done this to me.” His hand flew to his scar, and she could just make out his hand moving over his ear.
“Pete, why don’t you come in? I can light a lamp and we can sit and talk. I know there’s more to this than just the scar.” At his sharp intake of breath, she knew the truth—there was much more to it than just the scar.
“That’s that, then.” She turned on her heel and pressed the latch on the door. The scrapes of shuffling and banging sounded from inside the sh
anty. Startled, the blood draining from her face, she froze in place.
Someone was in her shanty!
Pete’s strong hand shot out to grip her arm. He must’ve heard the commotion, too.
“Pati, come back here,” Pete whispered harshly, the command in his tone impossible to ignore. She did as he bid, moving to stand behind him. Tense, poised to strike, Pete drew his guns from his holster, pulling back the hammers.
“You in there, come on out before I come in blasting!” Pete’s voice carried through the hot, thick evening air. Pati held her breath, both scared and strangely excited. Pete was there, he would keep her safe, she had no doubt that he would protect her with his life.
And that knowledge struck her, deep down, sending a slow warmth out from the core of her.
Pati watched the dark shanty, alert. After long moments of tense silence, there was more movement inside, then the sound of the door latch clicking. The door opened, revealing only blackness on the inside, then a form appeared. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out who it was in the moonlight.
“Don’t shoot! I’ve nothin’ but the clothes on me back and a bottle o’ whiskey,” a familiar voice blurted.
Her breath caught, her blood pounding in her ears. Pati could barely form the word, “Da?”
After the first bit of shock wore off, Pati ran to her da, throwing her arms around his much too thin shoulders. Their embrace was eleven months in coming, and it felt truly wonderful to hold her da, to feel him alive and well.
No thanks to him! Relief and gladness gave way to months of anger and fear, and she pulled away—just in time to see her da’s wary expression.
Pati lit the lamp and clamped her mouth shut against the whirring thoughts in her mind. She couldn’t believe it. The man had the unmitigated gall to sneak into town in the dark and try to take over her shanty! He’d given up all rights to the place the day he’d run off the Sacramento. But that wasn’t even the best part of it all! He’d taken one look at her and had gotten angry—angry—at her!
“What happened, Da?” she asked, that question just one of the many dashing around in her head.
Her da, Liam O’Connor, took a long sip from a stout bottle of amber liquid and leaned back on her cot as if it were his and not hers.
“Well, I’ll be askin’ ye the same thing, Daughter. What happened? How did ye get here?” Pati didn’t know what to feel—she was overjoyed to hear her dear da’s voice again, but it wasn’t the same dulcet timbre she remembered from when her ma was alive. It was harder…empty.
“When I came back to the cottage, I found your letter,” she began, forcing her mind to put one word in front of the other rather than let the words erupt in whatever manner they escaped. “I couldn’t understand why you would need to seek your fortune in America. What does this place have that Ireland doesn’t?”
Her da sneered. “What did London have that Cork didn’t?” he asked, mocking her.
Her mouth dropped open. She’d never seen her da like that—a mean, thoughtless drunk.
“Ye know damned well that I wanted ta be a governess. London had the best school, and it offered more opportunities.” She’d repeated that same answer so many times in her head, it had become rote. Automatic. But that didn’t make it any less true, did it?
“Schools so fine that they stole the very tongue from yer mouth, is that it? Ye sound like a boggy Union Jack, come to clear the land o’ riff-raff.”
Pati sat down in the only chair and stared at the man who looked like her da but couldn’t be. Liam O’Connor was a man of laughter, love, warmth, compassion, and faith. The man on the cot, with the now empty bottle of whiskey, wasn’t the man she’d known and loved.
“What happened ta ye, Da?” Her voice was an anguished whisper.
His green eyes, so like her own, seemed to dim to nothingness as her da stared into the flame dancing in the lamp.
“I came home as soon as I could, but ye were already gone. Then I followed after ye—I couldn’t leave ye alone, not when ye’d just lost Ma.” They’d both lost her ma, but her da had chosen to grieve alone. In America. And she’d grieved at the loss of two parents.
“Ye didn’t come home, Precious…” Da finally spoke, using the name he’d given her when she was still in leading strings. Her chest ached, memories of better times surfacing to pierce her heart. Then, the guilt crashed in, demolishing everything. “I waited for ye, but ye didn’t come. I figured that, if ye didn’t think me worthy enough of yer attention, I’d find me worth, me fortune, in America.”
His words sank into her soul, pounded in place like railroad spikes. “Oh, Da…I wanted to come home, I did, but I knew Ma would want me ta stay in school, finish the term, become what I’d wanted ta be since I was a girl.”
“Ye don’t think I know that!” her da wailed, sitting up in the cot, a wild look in his eye. “Ye don’t think I didn’t wallow in my own guilt all these months, wonderin’ why I let me own pride drive me from me home?” He sobbed, dropping the empty bottle in his lap and taking his head in his hands. “Pati, I miss our little cottage, I miss the hearth fire fed by peat moss. I miss Dolly O’Bannon’s Christmas mutton. I miss…I miss—” Sobs tore from his slender frame, shaking him with their ferocity.
Anguished for him, Pati went to him, kneeling beside the cot and throwing her arms around the man she’d given up everything to find. And now that she found him…she didn’t feel as complete as she thought she would.
The truth was, she’d already felt complete. Blessings had brought her a feeling of belonging she’d never thought to feel again. And Pete…he’d become the one thing in Blessings she wanted more than anything. He’d become the one thing in the world she’d wanted more than anything. He was everything.
But that didn’t matter if he didn’t want her in return.
Ye can’t think on that now. Yer da is here, and he needs yer comfort.
“Da, I miss home, too. I miss the cool kiss of the mist as it flows off the sea. I miss the call of the cock in the mornin’ and the nightjars in the evenin’. I miss Ma…standin’ at the table, beatin’ bread dough like a naughty child…” She laughed, remembering her ma’s frenetic kneading and the delicious bread it produced. “Most of all, I miss Ma…”
It wasn’t the silence or the sorrow of the moment that struck her the hardest, it was the sound of boots, retreating into the darkness.
Heat flared in her cheeks as she realized what had happened. Pete had stayed with her and her da, probably to support her in her time of great emotional need. She’d appreciated his quiet strength as he waited outside the shanty for her. She’d felt him there, in the dark just outside the lamp’s glow, and she drew confidence from knowing he was there if she called for him.
But then, her da had started drinking, and she’d started worrying, and then she’d forgotten Pete altogether.
Shame slammed into her chest, knocking the wind from her.
Pete had been there listening to everything she’d said and, now, he was gone.
Chapter 18
He’d done his rounds, like he did every day. He’d made notations on the supplies list, like he did every day. He greeted the men, Ben, Reuben, Travis, Billy, and Brandon, like he did every day. Giving them their orders and assignments, like he did every day. Today was just like every day…except that Pati wasn’t in it.
It had been a week since her father’s return, and he’d only seen her in passing as he went into town to retrieve mine orders from the mercantile, or when he went to Winslet House to answer Atherton’s summons—which the old man usually didn’t have a reason for. If Pete didn’t know better, he’d think Atherton was putting him in Pati’s path on purpose.
And it killed him that he couldn’t make more of those moments, those slivers of time where their lives slid by one another. He’d nod to her, she’d offer a tentative smile, and she’d continue on her way, her father by her side, the two of them chattering to fill in the months they’d been apart.
Pete couldn’t help but think that now that Pati and her father were reunited…they’d go home. Back to Ireland. He’d overheard them that night her father returned. He knew how much Pati missed the land, the people…would she miss California like that after she’d gone? Would she miss him?
Lord, but he’d miss her—she hadn’t even left yet, but his chest ached at the knowledge that she’d be gone soon. It wasn’t as though she ever meant to stay. She’d come to town looking for her father, and she’d found him. And now…she’d leave.
He was a fool for hoping otherwise, for dreaming about her in a home he built for them with his two hands. For wanting her with him for always.
A knock on the security office door made him glance up from the papers he’d been holding but not seeing to find Atherton Winslet standing there, a contemplative look in his hazel eyes.
“Atherton. What brings you out this way? Did you need something?” Pete asked, standing to usher the man into the building and to a chair.
“I may look like I could bend like a reed in the wind, but I’m sturdier than I look, Son,” Atherton said, humor lacing his words.
Pete chuckled, which was something he found himself doing more. And he had Pati to thank for that.
Atherton narrowed his eyes. “Well, now, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you do that! Are you drunk, Son?”
Pete offered a lopsided grin. “No, not drunk. I don’t touch the stuff.”
The old man sat back in the chair, crossing his reedy arms over his narrow chest. “So…to who do I owe the thanks for this change in you?”
For the first time in…well, in as long as he could remember, heat rushed into Pete’s face.
“Well, I don’t know what you mean, Atherton.”
Atherton sniggered. “Oh, you know exactly what I mean, Son. You smile, you laugh—and I think I heard you whistlin’ yesterday when you came into the mercantile. Whistlin’!”
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