by Karey White
“I have already arranged for the paper to head east on the train on Monday to be sold at depots along the line.” The man who stepped inside was unknown to her. “I’ll need that cutting ready by Sunday.”
“And you’ll have it. I promise you that.”
Patrick stepped inside. Her Patrick. Her sweet, lovely Patrick.
Shannon could hardly breathe. She couldn’t move even the tiniest bit. He was even more handsome than she remembered. His face was darker, more lined than it had once been, no doubt the result of endless days working in the sun. And the work had changed his build as well, with muscles filling out his once lean frame. She only hoped that any changes he saw in her were good ones.
Hannah skipped to her father’s side. “We’ve been waiting for hours and hours, Papa.”
Mr. Houston ruffled Hannah’s hair. “Take Mr. Patrick’s hat and jacket, Hannah, and hang them up for him.”
But Hannah didn’t immediately obey. She stood, staring up at Patrick, something Shannon could certainly understand. Was there a finer looking man in all the world? She sincerely doubted it.
“Have I a smudge of dirt on my face or something, Miss Hannah?”
Oh, heavens, that smile of his. How I’ve missed it.
Hannah jerked her head to the side. Then did so again.
“Miss Hannah?”
But Hannah kept motioning rather awkwardly with her head in Shannon’s direction. Bless the girl’s heart. After a moment, Patrick seemed to realize what Hannah was attempting to tell him. He turned. Time slowed unbearably. Shannon clutched her hands in front of her, trying to hold back a sudden and unexpected flood of emotion.
His beautiful brown eyes met hers. He froze. “Shannon,” he whispered. “Oh, saints above. My Shannon.”
He dropped his hat and jacket right onto the floor and rushed to her. In an instant, his arms were around her.
“Shannon. Dearest, loveliest Shannon.”
She clung to him, trying to believe the moment was truly happening. She’d dreamed of him for six lonely months.
“Are you real, love?” he asked. “Are you truly, truly real?”
“I am, indeed.”
He set his hands on her upper arms, holding him away from her a bit, looking her up and down. “Heavens, I’ve missed you.”
He brushed his hand along her cheek. Having him there, holding her again, Shannon felt as though she were breathing again for the first time in ages.
His hand dropped to hers. “And you’ve met the Houstons.”
“They’ve been very kind.”
That seemed to relieve his mind, though she couldn’t say why. “Then this’ll work out, will it not?”
“What will work out?”
“Mrs. Houston didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Why in heaven’s name were they discussing Mrs. Houston when they’d only just been reunited? The man hadn’t even kissed her yet.
“They mean to offer you a position looking after the children.”
Perhaps Patrick’s new job didn’t pay well enough yet. She wasn’t unwilling to work. And she did like children. But could this not have waited? Mr. Houston had dragged Hannah from the room, leaving them alone, together. And Patrick stood there speaking to her of jobs.
“And they have a room for you to stay in.”
“A room for me? And what of you, Patrick? Will you not be with me?”
He yet held her hand, rubbing it between both of his. She loved the warmth of his hand, but wished he’d put his arms around her again. “I have my own room, above the newspaper office.”
“But, we—” She couldn’t seem to make her mouth say what her mind was thinking. They were supposed to be together now. They were going to be married and live the rest of their lives with each other, not in separate rooms in separate buildings. “How long is this arrangement meant to last?”
“I can’t rightly say. Until we know for certain what we mean to do with our futures.” He no longer looked her in the eye.
“But I thought—” Her voice broke. She took a breath to steady it again. “I thought we’d already decided our future.”
His brow pulled tight. He released her hand and paced away. “Things can change when two people are apart for six months. I think it’d be best to make quite sure we know what we want.”
All this time she had thought she was what he wanted. That a life together was what they both wanted. Had she been so wrong? Surely not.
“If you think it’d be best to wait before making a permanent decision, then I supposed that’d better be what we do.”
He nodded firmly and even smiled a little. A very little. “I think it’d be wise.”
He walked at her side to the dining room and sat beside her at the dinner table. She caught him watching her from time to time, but otherwise he seemed rather indifferent to her being there. Arrangements were made for her to begin working for the Houston family. Shannon let the discussion simply wash over her, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to accept what they meant.
She’d imagined Patrick meeting her at the station with the preacher already at his side. She’d even accepted that necessity would have required a day or two of waiting. But never had the possibility of an indefinite wait entered her mind.
She followed him to the Houston’s front door after dinner. He’d insisted on returning to his room to turn in early, not remaining behind for a visit. He wished her a good night and pressed a very quick kiss to her cheek. That was it. That was all the more she was to receive from him.
She stood in the front parlor, shocked into stunned silence, her heart aching at the change in him. The hopes she’d been clinging to over the months began to crumble right in front of her. Something was wrong, and she couldn’t begin to guess what.
Chapter Four
Patrick was nearly out of his mind. Shannon had been in Sidney for three entire weeks, living at the Houstons’ home. Out of respect for her, and wanting to see to it that she had time and space to decide if she truly wished to marry him still, he’d kept himself to only a quick visit now and then and to sitting in the front parlor with her on Sundays.
He’d not held her in his arms since the day she’d arrived. He’d only allowed himself to take her hand on occasion. He hadn’t even kissed her. In an effort to clear his mind, he chose to walk out to his claim despite Mr. Houston’s offer of a horse. He needed to spend the pent-up energy threatening to blow him to bits at any moment. Inevitably, when he arrived at the spot where he’d begun building a dugout house, he found himself unable to focus long enough to get much work done.
He was there again, looking out over his land, empty and unimpressive as it was. He hoped to someday put in a garden plot and a barn for animals. It’d likely be a dugout just as the house was. Even the saloons in town were a finer sight than his barebones bit of earth.
This is what you have to offer her, is it? A hole in the ground you mean to pass off as a home? Lumber was scarce in that area, most of it shipped in by rail, making the price of it too dear for a man of limited means. You dragged her all this way so she could hitch her wagon to your falling star. She deserves far better than you, you worthless bag of bones.
He pulled off his hat and wiped at the trickle of sweat making its way down his face. The paper’s circulation was growing, just as Mr. Houston had predicted it would. But there was little money in the endeavor. Patrick pulled a wage, but a small one. Should the paper grow significantly, Mr. Houston meant to increase his salary, but that was likely months, if not years, down the road.
The sound of horse’s hooves pounding the dry earth spun Patrick about. He seldom had visitors. His nearest neighbors dropped by on occasion when he was there working. But the horse, approaching at an almost comically slow pace, wasn’t carrying any of the nearby families. Twas Shannon. As far as he knew, she hadn’t ridden a horse in all her life.
Patrick moved swiftly toward her, being quite careful not to spook the animal.
“Are y
ou daft, woman?” He took the horse’s rein the moment it came within reach and brought it to a full stop. “You might’ve been thrown, left in a broken heap on the trail somewhere.”
“I’ve no intention of arguing with you over something that didn’t happen. Now help me down, will you?”
The horse was calm enough. He stepped over and held his arms up for her. She set her hands on his shoulders and carefully lowered herself into his arms. She was safe on the ground once more, and he really ought to have released her. But he couldn’t. His arms simply refused.
Her hand slid from his shoulder to his cheek, her thumb brushing along his jaw. “You’ve neglected your razor, Patrick. Stubbly as a hedgehog, you are.”
Saints, if she kept touching him that way, he’d simply melt right there in front of her. “Tis Saturday. I don’t bother cleaning up when I’m spending my day out here.”
Her hand slipped from his face, trailing slowly down his neck, coming to rest open against his heart. “I’ve the day off myself,” she said, her voice low and mesmerizing. “I’d like to spend it with you, if you don’t mind.”
He most certainly didn’t mind. Though with her there, he’d likely get little work done. Indeed, he couldn’t seem to pull two thoughts together. Every sense was aware of nothing but her. His arms clung to her, keeping her but a breath away from him. His eyes refused to see anything beyond her honey-colored hair and eyes of deepest blue. The air filled with the scent of her. His mouth ached for one taste of her lips.
He closed his eyes, trying to bring himself back from the brink of madness. T’would be the easiest thing in all the world to pull her the rest of the way to him and kiss her more fervently than he ever had before. He could, without even the smallest struggle for words, beg her to stay with him always, to accept what little he had to offer her simply because she’d once told him she loved him. But she needed to know what a terrible bargain he’d turned out to be. No coercion, no pleading, no kisses to quiet the concerns she would inevitably have.
He forced himself to step back, allowing his arms to drop to his side. “You’re most welcome to stay, Shannon. I’d enjoy your company. But I’ll warn you, there’s little to see here and nothing at all impressive.”
“Well then, I’m fully prepared to be unimpressed.” She gave him a smile that felt almost like a challenge. In their months apart, Patrick had nearly forgotten how fiery Shannon could be when she had a bee in her bonnet.
She stepped past him and up the dirt path a bit. Patrick took the horse’s reins once more and followed close behind her. She stopped in front of the dugout. “What’s this here, then?”
“It’s what passes for a house around here,” he said. “Wood is hard to come by, so we dig holes and build up the rest of the house with mud bricks.”
“This is your home?” she asked, her back still to him.
“It is that.” Pathetic as it was, it was his. He wrapped the horse’s rein around an obliging bush.
“And Mrs. Houston tells me this is your land as well,” Shannon said.
“It is.”
Quite without warning, Shannon spun about to face him and plopped her hands on her hips. Patrick took a step backward at the fierce look on her face. Few things a man ought to fear more than an Irishwoman in high dudgeon.
“Then why in blazes did I have to climb on that great lumbering beast and come out here of my own accord? Why is it, Patrick O’Malley, that you weren’t of a mind to bring me here your own self?”
“And do what? Brag about this bit of nothing I’ve acquired? Show you what a fine and fancy man I’ve become? Give you a grand tour of this house of mine?”
That didn’t even give her pause. “Yes. That is exactly what you ought to have done. Don’t you want me to be part of any of this?”
“Part of it? I didn’t want you to even see it.”
She stepped toward the dugout. Patrick deftly moved in front of her. “I’d rather you didn’t go inside.” He was humiliated enough as it was. She’d give up on him entirely if she saw the pathetic state of things inside. He’d nothing but a few overturned crates serving as furniture.
“You don’t want me to see— to see your house?” Her eyes searched his face, but for what he wasn’t sure.
“It’s not fit for company.”
“Is that what I am, then— company?”
Something in that sounded wrong. “It isn’t ready for you,” he tried to explain. “I’m not ready for you.”
“Oh.” She blinked a few times, her lips pressed together as if holding something back. “I... I didn’t realize.”
“Things are different than I’d expected them to be, Shannon. All those months ago when we were planning and dreaming, I didn’t know how things would turn out.”
“And if you had known?” she asked in a small voice.
“I—”
“Please be honest with me, Patrick. I need you to be.”
Be honest. He could give her that if she truly wanted it. “In all honesty, I’d have not sent for you when I did.”
“Ah.” Her eyes dropped. She nodded slowly. “Well, that certainly is honest.”
Again, he’d gone about the explanation wrong. He couldn’t seem to string the right words together. He’d never had a talent for saying what he thought or felt. “Shannon, I think that sounded different from how I meant it.”
She shook her head, even smiled a wee bit. “Don’t fret. I think I understood. May I ask a favor of you while I’m out here?”
“Of course. Anything.”
She pulled a folded bit of paper from the pocket of her jacket and opened it carefully. “If you’d point me in the right direction for finding one of these.”
Twas one of the sketches he’d sent to her, one of his love letters. Seeing it brought back with perfect clarity the days he’d spent drawing it. When he’d seen the clump of bright yellow flowers, he’d thought of her on the instant. Shannon adored yellow and never could resist smelling any flower she came near. So he’d plucked a small handful, preserving them in a cup of water. For days he’d worked to get the sketch just right. Twas the drawing he’d labored over most; he’d been determined to convey every small detail for her enjoyment.
“Those grew along the line back quite a bit,” he said. “I’ve not seen any in months. I don’t think they grow out here.”
She folded the paper once more. “Of course they don’t,” she whispered. She stuffed the drawing into her pocket. “I’m sorry to have interrupted your work day.”
“Are you leaving, then?”
Her smile was clearly forced and not the least believable. “I plan to stop at the mercantile to inquire after the price of a dress length. I’m in need of a new dress. And the sewing of it will use up my free time nicely, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I suppose it will.” The air between them sat heavy, as though filled with a dense fog. She seemed somehow farther from him, though she stood just as close.
“Would you mind taking the horse back to the Houstons when you’re done out here?” Shannon asked.
“You mean to walk? Tis a great distance.”
But she shook her head. “It seems the longest journeys are most likely to show us things we hadn’t known to be true.”
“You anticipate some great discovery on the journey back to town?”
“Oh, Patrick.” She sighed his name. “That discovery has already been made, and it wasn’t a great one, I assure you of that.”
He could feel her disappointment in him. It showed in the slump of her shoulders and the downward turn of her lips. She’d seen what little he had to offer, just as he’d feared she would.
“I’m sorry, Shannon.” A quickly forming lump in his throat nearly cut off the words, but he managed them. “I am truly sorry.”
Chapter Five
With a bit of prodding, Mrs. Houston managed to pull from Shannon every depressing detail of her visit to Patrick’s homestead. Rather than commiserating or crying with her, Mrs.
Houston, who was generally quite jovial, grew noticeably angry.
“I swear to you, Shannon, there are times when I wonder how it is that men are so infernally thickheaded.” Mrs. Houston threw her hands up in exasperation. “I had a feeling this would happen. Your Patrick is a dear, dear man, but he’s not always terribly bright.”
Something about the declaration brought a shaky smile to Shannon’s face. “I’ve been trying to make sense of it. If he no longer wanted me for his bride, he ought not to have sent for me, rather than bringing me here only to tell me he wished he hadn’t.”
Mrs. Houston’s eyes narrowed. “Are you certain that is what he said— that he wished you hadn’t come?”
“That was more or less what it was. He said he didn’t want me there in his house, that if he’d known how things would turn out, he wouldn’t have sent for me when he did.”
“Ah.” Mrs. Houston, it seemed, had had a revelation. “When he did. There’s significance in that, I’m certain of it.”
“Then I wish you would explain it to me, because I can neither make heads nor tails of that man’s thinking lately. When I first arrived, he held me so tenderly, as though he’d never let me go.” Heat stole across her face at the memory then fled as the rest of the visit returned to her mind. “But not five minutes later, he was telling me how his house was no place for me, and his land didn’t have the flowers I was looking for, and how he didn’t want me there.”
Mrs. Houston sat on the edge of Shannon’s bed, patting the quilt in invitation. Shannon sat beside her, her energy too far spent to do anything else. “I have a theory about your suddenly feather-headed Patrick, if you would care to hear it.”
“I would appreciate it, actually.”
“Men, though we love them dearly, are rather stupid about these things.” Mrs. Houston patted her hand in a maternal show of empathy. “I’ve known Patrick for a few weeks now, and I can’t say I’ve seen him fret over many things, save one. You.”
“Me?”
“He has missed you fiercely, though I know he hasn’t done a very good job of showing you that. And he has more than once worried aloud that he has very little to offer you.” Mrs. Houston’s mothering instinct seemed to extend to Patrick as well, though she couldn’t have been more than ten years his senior. “When he asked after the position of nanny on your behalf, he did so in a way that, at the time, seemed odd. I think I understand it better now.”