Longing for Home (10 page)

“I went to Thomas O’Connor’s place,” he said. “They hadn’t seen you.”

She offered no explanation but continued watching him with wide, uncertain eyes. How could she possibly be afraid of a man who’d dragged himself out into a storm simply to save her from her own foolishness?

He felt a tug on his wet coat and looked down to find little Mary O’Connor.

“Did you bring Ivy to play with me?” she asked.

“Not this time. She’s at home with her sister.” He patted her lightly on the head. Little Mary took her disappointment in stride and stepped back away again.

Joseph turned his attention back to the issue at hand: Katie Macauley and her harebrained ideas. “I really ought to be at home with the girls, myself, instead of riding out in the rain looking for a woman who hasn’t the sense to stay put in weather like this.”

He spoke more sharply than he’d intended. But he was cold and frustrated, and his patience had worn thin during the ride through the rain. Still, he wouldn’t take back the accusing words. She’d brought him no end of trouble in that single evening.

“The sense to stay put?” She actually looked confused. “That’s a fine thing coming from the man who tossed me out in ‘weather like this.’ I’d not have gone wandering around in rain and lightning and mud if you’d not dismissed me.”

Her loss of position was his fault now? “I would not have dismissed you if you hadn’t lied about being qualified for the job.”

“I didn’t lie about it. I only didn’t realize everything you required.”

He would not be blamed. “I was quite specific in my telegrams.”

Biddy shooed the children, Finbarr with them, up the ladder to the loft. Joseph would have to apologize later for bringing this argument into their home.

“As I said before,” Katie’s tone had cooled some but not entirely, “I missed the bit about your daughters, and I’m sorry for that.”

Missed it? That same foundationless excuse. “How could you possibly miss it? Did you even read my correspondence?” He was beginning to seriously doubt it. She’d been surprised by far too many things. How had he managed to hire someone with so little sense of responsibility? Rushing into rainstorms. Accepting a job without reading the requirements.

Katie’s cheeks suddenly reddened, though she held herself at that defiant angle he’d seen again and again in the short time he’d known her. “The telegrams were read to me, sir.” She took an audible and visible breath. “I don’t know how to read.” Her blush deepened.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. A knot formed in Joseph’s stomach. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her, but it had never occurred to him she couldn’t read. She’d sent responses, answered specific questions.

“It seems whoever read you the telegrams did an unfortunate job of editing them.”

“So it would seem.” She held her chin high. Katie was as prickly as a hedgehog. “I have to depend on others, and that doesn’t always turn out well. At times I get lied to. And sometimes I get thrown out in the rain for not being what people want me to be.”

He stepped closer to her, shaking his head at her continued misunderstanding. “I didn’t throw you out in the rain.”

“You think I threw myself out, then?”

He held his hands up in confusion. “I have no idea why you left.”

“You made quite clear that I was to take myself to the O’Connors and beg for their kindness. ‘Fifth house down the road,’ you said. ‘’Tis three miles or so,’ you said. What was I to take from that except that you meant me to leave?”

He shook his head repeatedly, nearly at his wits’ end with her. “I simply wanted you to know there was someplace you could go in the morning, when the weather had cleared. I know Thomas O’Connor and his wife well enough to be certain they would give you some idea of what you might do next.”

He was a reasonable person, not the coldhearted villain she thought him. And, so help him, he’d been more patient with her than most people would have been.

“Then you didn’t mean I had to leave right then?” She clearly still doubted it, though he hoped she was coming around a little.

“I can be demanding at times, but I’m not heartless.”

Her unflattering evaluation of him stung more than he expected it to. Why should her opinion of him matter so much? He told himself to shake it off and see to the problem efficiently. He looked over at Ian.

“Do you have room for Miss Macauley here tonight?” She could come back home with him if her presence would burden Ian and his family, but he couldn’t help thinking the night would pass more peacefully without her.

Ian nodded. ’Twas Biddy, however, who spoke.

“Tavish and Finbarr can sleep in the barn if they don’t wish to brave the weather. We’ve room and food enough for a guest for the night.” She held out to him a heavy wool blanket. “Wrap this around you for the ride back. ’Twill keep you a bit drier, at least.”

He stood on the spot, undecided. He had brought Katie to Hope Springs. Her current predicament, though not precisely his fault, was more his responsibility than it was Ian and Biddy’s. Joseph was not one to shirk his duties.

“Your girls’ll be wondering what’s keeping you,” Biddy said. “They’re a bit young to be left on their own for long.”

They certainly were, and he’d been gone longer than he’d anticipated. He nodded to Biddy and turned back toward the door. A thought stopped him before he stepped out.

He looked over his shoulder at Katie. “Your violin is still in your—in the housekeeper’s room at my house.”

“I didn’t want it to be ruined by the rain,” Katie explained.

He nodded. “I’ll leave it there. You can pick it up whenever you’re able to.”

Cool, wet air rushed inside as he opened the door. The weather, it seemed, hadn’t improved. It would be a long ride home.

“Biddy, would you mind if the girls continue coming here during the day? I know you hadn’t planned on it, but . . .” His eyes shifted to Katie but didn’t stay there. No point placing blame for the mess he was in. He simply needed to address it and move on. “But circumstances aren’t as favorable as I had anticipated.”

“Of course, Joseph,” Biddy answered. “We’ll help in any way we can.”

“Thank you.”

“I am sorry this didn’t work out, Mr. Archer,” Katie said.

The door slowly swung closed behind him. “So am I,” he said quietly.

He
was
sorry and not only because he was once again without a housekeeper. His disappointment ran deeper than he would have thought. Katie Macauley was a handful and a stubborn, easily offended woman, but he’d found her fire intriguing and, in a way, promising. Wyoming was a difficult place to live. Many couldn’t survive such a harsh and trying life. He’d wondered what chance he had of keeping any Eastern woman there long but couldn’t think of a better place to find a skilled housekeeper than his home city.

Katie was stubborn enough to make a real go of it, but he couldn’t keep her on if she wasn’t able to take care of the girls. He was back where he’d started.

“I am sorry too,” he muttered again. “More sorry than you probably know.”

Katie couldn’t make sense of the past few minutes. What employer went haring off after a servant he’d fired? Fired
twice.

“Well now, Sweet Katie, this is a first.” Tavish stood at the mantle, near enough to be easily heard. “I can’t say I’ve ever known Joseph Archer to chase after anyone in a rainstorm.”

Katie wrapped her arms around her middle. “It is odd, is it not?”

“Very odd.” Tavish didn’t look away from the door Joseph Archer had walked out. His eyes narrowed, mouth twisted a bit.

“Should I be worried? Do you think he’ll hold it against me?”

That pulled his eyes back to her. “No. I’m only worried about Ian.”

“Ian?”

Tavish shook his head and sighed. “Poor man drove the Archer girls home in the rain, and no one came running after him. He must feel mighty neglected. He’ll likely cry himself to sleep tonight.”

“You’re teasing again?” Katie had very little experience with someone who joked about everything.

Amusement shown in his eyes. “Would I tease about something so vital as my own brother weeping into his pillow?”

“I’ve a feeling you would and have.” She eyed him knowingly.

“Do you consider that a character failing?”

Katie didn’t know what to think of him. She didn’t entirely trust him. How could she when she couldn’t take seriously anything he said or did?

“I guess I know by the look on your face just what you think of me.” For the first time since he’d met her, Tavish actually looked a bit offended. “You mean to present me a challenge, do you?” He stood straighter, shifting away from the mantle and closer to her. “I accept.”

“I’d rather you just leave me alone.”

A little voice called down from the loft above. “Have Mr. Archer and the gypsy lady finished their arguing, Ma, or do we need to stay up here longer?”

Ian and Biddy burst out laughing. Tavish was still looking at Katie. Had she actually offended him? Or did he think of her exactly as he’d said, as a challenge?

Katie pulled the blanket more tightly around herself as she sat once more in the seat she’d occupied before Mr. Archer’s arrival. She refused to look up at Tavish. Did he truly mean to try and force her to like him, to trust him? She couldn’t be the least comfortable with that idea.

Mr. Archer’s visit had upended her too. Though he’d remained calm, she knew he was angry. She’d endured enough beatings, both physical and verbal, to know they always began with anger. Mr. Archer seemed a calm enough person. If she kept out of his way for as long as she remained in town, she might not find herself in trouble.

“I hope I don’t sound as though I’m becoming too familiar,” Biddy said, crossing to Katie’s chair. “But I noticed Tavish and Joseph both called you Katie.”

“I rather begged Mr. Archer to call me Katie after hearing how terribly he butchered my name.”

“Saints above.” Biddy looked tempted to cross herself. “The one time he took a stab at saying Macauley just now, I near died at how horrible it was.”

“He’d apparently been saying it wrong to himself since my first telegram. He didn’t even realize the name was Irish until I started talking.”

Biddy laughed. Katie very nearly smiled herself.

“Joseph’s pronunciation aside, do you prefer Miss Macauley or is Katie more to your liking?”

That was hardly a question worth asking. “Katie, to be sure. I’ve never been important enough to be called anything so formal as Miss Anything.”

Biddy watched her a moment. Katie couldn’t say just what Biddy was thinking, only that she was most definitely thinking.

“You’re most welcome to sit with us at the table, Katie. But if you’d prefer sitting here where it’s warmer, we’d not begrudge you that after the soaking you’ve had.”

Katie only nodded. She would, indeed, prefer staying where she was, though not entirely on account of the warmth. She meant to keep a distance. From Tavish. From Joseph Archer. From everyone, just as she always had.

Chapter Nine

Katie had her own clothes on once more and those things she’d borrowed neatly folded by the time the O’Connors were up and about the next morning. She’d never been one for lying abed when there was a difficulty needing attending.

The family’s routine was flawless. Each had a job and did it. Katie had thought she could find a way to help, but there seemed no need for her.

If she’d learned anything in life, ’twas that no one wanted a person hanging about who served no purpose. She took up her woolen shawl, dry after a night spent laid out near the low-burning fire, and wrapped it around her shoulders once more. Carpetbag in hand, she slipped out the front door, careful not to disrupt the family’s work.

Tavish had told her the afternoon before that everyone in Hope Springs knew Joseph Archer. If everyone knew him, it stood to reason he knew everyone else. She didn’t relish the idea of asking the same man who’d twice fired her if he knew of other jobs she might go seeking. Doing so, however, seemed her only course of action.

There was a saying she’d heard again and again in Ireland. “’Tis the humblest among us who can least afford to be proud.”