Longing for Home (2 page)

Katie looked him dead in the eye. “Not even half an inch.”

She couldn’t say if he looked more intrigued or entertained. Either way, he didn’t seem the least discouraged. Katie had dealt with gnats who were less persistent.

“It seems I’m to have plenty of time to convince you. You’re headed to my town in my company.”

He knew she’d be going along despite her uncertainty—she could see the triumph plain in his eyes. She wasn’t ready to label him a saint by any means, but giving him her name seemed reasonable.

“I am Katie Macauley.” She added, with emphasis, “And I don’t particularly like you.”

“A great pleasure to be making your acquaintance, Miss Macauley.” He tipped his hat. “And I’ll wager you’ll most particularly like me before too long.”

Katie kept her expression unimpressed and painfully neutral.

The infuriating man laughed. Their young audience laughed as well, pulling Tavish’s eyes in that direction.

“A fine day to you, Josephine and Henry,” he said.

“Hello, Mr. Tavish,” Josephine, the Garrisons’ ten-year-old daughter answered, a bit of a blush heating her freckled face. Handsome men did that to females of all ages.

“You know the Garrisons?” Katie couldn’t say if the revelation was comforting or shocking.

“Aye,” he answered. “I’ve passed through their town a time or two. You didn’t think they meant to send you off with two strange men, now did you?”

Katie’d had no reason not to think that. The Garrisons hadn’t known her three days earlier. They’d taken her up in their wagon as an act of charity, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t wash their hands of her at the first opportunity.

“Now,” he said, “might you tell me just what it is that has you headed for Hope Springs? ’Tis not a place most people have even heard of, let alone seek out.”

Before she could reply, a voice interrupted. “Tavish O’Connor, you right lazy bum, quit your jawin’ and let’s get on the road.”

The Garrison children laughed at that. Katie leaned around the wagon once more. ’Twas Tavish’s riding companion who had called out.

“Your boss?” she asked.

“My older brother,” Tavish answered, “which amounts to the same thing, really.”

“Your brother’s fair glaring you into an early grave.” Katie liked his brother. “Maybe you’d best return.”

Tavish didn’t so much as glance in his brother’s direction. “I still haven’t learned what it is that’s bringing you to Hope Springs. I hadn’t heard any of our Irish families had sent for anyone.”

“I’ve not been sent for.” She tipped her chin up a notch. “I’m to work as a housekeeper.”

“Ah.” Understanding dawned on his face, mixed with a bit of shock. “For Joseph Archer, no doubt.”

How had he pieced that together so quickly? She held her hand up once more to shade her eyes from the sun. “Do you know Mr. Archer?”

His smile grew ironic. “Everyone knows Joseph Archer. What’s more, they all know he’s missing a housekeeper this week or more.” Tavish motioned her in the direction of his waiting wagon. She followed, though more than a touch warily. “Ian! See who I’ve found.”

“She’d best be Queen Victoria herself for all the time you’ve spent bending her ear.”

“Better even than that,” Tavish said. “This here is Joseph Archer’s missing housekeeper.”

The oldest O’Connor’s mouth dropped open. “Oh aye, she isn’t.”

“As I live and breathe.”

The brothers spoke to each other but looked directly at Katie. With both turned fully facing her, she could see them quite well. The family resemblance was well nigh ridiculous. Little except their coloring differed between them. That didn’t bode well for her liking this Ian O’Connor. She didn’t like his brother at all.

“Now won’t that cause an uproar when we ride into town with her sitting up beside us,” Ian said, his expression growing more amused.

“Better than that, even. She’s an Irish lass, her brogue so wide and deep that I’m certain she’s only just been tossed off the boat. She likely tripped on a shamrock and landed on American soil.”

Ian finally looked at his younger brother. In perfect unison their musical laughter rang out. Laughing at her, were they? The Garrisons had been overwhelming, with children climbing about constantly, but at least they didn’t mock her.

The oldest Garrison girl took Katie’s fiddle case to the O’Connor wagon, her father close behind with Katie’s carpetbag. Tavish took both and set them in the wagon bed. Her acceptance of their hospitality was a foregone conclusion.

Mrs. Garrison had alighted as well. She squeezed Katie’s hands in a reassuring way. “We’ve known the O’Connor brothers for five years now. We would not have even suggested you ride with them if we didn’t completely trust them both.”

Her sincerity could not have been more apparent. Katie’s worries eased a small bit. A very small bit. “Thank you for bringing me this far. I know it was out of your way.”

Mrs. Garrison smiled in return. A moment later the family was all back in the wagon and, another moment after that, on their way once more.

“We’d best be off,” Tavish said.

She’d first begun wearing a long, thick, sinister hatpin while a scullery maid in the town of Derry. That pin resided in her bonnet even then. A fine weapon in a pinch.

“Give your seat over to the lass, will you?” Ian said.

“And just where do you mean to put me?” Tavish eyed his brother. “In the back with the crates?”

Ian looked entirely unrepentant. “Seems a good solution to me.”

Katie agreed. Tavish made her far more uncomfortable than did his kind-eyed brother. If Ian would stow Tavish as near to the back as could be arranged, she would be quite satisfied.

“Not a chance of it,” Tavish said. “I’ll drive, and you can stand up for the next two hours.”

Ian shook his head. “I’ll be driving, and don’t you doubt it.”

“What’ll your Biddy say, brother, if you come driving into town with a beautiful young lass up next to you? I think you’d best let me drive.”

Ian didn’t budge. “Tell me, Tavish, which is most likely to set gums flapping? A beautiful young lass arriving alongside the town’s most sought-after bachelor or sitting up next to a man everyone knows to be quite happily married?”

So Ian was a husband, was he? That improved Katie’s opinion of him. Tavish, however, was not, which didn’t help his cause in the least.

The brothers’ argument ended there. Tavish handed her up into the wagon. Katie snatched her hand back in the first possible moment.

He did not climb in with the crates and burlap sacks in the back. Instead, he sat directly beside her on the narrow bench.

She slipped her trusted hatpin from her bonnet as discreetly as she could manage and held it hidden within her clenched hands. She’d learned a thing or two about preparing for the worst in the eighteen years she’d had no one but herself to care what happened to her.

The wagon lumbered northward. Katie kept quiet and pulled herself in as small as she could. The bench wasn’t large, but so help her, she’d do her utmost to avoid actually touching either of her traveling companions.

Tavish waited only a minute or two before speaking again. “Would you care to make a wager, brother?”

Ian shot him a questioning look. “About what?”

“On just how long it’ll take after arriving in Hope Springs for Miss Katie Macauley here to start a war.”

Chapter Two

This Katie Macauley clearly thought he was exaggerating, but he knew full well her arrival would stir up trouble in town. Not only were single women thin on the ground in Wyoming but another Irish settler in Hope Springs would be greatly frowned on by those who didn’t hail from the Emerald Isle.

“Don’t take it to heart, Miss Macauley,” Ian said. “He’s stretching the truth a bit, as usual.”

Tavish shot his brother a look of pained betrayal he knew didn’t look at all sincere.

Katie set her gaze forward once more, pointedly not looking at either of them. A stubborn lass, he’d quickly discovered.

“I’ve not taken to heart a thing your brother’s said, I assure you,” she said firmly.

Ian chuckled, the traitor. “Took your measure right quick, she did.”

Tavish leaned a touch closer to her and nearly laughed out loud to see her clutching that nasty-looking hatpin tighter in her fist. Did the woman think he meant to toss her in the back of the wagon and ravish her right there and then?

“I’ll thank you to keep a proper distance, Mr. Tavish O’Connor.”

He managed to keep his grin tucked firmly away as he moved back a bit. “My apologies, Miss Katie.” The woman clearly had no idea how amusing her show of defiance was. She made quite a show of appearing as though he didn’t worry the very life out of her. “Seeing as I have but an inch to spare on this bench here, do you consider this a proper enough distance, or shall I get out and run alongside the wagon?”

She didn’t so much as glance at him. Did she mean to ignore him through the entire two-hour drive to Hope Springs? They’d just have to see about that.

“Do the world a favor, would you, Miss Macauley,” Ian said. “Belt him hard in the gob and see if you can’t shut his mouth for a while.”

Tavish’s attempts to keep his laughter in check proved entirely insufficient after that comment. He had a feeling Miss Katie Macauley could belt him a good one and would, too, if the need arose. He’d lived his entire life with a large family of feisty women; he wasn’t easily intimidated.

“You wouldn’t really knock my teeth out, now would you, Sweet Katie?”

“Sweet Katie?” She repeated the name he’d thought up for her as though it were a rotten potato.

He shrugged. “I think it suits you, despite the fine show you’re making of being all prickles and thorns.” Truth be told, he wasn’t sure if she was anything but prickles and thorns, but he was intrigued enough to find out.

“My prickles and thorns are no concern of yours. And I’ll thank you to call me Katie, plain Katie, as that be my name.”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think I could do that. The Katie part suits you, but you’re not the least bit plain.”

That was the truth, with no twists or turns to it. Her clothes were worn with heavy use and hardly of the latest fashion. Her overly serious expression might have discouraged some. But her eyes had pulled at him from that first moment behind the Garrisons’ wagon. A deeper, richer brown he’d never seen in any woman’s eyes. He had his suspicions that if she would only smile, the stubborn colleen would be stunning.

She adjusted herself to sit full forward once more. Here was a woman who could make a statement without a single word. She didn’t like him. Not in the least.

“He’s only teasing you,” Ian said.

“I don’t care for your brother’s teasing.”

“Then you’re the first.” Ian’s tone held not a note of brotherly loyalty.

“But likely not the last,” Katie muttered.

Ian laughed. “I like you, Katie Macauley. Maybe with you around, Tavish’s head’ll shrink back down to normal size.”

Leave it to a brother to take a woman’s side against his own kin.

“Don’t you listen to a single word falling out of his mouth, Sweet Katie. Ian isn’t the brightest of us all. ’Tis not his fault, I suppose. He was such an ugly baby, Ma was startled every time she picked him up, and she dropped him on his head a great deal.”

Ian grinned, just as Tavish knew he would. With five years between them, they’d grown up with just enough of an age difference not to be rivals but with few enough years between them to get on rather well.

Tavish kept an eye on their quiet passenger as the wagon rolled on. He felt certain she was listening, though she pretended to pay them no mind whatsoever. He turned the conversation to the townsfolk and saw with satisfaction that she glanced from one to the other of them covertly. She was curious about her destination, then. Not so indifferent as she pretended to be.

This Katie Macauley was a full mystery to him and an intriguing one at that. He’d never known any woman who so quickly and readily pushed him away. She wasn’t quite as cold to Ian. So was she wary of strangers in general, or was there something about him in particular that she didn’t like? These were questions a man needed answers to.

“You’re keeping right quiet, Miss Macauley,” Ian said after they’d talked for nearly the entire two hours. “Tell us of yourself. Have you any brothers and sisters?”

“I’ve three brothers,” she said in the tone of one who’d said all she meant to say.

Clearly Katie didn’t wish to discuss her family in greater detail. Bless him, Ian didn’t allow her to leave it at that curt response.

“And are they still in Ireland?”

She gave a quick shake of her head. “In Manchester.”

“And why is it you’re not in England, as well?”

Katie’s hands clenched so tight Tavish wondered if she’d managed to bend that vicious hatpin.

“Ours were different paths, I suppose.” She cast her eyes directly in front of them. “How close to those mountains is Hope Springs?”

Tavish shot his brother a surprised look. Katie had just executed an enormous and graceless change of topic. Apparently discussing her family was even more unwelcome than his earlier teasing. He easily interpreted the question in Ian’s eyes: should he move on and follow her lead?