Longing for Home (9 page)

“Trying to make her smile was all I was hoping for.”

“And you setting the table was all
I
was hoping for,” Mrs. O’Connor replied. “Set yourself to it while I find Miss Macauley a dress of mine.”

“I couldn’t take one of your dresses, Mrs. O’Connor.” Katie’s wish to keep in the corner was evaporating like water on a summer’s day.

“I’m not making you a present of it. I’ll be wanting it back just as soon as your own clothes are fit for wearing again.” She stepped nearer a curtain hanging in a doorway. “Come on, then. Let’s find you something dry.”

Katie might have objected again but remembered Tavish’s warning in the barn. The O’Connors would insist on helping her, would work at getting her to accept their help. She’d be less of a burden if she accepted gracefully. Katie resigned herself to it.

They stepped past the curtain into a small bedroom. The bed took up nearly the entire space, save a trunk at the foot and a small table. Mrs. O’Connor opened the trunk and pulled out a neatly folded dress in a shade of very light blue and a pair of homespun woolen stockings.

“You’re not quite my height,” she said, “but I think this’ll fit well enough.”

Katie accepted the bundle. “It’s thankful I am for your kindness, Mrs. O’Connor. I fear I’ve nothing to offer in return beyond an eagerness to do whatever work you might have for me.”

Mrs. O’Connor’s eyes brightened as she smiled. “Promise to call me Biddy, and I’ll consider us quite even.”

’Twasn’t remotely a fair trade, but Katie nodded her agreement.

“Bring your clothes with you when you’ve changed, and we’ll lay it all out by the fire to dry.”

“Thank you, Biddy.”

A moment later, she was alone. What a day. Handed off to strangers, let go from a job twice, drenched, cold, and embarrassed into a blush by a man she felt certain she’d do best to dislike. She’d expected Wyoming to hold the answer to all her difficulties, not simply create an entirely new set of worries.

Katie changed quickly. She shivered more with every layer that came off. How she wished she yet had the quilt. She made quite an effort at rubbing the water from her skin, though doing so only added to the puddle she left on the floor. She hoped Biddy O’Connor didn’t prove too stubborn to allow her to clean the mess.

Truth be told, Katie fully intended to offer to do any chores the family might need done. Tavish insisted the family would not begrudge her the kindness she needed, but she hadn’t experience with such charity.

During those horrible weeks between their eviction and Katie being given away in Derry, she and her family pleaded everywhere possible for shelter from the weather or a crust of bread. She would never fully forget one man she’d asked help of. He’d told her God took care of good girls. If she were starving and cold, it meant heaven was punishing her.

Katie had stood on his porch for what felt like hours, weeping. Her sister had been dead only three days, the guilt and grief of that loss still painfully fresh. What right had she to go begging kindness of others after doing such a terrible thing? That argument rang in her head even eighteen years later.

What right have you to be asking charity of these people?

“Is the dress too long for you?” Biddy sounded as though she stood just on the other side of the curtain.

“Only a bit.” Katie closed her eyes tightly, doing her utmost to push away the memories. She’d find a way to repay their kindness, and then she needn’t be indebted to any of them. “I’ll be but a moment more.”

She heard Biddy’s footsteps retreat. Katie sat on the chest. Without looking at her feet, she peeled off her sodden stockings. Over the years, she’d developed quite a knack for changing her shoes and stockings without so much as glancing at her feet. She didn’t need to look to know what she’d see. The skin would still be melted in twirling, twisted scars. She’d still be missing her smallest four toes and pieces of most of the others. ’Twas the only scar from those horrible months that wasn’t tucked safely away inside.

She stood up. Best not keep the family waiting on her. She quickly finger-combed her wet hair. Her hairpins had all fallen out somewhere between Mr. Archer’s house and the O’Connors’. There was no helping the state of things.

Katie pulled back the curtain and stepped out of the small bedroom. The O’Connors’ two children were yet in the room, though they did little more than glance at her as she stepped out. In eighteen years Katie had seldom encountered children, perhaps only from across a room she was cleaning or playing in a park she passed when out walking. Between the Garrisons’ wagon, the Archers’ kitchen, and there in the O’Connors’ home, she felt absolutely surrounded by them.

“There now. That doesn’t fit too poorly,” Biddy said, drawing Katie’s attention to her.

Katie shook her head. “Not poorly at all.” She was, in fact, rather grateful the dress was a touch too long. Her stockinged feet remained tucked out of sight. “I thank you for the stockings. They are quite warm, and my feet were mighty cold.”

Biddy smiled at her husband. “Does she not sound so very much like home, dearest?”

“Aye, that she does.” Ian tipped the newly repaired chair upright once more. “Joseph Archer caught Ireland in her voice within three words or so. I wondered if he’d send her off for it.” Ian looked at her once more. “He didn’t, did he?”

The reminder of her very short-lived employment didn’t sit easily on Katie’s mind. Being let go for no failing of one’s own was not near so humiliating as being turned out for falling short of the expected mark. Still, she couldn’t let this Irish family think a man who employed one of their own would do such a thing.

“He didn’t send me off on account of my being Irish. I couldn’t do all the work he needed me to do. So he felt there was little point keeping me on.”

Tavish glanced her way a few times as he set glasses and plates out on the rough-hewn table. Ian’s curiosity was no less obvious.

“So he sent you out into this rainstorm?” Ian asked. “That doesn’t sound at all like Joseph.”

Katie eyed the toe of her woolen socks, only to be struck by how little the stockings hid her misshapen feet. One could easily tell she hadn’t all her toes and that those remaining didn’t conform to their proper lengths. She shifted enough to hide them behind the overly long dress she wore.

“Let’s lay out your things by the fire,” Biddy said. “They’ll dry much faster that way.”

Katie nodded without looking at anyone and followed her. Biddy pulled a long bench up near the hearth and together they laid her clothes out a piece at a time. The room remained silent except for the sound of little Mary playing with her wooden horse. Were they all yet wondering over Katie’s disastrously short time as Mr. Archer’s housekeeper? She must have seemed remarkably pathetic to them.

“Let me pull this chair close to the fire as well,” Biddy said. “You can sit there and warm up.”

Katie shook her head. “The chair’ll be fine where it is.”

“Are you sure? Your hair is still wet, and you’re shivering a wee bit. Closer to the fire is better.”

Katie clenched and unclenched her hands, trying to work out even a tiny bit of the tension paining her in that moment. Closer to a fire was never better. Not ever. “If I might use the quilt Tavish pulled out earlier, I think I’d be quite comfortable.”

“Of course. Of course.”

Katie settled in, tucking her feet back as far they would go. The men returned to their work. Biddy checked on the simmering pot. Just as Katie began to feel the teeniest bit at ease, little Mary O’Connor, hand-carved horse in hand, came and stood in front of her.

Katie maintained what distance she could. She’d avoided children so long she didn’t even really know what to do with one.

“Why were you in our barn?” Mary asked. “Are you a gypsy?”

A gypsy? What a conclusion to come to. Katie had assumed they’d all decide she was a criminal or a beggar. A gypsy!

“I do believe you’re almost smiling.” She knew Tavish’s voice but hadn’t realized he’d come over.

She didn’t look up at him. The man made her insides jump about, a sensation she couldn’t exactly call pleasant. “Gypsies don’t smile,” she told him.

“And even a wee joke there at the end. Impressive, Sweet Katie.”

“Is she a gypsy, Uncle Tavish?” Mary looked quite intent on the answer.

Tavish’s smile grew when he looked at his niece. “That is one of many things I intend to discover about the mysterious Miss Macauley.”

“Are gypsies mysterious?” Mary spoke in an awed whisper.

He offered an exaggerated nod. He was so at ease with the little girl. Was that something a person learned, or was one simply born that way? Or was this more of Tavish’s natural inclination to flirt?

Mary scampered off. Tavish kept where he was. He sat on the edge of the bench, his back to the fireplace, facing her. She kept herself pulled in under the quilt, remembering all too well the way she’d shivered at his touch. ’Twas not a safe thing to feel from a man she wasn’t sure she could trust.

“So Archer truly let you go?”

“Aye, he did. A bit of bad luck, that.”

He responded to her casual tone with a look of doubt. “Good show, Sweet Katie, but I’m convinced you’re not so calm as you pretend to be.”

“That only proves how little you know about me.” Katie tipped her chin at the confident angle she’d perfected long ago. “I have learned well how to survive just this kind of difficulty these past eighteen years.”

Tavish’s brow creased, his head tipping the tiniest bit to one side. “You’ll not be convincing me you’re only eighteen years old.”

“Are you calling me old, Tavish?” She speared him with a look.

He held up his hands in a show of innocence. “I said nothing of the sort.”

“I am twenty-six. I can take perfectly good care of myself, thank you very much. So you can just wrap your mind around leaving me be.”

“Twenty-six, are you?” No response to her declaration of sovereignty? “That’s a perfect age.”

She felt a tiny skip in her heart but firmly ignored it. “Perfect for what?”

“For you, Sweet Katie. The age suits you. Or it would, at least, if you didn’t wear such a sour expression all the time.”

Her hackles rose again. Why did he insist on needling her so mercilessly? “I only wear a sour expression when unpleasant people force their company on me. What say you to that?”

His answering smile was not the laughing, jesting one she’d seen so often that day. It was only half a smile, more in his eyes than on his mouth.

A twisting warmth started deep inside her at that expression. Katie looked away on the instant. She didn’t at all like the effect he had on her.

“Tavish O’Connor, why is it you’ll jaw the ear off any woman in your path?” Biddy stood not far distant, hands on her hips, eyeing her brother-in-law with a scolding look. “She’s only just got herself warmed up the tiniest bit. Let the poor thing be, would you?”

“I am a horrible person, Biddy. Horrible.” Tavish used a tone so humbly repentant not a soul would have believed it sincere.

A knock echoed around them.

“Michael,” Biddy said to her son, “set your book down and go see who’s at the door.”

The boy could read. In all her years in Ireland, she’d not known a single lad from a humble family who could read even his own name. This America might not have warmly welcomed the Irish who’d come by the millions, but life had certainly changed for them there. Food, work, and learning. Such things were little more than dreams in Ireland.

Katie pulled the thick quilt closer around her. She was in out of the elements but didn’t feel safe yet. Tavish disturbed her peace nearly as much as her uncertain future did.

She had survived crises before. She’d seen herself through the worst of difficulties. Surely she could handle this latest disaster. Surely she could.

Michael opened the door. There, the rain falling behind him, wind whipping in through the open door, stood Joseph Archer, wet to the bone.

He stepped inside, eyes falling directly on Katie. “You are a difficult person to find in a rainstorm.”

Chapter Eight

Joseph’s first reaction upon seeing Katie safe and whole was bone-deep relief. He had alternately pictured her wandering lost through the surrounding fields and floating face down in the dark river. Her hair hung in wet strings all around her face, and he was almost certain the ill-fitting dress she wore was not the one she’d had on at his home earlier.

Yet there she stood, not a hint of relief nor gratitude on her face for his having searched her out in this weather. If anything, she looked almost terrified.

“Come in out of the rain, Joseph.” Biddy motioned him inside.

“Enter at your own peril.” Tavish watched him closely, as if he suspected him of something underhanded. “The last person who came inside dripping like that was given a dress to change into. I don’t particularly want to see you in ruffles.”

That explained Katie’s change of clothing. His relief at finding her unharmed was quickly subsiding. The foolish woman had dashed off in the rain, in the dark, in a place she had never seen in her life. Was she completely mad?