A Stockingful of Joy (33 page)

With a joyous little cry she was in his arms. And they lost track of anything except each other until Zach stumbled sleepily out of the alcove, came to a halt, and stared at Morgan.

"Thought you were leavin'," he said. "An' why are you kissing Aunt Faith?"

"Sit down, Zach," Morgan said with a grin. "We've got some talking to do. I need you to help me name my stallion. And how do you feel about raising horses?"

It was much later, cuddled on Morgan's lap as they sat before the Christmas tree, that Faith sleepily asked, "Do you think Zachary will ever be happy again?"

"He will. It will just take time. But he's got you—us—to love him. He'll be all right."

"Someday," she said, snuggling closer, "we'll tell him."

"Yes," he said. "Someday we'll tell him."

In unison they turned to look. Hope's lamp sat in the window, its light only a small, circular glow now. Yes, Faith thought, someday they would tell him about the light. When he was ready to believe in Christmas miracles again.

For now, it was enough that they believed.

by JILL BARNETT

For those readers who wanted an older heroine.

Thanks for the idea and

Happy Holidays.

«
^
»

Conn Donoughue had a right hook as strong as a pint of Irish porter. For ten years he'd lived by his fists, fighting opponents who—when they would wake up—claimed his shoulders looked as wide as two grand pianos. And his fists? They swore they never saw them coming.

When he'd first stepped into the ring, no one knew who Connaicht Tobias Donoughue was. Until he fought. Then no one forgot the man they called the Irish Giant.

By age twelve, Conn had already grown over six feet and could rest an elbow on his grandmother's head while she looked up at him, as if he weren't almost twice her size. She would shake one gnarled finger somewhere below his square chin and lecture him about the three
H's
: Heaven, Hell, and Hard Work. He grew even taller over the next few years, thriving on stories of his grandparents' flight from Ireland to America, where there was opportunity for a new life.

His grandmother died in '83, and Conn had no family left. He had worked at a carriage factory for fourteen hours a day since he was ten years old. At first he had been a water boy, carrying buckets of water to cool the hot iron of the wheel rims.

Eight years later, he was earning five dollars a week running the huge grinding machine that turned out carriage rods. He wasn't afraid of hard work. He never was late or missed a day's work.

Two months after he had buried his grandmother, the factory changed owners. The new owner fired every Irishman employed there and refused to pay their week's wages. The next day the workers gathered at the factory to demand payment.

And it was that day that changed his life—for Conn's first fight was with a hired hoodlum who blocked the entrance to Tanniman's Carriage Company. He won the match and payment of the back wages.

His second fight was two nights later in Brooklyn, where he fought a local boxer in a roped-off gravel lot behind O'Malley's Tavern. He won ten dollars. His third bout was in a cow pasture outside Hoboken. Word had spread from tavern to tavern about this new fighter. There was a crowd of three hundred. And Conn had a new line of work.

Over the next ten years, the Irish Giant grew to be a legend in the boxing ring. He had lost count of the number of fights he'd fought. The number didn't matter. But there was one thing he didn't lose.

Connaicht Tobias Donoughue never lost a fight.

Giant Gymnasium sat in the belly of New York. Housed inside a three-story
brick building with black iron fire escapes that zigzagged like fencing scars
down the east wall, the gym was wedged between Pasterini's Custom Bootery and the Havana Cigar Company. Pasterini's had a singular boot-shaped canvas awning dyed the colors of the Italian flag. A porcelain flange sign in the shape of a cigar band was bolted above the heavy doors of the cigar shop, where a slogan painted in gold on the glass windows claimed Havana's sold the finest stogies in the States.

The narrow street had a mishmash of merchants and shops, most with living quarters and multiple flats abovestairs. No building was the same height or style. Each had personality, unique and diversified, like those who lived and worked there.

In deference to the Christmas season, Pasterini's front window had a crèche made of real alligator displayed inside a brown patent leather manger. The cigar shop was more traditionally festive. Boxes of imported hand-wrapped cigars and exotic tobaccos with names like Oasis Flame and Spanish Spice were displayed in shiny red tin boxes painted with women's profiles and tucked inside carved ebony humidors that had sterling silver lids.

The German-owned butcher shop displayed a Christmas tree of goose feathers dyed in patriotic red and blue and natural white with ornaments of stars and stripes. Instead of an angel, a pasteboard likeness of Uncle Sam topped the tree. A wide strip of ribbon that looked like the sateen banner worn by the winner of the Miss Brooklyn Bridge contest angled across the tree and boasted beer-fed beef, plump fresh chickens, and the best of traditional Christmas geese.

Those newfangled electric light and telephone lines strung around the neighborhood twined together like Barnum's trapeze nets over the old cast iron street poles. Someone had made an effort to celebrate the season and had tied red and green shimmery ribbons on the street poles the day after Thanksgiving. Now, a few days later and after last night's sloppy hail and rain, the soaked ribbons pooled at the bottom of the street lamps waiting for the street sweeper's broom.

There was no Christmas garland on the entrance to the gymnasium. No holly branch or evergreen wreath. Just a big old pine plank door with three cracks—one from when Murray Ryan took a swing at Otto Rhinehold and missed. The other two were from the whiskey bottles Duncan Fogarty's old lady heaved at him when he forgot to come home for a week.

The stoop was dark and dank, with cement steps and a rusty iron railing that was bent from where an ice wagon spilled its load.
Inside was better. A wide lobby with a built-in desk met the sportsmen who entered. Behind the leather-topped counter was a wall of numbered mail cubbies lined with worn green felt and stuffed with white notes and envelopes for the gymnasium members.

Just to the left stood a set of swinging doors painted a washed-out green. The doors had brass hand plates screwed into the wood and oval frosted windows the size of a boxing glove. The constant dull, but rapid thud of fists punching a sparring bag came from behind the doors. There was a round of male laughter, the heavy bounce of a medicine ball, and a distant tooth-ringing sound of fencers parrying their foils.

Behind those doors it was a man's paradise.

The gymnasium air was heavy and warm; the room smelled of camphor wax and cigar smoke… of men, sweat, and the primitive need to beat the hell of out of something.

Another round of bawdy laughter came from a smoky corner where three men stood around a desk as big as a wagon. Propped atop the battered desktop was a pair of size eighteen feet, crossed casually and shod in a pair of Tony Pasterini's calfskin boxing boots.

Conn Donoughue stretched back in his oversize leather chair with wooden rollers on the bottom that looked like clenched fists. He rested his arm behind his head and blew ten consecutive smoke rings from one puff of a five-cent cigar. After a moment he straightened, planted those huge feet on the wooden floor, and clamped his white teeth down on the stogie.

He stared at the three men opposite him for a long moment. His face broke into a cocky grin, the smoldering cigar still clamped in his back teeth and sticking out of the side of his mouth. "I win."

A slew of curses filled the air: Italian, Spanish, and fractured English mixed with one voice of German dialect. Within seconds one twenty-dollar gold piece, an ornate silver belt buckle, and a large mahogany box of imported cigars plunked down on Conn's massive desk.

Cuba Santana, owner of the cigar shop, stared up at the dissipating smoke rings that floated toward the high ceiling. He shook his head along with one raised fist. "Santa Maria! I thought no one could blow ten rings!"

"They said no one could knock out the Bronx Bruiser, but Conn, here, did it in two rounds." Tony Pasterini picked up the expensive belt buckle he'd lost, swiped it down his wool vest to polish it, and with a look of regret tossed it back on the desk.

Pete Hassloff turned toward Cuba and shrugged. "Das ist Conn's dammit Irish luck, by golly."

Originally from Hamburg, Pete was the neighborhood butcher. His dream had been to come to America, and now that he was here, he butchered the meat and the language.

All were friends, but Conn had known Tony the longest. Ever since that fight behind O'Malley's Tavern. And even after all those years, Tony was still his closest friend.

Conn tucked the gold piece and buckle into a black safe with gilded curlicues on the door, then rolled his chair back to the desk and snapped open the polished cigar box. He took out a cigar with an impressive black band embossed with gold. He drew the stogie across his upper lip, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. "Ah… These are some fine cigars, Santana."

"They oughta be. They cost a fortune."

Conn opened his eyes and looked at Cuba. "But not to you, my friend. What's your markup on these babies?"

"Three hundred percent," Tony said in a wry tone.

Santana rubbed his chin, then absently tugged on the corner of his handlebar mustache. "I don't charge three hundred percent."

Tony gave a snort of disbelief.

"At Christmas I always hike 'em up five hundred percent." Santana's dark face broke into a sly grin. That grin turned into a laugh, and the curly tips of his mustache shimmied despite the thick coats of wax that made the hair look like curled tar.

Pete clucked his tongue and gave Santana a disapproving look. "Das ist hard for you to see your head vhen ist daytime."

Conn looked at Tony, whose frowning face looked as confused as he was.

"Face myself in the morning," Santana explained. For some reason Cuba could understand Pete no matter how convoluted his phrases were.

"Ya." Pete nodded, waving a hand. "Das ist vhat I said."

The swinging doors blasted open and slammed against the gym walls. Lenny the towel boy came rushing inside. He raced over to the desk and gave Conn a panicked look. "We've got trouble, boss."

"What kind of trouble?"

Lenny glanced at the doors. "She's here again."

The gym grew suddenly quiet. Fencing partners stilled, their foils held in midair and their meshed masks suddenly cocked back. Punching bags quieted, and the medicine balls no longer bounced on the wooden floor. Iron weights and wooden dumbbells rattled onto the storage racks, and an Indian club smacked a trainer in the head. The boxers had frozen in the rings and stared at the door with horror. It was almost as if they expected to see a Republican walk in.

Conn looked away and groaned. He stared at the desk for a second, then snatched up the cigar box. He stood. "Here you go, boys! Light 'em up! Quick!"

Within seconds the men were tossing around matchboxes and expensive stogies instead of Indian clubs and exercise balls. The air swelled with a chalky shroud of sulfur and cigar smoke. Moments later the room looked as if a volcano had erupted in it.

The green doors swung open with a sharp rattle. Small heels moved across the wooden floor—click, click, click—like Kaiser Wilhelm's soldiers.

And there she was. Conn's landlady.

«
^
»

Eleanor Rose Austen stopped when she was inside the center of the gymnasium and waved away the clouds of stinking cigar smoke. It proved to be a futile exercise. Rather like trying to put out a fire with an eye dropper. She fiddled with the button on one kidskin glove and scanned the room.

The men looked like smoky shadows—ghosts on a misty moorland. She blinked back the teary sting of smoke, then slowly scanned the room again, her hands now planted on her hips in a determined manner.

She didn't care about the ghost shadows. She was looking for a giant.

One huge shadow stood in silhouette near the far north corner of the room. A cloud of smoke puffed upward in a mad rush from a bright glowing red dot. It was one of those vile cigars that—she looked around her—all the men in the room smoked.

She cocked her chin at a brave angle, raised her index finger high in the air, and marched through the fog toward that huge shadow. "Yoo-hoo… Mr. Donoughue!"

The huge shadow ducked.

"I see you!"

The shadow ducked even lower.

As if a man the size of the Manhattan Life Building could hide from her.
Really
.

The smoke had grown thicker the closer she got to him. She kept walking.

A moment later she poked her index finger into Conn Donoughue's mountain of a chest. A big mistake; it was a bare and hairy chest.

She froze. In all this smoke, the man could easily be naked. Good grief… All the men could be naked.

Eleanor stood still as a stone, masking her reaction and trying not to do something emotional and silly, like turn and run… or even more foolish—take a closer look. The air began to clear a bit. Her line of vision was level with her finger, which was buried in a thick patch of curly red chest hair.

Now what?

Don't look down. A little voice inside her head kept chanting away. Don't look down, Eleanor. Don't you do it!

But she had always had a small problem with doing what she was told. Her gaze just dropped ail on its own.

A few seconds later she looked up. "You're wearing athletic shorts."

"Abercombie and Fitch."

"Mr. Donoughue—"

"You sound disappointed. I can take them off if you want, sweetheart."

She choked on a breath of air or smoke, or on his words. It took her a second to stop coughing. She could hear some of the men behind her laughing quietly. She inhaled slowly and looked up—way up into Conn Donoughue's grinning face.