Conor's Way (19 page)

A sound above her head startled Olivia out of
her reverie. She glanced up at the ceiling and heard the sound of
footsteps. The girls were up.

Olivia shook her head, chiding herself. She
didn't have time for idle daydreaming. She turned away and began to
set the table, forcing herself to concentrate on that rather than
the intriguing view out of her window.

Carrie was the first one down the stairs.
"Mornin', Mama," she said, and immediately caught sight of Conor
through the window. She ran to the counter and hoisted herself up,
her feet dangling in the air. "Mornin", Mr. Conor!"

"For heaven's sake, Carrie, don't shout,"
Olivia remonstrated. She watched as Conor laid down the ax and
walked to the window.

"Good morning,
mó cailín
," he said to
the child, and rested his forearms on the sill. "Why don't you come
out and help me stack this wood for your mother?"

Carrie glanced at Olivia over one shoulder.
"Can I, Mama?"

Olivia nodded, and Carrie slid down from the
counter. She raced out the back door, and within moments she and
Conor were stacking wood, side by side. Olivia watched them
together and again felt a pang of uncertainty. Perhaps she should
put a stop to things now and send Conor Branigan on his way.

When Becky came down with Miranda a few
minutes later, she sent them out to feed the chickens and bring in
the eggs, then she made a pan of corn bread, listening to the
conversation going on outside.

"...and Bobby McCann said I couldn't go
fishing with them 'cause I'm a girl." Carrie's voice rose
indignantly. "I don't know what that's got to do with it. I've
caught bigger fish than Bobby plenty of times."

"You know how to fish?" Conor asked.

"'Course I do. Nate taught me."

"Nate? Your mother's farmhand, wasn't
he?"

"He lived down by the creek, and we used to
go fishing all the time. But he died last summer."

Olivia heard her daughter's heavy sigh, and
she knew what was coming. She walked over to the window and
watched as Carrie hung her head.

"And now I don't have anybody to go fishing
with," she ended, so forlornly that Olivia felt a pang of guilt.
Second to climbing trees, fishing was the child's favorite pastime,
and there had been little time for Olivia to take her.

Conor knelt down to Carrie's eye level.
"We'll have to go sometime," he said.

Carrie's sad expression immediately vanished.
"Really? When? Can we go today?" Her voice rose eagerly with each
question.

"We'll ask your mother. She and your sisters
may want to come along."

"Becky and Miranda don't know how to
fish."

"Well, then I guess we'll have to teach them,
won't we? Besides, we're bound to get hungry, and I'll bet your
mother would bring along a fine picnic basket." His voice rose
slightly. "Maybe some of that fried chicken of hers, and that
blackberry pie she makes that's so good."

He looked over his shoulder at Olivia and
grinned, making it plain he knew she had been listening to every
word.

"I'll think on it," she called back, and
turned away from the window.

***

In offering to take Carrie and her sisters
fishing, Conor got more than he bargained for. Miranda couldn't
bear the thought of drowning those poor little worms, and refused
to fish until he had convinced her that they didn't feel a thing
and were very happy living inside of catfish. Becky couldn't seem
to keep her line from tangling in every tree in the vicinity or
getting it wrapped around every log and rock in the water. Carrie
just wanted his attention. Between the three of them, he was quite
busy.

Olivia sat on the grass in the shade, and she
couldn't help laughing as she watched him race back and forth along
the bank of Sugar Creek, moving from one girl to another, with
Chester constantly getting in the way. Just as he'd toss out his
own line and get comfortably settled, one of them would need help.
He baited their hooks, disentangled their lines, replaced their
lost sinkers; and he never got the chance to catch a single fish of
his own.

After about two hours of this, he called a
halt. He walked over to Olivia's side and sank down beside her,
leaving the girls to fend for themselves. But they didn't want to
continue fishing without him, and after pleading and cajoling
failed to move him, they wandered off, taking Chester with them,
giving Conor at least a few moments of peace and quiet.

"Bobby McCann must be a smart young lad," he
mumbled, falling back into the soft grass with a groan.

Olivia laughed. "Don't tell me that Conor
Branigan, prizefighter, is worn out by three girls—again?"

He turned his head and looked up at her. "I
told you before, Olivia, I'm an injured man."

"Un-uh," she said, with a shake of her head
that told him she didn't accept that excuse. "That was a week ago.
Besides, I saw you chop all that wood this morning. You'll have to
come up with something better than that."

"All right." He sat up and reached for the
picnic basket. "I'm weak from lack of food," he said, flipping
back the lid.

He began rummaging in the basket. "Fried
chicken. Brilliant idea, that. Blackberry pie. Another brilliant
idea." He lifted a loaf of bread and inhaled the fresh,
mouth-watering scent of it, then he glanced at her.

"When I was in prison, this is what I missed
the most."

Olivia stared at him. "Bread?"

He nodded and closed his eyes, savoring again
the scent of the loaf in his hand. "Fresh bread and butter," he
said dreamily. "And hot water. I missed that almost as much."

He reached into the basket for a knife and
the lump of butter she'd brought, then unwrapped it from its
covering of damp cloth. He tore a piece of bread from the loaf and
spread a thick coating of butter over it. "When I was in prison, we
got bread, but—" He stopped abruptly, not wanting Olivia to know
about the bread, not wanting her to know that they'd told him to
beg like a dog to get it, and he had.

"What?" she prompted. "You got bread,
but...?"

"But it wasn't like this," he said instead.
"It was dark and coarse and stale. That first morning I woke up
here, the smell of fresh bread was the first thing I noticed, and I
thought for a second the angels had made a mistake." He looked up
and gave her an impudent smile. "Sent me the wrong direction, you
know."

"Is that what you think heaven smells like?"
she asked, leaning back with her weight on her arms. "Fresh
bread?"

He took a hefty bite from the piece in his
hand. "Absolutely," he answered, his mouth full of bread. "I'm
convinced of it."

She laughed. "I guess everybody has their
favorites."

He leaned closer to her. "What's your
favorite, Olivia?" he asked teasingly.

She thought about that for a moment. "Well,
I'm rather partial to pralines, myself. I know there just have to
be pralines in heaven."

"What are pralines?"

"A sort of candy."

He watched as she closed her eyes and licked
her lips as if savoring the remembered taste. He could not move, he
could only stare at the upward curve of her mouth and the exposed,
creamy skin of her throat, his body taut.

"Pecans," she drawled in that languid voice
that sent a jolt of pure lust through him. "Butter, brown
sugar."

She opened her eyes. He felt certain his
thoughts must be written on his face, but she only smiled at him,
seemingly unaware. He struggled for something to say. "You'll have
to make them."

"Oh, the girls will love that. I haven't made
pralines for quite a while."

The girls. A nice, safe topic. He asked the
first question that came into his head. "How did they end up
living with you?"

Olivia sat up and turned to look out at the
creek. "Their mother, Sarah, was my best friend. She died in '65,
and I took the girls in."

"What about their father?" Conor asked. "Did
he die in the war?"

"Yes." She sighed, looking out at the creek.
"His brother couldn't pay the taxes on their place, so he put it up
for auction and went out West." She looked over at Conor, her eyes
dark and sad and hauntingly lovely. "He didn't want the girls. He
didn't want the responsibility."

Conor understood what made a man shy away
from responsibility. He'd struggled through madness and
desperation; he'd experienced hopelessness and grief; he
understood those demons well. But to let them take hold when there
was family who needed you was unforgivable. If the demons ever got
him, Conor wanted no one left behind who cared enough for him to
suffer for it.

"If I hadn't taken the girls in," Olivia went
on, "they'd have been sent to the orphanage, since there was no kin
who wanted them. I couldn't bear the thought of Sarah's girls in an
orphanage. I had this big house. It just seemed like the right
thing to do."

"You've a soft heart, Olivia."

She shook her head. "I needed those girls as
much as they needed me," she said, a catch in her voice. "I was
alone, I had no family left, and I was so lonely. I love those
girls, Mr. Branigan. They're my girls, now."

He looked into her eyes, as soft and dark as
melted chocolate, and he wondered what his life might have been
like if somebody, anybody, had done that for him when he was a lad.
Maybe he'd have found the contentment he saw in Olivia, maybe he'd
have found peace, maybe he wouldn't have betrayed everything he
valued. Maybe.

Conor knew it was futile to think of what
might have been. He'd made his choices, and he had to live with
them now. It was too late for anything else. It was just too
late.

***

They had their picnic and did some more
fishing, then Conor took a nap while Olivia and the girls played
tag with Chester.

By the time they packed up the gear and
walked back toward the house, the sun was just beginning to set. It
was a glorious summer evening, with a slight breeze that kept the
heat from being unbearable.

Olivia walked in front along the well-trodden
path, the picnic basket hooked over one arm, picking wildflowers
for the supper table with Miranda and Becky. Carrie and Conor
followed, Carrie proudly clutching the string of catfish, most of
which were hers.

When they reached the orchard, Olivia paused.
"I'm going to stop a minute and have a look at the peaches," she
told her daughters. "You girls go on up to the house and get
cleaned up for supper."

They walked on ahead. "Carrie, you be sure
and put those fish right in a bucket of water," she called. "And
you girls put away those fishing poles Mr. Conor made for you."

Conor lingered to walk through the orchard
with her as she inspected the ripening fruit.

"I've noticed there aren't any other peach
orchards around here," he commented.

Olivia smiled and patted the trunk of one
tree with her hand. "My daddy planted this orchard when I was
thirteen. It was for my mother. Daddy used to call her 'Peaches'
because she loved the fruit so much, and he renamed this plantation
Peachtree for her." She looked over at Conor, and her smile
widened. "Everybody thought he was crazy to waste good acres on
anything but cotton. But Daddy, well, he always did things his own
way. As it turned out, these trees were a blessing."

"Why is that?"

Olivia faced him, leaning back against the
tree. "After the war, Daddy died, and I had no income. I needed
money desperately. The Yankees came in and started running things,
and taxes went sky-high. All the slaves were gone, of course, so
there was no one to till the fields or plant cotton except me, and
I couldn't do it by myself."

She gestured to the trees all around them.
"But the orchard was already well established. After my mama died,
my daddy lost all interest in the orchard, so I had been taking
care of it, grafting new trees, having them pruned, and seeing to
the harvest. It's my mother's legacy, and I felt it was important
to preserve it. Now, this orchard gives me a good cash crop nigh on
every year without too much work. It's a crop I can manage myself."
She shot him a wry glance. "Well, except for picking time, of
course."

"’Tis a bit hard to pick peaches when you
can't climb a ladder."

"Nate used to do it for me, before he died."
She gave an irritated sigh and looked up at Conor. "It's such a
bother, being afraid of heights. I hate it. It's a weak and silly
fear."

"What are you going to do this year,
Olivia?"

"I don't know." She turned her face away, too
proud to ask for help again. To her disgust, her voice was a bit
shaky when she added, "Do it myself, I imagine. The girls will help
me."

She straightened away from the tree without
looking at him, and they walked through the rest of the orchard in
silence.

At the edge of the orchard, he stopped
walking and glanced back at the peach trees. Olivia also came to a
halt, wondering why he had stopped.

He looked over at her. "How long?" he asked
abruptly.

Bewildered, she stared back at him, not
understanding the question. "What?"

"How long until they're ripe?"

"About a month."

They stared at each other, and she watched
him frown at her almost as if he were angry. He raked a hand
through his hair. "I'll stay long enough to help you bring your
crop in," he said, walking past her before she could recover from
her surprise enough to reply. "Then, I'll be moving on."

Olivia watched him as he walked away, so
astonished that it wasn't until he was out of earshot that she
realized she hadn't even said thank-you.

***

That evening after supper,
while Olivia and the girls went through the ritual of
Saturday-night baths, Conor sat at the kitchen table with slate,
pencil, and dictionary, writing down all the words he could think
of that began with
C
, using the dictionary to look up the words he could not
spell. After an hour of this, Conor decided his first conclusion
about reading had been right all along. He didn't need to learn
how.