Conor's Way (23 page)

She chanced a look at him across the table as
he and Carrie talked about tree houses, of all things, and she
wondered how he could behave as if that kiss had never happened,
how he could act so calm, so nonchalant about it all.

But then, by his own admission, he'd kissed
lots of women.

Olivia pushed back her plate and rose. She
prepared a tray and took it up to Becky's room, leaving Conor and
Carrie to their talk of tree houses.

There was no answer when she knocked on
Becky's door, and when she gently pushed it open, she found her
daughter lying on her stomach in the center of her bed, her face
buried in her pillow. She didn't look up when Olivia entered the
room.

"I thought you might want something to
eat."

"Go away," Becky mumbled from the depths of
her pillow.

Olivia set the tray on the washstand and
walked over to the bed. She sat down on the edge and reached out,
touching Becky's shoulder. She felt her daughter stiffen, but she
did not pull her hand away.

"I think we need to talk," Olivia said,
rubbing Becky's shoulder gently. "I know that you probably don't
feel much like talking now, but I have something to say, so you can
just listen for now."

She paused for a moment, then she said, "I
was very upset when I found out what happened this afternoon
because you're my daughter. It's hard for me to think of you
growing up. To me, you're still a little girl."

Becky sat up. "I'm fourteen. My mother
married my father when she was only a year older than I am."

"That's true." Sarah had been about two
months pregnant at the time, and her father had almost shot Joe in
a duel, Olivia remembered. But she didn't tell Becky that. She
fought back the protective panic that rose within her and took a
deep breath. "Do you want to marry Jeremiah?"

A change came over Becky's face. Suddenly,
she looked very bewildered and very vulnerable. "I don't know," she
whispered.

"Honey, Jeremiah is the first boy that's come
along. He's the first boy you've had feelings for. But there will
be others. I think you know that," she added gently. "That's why
you're unsure."

"He wanted to kiss me," she mumbled, ducking
her head to stare at her hands. "And I wanted him to. I was
curious. I wanted to know..." Her voice trailed off into
silence.

Olivia bit her lip. She understood
perfectly.

Becky looked at her anxiously. "Was that
wrong, Mama?"

Here was the perfect opportunity to give the
appropriate mother's lecture. But Olivia thought of Conor
Branigan, and she couldn't do it. "What do you think?"

"I don't know! I feel so confused."

She wrapped an arm around Becky and pulled
her close. "I know just what you mean."

Olivia held her daughter for a long time,
stroking her hair and letting her think. She waited until Becky
pushed away and sat up again before she spoke.

"Why don't you and I make a deal?" She
reached out and brushed a wisp of hair gently out of her daughter's
eyes. "I promise you that I will trust you. I will not forbid you
to see Jeremiah. The two of you can continue to sit together at
church and have peppermint sticks at the mercantile all you like. I
will not say anything to Lila about this. In return, you promise me
that you will not violate my trust in you. You won't walk with him
alone. No more kissing down by the creek. If you want to go walking
with him after church, I will accompany you."

"Mother!"

"Mind, I'll probably see lots of herbs and
wildflowers to pick along the way, so you two will probably walk
much faster than I will." She watched her daughter smile. "Is that
a deal?"

"Deal."

"Good. Now, why don't you have some dinner?
Then we'll go up to the attic and see if we can find a dress for
you to wear to the harvest dance."

"Can Jeremiah take me to the dance?"

"Of course," Olivia answered. "In two years
or so."

***

Conor could not sleep. He lay in bed,
thinking of her, of how she had melted against him with all that
soft yielding, how his own desire had flared in response, sudden,
hot, and so intense, his body still ached with it.

Never had he lost control like that with a
woman. For those few moments, he'd lost himself in her, forgetting
everything. A lifetime of struggle to keep passions in check, a
lifetime of suppressing all the hate and love and fear that raged
within him, a lifetime of swallowing his pride and lowering his
eyes and pretending indifference. A lifetime of control lost.
Forget the prison guards at Mountjoy—they'd stripped away his
control in bloody pieces, with much harsher weapons—but losing
control to a woman whose only weapons were chocolate-brown eyes and
soft, full lips was a shattering experience, indeed. In a kitchen,
for God's sake, in broad daylight, where any one of the girls could
have walked in and seen them.

Fatal to be vulnerable, fatal to need her,
fatal to want her.

But he did. He wanted to touch her again; he
wanted to lose himself in her softness and warmth again. The
conflict was like anarchy inside him.

And she had no idea. Olivia was not the kind
of woman he could easily tumble and conveniently leave behind. She
was innocent. Very proper and completely innocent. He could still
see her staring at him in shock, wide-eyed, with her fingers to her
lips, tendrils of her long brown hair stirring in time with his
harsh and labored breathing.

Through the window, he heard the incessant
chirp of crickets and the low grumble of bullfrogs. The air was hot
and sultry, there was no breeze at all, and the room felt
suffocating. He rose from the bed, knowing he had to do something;
he had to find a way to take his mind off her. A month of this, and
he was going to be insane.

He never should have promised to stay. He
should have just ignored the pleading look in her eyes yesterday,
the proud lift of her chin, the catch in her voice that reminded
him that somewhere, lost amid the guilt and the self-loathing, he
still had a conscience.

He should have just walked on. A conscience
was a damned inconvenient thing.

He pulled on his trousers and boots, took the
lamp, and went outside. He stood on the porch, leaning against the
rail and staring into the black emptiness beyond the lamplight.

Discipline. Control. Pride. They were his
armor, they were all he had. So painfully won, so easily lost.

He remembered Mary's words from long ago.
She'd been right about him. She had sensed the passions that
seethed beneath the surface; she'd seen behind his mask, and it had
frightened her. She had known that prizefighting wasn't just a job.
The boxing ring was his outlet, his way of releasing passions in
controlled increments, like a teakettle letting off steam. He'd
always used sex the same way. But not with Olivia.

He picked up the lamp, walked down the steps,
and crossed the yard to the barn. He found a stout length of rope
and a burlap sack of oats that he guessed weighed about a hundred
pounds.

He tied one end of the rope securely around
the sack and tossed the other end over a rafter, then he pulled the
sack up until it hung in the air at just the right level. He
secured the contraption by slipping the rope end through a knot
hole in the stall behind him, bringing it over the top, and tying a
stout bowline knot. Not a very challenging opponent, he supposed,
but it was the only one he had.

He threw a few quick jabs in the air, just to
get a feel for it again, then he faced the sack, hauled back his
right arm, and let fly with a good hard punch, sending the sack
swinging away.

Too slow
, he thought. He was out of practice. If he punched like that
when he went back into the ring, even Elroy Harlan might be able to
beat him. As the sack came swinging back toward him, he struck it
again, this time with his left fist. Then his right, then his left,
then his right.

He focused all his attention on his burlap
opponent, ignoring the twinges of lingering pain in his ribs. He
kept the sack swinging for over an hour. Sweat rolled down his
body, the muscles of his arms and back started to burn, but he did
not stop. He kept practicing his punches until he couldn't lift his
arm for one more.

He wrapped his arms around the sack to still
its swinging, then he sank to the floor, breathing hard. His blood
was pumping, his muscles were burning.

He took down his makeshift punching bag,
coiled the rope and put it back where he'd found it, picked up the
lamp, and left the barn. He walked the perimeter of the house a few
times, until his body had cooled and his heartbeat resumed a
normal rhythm, then he went back to bed.

But all his efforts proved futile.

His body still ached with wanting her; he
could still feel the warmth of her body, and he knew the tension in
him wasn't the kind that could be relieved by going a few rounds
with a burlap punching bag.

***

Olivia woke the next morning to the
unmistakable thump of footsteps above her. She stared up at the
ceiling, still half-asleep, and she wondered if Becky had gone
back up to the attic this morning to look at dresses again. She
rose and went upstairs, but there was no one there.

She heard the sound of footsteps again,
coming from the roof overhead, along with a strange squeaking
sound. What on earth? She went downstairs and out the back door,
then halted abruptly at the sight that met her eyes. In the yard
were stacks of wooden shingles and sheets of tin—the materials
she'd bought last year to fix the roof. And right beside the porch
steps, a ladder leaned against the house.

Olivia raced down the porch steps and into
the yard, far enough out to get a good look. She turned around.

Conor was up on her roof, straddling the peak
and stripping away shingles with a hammer. Olivia pressed her hands
to her cheeks and stared up at him, stunned.

Though it was just past sunrise, she could
tell he'd been up quite a while. His shirt was off. She could see
it hanging over the top of the chimney.

He was fixing her roof. A sudden gust of wind
whipped Olivia's tangled hair across her face. She pushed it back
and watched as Conor tore away another shingle and tossed it. He
caught sight of her standing in the yard and froze as the shingle
fell to the ground a few feet in front of her.

He was fixing her roof. She repeated it in
her head over and over, like Conor's hated rosary, but she still
couldn't quite believe it. The absurd prick of tears stung her
eyes.

She lifted one arm to wave and realized that
she was standing out here in her nightgown.

Oh, Lord
. Olivia ducked back into the house and shut the door. But
she couldn't resist having another quick peek out the window to
stare at the stacks of shingles in her yard, just to be sure she
hadn't imagined the whole thing.

She wrapped her arms around her ribs and
closed her eyes. In her mind, she saw him on her roof, sitting
astride the peak as if it were a horse. Windblown, perhaps, and
definitely battle-scarred, but no less like a white knight out of a
storybook, coming to her aid. She murmured a heartfelt prayer of
thanks.

***

Christ, have
mercy
. She just wasn't going to make
things easy on him, was she? Conor jammed the claw end of the
hammer under another shingle and pried it loose. The only reason he
was out here at this ungodly hour of the morning was because
thoughts of her had kept him awake all night. Then what did she do?
Come prancing outside in her nightgown with her hair all loose and
tumbled, and the sun behind her. He'd been able to see the
silhouette of her body beneath the gown, the shapely curves of her
thighs and hips. He'd probably spend the rest of the goddamned day
imagining it.

He'd bet all his money, all ten dollars of
it, that prim white nightgown had pearl buttons all down the front.
He thought how easily pearl buttons could slip free. "Bloody hell,"
he muttered, and pried away another shingle.

If he had any brains at all, he'd leave now,
before things got out of hand, before he let his body do his
thinking for him.

Conor paused, staring down at the hammer in
his hands. He couldn't leave yet. He'd made a promise, and he
intended to keep it even if it killed him. A few more glimpses of
her in that nightgown and it probably would.

Determinedly, he pushed delectable visions of
her out of his mind and turned his attention back to the task at
hand.

He heard the back door slam, and he glanced
down as Olivia and Carrie came out into the yard. He was relieved
that this time Olivia was properly dressed. For the first time, he
was rather glad she wore dresses buttoned up to her chin.

Carrie waved at him. "Mornin', Mr. Conor,"
she called up to him.

"Good morning,
mó cailín
," he called
back.

"How come you're fixing the roof?"

"It needs fixing, don't you think?"

"I reckon! It leaks somethin' awful. Mama has
all sorts of cans up in the attic for the water."

He glanced at Olivia. In one hand, she
carried a cup, while she grasped a handful of skirt in the other,
trying to prevent it from flying up in the stiff breeze. She'd
pinned up her hair, he noticed. He imagined seeing her with her
hair spread across a pillow, imagined her hair like silk in his
fingers, and he quickly looked away. He'd better not think about
that.

"Mornin'," she greeted. "You're sure up with
the sun."

He wondered what she'd do if he told her why.
Instead, he gestured to the roof. "Since I'm going to be here for a
bit longer, I thought I'd have a go at fixing this roof of
yours."