Conor's Way (31 page)

"Sixty-three. It belonged to my brother
Stuart."

He verified that there was no cartridge in
the chamber or magazine, then he lifted the gun. He cocked it,
took a bead on the right pole of the clothesline, and pulled the
trigger.

The hammer fell with a hesitant click. "Needs
a good cleaning first," he told her, lowering the gun. "I'll need
some rags, a bucket of boiling hot water, and a ramrod. Have you
any oil to lubricate it?"

"Sweet oil."

"That'll do. Have you any cartridges?"

"Yes, a whole box of them."

"Bring that, too."

She nodded and went into the house.

Conor stared down at the gun in his hands. He
shouldn't do this. The most intelligent thing Olivia could do would
be to sell her land, take the money and her girls, and start fresh
someplace else. But he knew she wouldn't do it.

A few more weeks, and he wouldn't be here to
rescue her if men came at her out of the dark. The least he could
do was provide her with some means to protect herself.

***

After breakfast, Conor took Olivia out to one
of the fields that used to grow cotton but now lay fallow with
weeds as their only crop. The girls, who had only been told that
she wanted to learn how to shoot, insisted on watching her first
lesson. She wasn't sure that was such a good idea, but Conor
pointed out it was best if they knew exactly where the girls were
while they were having target practice.

He had brought along an armful of tin cans,
and he set them up in a line on the fence. He instructed the girls
to stand about two dozen feet behind them, and he proceeded to
give them a lecture on the dangers of guns. "You're not to be
thinking this is a toy," he told them sternly. "It's not."

He reached up one hand to unfasten the top
button of his shirt, and he bent down so that Carrie and Miranda
could see the round scar at his shoulder. "That came from a bullet,
lasses, and your man here almost died because of it. Guns can be
very dangerous."

Olivia watched him, and she thought wistfully
that he'd make a fine father—even if he hadn't taken Becky's
kissing episode with Jeremiah as seriously as he should have—a
thought which reminded her of her own first experience with that
particular activity and sent a tingle clear down to her toes.

"How'd it happen?" Carrie asked, reaching out
to touch the scar on Conor's shoulder with her finger.

"A wee lad who thought a gun was a toy shot
me by accident." He straightened and buttoned his shirt. "You're
not to touch this rifle at all, for any reason. Is that
understood?"

"Yes, sir," they answered in unison,
wide-eyed.

"Good girls."

He walked back to Olivia's side and took the
box of cartridges out of her hand, then bent down to dump them in a
pile on the ground nearby. "This is a forty-four caliber,
fifteen-shot, repeating rifle," he told her. Grabbing a handful of
the shells, he straightened. "That means it will fire up to sixteen
44-caliber shells, fifteen in the magazine and one in the chamber.
You load the shells through the magazine here."

She watched carefully as he showed her how to
load the gun. He pushed fifteen shells through a tubular opening
located in front of the trigger beneath the barrel, then handed
the rifle to her and moved to stand behind her.

"Hold it with the butt braced against your
shoulder," he instructed, bringing his arms up around her and
moving the rifle into correct position as he spoke. "That way,
you'll have better control. Relax, love," he added. "You're too
stiff."

Olivia tried, she really did, but all she
could think of was how nice it would be to lean back against him
and enjoy the feel of his arms around her. The idea that she might
actually do such a thing made her acutely self-conscious.

His hand closed over hers on the underside of
the barrel, making her pull down on a lever behind the trigger and
push it back into place. "That cocks the gun," he explained,
"meaning it puts the first bullet in the chamber and makes the gun
ready to fire. You have to cock the gun each time you take a
shot."

She wanted to ask him about aiming the gun,
but when she turned her head to look up at him, the question she'd
intended to ask went right out of her head. He was close enough
that if she moved just the slightest bit, their lips would touch.
She tensed and ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips, watching
his smile fade and his eyes darken to that smoky blue.

She said the first thing that came into her
head. "Did you really get that bullet wound because of a child?"
she whispered.

"Hell, no," he muttered. "I was shot by a
Protestant farmer when I was fifteen. I was trying to obtain one of
his sheep at the time."

She choked back a laugh, trying to look
disapproving. "Obtain? You mean steal."

He grinned down at her. "Well, I couldn't
very well tell them that, could I?" he murmured. "What kind of a
lesson would that be for their impressionable young minds?"

That comment reminded her that the three
impressionable young minds in question were watching them. He
seemed to realize it, too, for he lowered his arms and stepped back
from her. Olivia turned toward the fence several dozen yards away
and forced her thoughts back to the task at hand.

"I use this to take aim, don't I?" she asked,
curving one finger around the rifle to touch the brass flange that
jutted above the barrel.

"Aye, that's called a sight. All you do now
is pull the trigger, but remember, squeeze it gently, don't jerk.
And—"

A loud report interrupted him. The force
exerted by the shot rammed the butt of the gun into her shoulder
and sent Olivia flying backward. She fell heavily against Conor,
who was standing right behind her. He took her weight without
moving, almost as if he'd expected this to happen, and wrapped his
arms around her.

"And," he finished wryly, "a 44-caliber rifle
has quite a kick, so be prepared."

Olivia lowered the rifle. She leaned back
against him and rubbed her sore shoulder. "I'll remember that next
time," she said ruefully and looked over at the fence. She realized
that the tin can she had aimed for now lay on the ground. "At least
I made the shot," she said with pride.

Conor gave her a nod of approval. "Not bad,"
he conceded, "not bad at all. For a lass."

She jabbed him with her elbow for that, then
straightened in his arms, cocked the rifle, took aim, and sent
another can flying off the fence.

Conor wisely made no more teasing comments
about her ability to shoot a gun.

***

The two weeks that followed were busy ones.
After several practice sessions, Olivia put the gun away, placing
it on the top shelf of the kitchen pantry, along with two boxes of
shells, deciding that would be the handiest place for it. At
Conor's suggestion, she removed a second rifle from the trunk and
after he had cleaned it, she put that one under her bed and another
box of cartridges in the drawer of her bedside table. But
thankfully, no incidents arose that required the use of either
weapon.

While Conor continued to work on projects
around her place, Olivia spent her days getting ready for the
harvest. She got out the bushel baskets and brushed off the
cobwebs. She hauled out the ladders and checked them carefully to
make sure they hadn't rotted since the previous year.

She went into town and made arrangements with
Grady McCann to hire two teams of mules and two wagons, with
payment to be made after harvest. She'd need the wagons to cart her
peaches to Monroe for sale, and Grady owned the livery stable, one
of the few businesses in Callersville that Vernon had not been
able to buy.

While she was in town, she made a stop at the
sawmill to see about getting sawdust and barrels to pack her
peaches. Vernon was still away, but Joshua coldly informed her that
she could not barter for them. "Vernon's orders," he'd said with a
smug smile. So when she sold her calf to Oren Johnson, she used the
money to purchase what she needed. She also asked Oren if he would
feed her animals while she was gone and keep an eye on her place.
Oren promised he would.

While she was at the Johnsons', she cooed
over the new baby and visited with Kate, who said that of course
the girls could stay at their place again this year while she took
her peaches to the cannery in Monroe. When Kate asked her how she
was going to get the peaches there by herself, Olivia said she'd
found a farmhand to help her during the harvest and left before
Kate could ask any more questions.

When she wasn't busy with preparations for
her harvest, Olivia spent her time getting the girls ready for
school, which would start about the time harvest was over. She let
out the seams on all their dresses and added ruffles to the hems
for length. She mended all their torn stockings, sold Lila enough
jars of spiced peaches from last year to buy new shoes for them,
and ironed pinafores and hair ribbons. Vernon might call them
orphans and say they had no decent clothes, but Olivia always made
sure her girls went to school neat as pins. This year wasn't going
to be any different.

She was grateful for the many tasks that kept
her busy, because she didn't want to think about the fact that the
harvest also meant Conor's departure. The hot, humid days of August
slipped inevitably by, and when she walked through her orchard,
when she saw how quickly the peaches were ripening, she wished time
would slow to a crawl and keep him from going away.

It didn't, of course. The peaches ripened and
the day finally came when Olivia knew they had to be picked.

Conor and the girls went out to the orchard
with her, carrying baskets and ladders. Chester followed them. When
they got to the orchard, the dog settled himself comfortably in the
shade of one tree to watch. Becky and Carrie each took a basket and
a ladder, chose a row, and immediately set to work, blithely
waving aside Olivia's admonitions to be careful.

"Gosh sakes, Mama," Carrie said, pausing on
the ladder to frown down at her. "Stop fussing." She looked over at
Conor with an expression of long suffering. "We go through this
every year," she told him, rolling her eyes.

Conor glanced over at Olivia, but she wasn't
looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on Carrie, and he saw the
concern in her expression. "They'll be fine, Olivia. They're not
going to get hurt."

"I know," she answered, but she continued to
watch Carrie until the child had planted her basket firmly between
the branches of the tree and settled herself comfortably on a limb,
before she turned to Conor.

"Have you ever picked peaches before?"

He shook his head.

Miranda tugged at her skirt. "Mama, can I
pick, too?"

"Not this year, honey. Next year, maybe."

Miranda's face fell. "What can I do?"

"Well, let's see." Olivia tilted her head to
one side. "First, we have to show Mr. Conor how to pick. After
that, we can start packing the peaches in the barrels. How about
that?"

"Okay."

She took the child by the hand and looked
over at Conor. "Ready?"

He nodded. "What happens once we've picked
them?" he asked, as he followed her and Miranda to another row, his
ladder under one arm and a basket in his hand.

"You and I will haul them to Monroe," she
answered. "It's a full day's drive from here. The girls will stay
at the Johnsons' while we're gone, since we'll have to stay in
Monroe overnight. I'll pay for your room, of course, and your meals
while we're there." Lest he get the wrong idea, she added hastily,
"It's the least I can do, since you're helping me and all."

"You don't owe me anything for this, Olivia.
I'll pay my own way. But I do think, while we're there, we should
have a nice dinner in a fine restaurant."

"That isn't necessary."

"We both have to eat. It might as well be
somewhere nice." He leaned his ladder against a tree, and rested
the basket on his hip. "Now, tell me about peach-picking."

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but
closed it again. Instead, she looked away and gestured to the tree
beside her. "The first thing to remember is that you must pick
peaches only when they're ripe."

She reached up and her fingers curled around
a peach. "This one's ripe. You can tell because there's no green.
The skin has a yellow background color and a rosy blush to it. You
hold it in your fingers like this and pull it from the tree with
just a slight twist. If you have to try too hard, it's not ripe
enough to pick, and the fruit will bruise."

Conor thought peaches sounded a lot like
women. Innocent women, anyway, he amended, watching Olivia pluck
the peach from the tree. He hadn't been all that gentle in her
kitchen that afternoon when he'd kissed her, and he felt a twinge
of regret. Next time, he'd do it differently—but that thought
brought him up sharp. Sure, there wasn't going to be a next
time.

Something about her, something about the
inexperienced but passionate way she'd moved beneath his hands,
the soft sounds of surprise she'd made, had stripped away all his
barriers and ignited him like a keg of dynamite. And that night in
the barn, when she'd seen him practicing. The way she'd looked at
him, her gaze pulling him with some indefinable force that was
stronger than chains, her touch sending his senses into a spin more
effectively than a jug of poteen. He knew he didn't dare touch her
again. But he wanted to. He watched her take a bite of the peach
and lick the sweet juice from her bottom lip. Desire clutched his
insides. Christ, he wanted to.

She looked up to find him
watching her, and he knew she was thinking about the same
thing.
Aye
, he
thought, watching the rosy blush flood her cheeks,
peaches are a lot like women
. "A nice restaurant," he said firmly. "And wear that green
silk dress of yours. I'd like to see you in something that isn't
gray or brown, for a change."