Hope Springs (13 page)

Her voice broke, and her expression crumbled on the final words. She pressed her hands to her face.

He didn’t even have to think. His arms were around her the moment he reached her side. She sobbed against his chest. He refused to diminish her burden with empty words of dismissal or reassurance. If she was exhausted enough to be weeping in his kitchen, he wouldn’t tell her to hush or that it wasn’t as bad as she thought. If life had brought her to this state, it was bad enough to warrant tears.

“I’m not sleeping much,” she said. “I have to be to town by six o’clock every morning but Sunday. And I try to have breakfast waiting for Granny when she wakes up. Once I finish at the mercantile, I have to make my deliveries. Just as soon as those are done, I drop in on Biddy to do what I can for her. Then I return home and make the bread for the next day. That takes me late into the night. And it all just starts up again the next morning.”

It was little wonder she was exhausted to the point of tears. “I wish I could help. I’d offer to put a day in at the mercantile, but I can’t clean worth anything.”

“I know,” she muttered.

He smiled a bit. “And I am absolutely certain no one would buy a loaf of bread I made.”

“Especially if they knew you mixed it on the floor.”

“A very good point, Katie.” He laughed through the words and felt her chuckle against him.

He kept her close, hoping doing so didn’t make him selfish. She needed comfort and had turned to him. She was being courted by someone else. Yet, she’d turned to him.

He was very confused. But, Katie was there, with him. He’d made her laugh. That was something.

She leaned back enough to wipe her wet cheeks. A wobbly smile tugged at her lips. “I have a confession. I didn’t bring the rolls only as a bribe.”

“What, then?”

She shrugged a single shoulder. A bit of color touched her pale cheeks. He was glad to see it. “I couldn’t think of a good excuse to come talk to you, and I wanted to.”

“Did you?” He could tell he was smiling like an idiot. He couldn’t help it.

“I knew you wouldn’t scold me or tell me I couldn’t hold up under my burdens. I needed to talk to someone who would just listen.”

The girls clambered back into the kitchen. Katie slipped out of his embrace. He felt empty the moment she stepped away.

Katie had a smile for the girls, quite as if she hadn’t been struggling under the weight of the world only a moment earlier.

In a flurry of excitement and almost maternal fussing, she had the girls seated at the table with a sweet roll and a glass of warm milk set before each of them. If he hadn’t stopped her, she likely would have brought him his food as well, as if she still worked for them instead of being a guest for the evening. He saw to his own roll and milk while she rinsed out the girls’ dirty dresses in the sink.

The girls were beside themselves with praise for Katie’s rolls. They’d endured
his
cooking for too long. Katie smiled in her quiet way and hung their damp dresses over the back of a chair pulled up near the warm stove.

“I do need to be getting back to Mrs. Claire’s house,” she said.

The girls protested. She gave them each a kiss on the top of their heads. She spared a moment for Emma, telling her how she hoped to hear all about school and the wonderful things she would be learning. The look of threatening tears in Emma’s eyes flitted away, replaced by a contented smile.

Joseph walked Katie to the edge of the back porch.

“Thank you for letting me talk,” she said. “I’m certain my grumbling wasn’t what you hoped to endure tonight. But . . . but I needed it so badly.”

In that moment she looked lonely. She, who had the entire Irish Road cheering over her decision to stay in Hope Springs, who had sacrificed her sleep and peace of mind to save her neighbors from starvation, seemed nearly desolate.

“Come talk any time, Katie. Any time at all. No sweet rolls necessary.”

“Thank you, Joseph Archer.” She stretched up on her toes and, without even the tiniest hint of warning, kissed his cheek.

Kissed his cheek.

Then she was gone, leaving him staring after her. Katie had come to him with her troubles. She had cried on his shoulder, had laughed with him. He thought she left less burdened than she’d arrived. His home had felt whole and warm again with her there.

What if you are best for her, after all?

Chapter Twelve

Tavish tucked Katie’s fiddle under his arm. He gave Granny Claire a quick kiss on the cheek before sending her off in his little sister’s care.

Granny said Katie had gone to Joseph’s house on a matter of business. Tavish meant to bring her home for a much-needed bit of merrymaking. She needed it. And he needed her.

He turned back, fully intending to fetch her from the Archer place, only to find her not many paces off, walking toward him.

She waved as she drew closer. “A fine good evening to you, Tavish.”

Heavens, it was nice to see her smiling again. She had been fatigued and burdened the last time he’d seen her. He’d tried convincing her to end her employment at the mercantile. She needed the sleep and some time to herself. She most certainly
didn’t
need Johnson’s insulting and belittling treatment.

“What’s that you’re carrying?” she asked.

“This?” He held up her fiddle case. “It’s a fiddle, Sweet Katie. An odd contraption with strings that makes music.”

She gave him a look of scolding that held a heavy hint of amusement. “I know perfectly well what a fiddle is. And
that
fiddle looks like mine.”

“Probably because it is.”

“But why are you carrying my—” Absolute panic entered her expression. “Has something happened to it? Please tell me it’s not broken. I can’t lose it. I need the music.”

He set his free hand on her arm. “Your fiddle is perfectly sound. I’ve simply come to take it—and you—to the céilí.”

The explanation didn’t appear to settle in for the length of a breath. Relief followed. Close on its heels came a whisper of eagerness.

“There’s to be a céilí tonight?”

Tavish nodded. “The Irish have reason to celebrate. Ian is out of bed and looks likely to eventually recover. The harvest promises to be plentiful. And, perhaps the greatest miracle of all, there’s been no more feud violence.”

Katie’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “I’ve worried about that. And about Ian, and the harvest.”

He slipped his arm about her waist, pulling her close to him as they walked on.

“I suppose I worry too much,” she said with a sigh.

Tavish pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“Is that a ‘yes, you do,’ then?” Katie asked.

“That is an ‘I can’t possibly answer without getting myself into trouble.’”

He thought he felt her laugh a tiny bit. That did him a world of good. Katie ought to laugh and smile more.

He leaned in close and spoke softly. “Tonight you are to do nothing but smile and laugh, play your music if you wish, and enjoy your friends’ company.”

“And
your
company?”

He grinned back at her. “Thought of me first thing, did you?”

She threw him a saucy look. “Second or third thing, at least.”

“You’re in better spirits than you have been of late,” he said, grateful to see it.

“I feel better—less weighed down,” she said. “And to have a céilí is a fine thing.”

They turned in at Ma and Da’s place where the céilís were always held. Such a look of peace entered Katie’s expression.

“’Twas these parties that first made Hope Springs feel like home to me. These parties and these people.” She smiled fondly as she looked over the crowd that had already gathered. “I would have died a bit to leave it all behind.”

“And there is yet another reason I’m happy you’ve chosen to stay.”

She looked up at him. No one but Katie had ever worn such a look of mingled determination and weariness. “I fully intend to be happy here, Tavish. No matter what it takes.”

Tavish pressed a kiss to her forehead. He couldn’t say when he’d begun doing that, but he’d found he liked it very much. Something in the simple tenderness of the gesture felt very right.

“Enough of that, lad,” Da said.

Tavish pushed out an amused and exasperated breath. “Why is it you always seem to be sneaking up on me just when I’m having a tender moment with this sweet colleen?”

Da kept his expression stern, though an unmistakable twinkle shone in his eyes. “Is it not a father’s duty to look out for his girl?”

“Aren’t you meant to look after your son as well?” Tavish matched his da’s teasing tone.

Da shrugged. “I like our Katie better than I like you. So you can just look out for your own self.”

Katie slipped from Tavish’s side. She gave Da a hug, something Tavish would never have expected her to do only a few short weeks earlier.

Da returned her embrace, smiling at her fondly. “Biddy’s been asking after you, hoping you meant to come to the céilí.”

“Biddy is here?”

Da nodded. “My wife’s sitting with Ian so Biddy could have some time away.”

“Let’s find her, then,” Katie said. She turned back and held her hand out to Tavish, an invitation he readily accepted.

They walked amongst their neighbors. Every single soul they passed had a word of greeting for Katie. How quickly she’d become an indispensable part of their lives.

They spotted Biddy not far from the tables of food. Katie was off in a rush. She and Biddy embraced each other, falling into easy conversation.

“She has been a good friend to Biddy,” Da observed. “And such a comfort to her since Ian was laid low. Visits her every day, she does. I don’t know how Biddy could have endured all she has without Katie at her side.”

Tavish remembered how standoffish Katie had been the day she met Biddy and smiled.

“How is your courtship going, lad?” Da asked.

“It would be going vastly better if a certain nosy Irishman didn’t keep interrupting me.”

Da chuckled. He slapped a friendly hand on Tavish’s shoulder. “See if you can’t get the lass to play her fiddle tonight. She does the lot of us a world of good with her music.”

Tavish kept to Katie’s side the remainder of the evening. For a woman who had arrived so utterly alone, she had made the entire Irish Road her friends. She played her fiddle for them all, filling the cool night air with the tunes of home played to perfection.

Seamus took up the usual storytelling, and Katie took up her place at Tavish’s side, leaning against his arm as the evening drew out. The air turned more and more chill as night fell. He wrapped his arm about her, pulling her close. As the tales gave way to the quiet tunes that always ended their céilís, Katie’s head grew heavy against him.

Though Tavish would have followed her to Ireland, he was grateful she’d chosen to stay. As she’d said, Hope Springs was home.

Chapter Thirteen

Katie stretched up on her toes, trying to reach the very highest shelf in the mercantile’s storeroom. She’d spent every minute of the past seven mornings, excepting Sunday, among the shelves and boxes.

She’d nearly finished organizing the storeroom. A week of carrying boxes and cans and heavy bags across the room, pulling them off shelves only to lift them onto others, had left her sore and tired. She’d taken the chaos she’d found in the storage room and created structure. Mr. Johnson would know in a glance what was there, how much, where to find it. ’Twas an enormous improvement.

She slid a box off the highest shelf. It was lighter than she expected, but awkward coming from as high up as it was. The stepladder teetered once as she climbed back down. She set the box on the ground and pulled it open.

Handkerchiefs.
The pile out front was down to three.

Katie tucked the box under her arm and stepped out of the storage room. The mercantile was empty, just as it had been most of the week she’d worked there. Harvest kept the residents of Hope Springs busy and away from town.

“What are you doing out here?” Mr. Johnson skewered her with an accusatory look. “Get in the back where you belong.”