Hope Springs (24 page)

“Promises are dangerous things, Joseph Archer. When they break, they wound. Deeply.”

’Twas in that moment Katie remembered the men of the Irish Road were standing about watching. They likely had noticed her studying Joseph and wondering about him. There might not have been begging at Joseph’s payment collection day, but she was providing ample moments of speculation.

“I hadn’t meant to interrupt,” she said. “I only . . .” An awkward swallow seemed in order. “I only came by for a little chat.”

“Ah.” He nodded slowly. “Now that the men have returned, I’ll be doing this”—he motioned to the crowd gathered around—“for a few days. Today and tomorrow I’ll meet with the Irish Road. The two days or so after that, I’ll meet with the Red Road.”

“Is that why you rushed back?”

His gaze grew more focused on her. “That’s not the reason,” he said quietly, almost as though he didn’t realize he’d spoken.

The air around them grew tense, her lungs struggling to breathe. She thought she knew his reasons. He’d come back quickly because he’d missed her. A warmth began deep inside her at the thought.

Somehow she found enough voice to speak. “I’ll let you get back to it.” She stepped away. “Thank you for taking a minute to say hello.”

“Katie?” He stopped her while she was still close enough for something of a private conversation.

She looked back uncertainly.

“Would you . . . Would you join us for dinner?”

The invitation surprised her. What exactly did he mean by it? Perhaps the girls had asked after her. Maybe he thought she was hungry and could use the free food. Perhaps he meant it as a social engagement.

For just a moment, she entertained the idea, thought about sitting to table with a family of means like a fine lady. A handsome and kindhearted man would pull out her chair for her, perhaps walk with her on his arm. She’d have a housekeeper setting a meal before her, rather than setting the meal herself.

The daydream ended there. She was only Katie. Plain Katie, the servant.

“’Twould be terrible odd, don’t you think, being there while Mrs. Smith is still finding her place?”

His nod was reluctant. Did he regret, then, that she’d turned down the invitation? The thought almost made her smile. He
did
miss her.

He tipped his head to her, then made his way back to his desk, with his usual confident stride.

“Mr. Murphy,” Joseph said in greeting. He didn’t immediately turn to his ledger, but kept his attention on Mr. Murphy. “Were you able to see the dentist while you were at the station?”

“Aye, and a good thing I did. The tooth was broken clear through and rotting inside.”

“It was little wonder, then, you were in such pain.” Joseph spoke with clear concern. “Dr. Philips does good work.”

“That he does and charges very little,” Mr. Murphy said. “I thank you for recommending him. I would likely have continued on in agony otherwise, too afraid I couldn’t afford it.”

“My pleasure.”

They set themselves to their business and parted with a friendly handshake. The pattern held true with each person who stepped up to Joseph’s desk. He asked after their families, knew of their individual difficulties and struggles.

The feud had often kept him from forming true friendships with his neighbors. He was forced to be something of an outsider in Hope Springs. How easily he might have simply become indifferent to the people around him, seeing them as little more than an opportunity for profit as did so many landlords in Ireland.

But Joseph so clearly cared about them all. She’d long known he was a good-hearted man. The truth of that struck her anew as she stood there, and she loved him all the more for it.

Chapter Twenty-One

Joseph hadn’t been this nervous when he was courting his late wife. Their match had been something of a foregone conclusion, so there had been very little pressure and no real possibility of failure. With Katie he felt an overwhelming amount of both.

She’d been friendlier of late, smiling at him, blushing, seeming to enjoy the brief moments when he’d held her hand or touched her face. He’d vowed to respect her choice if she was truly set on Tavish, but her attitude toward
him
seemed to indicate that a decision was still somewhat up in the air.

Five days had passed since she’d appeared like a vision from heaven in his darkened barn as he undertook his business with the Irish. He simultaneously enjoyed and hated payment days. Business, though it was not his first love, was in his blood, and he was good at it. To see those skills help an entire valley of people was satisfying, fulfilling. But taking money from people who had so little only brought to mind all the reasons he’d disliked the cold heartlessness of finance.

The men of Hope Springs had been trickling in for nearly a week. He’d spent every evening going over accounts, helping the illiterate understand the state of their finances while trying hard not to sound condescending. He worried that, in his eagerness to help them make sense of sometimes complicated things, he’d make them feel unintelligent or small or unimportant. Equally frustrating were those who, at every payment day, felt the need to argue over every little detail. Thankfully, his father had taught him to keep meticulous records and to always put business arrangements in writing.

After nearly a week of dealing with high emotions and tempers made sharp with worry, he needed a break. The promise of Katie’s company beckoned to him like a lighthouse in a thick fog. So he put the girls to bed a little early, informed Mrs. Smith he would be out for some time, and, taking with him a few special packages from town, walked up the Irish Road. Mrs. Claire’s was the second house on the right and an easy distance from the bridge.

He held the packages under his arm as he knocked at the door.

Katie opened it. “Why, Joseph. Have you decided to come by at long last?”

He nodded. A joking response was likely called for, probably even expected, but he was too nervous for anything else.

I’m like a schoolboy again in the throes of first love.

“I haven’t had an evening to myself since the harvest run ended,” he explained. “Except for Sunday, but the girls were feeling rather desperate for some attention.”

Katie held her hand out to him. He took it gladly and allowed her to lead him inside. For a woman who’d been so standoffish when she first arrived at his home, she was very affectionate of late. He wasn’t complaining, only trying to keep himself realistic.

“You look tired, Joseph.”

“I would say the same to you, but I learned long ago it isn’t wise to tell a woman when she is looking less than her best—not if you wish to remain on good terms with her.”

Katie clearly took no offense. If anything, she seemed to warm to the topic. “But a woman who wishes to be lied to doesn’t seem the kind worth being on good terms with.”

He had missed Katie’s conversations. She could debate a topic with him, matching him point for point, but without growing petty or angry as too many did. She challenged him and impressed him at every turn. A man could spend the rest of his days in conversation with such a woman and never grow bored.

“I wasn’t arguing in favor of constant untruths,” Joseph said. “I was making a case for discretion and tact.”

Katie’s mouth twisted to one side, then the other. “So if ever I see you about town and you
don’t
tell me that I’m looking fine as feathers, am I to assume that I look rather horrid and you’re simply being tactful?”

“Only if you are hoping to be offended on a regular basis.”

“Am I looking horrid ‘on a regular basis,’ then?”

Joseph set his packages on the table. “Twisting words, Katie?” He’d long ago begun scolding her in jest for that.

Her shrug was coy to say the least. The gesture pulled at him. His collar, though it wasn’t buttoned all the way to his neck, felt tight, overly warm. He managed to keep himself from tugging at it.

“Where is Mrs. Claire?” He hadn’t noticed until then that she wasn’t in her usual spot at the front window.

“She is just down the street visiting with Ciara Fulton.”

He hadn’t intended to visit while Katie was alone. Such a thing would have been considered inappropriate in the extreme amongst society in Baltimore. The first time he’d been truly alone with Vivian before they were married was the five minutes they were granted in her parents’ rose garden so that he could propose. For just a moment he wondered if things might not have turned out differently had he been permitted a closer acquaintance before they’d wed. There’d been a great deal about her he hadn’t known. She likely would have said the same of him.

“Can I make you a cup of coffee?” Katie asked.

Though she made the best coffee he’d had in a long time, and certainly better than anything he’d had since she left his home, he didn’t want to spend their time together with her working in the kitchen. “Thank you, but no.”

Her eyes darted to the packages and back. “What have you brought with you?”

“Some things I picked up while I was at the train depot.”

Katie leaned over the table. She held her hands behind her back as if keeping herself from touching the packages. “There is quite a bit of lettering on them. Were they mailed, then?”

They had come a long way, in fact. “One is from Baltimore. The other came from Belfast.”

That brought her head around, eyes wide. “Belfast? What did you have mailed from there?”

He hadn’t wanted to make a fuss about it in case she was disappointed. It seemed the fuss was unavoidable now. “It’s something for you.”

He hadn’t thought her eyes could get wider, but they did. “For
me?
From Ireland?”

“It isn’t anything so amazing or fine as I’m afraid you’re imagining.”

“But it is for
me.
I’ve so seldom been given anything. ’Tis a treat no matter what it might be.”

She’d seldom been given anything? Didn’t Tavish bring her little tokens of affection? What kind of courtship was the man undertaking? Joseph shook off the uncharitable thought. Tavish had probably brought her wildflowers. Or given her berries from his bushes. Tavish was not a wealthy man. It likely was all he could afford to give. Just so long as he was doing something. A woman ought to be important enough to a man for him to make an effort to show her he thought of her often.

“May I open it?” Katie asked.

He forced his thoughts back into the moment. “The top package is the one from Belfast.”

Katie pulled out the chair nearest the packages and sat. Joseph braced himself against her coming disappointment. She took the package in her hand and gave it a squeeze, apparently surprised to find it wasn’t rigid.

“I’m full dying of curiosity now.” She tore back the brown paper. One at a time, she pulled out three pair of thick woolen stockings.

“I told you it wasn’t anything particularly exciting.”

She rubbed the last pair against her cheek, then held it to her nose, closing her eyes as she inhaled. “This is Irish wool, Joseph. I’d know it anywhere.”

“And it’s the thickest you’ll find, I’m told.”

“I don’t understand. There must be hundreds upon hundreds of places to buy stockings that are closer than Belfast. That is such a vast deal of trouble to go to.”

How could he explain himself without looking like a fool?

“Wyoming winters can be brutally cold,” he said. “I haven’t been able to get out of my head the thought of you being so cold that your toes were taken by frostbite.” He didn’t look at her as he explained. Never had he felt so unsure of himself. “I thought if your feet could at least be warm during your winters here, you would be less miserable. And I’ve heard Ian and Biddy both talk of how soft and warm they remember the wool in Ireland being. I wanted you to have a little bit of that with you.”

He hazarded a glance in her direction. She was smelling the wool with such a look of longing. Had they really kept a scent of home during the long journey to Wyoming, or was her memory filling in the empty spaces?

“You must have sent for these weeks and weeks ago.”

He pulled out the chair next to hers and lowered himself into it. “I first had the idea that night you told me about your feet. I sent the order with Johnson’s oldest boy on his very next trip to the train depot. It takes a very long time to ship things from Ireland, even with the telegram speeding up the process.”

He’d sent another telegram to Belfast not long after Katie had received word of her father’s illness. He had hoped to find an answer waiting at the telegraph office when he was there selling his crop, but nothing had come yet. He didn’t intend to tell Katie about it until he received an answer.
If
he received an answer.

“You must have felt like you’d wasted the effort when I decided to go back to Ireland. The stockings would have come, but I would have already been gone.”

When Katie had told him of her intention to leave Hope Springs for good, the very last thing on his mind had been those stockings.

“Thank you,” she said, rubbing them against her cheek again. “I’d worried a great deal about the coming winter, having heard so much of how cold it’ll be. But if I can have warm feet, I can endure anything.”