Hope Springs (7 page)

Biddy near about cried when Katie gave her the medicine. The flow of gratitude flustered Katie a little. Clearly her contribution had been unexpected.
We’re his family.
It would take time, she told herself. A person didn’t simply toss themselves into someone else’s family.

“And I’ve brought my fiddle,” she said. “If you think anyone would enjoy a tune or two. Of course, if I’d only be in the way—”

“Oh, dear Katie.” Biddy squeezed her free hand. “Your music would be a gift from heaven itself. Soothing to the soul, just as you said.”

The music did, in fact, bring a change to those gathered there. More smiles were evident, fewer furrowed brows. Ian remained in bed, but Biddy said she knew he could hear the tunes and appreciated them.

Katie left the house feeling better than she had on her arrival. Tavish insisted again he’d repay her for the powders. She hoped he wouldn’t. Making the sacrifice helped her feel part of them all. So many of the worries plaguing her were either out of her control or things she’d already failed at. This was something she could do to help.

Her mind spun wildly about as she lay in bed that night. Her thoughts battered her raw emotions. Too much had happened too quickly. She had changed plans she’d had her entire life. It was too much. Far, far too much.

She hoped that one day her heart and mind would wrap around the changes she’d made in her life. She would find joy to outweigh the pain. There in Wyoming she’d find a family to be part of, people to belong to.

In time, she hoped, the emptiness she felt would ease.

Chapter Seven

Joseph pulled his buggy to a halt in front of Mrs. Claire’s house. The girls were spending the day with the Kesters down the Red Road. He really ought to have been out in his fields. Yet, there he was, out paying a visit. He’d tried to focus on his work, but his mind constantly returned to Katie. There was nothing for it but to go see her and clear his thoughts.

He had a barrel of flour for her. She likely wouldn’t need it for another week or more. But flour was the perfect excuse to come see her, if only for a moment.

Finbarr helped him heft the barrel out of the buggy. Joseph could roll it inside and leave it wherever Katie wanted it.

“Let me know if Ian or Biddy need anything,” Joseph said.

The boy nodded and made his way up the path toward the road.

Joseph knocked and waited. Would Katie think him a fool for bringing her supplies before she’d told him she needed them? Perhaps he really was a fool. She’d only been gone thirty-six hours and he was already spending precious time concocting reasons to visit a woman who had pledged her heart to another. He
was
a fool, a complete and utter fool.

He could be friendly, but really nothing beyond.

The door opened and there she was. Not even a second could have passed before a smile appeared on Katie’s face.

“Why, Joseph Archer! And what is it brings you around here?”

Friendly. Nothing beyond.
“I was in town this morning and thought I’d pick up your next barrel of flour while I was there.”

“That was very kind of you.”

She sounded happy, so why, then, did strain show behind her eyes? He studied her for some clue, but found none. Katie was frustratingly good at keeping her thoughts hidden.

“Where would you like me to put the barrel?” he asked.

She pondered a moment. “There is not a great deal of room in the kitchen area. I’d best keep my supplies in my own room.”

Katie pulled the door open all the way, making space for him to pass through. He rolled the barrel through the doorway. Mrs. Claire sat inside, comfortably settled in her rocking chair.

“A fine good afternoon to you, Joseph Archer.”

“And the rest of the day to you, Mrs. Claire.”

Her wrinkled face turned up in an amused grin. “Well, then, Katie. I see you taught him a thing or two while you lived at his house. That there was a right proper answer to an Irish greeting.”

Joseph’s breath caught for a brief instant at the bright-eyed smile Katie gave the older woman. That was the smile he’d come to see, the one he’d closed his eyes to remember as he’d stood in his empty kitchen that morning.

“I tried,” Katie told Mrs. Claire. “I was determined to make an Irishman out of him, but, alas, I ran out of time.”

That seemed to be the theme of his and Katie’s connection: wanting something but not having sufficient time to accomplish it. He’d once hoped to court her after she left his employ, but Tavish was there before he had the opportunity.

“You can roll that right in through here,” Katie said, motioning him toward the far end of the fireplace where a short hallway jutted off.

The house was small; he reached his destination in only a few steps. Katie threw Mrs. Claire another friendly smile over her shoulder. But, Joseph noticed, that smile slid quickly away as she stepped into the dim bedroom she called her own. The strain he’d seen in her face at the door returned.

What was weighing so heavily on her?

“If you’d place that in the corner, I’d be grateful.”

He took a quick look around the room as he followed the instructions. The space could use another lantern, a candle at the very least. Even in the afternoon, the small window didn’t let in enough light to make the room as cheerful as it ought to be.

He had no argument with the simplicity of the furnishings, only their obvious need for repairs.

He wanted more for her, at least a few of life’s comforts. If only there was a way to give her the relative luxuries she’d had only two days before. She’d had a bedframe and a comfortable mattress at his house; now she had only a straw tick on a pallet for a bed. But she’d never accept anything from him. She was too proud, too stubborn. He understood, admired her for it even, but it could be very frustrating. She likely wouldn’t even let him bring the curtains from her old room to add some femininity to this new space. Women liked curtains. She would probably enjoy having them there. But she’d never take them from him.

“Is it still three dollars for the barrel?”

Her question pulled his thoughts together. He nodded.

Katie crossed to the opposite corner and knelt in front of her battered carpetbag. She opened it and pulled out a small drawstring bag.

Joseph could see she hadn’t unpacked her things.

“Is something wrong with the chest of drawers?” he asked, nodding toward the bureau.

She moved to the pallet bed and sat. “The drawer frames are pulling apart.” She turned out the contents of her small coin purse on the bedtick and began counting coins.

“Do you have a hammer and nails?” Joseph asked. He couldn’t give her fine furniture or luxurious comforts, but he could at least fix the drawers.

“Aye, just there on the floor. I borrowed them from Tavish yesterday but haven’t had time to see to the mending.”

Joseph hung his hat on the doorknob and slid out of his heavy jacket. “I have some time right now. I’ll fix the drawers.”

She looked up at him, surprise and uncertainty in her gaze. “You don’t have to do that, Joseph. I know you’re busy.”

“I’m never too busy to help.” He left unspoken that helping
her,
most specifically, was very near the top of his list of priorities. Only his girls and the most pressing work on his farm came anywhere near Katie’s well-being in his mind. Even if the repairs took all day, it would be well worth his time.

He knelt in front of the short chest and pulled out each drawer. Just as Katie had described, the framing was loose and no longer square. A few nails in the right places would help.

“If you’re staying for a piece, would you mind if I bent your ear a bit?”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “I know I’ve heard you use that phrase before, but I don’t remember what it means.”

She laughed lightly, a sound that did his heart as much good as hearing her music did. So many times he’d stood at the kitchen door or at his own bedroom window listening to the strains of her violin from across the fields. He knew the music had calmed her, but did she have any idea how much he had needed it as well?

“I’m only asking if I can bother you with a great deal of talking and asking advice,” Katie said.

“Of course.”

The earnestness in her deep brown eyes was enough to nearly undermine his determination to keep his feelings hidden. He focused on his task, turning over the first drawer he meant to mend. If he didn’t actually look at her, she might not see his heart hanging there in his eyes.

“I’ve been wondering on something these past weeks,” she said. “Mr. Johnson threatened to charge you the Irish price for the flour you buy me, but your cost hasn’t gone up. How is it you convinced him not to cheat you? Did you threaten him?”

“No.” He lined up a nail. “I needed the flour price to remain the same, so I discovered something Johnson needed just as much. We came to a mutual agreement.”

“What was it he was needing?”

“A loan.” He pounded in the first nail, followed quickly by a second. Already the drawer was sturdier. “The trail to the train station isn’t passable for much of the winter. Johnson has to bring in all his inventory before the snow comes. He didn’t have the funds on hand to cover that expense this time around.”

He didn’t hear her footsteps over the sound of the next two nails driving into place. He simply looked up to find her sitting on the floor near him. The familiarity of her look of pondering, of her simple, tidy work dress, of those wisps of hair that always came loose by the end of the day, settled over him. For just a moment he knelt there, hammer still in his hand, a nail held between his teeth, just looking at her.

I could sit with her like this all day.

He shook himself back to some presence of mind. There was no point losing his head.

“What else does he need, I wonder?” Katie muttered the words, as if talking entirely to herself.

“What else does
who
need?” He lined up his next nail, grateful for the double distraction of conversation and repairs.

“Mr. Johnson. He’s raised the Irish price on wool and shoes and even medicine. The winter will be hard without wool cloth to make coats. The Irish can’t afford to replace the shoes their children have outgrown.”

Joseph drove in another nail. “Next Seamus Kelly will raise his prices for blacksmithing and shoeing,” he said. “Then both sides will decide that is reason enough to be at one another’s throats. That is the cycle of life in Hope Springs.”

“But if someone among us responded to the mercantile by swapping needs with Mr. Johnson, like you’ve done, rather than punishing the Red Road, maybe that cycle would stop.”

He tested the sturdiness of the newly repaired drawer and found it much improved. “The key isn’t finding just any need, but one that holds equal weight as his reason for raising prices.”

“His
reason
is he hates the lot of us. What could possibly be traded to outweigh that?”

Joseph realized she wasn’t speaking in hypotheticals. He slid the mended drawer back into the chest and looked at her, reminding himself to remain simply friendly, helpful, emotionally neutral.

“Are you hoping to get the Irish prices down to what the Red Road pays?” That was, he knew all too well, a fool’s errand. “He’ll never do it.”

She gave him a worried, pleading look. It was too much. He set his eyes on the next drawer. Work was as good a distraction as any.

“Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way, Joseph.”

You have no idea.
“Turn out what way, exactly?”

He heard her sigh. “I gave up home for this. I stayed here because I love it, because I thought it would be a happy place to live.”

He thought she’d decided to stay because of Tavish. That had worried him. His late wife had given up the only hometown she’d ever known to come with him to Wyoming, and she had regretted it every year she’d spent there. She’d been miserable. He didn’t want that for Katie.

Joseph focused on the next drawer. He didn’t look up at her. Seeing her upset would eat away at him. “Are you unhappy?” he asked quietly.

“Not
un
happy. I’m more frustrated, I suppose. Between Ian’s troubles and Biddy’s worries and the Irish not knowing if they can afford to survive the winter, I’m weighed down. And . . . I—”

She stopped. Joseph looked up and immediately wished he hadn’t. Her chin quivered and a tear coursed down her face. He had to grip his hammer tight to keep from reaching out for her.

Katie pressed her eyes closed, turning her face toward the ceiling. “I never used to be a crier, Joseph. Hope Springs has ruined me for it, I’m afraid.”

She was smiling a little, even through her tears. Joseph had never known anyone quite like Katie Macauley. “What has brought the tears on this time?”

She shrugged with one shoulder, but Joseph didn’t believe the dismissive gesture for a moment. Katie wasn’t one to grow upset over something small.

“I was only thinking of my father.” Her voice broke on the last word. She pushed out a breath and composed herself on the spot. “He’s dying, and I’m so far away.”