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Eliza had helped the Archer girls get ready to leave for the céilí and now stood with them in the front entry, buttoning up Ivy’s coat.
“We need to be going, Joseph. We’ll be late for the céilí.” Katie’s voice carried through the house. She didn’t sound angry, only excited for the weekly outing.
The wind was blowing even more fiercely than usual, and the air held a hint of rain. The party might be cut short.
Joseph peeked his head around the doorway to the sitting room. “Do you have a minute, Eliza?”
She nodded, fastening Ivy’s last coat button, then joined her employer in the more formal room. “Is something the matter?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” He motioned to the papers on his desk near the front windows. “A telegram arrived from the stage company.”
For perhaps the hundredth time since proposing her idea, Eliza’s heart dropped to her feet, weighed down by yet another impending disappointment. “They didn’t like our compromise?”
“They still think even a few miles outside of Hope Springs won’t be an ideal stopping point.”
She pushed out a deep, heavy breath, trying to will herself to be calm and confident. “If I move it as far away as the stage company wishes, I’ll be hours and hours away from the nearest town or farm or anything else. Dr. Jones won’t want his infirmary there. We’d be too far away for Mr. Johnson’s mercantile to benefit, so I cannot imagine that he’d continue to be an investor.”
“I can guarantee he wouldn’t,” Joseph said. “And I wouldn’t own the land you’d be building on. You’d have no choice but to buy it yourself, assuming we could find the owner and that the owner isn’t the United States government, which would make any transaction so complicated I can’t imagine it being completed in your lifetime.”
The obstacles kept piling higher and higher. How could she possibly overcome one of them, let alone a mountain of them?
Katie stepped into the room, little Sean in her arms. “Are you about ready, love?”
“I am.” Joseph held his arms out for their son. After the transfer was made, he wrapped one arm around his wife. “I am sorry to have brought you bad news, Eliza.”
She waved off his worry. It wasn’t his fault, after all. “I will think on all of this and see if I can’t dream up a solution.”
“As will I.”
The family was gone after a moment, leaving the house quiet and Eliza’s thoughts spinning. She fed Lydia and herself and buttoned them both up in their coats, but she couldn’t bring herself around to the idea of joining the céilí. If she’d thought Patrick would be there, she might have been tempted. But he hadn’t attended the last two, having moved out of his parents’ house. She’d heard enough from his sisters and sisters-in-law at their weekly sewing circle to know that things were a little better between Patrick and the rest of the O’Connors. Certainly not whole or even truly happy, but better. She longed to ask him about that change and longed to tell him of her frustrations with her inn. He’d listened before; surely he would again.
“Should we go visit Patrick?” Though she asked Lydia, she was really inquiring of herself. As soon as she asked the question, she knew the answer.
Five minutes later, they were making their way toward the river, not to cross at the bridge, but to turn and walk toward the house Patrick currently called home.
The wind blew something fierce. The sky was leaden, with fast-moving clouds. The céilí wasn’t likely to last to its usual late hour. Here was yet another reason the town ought to have been excited about the possibility of a nearby inn: their weekly party could be held inside when the weather was uncooperative.
If she could just see it built, those who were still unconvinced would see that she was offering them something of value. She had Patrick add to his building plans, a little room in the inn with a few things that passengers might wish to purchase from the mercantile, so they could buy what they needed without going into town. She’d also spoken with Seamus Kelly, the local blacksmith, about the possibility of building a small forge near the inn, should his services be needed. While she still hadn’t settled the matter of alcohol at the inn, she’d found answers to all of the town’s other concerns.
Couldn’t the stage company see that her inn was worth changing their schedule for? Building the inn would show Lydia that her mum could provide her a home and hope . . . and shoes, for heaven’s sake.
It all felt so out of reach.
When Eliza and Lydia arrived, light flickered inside the house. Patrick was home, then. Her nervousness and excitement halted her a moment, but only a moment. She knocked at the door and waited.
The door opened. A very confused Patrick eyed her standing there.
She offered what was probably an awkward smile. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t be at the céilí.”
“So you thought you’d join the party I must’ve been hostin’ here?” Drier than a desert, that answer. Was he not at all happy to see her after two weeks? For heaven’s sake, he’d embraced her the last time they were together. He’d nearly kissed her. Did he regret those things?
“Don’t fret, Mr. Patrick. I’ll make absolutely certain not to enjoy myself or smile or say anything that isn’t strictly business. And”—she could feel emotion climbing her neck—“I certainly don’t expect you to pretend like you are”—the emotion thickened—“at all happy to see me. But you could at least”—she choked a bit on the lump in her throat—“let me get out two words before—before—” Merciful heavens, tears were actually falling. “Oh, never mind, you grumpy, grumpy man.” She spun and turned to go.
“Eliza.” He spoke her name so quietly, so tenderly.
She stopped but didn’t turn back. She kept Lydia close and tried in vain to stop her tears, but she was too tired, too worn down, too frustrated by life. Patrick left the doorway and stepped outside, over the threshold, facing her.
Eliza tried to look firm and unaffected, but her chin quivered, giving her away.
He put his arms around her and Lydia and held them gently. “I’m sorry. I’d not meant to make you feel unwelcome.”
She leaned into his unexpected but very-needed embrace. “I’ve had a horrible day, Patrick. Absolutely horrible, and there was no one I could talk to about it.”
“Is that why you came here?”
She took a shaky breath and nodded, though she wasn’t sure he could tell.
“Come inside. Tell me why things’ve been so horrible.”
This was precisely what she’d come hoping for, yet she hesitated. “You didn’t seem too keen on that a minute ago.”
“Lydia convinced me.”
She could smile at that. “We mustn’t disappoint her.”
His arms dropped away, but he didn’t leave her there on the stoop. Instead, he took her hand in his and led her across the threshold and inside the house.
She’d expected it to be more or less empty inside, knowing the state of his coffers. But it had a small table, a few chairs, and shelves to the side forming something of a makeshift kitchen. The blanket she’d sat on when she’d come visiting was now spread out like a rug in front of the fireplace. A quilt hung from the rafters, dividing off part of the room.
“The family made some donations,” he said, motioning to the furniture.
“You have more furniture than I do,” she pointed out.
“But Lydia has the best furniture of all.”
“True.” Smiling felt good. It drove away a bit of the misery she’d been feeling. “Her little bed is just perfect.”
“A nod to the designer.” Patrick motioned her over to the chairs near the fireplace.
Eliza set Lydia on the blanket, then sat beside her. She might eventually move to a chair, but the little girl looked a bit overwhelmed. Patrick sat on the blanket with her and her daughter.
“I-und!” Lydia scooted over to him, holding up her doll for his inspection.
“Patrick,” he reminded her.
“Pa-ick.”
He met Eliza’s eye. “She’s getting closer.”
Lydia repositioned herself so she leaned a little against Patrick’s leg while she played with her doll and handkerchief.
He looked at Eliza. “Tell me about your day.”
“Joseph received another telegram from the stage company.” She released a tight breath. “They rejected our proposal to move the inn ten miles south so it could be a first-day stopping point.”
“Ten miles?” Patrick whistled low. “That’s a good pace away from town.”
“The stage company says it’s too far to go the first day, but too soon to stop on the second. But if we build even farther away from Hope Springs as they suggest, the mercantile and Dr. Jones would have to withdraw from the project.”
“Did Joseph have any ideas for how to proceed?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “The inn is feeling more and more impossible.”
He brushed his hand over Lydia’s hair as naturally as if he’d been doing it all her life. The O’Connor women had said he’d always had a way with children, a statement that was proving comfortingly true.
“I wish I had some grand solution,” he said.
“I do feel a little better just having talked to you about it. And knowing you’ll be trying to think of an answer helps me feel less alone.”
Was he blushing under those whiskers? She liked that, even being as grumpy and stand-offish as he could be, he was still tenderhearted enough to color up at a compliment.
Lydia looked up at him, her little face pulled in worry that faded to a smile of relief when she saw that he was still there.
“If you aren’t careful,” she said, “Lydia will grow so attached to you that you’ll be forced to fill this house with dolls and handkerchiefs.”
He smiled at that. Heavens, she enjoyed seeing his rare smiles. “That wouldn’t be such a terrible thing.”
“Do your nieces and nephews cuddle up to you as readily as Lydia does?”
He shook his head. “I don’t see much of them. Even when I have dinners with the family, most of them keep their distance.”
“Most of the children?” she asked.
“Most everyone.” Sadness touched the words.
Eliza turned to face him more directly. “Have you told them any bit of what you told me a couple of weeks ago?”
She could see the answer in the stiffening of his posture and the tightening of his lips.
“I’d thought things were a bit better between you and your family. I thought perhaps you’d opened up a bit.”
He accepted the handkerchief doll Lydia offered him. “Even if I’d told them any of what I shared with you, it wouldn’t be enough. There’s just too much between us. Too much I can’t tell them.”
She scooted closer, sitting almost as near to him as her daughter was. “Then tell me a tiny bit of it, just enough to lift some of the weight from your heart.”
He eyed her. She felt certain she saw the tiniest bit of his walls weakening.
“I’ll tell you something about me,” Eliza said, “and then you can tell me something about you. Give and take.”
“I don’t know.”
“Contrary to what you probably believe about me, I don’t share confidences easily. It would be a far fairer exchange than you likely realize.”
Lydia laid her head on his leg, still playing with her doll, but more slowly and droopily. He continued stroking her hair in a soothing rhythm. “I can choose which things I reveal?”
“Of course.”
He hesitated for the length of a drawn-out breath before indicating she should go ahead.
“When I was five years old, I stole a peppermint from the sweetshop in our town.”
He gasped theatrically. “I didn’t know you were a criminal!”
She swatted at him. “Your turn.”
“During the passage from Ireland, I snuck up to the first-class dining room and swiped a pastry.”
“I assume they threw you overboard as punishment,” she said.
With an amused smirk, he said, “They never caught me.”
It was again her turn to share something. “I once told my mum that she looked beautiful in a yellow dress, but she looked awful.”
He chuckled. “When I was twelve years old, I kissed two girls in one day and felt so horribly guilty that I ran—literally ran—to the chapel to confess to the priest.”
She didn’t bother hiding her amusement. “Was he horrified?”
“I am absolutely certain he was struggling not to laugh.”
What else could she share with him? She wanted to maintain their lighter tone, but also hoped he would touch on the heavier things that weighed on him. “When I worked in the factory in New York the first time, I used to pray every morning that the men who repaired the machines when they broke down wouldn’t show up to work so that there was a chance we’d be done for the day before lunch.”
“I can do better than that.” He leaned close. “I was one of the men who repaired the machines.”
She laughed out loud. His eyes twinkled back at her. Their exchange of “secrets” was doing her burdened heart good, and it seemed to be offering the same to him.
“Lydia cried so constantly when she was an infant that, though I loved her even before she was born, I struggled a little to like her. That made me feel rather like a horrible mother. But Maura told me it was nothing to be ashamed of. ‘Difficult babies make life difficult,’ she would say.”
He didn’t look the least shocked or disgusted. He took her hand in his. “You and Maura were good friends.”
“We became like sisters. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”
He rubbed her hand between his. The movement warmed more than her fingers. “She took me in after the war,” he said, “and never made me feel like a burden. She was family to me when I had no one. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”
Surely that history and connection could give him some hope that Maura, if no one else, wouldn’t cut him off. “So what is it you’re still not telling her?”
He stiffened a little but didn’t release her hand. “That’s a far more complicated thing than what we’ve been tossing around tonight, Eliza. Far bigger.”
“You need a bigger confession in exchange for it?”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
But she knew in her heart it would help. She had only one unspoken truth kept inside that was as big as the enormity of weight in his expression. She swallowed, breathed, and let the words fall from her mouth, words she never thought she’d say. “My husband told me he regretted marrying me.”
Patrick’s eyes pulled wide. His mouth hung a tad open. “What?”
All the ache of that long-ago moment returned, but amplified. “He was working in a bar, which he hated. We were struggling to house and feed and clothe ourselves, and had only just realized I was going to have a baby. He saw no light ahead. He missed his family and the life he’d lost. In a heated moment, he admitted that he regretted us. That his family had been right, that our origins created a chasm between him and me that was too wide to ever cross.”
“Saints above,” he whispered. His mouth hung a bit agape, shock pulling his features.
“When things were calmer, he apologized and insisted he hadn’t meant it, but the regret was always there lurking in his face.” She dropped her gaze to their entwined hands. “He died less than a month later, trying to break up a fight between two drunkards in the bar. Everyone, including Maura, thinks he and I had a fairy-tale love story, that he gave up everything for me and never once looked back. But that’s not true. He was miserable, and he regretted the life he gave up. He resented me for being the reason he had to live the life we had.”
“How could anyone regret having you in their life?”
“He said in marrying me, he’d burned the one bridge he desperately wanted to cross back over, that he was stuck.” She looked up at him. “The most difficult thing was that he was right.”
“Eliza.” He cupped her hand between his.
“Marrying me was the reason he was in that bar, and he wasn’t happy there.” She emptied her lungs once more before pushing ahead. “There. I shared the biggest secret I carry around with me. You owe me something equally heavy.”
He looked away, his gaze on the low-burning fire. “You are a stiff bargainer, Eliza Porter.”
“And I’m as unmovable as the snowcapped mountains.” She wouldn’t have pressed him if she didn’t know that unburdening his mind would help him heal.
Lydia had fallen asleep with her head on his leg. He gently shifted her onto the blanket, her arm still draped over her beloved doll. Eliza waited patiently, knowing he would speak when he was ready.
After a moment, he faced her once more. His expression had turned nearly blank, except for the determined angle of his eyebrows. “Grady and I both fought with the Irish Regiment of New York. You can ask anyone in the O’Connor family, and they’ll tell you the story they all know well. He and I stayed behind when the family went west. I did because, as they see it, I loved being in the city more than I loved being with my family. Grady stayed behind because he loved Maura too much to even consider talking her into leaving behind her parents and sister.”
“Neither of which is entirely true,” she said. He’d told her that much already.
“Right. After a time, war broke out, and the Irish in New York began signing up to fight and defend this new home of ours. I was so hotheaded and impulsive that I signed up immediately. Grady, being the loving soul he was, signed up as well to protect me. He put himself in harm’s way for his brother, the act of a true hero and near-saint. Then he died in a battle he was fighting in only because of me. And I, the one who’d recruited the danger in the first place, survived. An act of cruel fate. He lives on in their memories as the saintly brother he was, and I am the one they love anyway, the one they love even though.”
He didn’t speak with bitterness, but with undeniable pain.
“How much of that family lore is true?” she asked
In a quiet voice, he said, “Only some.”
He’d released her hand when he’d tended to Lydia. She took hold of his again. “I’m listening.”
“I debated enlisting once the fighting began. I kept hesitating, going back to how much I wanted to be able to join my family out West. Fighting in a war meant, assuming I survived, it’d be years before that was even a possibility. One day while I was trying to decide what to do, Grady came home—I was living with him and Maura at the time—and he told me in confidence that he’d enlisted. He felt strongly about the cause, knew this was a country worth saving, but he also knew he had to get out of the city for a time. He felt as if it were closing in on him.”
“That was an awful risk, going to war to escape New York.”
“It wasn’t his primary reason, but, yes, it was a little foolhardy. I think he realized that fairly quickly, but he was a man of his word and wouldn’t go back on it. And he really did want to defend the country he’d come to love.”
Patrick was growing stiffer, more distant. Eliza wrapped her arm around his, as she’d done weeks before in his parents’ loft. She rested her head against his shoulder, hoping the silent show of support would bolster him.
“I wanted to defend the country, too. I’d wanted to from the first rumblings of war, but I’d hesitated. Grady taking that leap was what finally pushed me past my reluctance. I figured we’d fight together and look out for each other.”
Eliza was beginning to piece together the rest of his confession, and her heart ached all the more for him. Still, she said nothing.
“So I went and signed up as well, vowing silently to the family that I’d keep him safe. He had a wife and child who needed him to return safe and whole.”
“You followed him to battle, not the other way around,” Eliza whispered.
“I hadn’t realized until returning to Maura’s house after the war, after Grady was killed, that she’d assumed the opposite. She thought, and so did all of the family, that I was the one who put Grady in danger, that my rash decision had cost his little family their husband and father. They believed Grady had sacrificed everything to protect me, and though I don’t know that they’d ever say it, there’s a feeling of his death being my fault.”
“Oh, Patrick.”
“He is the hero who gave all, and in a very real way that is true. He was the bravest of the soldiers I fought alongside. He gave everything he had to the very end.”
“Which is likely part of why you are so reluctant to tell the family how things actually came to be, though doing so would likely heal some of the resentment between your family and yourself.”
He didn’t answer for a moment. She could feel his breathing grow shakier. “I can’t tell them anything about those years of fighting. What if something I say makes them think less of him? I don’t want them to. They shouldn’t. But I feel like no one knows me, no one knows the burden I carry, or the weight that’s crushing me.”
She looked up at him. “I know.”
A soft, subtle hint of a smile touched his face. “You do. And you were right: it helps to speak of it.”
“Why did you leave New York for Canada? No one seems to have an answer for that.”
He adjusted his position and, to her delight and comfort, set his arms around her, holding her in a warm and tender embrace. “Aidan talked a lot about how his father was extra brave because he fought to protect me even though he didn’t want to go to war. He didn’t remember anything about Grady, but that . . . that version of things gave him something of his father to cling to. I couldn’t risk taking that away from him. I still can’t.” He breathed deeply, the way she often did when feeling burdened. “It’s easier being the villain at a distance.”
“But you aren’t the villain.”
He sat, quietly holding her. She looked up at him only to find his gaze had grown distant. “What if they won’t believe that?”
“What if they will?”
A clap of thunder shook the air. It startled Lydia awake, sending her immediately into sobs. Natural as anything, Patrick picked her up and rocked her, cooing soothingly. Eliza looked to the windows. No rain pelted the glass.
“I think we’d best head back to Archers’ so we don’t get caught in the rain.”
“Aye. That’d be wise.” He stood and held his hand out to her.
She accepted the offer and got to her feet as well. They were all three soon bundled and following the river in the wrenching wind. Patrick pulled his coat around Lydia, shielding her against the onslaught.
“You’ll both need warmer coats before winter.” He spoke loudly enough to be heard over the cry of the wind as they approached the Archer home.
“And she’ll need shoes,” Eliza said. “Perhaps I would do best to abandon my idea of an inn and simply be grateful I have income as a housekeeper.” She stepped up onto the porch and took Lydia from him. “Some dreams are just too grand to hold on to forever.”
He stepped up with her, standing close enough for his ice-blue eyes to be visible even in the dark of approaching night. “The grandest of dreams don’t die, Eliza. Don’t let them go yet.”
“It’s difficult to hold on to things that feel impossible,” she said.
His arm slowly wrapped around her waist and pulled her close to him. “Perhaps you’re not holding on in the right way.”
Her pulse, pounding in her neck, grew loud enough to drown out the howling wind. “You know the right way, do you?”
He lowered his voice. “I’m beginning to sort it out.”
She breathed slowly, tensely. Prickles tiptoed over every inch of her. “I’m getting an inkling, myself,” she whispered.
She could feel the warmth of him so nearby, could hear every breath he took.
“Does this feel impossible to you?” he asked, his lips a mere inch from hers.
“It feels perfect.”
In the very next moment, wagon wheels sounded in the darkness. As quickly as it had begun, the spell between them was broken.
He took a step back. “Thank you for letting me spill my secrets.”
“And me mine. It’s good to feel like I really know you. Finally.”
He stepped off the porch. “Good night, Eliza,” he said. Then he disappeared into the night.