Read Online Hope Springs by Sarah M. Eden - Free Book Online Page B

actually hate him. Tavish was a good man, and lucky. “How’s Ian?”
    “Better.”
    Tavish’s eyes locked with his own. He made a miniscule nod in Katie’s direction and took her hand.
    “Show me where you want your dresses hung.” Tavish smiled at Katie.
    Joseph could easily read the warning there. The time had come for him to beat a hasty retreat.
    He slipped from the room and down the short hallway to where Mrs. Claire sat rocking by the window.
    “Is there anything I can do for you before I go?” he asked.
    “Quitting the field so soon, then?”
    “Quitting the field?”
    She clicked her tongue. “It wasn’t yesterday I was born, Joseph Archer. You’ve been sweet on our Katie almost since she first came. Seems to me you’ve given up terrible quick, you have.”
    “She made her choice. I am determined to respect that.”
    The look on the older woman’s face clearly showed her lack of faith in his intelligence. “I thought you a man of greater determination than that.”
    “What I am is a man who doesn’t believe in trespassing.”
    Mrs. Claire’s gaze narrowed as though she were studying his very soul. Joseph didn’t particularly want his most guarded feelings laid bare.
    “Katie has made her choice,” Joseph said firmly, reminding himself as much as Mrs. Claire.
    “Has she now?”
    That was a tone of doubt if ever he’d heard one.
    “I worry for her.” Sadness touched Mrs. Claire’s expression. “She’s known so much suffering in her life. I only want her to find the happiness she deserves.”
    “So do I,” Joseph said. “And she seems happy with Tavish.” As much as he hated acknowledging that, it was true.
    “I’ve seen the way she looks at you, Joseph. I’ve heard the way she speaks of you and with you. What if you’re right for her after all?” Mrs. Claire asked, resuming her rocking. “Doesn’t she deserve to know she has a choice?”
    “It seems a little underhanded.”
    Mrs. Claire actually rolled her eyes. “Saints above, Joseph Archer, I’m not suggesting you kidnap the lass.”
    He shook his head a little at the picture Mrs. Claire painted. “Kidnap her? My house is in shambles already, and the girls are so angry at me for ‘letting Katie leave,’ I’ll soon have a mutiny on my hands. Kidnapping her may be my best option.”
    “And now I’ve lost all faith in you, lad.” Still, she was grinning, her eyes dancing with laughter. “What sort of a ham-fisted suitor are you anyway, stealing the girl off to do housework? ”
    “And that, Mrs. Claire, is the reason I leave the courting to men like Tavish, who know how to do the thing properly.”
    “Think on what I said.” She gave him what his childhood nanny had called “the look”—a combination of pointed reprimand and fond condescension. “At least give the lass a chance to know you—the man and not the employer—better.”
    “Good day to you, Mrs. Claire.” He tipped his hat and stepped out.
    He shut the door behind him and stood silent and tense under the front overhang. For just a moment Mrs. Claire’s words tempted him. He hovered on the thought of Katie being in his life again, of holding her hand the way Tavish did, of courting her as he’d planned to.
    I’ve seen the way she looks at you. What had Mrs. Claire meant by that? Was there reason to hope after all?
    Then he remembered the smile that lit Katie’s face when Tavish had arrived. Tavish made her happy in a way he never had. He couldn’t take that away from her, not when she was so burdened by life. He could be her friend, help her where and when he could. He’d keep himself to that. Eventually he might even learn to accept it.
    Give her a chance to know you better.
    Perhaps he could do that, too.

Chapter Eight
     
    A man could do far worse than to have Katie Macauley riding up beside him in a buggy, even if that buggy was not exclusively his and they’d nothing finer to see than the very familiar Irish Road. Tavish had driven her