Longing for Home by Sarah M. Eden Page B

high, glancing in all directions. If only he’d decide there was no one to be found and go about his way. He glanced toward the front once, then twice, the second time keeping his gaze there. By the tilt of his broad-brimmed hat, he wasn’t looking at the door but something on the ground.
    She’d left her shawl and bag near the door. Saints above! There they sat, in full view of this stranger and his gun, testament to her presence. She couldn’t slip out. He’d look until he found her.
    Panic seized her. There’d be no sneaking away, no hiding. He hung the lantern on a peg beside the door and hunched down, taking the wet shawl in his hand. He turned his head in her direction. The man must have been looking directly at her from under his hat. She knew he saw her there.
    Saints o’ mercy. Just don’t kill me.
    Katie opened her mouth to explain, but no sound would emerge. He yet held his gun and was well within his rights to use it. She couldn’t breathe.
    His head tipped a bit to the side. “Katie?”

    What, begorra, was Katie doing hiding in the corner of Ian’s barn? Tavish leaned his shotgun against the wall.
    “Have you gone and lost your mind, woman?” he asked. “I might’ve shot you if I’d not recognized you first.”
    “Tavish?” Had she only just realized who he was?
    He took off his hat. “Now how about you answer my question? What are you doing hiding in my brother’s barn?”
    The stubborn woman with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue fell to pieces right there in front of him. Her face crumbled. She dropped her head into her hands, her breath coming broken and unsteady.
    Tavish strongly suspected he’d scared her out of her wits by coming into the barn with a gun. If he’d had any idea she was the one who’d closed the door, he wouldn’t have arrived armed.
    He squatted down in front of her, thrown by the fact that she still hadn’t spoken. She must have really been upset. “Come now, Katie. No harm done. Don’t cry.”
    She pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose but still didn’t look at him. Several deep breaths seemed to calm her a bit. She even hazarded a terribly uncertain glance at him.
    He gave her his most winning smile. “Are you fond of barns, then, that you sit about in them in all kinds of weather?”
    Katie shook her head. “I was so very wet, and the lightning seemed terrible close, and . . .” She let out another long breath. “I’m sorry.”
    She chose the barn to escape the elements?
    Tavish shook his head at that bit of female logic. “But why didn’t you knock at the house?”
    “I didn’t know who lived here.” She pulled her arms around herself and dropped her gaze again.
    Her hair sat wet and heavy against her face. He had the strongest urge to brush it back out of her way but felt certain she’d not appreciate his doing so. The Katie Macauley he’d shared a wagon bench with only that afternoon would likely have broken his fingers for touching her. Where had that banshee of a woman gone?
    “Mr. Archer said the O’Connors were the fifth house down, and I hadn’t gone that far.”
    “My parents’ house is the fifth one. My sister’s is fourth. This is Ian’s. Mine’s the second. Another sister sits first after the bridge.”
    “There are a lot of O’Connors,” Katie said.
    He had to smile at that. “Some might say too many.” His eyes didn’t leave her face. She was such an unexpected combination of independence and need. She looked away from his scrutiny, noticeably pulling into herself.
    “Joseph Archer let you go, did he?” Tavish honestly hadn’t expected that of him.
    Katie nodded.
    Odd. “He and I don’t always agree, but I’d at least have thought him above throwing a woman out in a storm.”
    “I’ve endured worse, I assure you.”
    Her declaration, devoid as it was of self-pity, struck right at his heart. He didn’t like the idea of anyone, let alone a woman he suspected was very much alone in the world, being