Longing for Home Read Online Free PDF

hornet’s nest.” She’d found that approach by far the best. Leave people alone, and they’ll do the same.
    “I won’t have my land or home become a battlefield.” ’Twas as much a warning as a statement.
    Katie nodded. “I understand, sir. I’d not like living in such a place myself, no matter how short or long the stay.”
    Perhaps it was her own wishful thinking, but Katie thought she saw him waver. The tiniest hint of uncertainty lurked deep in his eyes.
    “Give me a chance, sir.”
    He watched her but didn’t give any indication that he agreed or disagreed.
    “Let me do the work, and you can see if I make trouble for you.”
    “And if you do?”
    “Then I’d say you have every right to send me off. I’d be going back on my sworn word to you, and that’s always reason to dismiss an employee.” It wouldn’t come to that, though, she vowed. Katie had not given anyone a hint of trouble since that horrible day eighteen years earlier. She’d caused enough people pain and heartache and loss in that single night to fill a lifetime and more.
    “I suppose that’s only fair,” he said. “But if you start a war, you’ll have to go.”
    “Yes, Mr. Archer, sir.”
    He slammed his hat on his head, likely hoping to wedge it on tightly enough to keep it there despite the wind that was picking up quick and fierce. He pushed the barn door open with a heave. She could see he was not entirely happy with the decision he’d made.
    Katie wasn’t convinced herself. ’Twas hardly the quiet situation she’d prefer.
    “You need only stay a year,” she told herself. “In a year you’ll have enough saved to go home, and all will be well again.”

Chapter Four
     
    “An Irishwoman,” Joseph muttered to himself.
    How had he managed to hire an Irishwoman? Any other nationality, any other, would have been fine. She could have spoken not a word of English and known only how to cook dishes that were hardly recognizable, and he would have simply shrugged and accepted it. But having a second Irish employee would cause him no end of trouble.
    I should have sent her away. The O’Connors would have taken her in. He still didn't understand what had made him change his mind.
    “Yes, you do,” he said to himself as he stepped inside the barn. “She accused you of lying to her.”
    He couldn’t entirely refute her accusation. He’d promised her a job without asking her nationality. Firing her for her Irish roots when he hadn’t stated that as a requirement was not honest. He had failings like any other man, but he was not a liar.
    Joseph looked back, watching her step onto the back porch and go inside the house. He should have asked far more questions in those telegrams than he had. Besides her nationality, he should have made entirely certain she was the grandmotherly type he wanted.
    When he’d read in her first response that she’d worked nearly twenty years as a servant in various households, he had assumed she was older than he was by quite a few years. That thick brown hair of hers showed not a single strand of gray. Her face was not lined with age, her posture not stooped and weary with time. She was likely not much more than twenty-five years old.
    A young, attractive, unmarried woman living under the same roof as a young, widowed man. That would likely cause as many whispers as her nationality.
    He muttered a few choice words under his breath. She was going to be trouble, he could sense it. But Miss Macauley had his back against the wall, and she knew it. He had to have a housekeeper. Six months of attempting to do the cooking and cleaning, along with all the work required to maintain a farm, had all but knocked his feet out from under him.
    He took up his pitchfork again and set himself to the task of mucking out the stall he’d been working on when Miss Macauley arrived. He’d gone to the station a week earlier to fetch her, but she hadn’t been on any train in the twenty-four hours he’d waited. Five