Separate Roads Read Online Free PDF

her look of surprise when she’d realized who he was and what she had done to him. He remembered too his own surprise to find that the fair lady in distress was none other than the wildcat he’d rescued in Missouri the year before.
    Laughing out loud, Rich slapped his leg. “What a woman!”

4
    Jordana yawned as she and Caitlan stepped from the house the next morning. “It was a fine party, Caitlan. I can’t thank you enough.”
    “Oh, go on with ya. ’Twas clear and simple that we needed some fun, and yar birthday was the perfect excuse.” Caitlan pulled her brown crocheted shawl around her shoulders and stifled her own yawn. “I’m supposin’ we shouldn’t have stayed up quite so long.”
    Jordana nodded. “I wanted only to crawl back into bed this morning. But instead, I have to go to the bank and explain to Mr. Chittenden why I refused to wait for him to escort me last night.”
    “He won’t be givin’ ya grief for it, will he?” Caitlan asked as they crossed the street cautiously. The city was only now starting to wake up to a new day, but freight traffic had seemed to double in the last months. And while Brenton deemed the rowdies were sleeping off the night before, giving Jordana and Caitlan safety in walking to work without his escort, there were other circumstances that often put their lives in peril.
    “Mr. Chittenden won’t say a word. After all, he was late. Nonetheless, he’ll give me that reproving look, staring down the end of his nose as though a bee had landed there. He’ll ‘tsk-tsk’ the matter, then go about his business,” Jordana replied.
    “Ya looked to be havin’ a good time with that Captain O’Brian,” Caitlan said, suddenly changing the subject. “He’s a right handsome man. Irish, too.”
    “Now, Caitlan O’Connor. I thought you were sweet on my brother. How dare you go looking at another?”
    “I didn’t say I was sizin’ the man up for a weddin’, just that he was handsome. Ya know ya think the same.”
    “I said nothing of the sort. Besides, what I happened to notice was that you and Brenton spent most of the evening looking at each other all moon-eyed. When are you two going to stop being so silly and talk to each other sensibly about your feelings?”
    Caitlan’s teasing tone instantly faded. “There’d be no sense to talkin’. Nothin’ can come of my havin’ feelin’s for yar brother.”
    “And why not? I happen to be quite confident that he shares those same feelings.”
    “We’re too different. I don’t feel about God the way he does, and by yar own admission he’d not go takin’ a wife for hisself that didn’t share his faith in the Almighty.”
    “But, Caitlan, I know you believe in God. I know you were brought up to have a strong faith. You can’t just throw that away because the Irish have had a hard time of it.”
    Caitlan looked at her friend indignantly. “It’d be for more than that. My people have had a bad time of it, ’tis true. But religion has played a big part in that sorry part of the world. The Protestants hate the Catholics, the Catholics hate the Protestants. The landowners hate the workers, and the workers spend so much time drinkin’ that they hate everyone.”
    “Not all of Ireland spends its time in hate, does it?” Jordana asked. “You simply found yourself in the midst of more problems than most.”
    “And what would yarself be knowin’ about Ireland? Ya never lived there,” Caitlan said in an accusing tone. “Ya’ve only known a good life, Jordana. Yar folks are good, upstandin’ people, and they’ve always had plenty. Ya don’t know what it’s like to do without. Not truly. Oh, we’ve done without some here in Omaha, but even this would be a king’s share compared to what my family has known.”
    “And that’s justification for hating God?”
    “Now, don’t go puttin’ words in me mouth or feelin’s in me heart. I just know that my thoughts on the matter are far from yar brother’s, and