A Light in the Window (7 page)

He stared, mouth agape before it curved into a silly grin. “Yes, ma’am, and thank you, ma’am!” he gushed, cranking her hand so hard once again, she was sure she’d be sore come morning.

“Why don’t you take Holly home now so you can tell your mother the good news, and no need to come back until the first rehearsal date, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am!” he shouted, and took Marcy by surprise when he bowled her over with a hug that had her grinning ear to ear. She watched Nate wheel his sister away and sighed, returning to her seat next to Sister Francine.

“I’ll tell you what, young lady,” Sister Francine said with a smile that displayed a rare show of tenderness, “it’s moments like this that weaken my resolve to be an old crab.”

Marcy grinned. “It can be our secret if you like, Sister, although it may serve good purpose in keeping your students a wee bit off balance.”

The old nun laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that Marcy—or Sister’s students, she supposed—seldom heard. “I knew I liked you,” she said with a firm pat of Marcy’s arm, “a woman after my own heart.” Her lips tipped off-center. “Which may well be an insult.”

“Not likely, Sister.” Marcy nodded to a group of boys against the wall who were apparently getting antsy and loud. “I’m going to need all the attributes you can spare, I’m afraid, and then some.” She glanced at her gold pendant watch pinned to her blouse and then the handful of audition numbers yet to call. “We best get a move on, I suppose, if we’re going to finish by nine.”

Rising to her feet, she turned to call the next number, a smile tugging when she noticed Sam stretched out in a chair in the back, arms folded and eyes closed. She began to turn, and her gaze collided with Patrick’s, a connection so strong it was as if he willed it, the gray eyes holding her captive for several powerful thuds of her heart. The faintest of tremors quivered her stomach, and she spun around and dropped in her seat so fast she was dizzy, shock stealing the strength from her limbs.
No!
She would
not
respond to a man like Patrick O’Connor. Too attractive to be trusted, too used to getting his own way,
especially
with women. Thoughts of her cousin flashed in her mind, and Marcy’s eyes fluttered closed for the briefest of moments, anger resurging over the injustice of it all. How men like Patrick O’Connor pushed and prodded and promised the moon to a woman like Nora, putting a ring on her finger that became a noose around her neck. Marcy’s heart listed, breaking all over again. A cousin so dear, ruined forever. And all because of a handsome face.

“Thank you, Mrs. Miller,” Sister Francine said and Marcy jolted up, ashamed she’d missed the woman’s audition.

Slipping a peek at the nun beside her, Marcy offered a hesitant smile. “So, what did you think?”

“A definite callback.” Sister scratched a quick notation on her sheet, then rifled through a basket to select the next number. “Mercy me, this has been a long night, but we’re almost done,” she said with a teasing roll of her eyes, “and then we can send the bad ones packing and be done with the lot of them.” She gave Marcy a wink. “Won’t that be nice?”

The bad ones.
Marcy blinked, Sam and Patrick coming to mind. Oh, to send them packing and be done with them both! Exhaling a weary breath, Marcy managed a half smile that veered just shy of droll. “Oh, goodness, me, Sister—you have no idea.”

 
“So … what’s your name?”

Hammer in hand, Patrick paused, one nail lodged in his teeth and another positioned against a kitchen cabinet façade while he, Sam, and a few other men built scenery. The smell of sawdust and popcorn filled the noisy auditorium along with thick, humid air from the sweltering summer night. One of the little girls from the play blinked up at him, obviously more interested in pestering him on her break than playing duck, duck, goose with the rest of the kids in the cast. He studied her out of the corner of his eye, her impossibly thick eyeglasses magnifying her hazel eyes at least double in size. His lips quirked, angling the ten-penny nail straight down. “Atrick,” he mumbled, dropping the “P” in the absence of being able to press his lips together.

The little squirt squinted, nose wrinkling almost clear up to her eyes. “What kind of name is that—Aa-a-a-a-aaa-trick?” she said, grinding it out. “Sounds stupid to me.” She slapped a molasses-colored braid over her shoulder like a challenge.

Patrick pounded one nail into the wood, then spit the second into his free hand, righting it in the air. “
P-
atrick,” he enunciated, popping extra “puh” into the “P.” He placed and buried the nail with a single deafening whack, eyeing her with a slant of a smile. “And you are?”

“Matilda,” she said with a sharp thrust of her pointed little chin. “But my friends call me Tillie.”

He wiped sweat from his forehead with the side of his upper sleeve. “They do, do they? So, what should I call you?”

She cocked her head, assessing him through slivers of golden brown eyes. “You can call me Tillie, I guess, but only ‘cause you’re cute.”

His lips parted in a grin. “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you.”

The little dickens actually blushed. “No you weren’t neither,” she said with a scowl. “Nobody thinks I’m cute.”

He jagged a brow, tucking a nail in his teeth while he fixed another to the wood. “I do.”

“No you don’t.”

Thwack!
He drove the nail home and angled to face her, removing the other one from his mouth. “You calling me a liar, Miss—?”

“Dewey. Matilda Dewey.” She jutted her chin even higher. “And you bet I am, mister, ‘cause ain’t nobody ever called me ‘cute’ afore, so you gotta be lyin’.”

Huffing out a sigh, Patrick scratched the back of his neck with the hammer, then peered up beneath slatted lids, his heart going out to the little dickens who couldn’t be a day over six. “Well, I’m not lying, Miss Dewey, and for your information, I happen to know a thing or two about pretty women.”

She folded her arms. “Ha! That proves it. I ain’t no woman yet neither, and I ain’t pretty, leastways not accordin’ to Omer.”

He slacked a hip, hammer loose at his side while he scanned her head to toe, taking in the frayed grayish pinafore he supposed had been white at one time. Underneath, it masked an even more rag-tag calico dress that hung like a scarecrow, hem resting on top of scuffed shoes. Her sleeves were so long, only the tips of dirty fingernails peeked out. She could have been only six, given her small bone structure and slight frame, but her attitude suggested way older, as did cynical eyes that hinted at too much experience with ridicule. He sighed. “A girl is just a woman not fully blossomed yet, Miss Dewey, and it’s easy to see you’re gonna be a pretty one when you’re finally in full bloom.” Hammer in hand, he motioned toward her head. “For instance, take your hair. Sure, it’s in pigtails now, but it’s the color of summer wheat at the edge of dusk, with just a glow of pink about it. And those eyes?” He shook his head as if he had no earthly idea why she couldn’t see what he saw. “Like polished amber, guaranteed to turn more than one male head down the road.”

Her nose rumpled in a scrunch. “What’s amber?”

“Ever see the eyes of a tiger, darlin’?” he asked, face in a squint.

“Nope.”

“Well, they’re the prettiest honey gold you ever did see, downright hypnotize a man if he isn’t careful.”

Her face squished again. “What’s hip-no-tize?”

He shifted his weight to the other leg with an exhale as thick as her glasses. “You always ask this many questions?”

“More,” she said, eyes wise beyond her years and all too sober. “Which is why Omer hauls off and whacks me sometimes.”

The hammer suddenly felt like a 2-ton sledge. “Hits you?” he bit out, jaw clenched. “Who the blazes is this moron, anyway?”

She shrugged her shoulders as if getting whacked were an everyday occurrence, and Patrick’s gut felt like he’d swallowed a handful of those blasted ten-penny nails. “Ma’s friend. He don’t like it when I talk too much, so he whacks me.” She pulled up the sleeve of her arm, displaying a rash of ugly bruises from wrist to elbow and beyond, no doubt. “He done this and lots more I cain’t show ya on account of it ain’t proper, but see this?” Finger sliding her neck, she rubbed a whole patch of gray he’d just assumed was dirt, lips pursed as if it were a badge of honor. “Tried to whack my mama, but I spit on his boots, so he throttled me instead,” she said with no little pride. “Hurt like perdition, but at least Mama got away.”

The hammer clunked to the floor when Patrick squatted to his knees, jaw hard but grip soft as he clutched her skinny arms in threadbare sleeves, the feel akin to twigs wrapped in tissue paper. “Why the blazes does your mama let him come around, Tillie? Why doesn’t she just kick the bum out?”

Her tiny rib cage expanded and contracted, deflating like the pride in her eyes. “For crying out loud in a bucket, mister, don’t ya think she tried? But he keeps coming around, drunk as a skunk and ain’t nobody can make him go away.”

A knot jerked in Patrick’s throat as he rose, eyes as steely and pointed as the nails in his pocket. “Can you give this Omer a message for me, darlin’?”

She tucked those dirty fingernails into the tattered pockets of her pinafore. “Sure, I guess.”

He pointed the hammer like a threat. “You tell that worthless sack of dung that if he lays another finger on you or your mama, that me and my hammer are gonna pay him a visit, you hear?”

A grin split her face, complete with a missing tooth. “Jumpin’ toadstools, mister, shore would pay good money to see that! Iffen I had any.” She tilted her head as she studied him through those larger-than-life amber slits. “Say, how old are you, anyway?”

“Old enough to arrange a few of Omer’s teeth,” Patrick said with a wink.

She chuckled, a surprisingly low rumble for such a little girl. “Gosh, mister, that’s for dead sure with them there muscles of yours. Omer’s pert near twice your size, at least in his belly, and he shore don’t look half as pretty or strong as you.”

He chucked her chin. “Is that a fact, Miss Dewey? And how old are you?”

“Mama says a lady ain’t s’posed to tell her age, but seein’ I ain’t no lady yet, I guess it’s okay.” She rocked back on her heels. “I’ll be seven week after next, but Mama says I’m ma-chure for my age.”

Patrick grinned and propped another nail to the façade. “True enough.”

“What’s ma-chure mean? Mama told me, but I forgot.”

He pounded the nail in place. “It means you’re a whole lot smarter than most people, including that sludge Omer.”

A shrill whistle blew and Tillie scowled as Sister Francine herded everyone back up to the stage. “I swear on a crate of nickels that penguin woman’s gonna swallow that thing one of these days, and people are gonna be paradin’ like the Fourth of July.” She thrust out her hand. “Nice to meet ya, Patrick. You’re not so bad for a boy.”

He shook her hand, her little fingers frail as bird legs. “Thank you, Miss Dewey, you’re not so bad for a girl, either,” he said with a tap of her nose. “And a pretty one at that.”

With a smile and a wave, she hurried to join the others, and Patrick’s gaze followed her all the way up the side steps where Marcy stood with a clipboard. Hammer in hand, he rubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist, eyes now riveted on the only woman alive who didn’t give him the time of day. Or the benefit of a glance, a smile, or a kind word. He expelled a noisy sigh. No, that wasn’t fair. She said thank you whenever he opened a door for her, nodded hello and goodbye whenever he came and went, and responded in a polite tone whenever he asked her a question. The edge of his lip crooked. Not exactly a heated affair. And certainly not what he was used to, which pricked his male pride more than he liked. The only positive was she avoided his gaze, which meant he could brazenly stare. And right now he wished she didn’t look so blasted pretty in that fitted pinstripe blue shirtwaist that matched her eyes and accentuated every single curve. For weeks she’d avoided almost all eye contact, all conversation, all indication she even noticed he was alive, and his only consolation was that she treated Sam the exact same way. With one major difference. A satisfied grin tipped his lips.

I won the toss.

“It would appear the famous O’Connor charm has made yet another conquest.” Sam strolled up, mopping his brow with a rolled sleeve of an old shirt liberally spotted with both paint and sweat. He nodded toward Tillie, who waved at Patrick with a cheeky grin. “But not exactly the eye you were hoping to catch.”

Patrick waved back, giving Tillie a wink. His pulse stuttered when Marcy finally looked his way, apparently to see who the precocious Miss Dewey was waving to. He vented a weary sigh when Marcy did a quick about-face. “That’s okay, I’m just biding my time. The woman doesn’t like me, that much is clear, and for the life of me I don’t know why, so I’m sure in the blazes not going to rush her.”

Sam chuckled. “I don’t think there’s any danger of that, Patrick, but it has been three weeks now, and I’m a wee bit concerned you’re losing your touch.” He latched an arm to Patrick’s shoulder. “You may have won the toss, man, but I’ll be dashed if I’ll wait forever.”

Patrick flicked Sam’s arm away, tone bristling. “I plan to make my move tonight, O’Rourke, so you can put your tongue back in your mouth.” Patrick watched as Marcy bent to give Tillie a kiss, and his heart warmed. “Since you and Julie have to leave early for your aunt’s birthday party, I plan to walk the lady home.”

“And if she prefers to walk alone?” Sam’s eyes glittered with tease.

“She won’t,” Patrick said with far more confidence than he felt. He forced a cocky grin. “You may not know this, O’Rourke, but I can be very persuasive.”

“That’s good, Patrick, because you’ll need all the persuasive skills you have to turn Marcy’s head in the next two weeks.”

Patrick shot a sideways glance at his best friend. “Why two weeks?” he asked, the bridge of his nose pinched in annoyance.

Sam slapped him on the back. “Because that’s all the time I’m giving you, O’Connor—four weeks to win the woman’s heart before I move in.” He turned to go.

“That wasn’t the deal.” Patrick halted him with a grab of his sleeve.

Sam paused, gaze flicking from the hand on his arm to Patrick’s face. “You won the toss, Patrick, what more do you want?”

“For you to stay away altogether,” he said, voice harsher than intended.

Sam regarded him for several moments before quietly removing Patrick’s hand. “Well, then, let me ask you a question, my friend, and I want an honest answer.” Sam’s eyes bore into his with a candor he’d come to expect from the best—and most unconventional—friend he’d ever had. “If you were in my shoes—would you?”