Page 53 of Valley of Dreams

She was pretty sure she was blushing a little. She hadn’t done that in ages.

“You’d need land you owned or had permission to build on.”

“I don’t have that,” she said, dropping her gaze to her hands.

She could hear him walking around but didn’t look up. She needed to focus, and the sight of him was far too distracting.

A moment later, he sat next to her. There would be no avoiding looking at him now, not without an explanation.

She looked up. “You put your shirt on.”

He grinned a little wickedly. “Thought I’d take pity on you, stop all that blushing you were doin’.”

The warmth in her cheeks turned fiery hot. “You aren’t going to tease me about this, are you?”

“Of course I am.”

She bumped his shoulder with hers. “Believe it or not, I really did come to talk about an inn, not to gawk at you while you were working.”

“I believe you.” He tucked Lydia’s handkerchief up closer to her. “You do have a difficulty building yourself an inn beyond needing land. I’m building Finbarr’s house of sod because timber comes very dear around here. Now, I’m building it better and larger than most soddies. He’ll not be living in a shambles, but it’s still not considered anything elegant. Eventually he may have enough to build himself a proper house and change this to a barn, but even saving money for as long as he has, he hasn’t enough for anything finer.”

She hadn’t thought of that. “I can’t have an inn made of sod. Few people would stay in it.”

“You’d likely encounter a lot of hesitation.”

“How much money would Finbarr have needed to build a frame house?” she asked.

He quoted a price far beyond anything she could likely ever scrape together, not after years and years of saving. “How am I supposed to come up with that when I can’t even put shoes on my daughter’s feet?”

“You don’t.”

She released a slow, deep breath. “It was a ridiculous dream. I suppose I knew that, but I let myself imagine not being a housekeeper or living in someone else’s house or—” She swallowed back the emotion rising in her throat.

Patrick set his hand gently on hers. “I wasn’t trying to say you ought to give up your dream. Only that you need to find someone willing to invest in your business, someone who has the money you don’t.”

“Who would invest in an inn out in the middle of nowhere?”

“If I had two dimes to rub together, I would.”

She turned her hand enough in his to weave her fingers through his. Having that connection made it easier to endure the disappointment of feeling her tender dream wilt. “You’re very kind to try to help me feel less defeated.”

“I’m in earnest.” He didn’t pull his hand away. “Having made the stage ride from the depot, I know the misery of not having a place other than the unforgiving ground to break the journey, of not having a hot meal in my belly. Your inn would provide both.”

“I’m as poor as you are,” she said. “I can’t buy lumber. And a sod inn wouldn’t be a comfort to weary and wary travelers.”

“Joseph Archer’s a businessman by trade. He’s invested in any number of things, including quite a few out this way, from all I understand. And when Finbarr and I talked to him about this house, he showed himself to have a good head on his shoulders and to be a man of fairness.”

True though that might be, she wasn’t reassured. “Well-off people don’t have much faith in the poor and unimportant.”

“I do think Joseph’ll hear you without dismissing you.”

She let out another deep breath. That was how she released tension when she felt overwhelmed. “Dismissal I can endure. It’s the insults and vitriol and being treated like I’m not even a person . . . I don’t want to go through that.”

He held her hand a little tighter. “Again?”

He’d pieced that together, then. She nodded.

“I’m not a terrible listener, if you’re wanting to talk about it.”

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