“I’m not disliking it.”
For the second time since Eliza met him, Patrick laughed. The sound was every bit as magical as before. So much of her tension, built up over days of pondering her far-fetched dreams, eased.
“Do you mind if Lydia and I stay a minute and talk your ear off while you work? I promise not to keep you from your task.”
His smile still hadn’t faded. Worse, the troublemaker didn’t seem the least inclined to put his shirt on. She could focus if he could. “Lydia’s going to talk m’ear off, is she? That’d be worth getting behind in my work to witness.”
Even if her little girl were fully awake, she wasn’t likely to be chatty. A word or two here and there was all she ever offered.
“I’ll do the talking for both of us,” Eliza said, as if making a great sacrifice.
“Grand.” He returned to the wagon and took up another armful of sod bricks.
“Do you have any objections to us sitting inside your house?”
“’Tisn’t mine.” Though he didn’t struggle, the load was clearly a heavy one.
“While you’re building it, I think you can claim some ownership of it.”
He set his bricks on the ground. “And what do I claim when I’m done? The loft in my parents’ house? Quite the fine, successful fellow, I am.”
“I live in the kitchen of a family I didn’t know a month ago,” Eliza answered. “I haven’t exactly room for bragging.”
He returned to the wagon again but didn’t fetch more bricks. He pulled two wads of fabric from the front bench before walking back to the house and through the soon-to-be door. He unfurled what proved to be a blanket and spread it out on the dirt beside her.
“I haven’t any furniture for you to sit on,” he said. “But this’ll be better than the dirt. It’s what I sit on when I eat m’lunch.”
“Do you know, for a beggar man you’re very considerate.”
He shook his head, but the gesture was one of amusement.
“And that other lump of fabric?” She motioned with her free hand to the light green cloth flung over his bare shoulder.
“I’m taking pity on you, woman.” He pulled it off his shoulder and shook it out.
A shirt.
“Unless, of course, you’d be heartbroken at losing this stunning view you’ve had.”
She offered nothing but a smile before setting Lydia on the blanket and sitting beside her.
Patrick shrugged. “I’ll take that as you saying, ‘Get on with you, you handsome man, and work bare-chested as you have been.” He tossed the shirt over the low sod wall and set back to work.
“I think you’ve a bit of mischief in you, Patrick O’Connor.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t until you came ’round.”
Eliza doubted that. Still, she wouldn’t press it. “What is the largest thing you’ve built?”
“A shipping warehouse in Winnipeg.” He lifted a sod brick into place, adjusting it to sit perfectly on the existing wall.
“What was the most complicated?”
He didn’t have as ready an answer for that. His hat shaded his eyes, but she could tell he was contemplating her question. A trickle of sweat dropped from his face. “I worked on the viceroy’s residence in Ottawa. It was an expansion and renovation, which made it more complicated.”
“Did you enjoy building it?
“Aye.”