Behaving Herself Read online

And for a moment, through all that prim frost, he saw unexpected fire. Its heat rushed over him, as surely as her smile had, from its prison deep behind all her rules and moralities.

  But like the smile, the icy fire lasted only a moment, then vanished under confusion or embarrassment. The gal escaped into the rain, and he—well, he watched her. Watched her all the way down the road to that clapboard house he'd passed by, where the rain-obscured slip of blue turned in and he knew she'd be safe. He watched for several minutes past that, too.

  Fine example of womanhood, that. He doubted he'd be the least bit cold tonight, with her on his mind. Not that he, Handy Jack Harwood, ought to be entertaining himself with thoughts of a lady.

  Not the kind of thoughts a man dealt himself on a cold night, anyhow. Although he had seen fire in her. Short-lived but certain.

  Darned good thing Jack would be moving on after tonight. If he were to stay in the area for much longer, he might just overestimate his chances and underestimate his odds again.

  Then again ... things surely would be interesting if he did. They might even be fun.

  Chapter Two

  Teachers will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session, and will start the fire at 7 a.m so the room will be warm by 8 a.m.

  —Rules for Teachers

  “Why don't I run ahead?” suggested Audra carefully after one last adjustment to make sure the white tablecloth again hung straight on the kerosene-lit kitchen table.

  Aunt Heddy said, “We shall not be running anywhere, child.”

  The implied criticism startled Audra almost as much as being called a child in front of two girls who would be her pupils.

  Hardly looking up from examining the drain board, making sure Audra and their two boarders had not merely cleaned the breakfast dishes but the kitchen itself, her aunt added, "Do not bite your lip like that. It is a wholly unattractive habit."

  Obediently releasing her lip, Audra felt the most shocking urge to mimic the older woman—and with her mouth pruned up, too. We shall not be running anywhere, child!

  She immediately blamed her nerves. Not only would this morning finally bring her first day as a teacher, a position in which she must succeed to regain her self-respect, but she very much feared what would happen if— Oh, heavens! What if Mr. Harwood had not left yet?

  She'd kept the enormous secret of him all yesterday afternoon and evening, through her fitful night, through a tasteless breakfast and the numbing solace of morning chores. It provided gentle distraction, and in her defense, the subject of strange men at the schoolhouse had not in fact come up. Aunt Heddy hadn't even asked how Audra's work had gone.

  It did not count as an untruth to remain silent. Did it?

  Plain good sense, the intriguing Mr. Harwood had assured her, and oh, she hoped he spoke sincerely! And correctly.

  But if he remained at the schoolhouse this morning, Aunt Heddy would certainly demand an explanation. Then Audra must either confess to having met and spoken to the man, or else she must flat-out lie. And she must not lie. Not even with her reputation and her future at stake.

  Throughout all her missteps last year, she had never actually lied.

  But it could not hurt to get to the schoolhouse first...

  Fourteen-year-old Claudine Reynolds, settling a bonnet atop her dark hair and rechecking it in the window reflection, asked, “Why can't we take the surrey to school?”

  Aunt Heddy, not looking up from inspecting the windowsill , did not answer, only corrected, "Why can we not."

  'The school is so near,“ Audra reminded Claudine more gently. ”We can walk there in the time it would take to harness the horses."

  “You know how to do that?” asked Melissa Smith, the older boarding student. Brown-eyed, with remarkably pale hair, Melissa was mere months younger than Audra, but taller.

  Audra said, “My parents insisted that my sisters and I learn to drive for ourselves.”

  “That was Wyoming. Even in Texas, young ladies know not to preen about masculine abilities,” scolded Aunt Heddy, turning grim gray eyes back to the three girls. Despite being a fellow teacher, Audra felt like just that to her aunt—no more than another girl.

  Except that Audra had a secret. A dangerously scandalous, deliciously personal secret. In this cold, communal household, she had something all her own.

  “Who dried the dishes?” demanded Aunt Heddy.

  Claudine had, so Audra and Melissa said nothing—but neither did Claudine. Outside the house, a bird began to question the coming dawn with a few loud shrieks.

  Aunt Heddy's gray eyes narrowed, as threatening as Papa's could be but with no affection behind their sternness. “I have asked a question, girls!”

  Despite her impatience to get to the schoolhouse, Audra kept very still. Only if her aunt asked her straight-out would she tattle. Those were the rules Audra and her five sisters followed.

  Perhaps Melissa, raised with brothers, felt differently. Claudine yelped, then frowned at the not-quite-innocent-looking blond girl before admitting, “I did. Every last one of them.”

  Aunt Heddy said, "Well, you shall rewash every last one of them this instant, young lady. Audra, Melissa, go ahead of us and start the fires at the schoolhouse."

  Yes! Audra snatched up her blue cloak, her schoolbooks, and her lunch pail, pausing only when Claudine said, “Melissa and I are paying to be here. Let Audra do it.”

  Heddy did not tell Claudine that part of Audra's salary was room and board. Rather than appear petty by saying so herself, Audra fled into the cold, royal-blue morning.

  She did not know when she had last felt such relief to escape a place, and not merely for the chance to check on the mysterious and rather handsome Mr. Harwood.

  Rather, a chance to make sure he was quite gone.

  Audra, perhaps childishly, simply hated living there. Sharing her aunt's room and bed did not bother her—she'd always slept with one or another of her sisters. She did not miss the modern niceties of her mother's telephone, indoor plumbing, or gaslights so much, either—although if her aunt made one more disparaging comment about Wyoming, Audra feared speaking less than respectfully.

  No, what Audra hated was the sense that she did not matter, that her existence warmed nobody's day, no more than anyone else's warmed hers. She missed hugs, laughter, the occasional comforting touch or smile. She missed belonging.

  Candon, Texas, was so small a town that her family addressed letters here with the extra line, Tarrant County, lest the express take them to the two better-known Camdens, in Polk and Gregg counties. But Audra could live with small. She chafed at living with indifferent.

  “Are you thinking about school?” asked Melissa Smith. Only then did Audra emerge from her dismals and notice how the black of night had lightened to slate gray in the east, though stars still twinkled in the western sky. Their breath clouded the sharp air with pale puffs.

  “Not really,” she admitted. In fact, here she was thinking of everything but school! Her gaze flew up the hill, toward the shadowed, two-room schoolhouse.

  “I could never be so calm as you!” Melissa pulled her own meager cloak more tightly about her, the lard pail for her lunch looped about her wrist. "Here it is, your very first day as a teacher! I would be terrified!"

  Audra was terrified, especially to teach the big children. But that fear shrank in importance against the sight of dark coal smoke coming out of the school's two stovepipes. Was he still there?

  She looked from the school to Melissa—blowing on her hands, one at a time, as if it were truly cold—and then back to the school, and she thought again of Mr. Harwood. "Perhaps we could walk more quickly," she suggested, speeding her step.

  To her dismay, Melissa grinned at her. “Race you!” And off she ran.

  “Wait!” Oh, no! Audra had an image to preserve! But ... what if Melissa reached the school first?

  What if Mr. Harwood was still there? Even worse than the fear of discovery: what if the charming strang
er were not so harmless as he had seemed?

  “Melissa!” Paid no mind, Audra started running.

  Melissa had longer legs and, Audra suspected, a better wind. But Audra had desperation. Feet pounding the frosted ground, air tearing in her lungs, somehow she managed to reach the schoolhouse just before her pupil did.

  She immediately fell against her own door, blocking Melissa's way in ... and anybody's way out.

  What if Melissa had gotten there first? What if something had happened and it were Audra's fault!

  Unaware of possible danger, Melissa slumped against the opposite wall, trying to catch her breath between giggles. Her once neat, almost-white hair streamed over her glowing face.

  Audra despaired of ever breathing again. But she saw no horse...

  Melissa caught her breath first. “You shall not ... be running ... ! ” She covered her mouth at her own mimicry of Aunt Heddy, her laugh whole and infectious.

  But Audra would not be infected. Melissa, though tall er, was her pupil, and here, an hour before school even started, she showed no sign of obedience. And why should she? Audra had just undermined her own authority and that of another teacher!

  “Melissa. . . .” she finally managed, struggling to be stern. “How could you behave so? And on the first day?”

  “But Audra, didn't that feel marvelous?”

  Marvelous? Audra's face tingled, her lungs burned, and her heart jumped in her chest with each desperate beat. Marvelous?

  Yes, it had. Along with the fear and the desperation, the race had been ... fun. Was there no hope for her?

  “How it felt or did not feel is not the issue,” Audra insisted breathlessly. “We both must follow certain rules. And . . . and when on the school grounds, please call me Miss Garrison.”

  The conspiratorial gleam faded from Melissa's eyes and, with it, the first unspoken offer of real friendship in Texas. Perhaps Audra ought not regret that, but perhaps she would never make an adequate teacher, because she did.

  And a strange man might yet lurk on the other side of the door she still blocked!

  “Please check Aunt Heddy's—that is, Mrs. Cribb's room,” Audra managed, sounding somewhat more like a teacher as her panting receded. “I will see to mine.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” said Melissa slowly. “Miss Garrison.”

  As soon as Melissa vanished into Aunt Heddy's room, Audra darted into her own. She shut the door behind her and waited, at last, for disaster. Nothing happened.

  A fire burned in the stove, warming the room nicely. A full scuttle of coal sat near it. When Audra looked down at her feet, where Mr. Harwood had tracked mud yesterday, the floor looked relatively clean—not as good as when she had finished scrubbing it, but nowhere near as unkempt as she had feared.

  But Mr. Harwood himself had left. She and Melissa—and her secret—remained safe.

  The void in her chest felt almost like . . . disappointment? Which made no sense. A man's presence would make trouble for her, had he lingered. The way John Harwood's eyes had danced up at her when he'd introduced himself, she little doubted he could make trouble even under better circumstances. What sane young lady would feel disappointment at her escape?

  Perhaps she simply missed having him as her secret.

  The door behind her opened. Audra stepped out of the way as Melissa hurried in, cheeks still pink.

  “Audra—rather, Miss Garrison—someone lit the fire! Filled the water bucket, too!”

  “The bucket?” Audra crossed to where the pail sat in the corner, a drinking ladle tied to it. True enough, hers also held water, more than she could have carried from the well herself.

  “Perhaps one of the men from town came out?” she suggested faintly, wishing it did not sound so much like a lie to her own ears. Even if Mr. Harwood had done all this—and how could it have been anyone else?—he was a man. And he might be from town.

  “Well, it was nice of whoever did,” insisted Melissa, pulling pins from her hair to finger-comb it back into some semblance of neatness. Audra shuddered to imagine her own chignon.

  “Here,” she offered, crossing to the front of the room. Perhaps she could put things to rights between them and still retain her authority. “I put a comb in my desk, so that—”

  Then she stopped, blinking. Something was different about the blackboard. Her inspirational rhyme was still there: Work when you work; play when you play. One thing each time; that is the way.

  And so was her neatly written name: Miss Garrison. But under her name, someone had used the chalk to draw a flower. Audra felt herself flush at the memory of dripping hair and dancing eyes.

  Someone? Well, she most certainly had not imagined him. He'd most likely spent the night here. In this very room, perhaps stretched out on this part of the floor.

  “Miss Garrison?” prompted Melissa. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Audra answered automatically, testing herself for the truth of that answer as she reached her desk. Was anything wrong?

  She surprised herself with a tiny smile. “No,” she repeated steadily, opening her drawer for the comb. “Nothing is wrong at al .”

  Her smile stilled when she saw a card tucked in the corner of the drawer, bearing a picture of a riverboat and reading, Steamboat Playing Cards. She bit her lip, intrigued. A surreptitious flick of the fingers showed her that this card was the jack of hearts. Oh, my!

  She quickly claimed the comb and shut the drawer with a thump. Perhaps Mr. Harwood had played solitaire on her desk and simply misplaced the card?

  He would not ruin an entire deck, simply to leave her a keepsake ... would he? And even if he had, surely his choice of suits was a coincidence. And on the chance that it was not, she should feel insulted by such impudence, not flattered!

  But she felt shockingly, warmly flattered, nonetheless.

  Helping Melissa put her hair back to order, then reluctantly accepting the girl's help with her own, Audra wondered at the bold emotions she had felt this morning. They did not bode well, either for her character or her success as a schoolteacher. That sobered her. For the sake of her family, her very honor, she must succeed in this position.

  But she also wondered if Mr. John Harwood ever went by the name of Jack.

  Chapter Three

  Teachers may not smoke cigarettes.

  —Rules for Teachers

  “I'll see that ten,” decided Jack on a contented sigh of smoke, “and raise you five more.”

  Of the five men around the scarred crate, only the youngest was green enough to widen his eyes at the fellow beside him and then at Jack. “That's—that's all of twenty-three dollars!”

  The youth's friend, a quiet fellow near Jack's age with a receding hairline, closed his eyes in silent protest. Then he sloshed some rotgut into an empty jar, threw back a shot, and set the jug on the hay-covered floor. The next fellow, with the tailored look of a banker, swore and inhaled through his own cigarette, a sissified ready-made.

  The old-timer who owned this dairy barn started to speak, then crumpled into a long, hacking cough, bracing himself against the crate that served as a table.

  The temperance movement had reached Texas. Jack had had to ride as far as Bedford, six miles beyond Candon, to find even a dairy with a good game. But discounting the cows, he settled right in. To him the drinking, the coughing, the betting—and the whisper of cards—sang the sweet song of home. Except for the occasional lowing cow or mew of barn cats.

  “Twenty-three dollars!” the boy repeated.

  “That's some fine ciphering, son,” said Jack. “And a good skill to have in these here wagers. Care to share with the rest of us what you mean to do about the situation?”

  The banker snorted.

  The boy considered it. “I don't got no twenty-three dollars. I only brought twelve.”

  And to a two-dollar-minimum game. Where in blazes did a nester boy get even twelve?

  Jack hoped it wasn't seed money, or savings to buy his poor granny a wooden leg. "The
generally accepted solution to your dilemma, son,“ he offered gently, ”would be to fold."

  “But I got five dollars on the table!”

  The dairy farmer spit tobacco juice at an empty bean-can spittoon by their crate and only partly missed. “Well dad-gum it, boy, that's why they cal it a gamble!”

  “I ... I could put up my mule. He's worth twenty-five dollars.” On the market, not likely. And if he needed it for plowing next spring, he'd lose far more than market value.

  Games of chance surely did show humanity at its most interesting.

  “I got two mules already,” the dairy farmer protested, wiping tobacco juice off his grizzled chin with the back of his hand. “Don't need a third.”

  The banker said, “I have no need of a mule.”

  Even the quiet man said, “I hire out my hauling, Early.”

  Either they, too, recognized the deep waters this pup paddled toward, or it was just the usual halfheartedness of a midweek game. Early looked at Jack, stubborn and desperate both.

  Jack said, “Let the V-spot go. Your cards aren't that good.”

  It was too easy. “How would you know?”

  The old man chuckled. “Well, we do now.”

  Early scowled, not realizing how lucky he was to have learned so valuable a lesson with so little money on the table.

  The quiet fellow sloshed more hooch into his jar, then lifted the jug a tad higher in silent invitation.

  His companions, Jack included, nudged their assorted glasses—two of which were empty food cans—closer to him. For a man of few words, he seemed right hospitable.

  “Me, too, Ham?” asked Early, looking forlorn.

  The melancholic Ham stared at him for a long minute. “You gonna fold?”

  “Reckon I gotta.” And to perhaps everyone's relief, the kid laid down his hand. Tarnation! Watching a player that green was like watching a train wreck—morbid and fascinating, both.

  Ham placed his own jar in front of Early. “Then have a drink. I call.”

  The others called as well, including Jack; he rarely risked over thirty on a flush except in truly high-stakes games. The dairy farmer took the hand with four eights, and the win tickled him so much that he laughed, swallowed tobacco juice, and started choking again.