Behaving Herself

by Yvonne Jocks

  Audra breathed in the perfume of newness that filled every corner of the mercantile as surely as did the merchandise. She'd always enjoyed stores. Perhaps that explained why she did not feel quite so distressed as she had feared when Mr. Harwood emerged from the curtained doorway to a back room.

  “Why, just the gal I was hoping to see,” he greeted, his grin welcoming. Between living with Aunt Heddy and maintaining a suitably sober classroom, Audra felt half-starved for smiles.

  “Have I received a letter?” she asked, crossing to the glass counter he stood behind.

  “It arrived this afternoon.” When Audra stepped closer he handed her the folded envelope as if he had kept it aside just for her. “But that's not why I hoped to see you.”

  That distracted her from the address: Candon, Tarrant County, Texas. “Then why ... ?”

  Mr. Harwood's smile widened. "Because, Miss Garrison, I am fond of pretty things. I hear folks up Euless way are holding a dance tomorrow night. I'd be honored to escort you."

  She took refuge in simple courtesy. "Thank you, no, Mr. Harwood. It is against the rules for a schoolteacher to attend such functions."

  He must not have wanted her company too badly; his smile did not fade at her rejection. Instead he leaned closer over the counter. “And do you always follow the rules, Miss Garrison?”

  She remembered Peter Connors, the rules they'd broken.

  “I... try to, Mr. Harwood,” she managed despite the burning in her throat, then turned and escaped the store, escaped her own boldness, escaped his inappropriate—and futile—interest.

  For the first time since her scandal, she longed to go dancing.

  Jack leaned even farther over the counter to examine the doorway, as if it might explain Miss Audra's abrupt departure. He hadn't been that forward, had he?

  “What did you say to that 'lil gal, boy?” demanded Charlie Randal from his game at the cracker barrel. Both he and his opponent, old Ned Cooper, were close to deaf, so Jack shouted his answer loudly enough to startle the nester pricing hoes in the corner. “I asked her to a dance!”

  Charlie wheezed a laugh. “No wonder she lit out. I wouldn't dance with you neither.”

  At that, Ned and even the farmer laughed. Jack would have joined them, if only because of how funny Ned sounded, like he had the hiccups. But Audra's expression, before she'd “lit out,” had held a touch too much distress for him to find amusement in it, even if she had overreacted.

  It also made him even more certain that this gal needed to take life a little less seriously.

  He dearly wanted to be there when she did.

  I am a teacher, Audra told herself firmly, after three whole days of agonizing over her rudeness to Mr. Harwood. I am a teacher, and shall conduct myself as one.

  She certainly had enough concerns about teaching—from her awkwardness in the classroom to the shortage of adequate books and slates—to remind her of that when she returned to the mercantile. But despite the presence of Ferris Hamilton in the back room, Mrs. Col ins pricing calico, and two old men playing checkers, Mr. Harwood brushed her hand with his as he accepted her return letter, then asked her to join him in a picnic.

  Audra snatched her hand away from him. “No! Thank you...” she added grudgingly, realizing she'd been rude yet again. “There are rules, sir.”

  He leaned his elbows on the counter and widened his eyes, dark hair falling over his forehead. "I fear my wishful thinking keeps making me forget that fact, ma'am."

  When she noticed how his gaze settled, rather unfocused, on her mouth, she flushed as guiltily as if she had done something wrong. Perhaps she had. It had happened before....

  Before she could turn away, escape again, he quickly added, "I imagine gentleman teachers don't have such strict rules to follow as the ladies. Now how is that fair?"

  He looked innocent enough, but . . . 'They have their own rules, Mr. Harwood."

  “Such as?” He had rolled up his shirtsleeves for work, revealing tanned, solid forearms against the display case. She should leave now. But... she was behaving herself. And they had several chaperones, of sorts, throughout the store. She must not be impolite.

  “They mustn't get shaved in a barbershop,” she offered.

  Jack—Mr. Harwood—drew his head back. “Why not?”

  “I do not know,” she admitted. “I've never been to one.”

  Jack's laugh sent tingles through her, immodestly deep. “What else?”

  “I've heard gentleman teachers may not frequent pool or public halls.”

  “But lady teachers can? Now there's a stumper. Do you play pool often, Audra?”

  “Mr. Harwood!” She'd obviously stayed too long. Eyes still dancing, he turned his head at an awkward angle, offering her his cheek to slap. When Audra spun to leave, she nearly ran into the minister's wife. “Oh! Mrs. Col ins! I am sorry—”

  “No need, honey,” the older lady assured with her Texas twang, and slid her gaze toward Jack Harwood. "Seems to me our assistant storekeeper here can use a little exposure to decent folks.

  Perhaps you'll help me convince him to attend church while he's in town."

  “I doubt it, ma'am,” insisted Jack, so vehemently that Audra forgot about leaving and searched his face instead. He so obviously liked people; how could he dislike church?

  “Sunday services are good for the soul,” assured the older woman, as if dangling bait.

  “I'll take the odds without it, ladies,” said Mr. Harwood. As if life were a card game!

  “If I have no mail . . .” demurred Audra, finding refuge in propriety once again.

  Mr. Harwood protested, “Now, Miss Audra ...” That was not quite so forward as just “Audra,” and if she stopped to scold him, he would only lure her into more conversation. She escaped the store before that could happen.

  What was it about Mr. Harwood that drew her away from her own better judgment?

  “I'm not the ladies' man you are,” drawled Ferris Hamilton once Mrs. Col ins had left as well. “But I doubt you'll win anyone by flaunting your godless ways.”

  Godless ways. Jack hated that kind of talk. He glanced toward the door, to make sure Ned and Charlie wouldn't overhear him, then said, “Go to hell.”

  “You'd get farther with her if you attended church.”

  “I don't see you reading your Bible regular.”

  “I'm not trying to seduce a schoolmarm,” Ham countered.

  Jack frowned at that word. Seduce her? He wanted a stroll, a private conversation, a kiss . . .

  anything to catch another glimpse of the spirit he feared was strangling beneath those rules of hers. especially the kiss. He imagined holding her in his arms, weaving his hands into her sorrel hair

  until its pins gave way and it fell over her shoulders as God had meant it...

  God? He cleared the distaste out of his throat. God had nothing to do with it. But he might tone down his pursuit of her, just a dram, skittish as she'd proven.

  He didn't want to seduce her. But he surely wanted that kiss...

  To Audra's relief, Jack Harwood began to behave himself after that. Oh, he still looked at her in such a way that made her feel dizzy—deliciously so—but was that really his doing, or hers?

  Against the suffocation of “the teacherage” and her frustration at still not reaching her pupils, her visits to the mercantile became the bright spot of her week. Mr. Harwood intrigued her. When he drawled a word like ain't or weren't she suspected he did so more for his own amusement than because he did not know better; he obviously had intelligence. His skill with figures, and playful ease in handling money, greatly impressed her.

  “I wish I knew how your teachers encouraged you to learn so well,” she admitted, buying a length of dark blue ribbon when she would rather have bought green.

  His eyes twinkled, as if he saw something far more likable in her than did her pupils, her aunt. . .

  even, sometimes, herself. “My teachers had less to do with it than plain life,” h
e admitted. “I just enjoy it. Have you never found something you liked so well, it just came ... natural?”

  The way his voice fell husky, on that last question, felt downright improper—but what he'd said had merit. Plain life...

  Perhaps he should be the teacher!

  “I'm starting a game in the back room Friday night,” Hamilton told Jack in a low voice. He leaned on his new crutch as, one-handed, he took inventory. “You're invited as long as you don't cheat.”

  Jack resisted the urge to whoop with joy. Behaving himself with Miss Garrison, though a fair plan at

  first, was wearing on him. She smiled at him more often, and seemed less likely to bolt in his presence. But discussions about books and arithmetic weren't exactly his goal. He longed for some good, old-fashioned sin.

  He said, “I hardly ever cheat.”

  Ferris stared at him for a long, unimpressed moment, then went back to his inventory. "I plan to win back some of that credit before you give half my store away."

  Then the door to the mercantile flew open and five young folks, including that poor excuse for a poker player Early Rogers, rushed in. The last was the pretty schoolmarm herself.

  At noon?

  “Mr. Harwood!” she exclaimed, delighted. "Just the person we hoped to see. Good afternoon, Mr.

  Hamilton."

  Ferris, going back to his inventory, muttered, “Mr. who?” under his breath.

  Jack, in the meantime, wondered if maybe he'd made more progress with her than he'd thought.

  Basking in the glow of her excitement, the way her dovelike eyes shone at him, he could believe just about anything.

  She quickly introduced the four “student representatives” before explaining their business. "We have decided upon a project, thanks to the advice you gave me last week—that is, when I came to buy a hair ribbon ..."

  Her eyes widened in dismay, as if she'd caught herself lying.

  “Now that you mention it, I do believe we spoke,” Jack interceded. “Don't know as I recall taking it upon myself to give advice, though. You weren't there but a minute.”

  From near the patent medicines, Ferris Hamilton snorted.

  Audra nearly glowed before reminding him, "You mentioned that you learned arithmetic more quickly when the numbers stood for something real."

  “Did I?” Jack asked, intrigued.

  That was all the encouragement she needed. "The next day, I asked my aunt about our shortage of school supplies, and she said the town could not afford more. That's when I had the idea. My pupils and I shall make a project of it, raise money as a community effort. They can use it as a lesson in arithmetic, and we all get the satisfaction of accomplishment."

  Gazing down into Audra's pleasure-flushed face—and past it to her primly buttoned bosom—Jack had an inappropriate thought about under what other circumstances he'd like to see her so passionate. “Don't see as how I can take the credit for that,” he protested.

  After all, he'd been thinking of learning arithmetic with poker and faro, not good works.

  Her smile said he was too modest.

  “We're here to price slates,” announced Melissa.

  Jack felt a twinge of something suspiciously like guilt for entertaining such fantasies in front of her pupils ... although at least two of them, Jerome Newton and the pinch-faced Claudine Reynolds, exchanged secret glances with enough heat to argue the innocence of schoolchildren.

  Hamilton said, “They're ten cents each.”

  “So if we buy ten slates ... ?” prompted Audra hopefully.

  “A dollar,” answered Jerome, ignoring Claudine long enough to seek Audra's approval.

  With a smile, she gave it. Then she looked to Jack and her smile got downright radiant.

  Warmed on a surprisingly deep level by her approval, Jack heard himself ask, "What if Hamilton and I give you a discount, maybe take off three cents per slate?"

  Audra and Melissa caught their breath at his seeming generosity. Early, still ticking off fingers from the previous question, frowned at having to start over.

  Ham said, “We what?”

  “Seventy cents,” announced Jerome to Jack. But he said it more like a challenge.

  “That saves thirty cents!” Melissa added, looking at him as if he were some kind of saint.

  Jack started to feel downright unsettled. He ought not involve himself in this scheme of theirs. It would take them time to raise their money, more time for ordering and delivery. Worse, the whole thing felt suspiciously like a church project. But Audra, too, gazed up at him as if he were worthy of esteem, even by her strict criteria.

  Tension began to ease from his shoulders as he gave in to what felt suspiciously like fate. Hell's Half-Acre would be there at the end of the month as surely as now.

  “Matter of fact,” Jack added, coming out from behind the counter and heading for the window where the slates sat. “I'll sweeten the pot some. That is,” he quickly translated, when the girls looked confused. "I'll add some encouragement to your efforts. You'd best be able to divide by two, because the mercantile will match any of the money you raise. We'll pay for half of whatever you order."

  That last he said with a grin at Ferris himself.

  Ferris glared murder back at him.

  But Audra! Joy and admiration warred for supremacy across her face, and she put an approving hand on his forearm. “Oh! You are a wonderful man! Thank you so much!”

  Once, in a lightning storm, he'd seen a tree struck barely ten feet from him. The crackle of the air was nothing compared to the electricity that surged through him at her soft touch.

  He touched her hand with his own, relished how she glowed up at him. At that moment he

  thought he could kiss her. It would earn him a hell of a slap, but every male instinct in him, every ounce of gambler's timing, insisted that his chances were ripe.

  Not in front of the children.

  He moved his hand, let her belatedly remove hers, and fed a little more friendliness and a little less desire into his grin. “If we're to be business partners,” he suggested, “maybe it would be forgivable for you to cal me Jack?”

  The pupils continued to chatter, so involved in each other that they'd missed the near scandal. Not that Jack had ever before avoided scandal. Scandal was fun. So why ... ?

  “I believe that you are right,” Audra agreed softly. “For business matters. Jack.”

  Her lips had never looked more tempting than when forming his name. He ached to taste her—

  and after a lifetime of making sure he never wanted anything very badly.

  Well. .. tarnation. He could raise his investment by another few weeks, couldn't he?

  Could be that the stakes of this game were a mite higher than he'd first anticipated.

  Chapter Six

  A teacher must keep her pupils from unseemly conduct.

  —Rules for Teachers

  Over the next two weeks, Audra increasingly heard a most gratifying opinion: "What a nice man that Mr. Harwood is!" She enjoyed hearing Jack praised so, her faith in her friend validated—even if, strangely, Jack did not. In the weeks Audra had known him, she would not have thought him one for false modesty. But he repeatedly rejected any praise.

  “You're the one who figured up this effort,” he pointed out when she stopped by the store to check on her mail, or to drop off a return letter, or to price suitably modest calico for a dress. "I'm no more generous than the next fellow."

  Mr. Hamilton snorted his agreement at that.

  “But, Mr. Harwood, you are.” Audra insisted one afternoon. The men's laundress had arrived at the store, her small sister and brother with her, and Jack gave each child a candy stick with instructions to enjoy the treats by the stove, where they would be warmer.

  Why would he do that except from generosity?

  Mr. Harwood just stared at her, bemused, until she dropped her gaze out of modesty.

  “Jack,” he prompted, almost a whisper. She shivered inexplicably a
t his low voice.

  “Jack,” she repeated softly—then hurried to safer conversation topics. “Do you realize that no colored children attend the Candon school?”

  “Are you surprised?” asked Jack, blinking.

  “Back home . . .” But to continual y compare Texas to Wyoming showed poor manners.

  Trust Jack to let her say what she truly wanted. “Back home what... Audra?”

  Despite their growing friendship—platonic, of course!—she knew she should chide his familiarity.

  She did not. It made her feel less alone, and seemed so small a sin. "We had several colored pupils, and some Mexicans, too. Al children should get an education, do you not think?"

  “Mmm-hmm,” he agreed easily, still watching her face so closely that, when the laundress

  descended the stairs from Mr. Hamilton's apartments, where she'd gone to deliver the men's clean clothes, Audra seized upon further distraction. “Excuse me—miss?”

  Only when the laundress stopped, stiff, did Audra see her tension. “Is this a bad time?”

  The colored woman cocked her head at Audra, somehow both curious and resentful at the same time. “No such thing as a bad time, miss. What is it you want?”

  "I teach school here, and I wondered why none of—why your little brother and sister don't attend school." She offered her hand, but the laundress only looked at it, then took a step back.

  “They attend school,” she announced firmly. “They attend school in Mosier Valley.”

  Audra had heard that name before, mainly when her pupils invoked it to frighten each other. But she'd not realized it lay close enough for a woman to do business between the two towns. She'd thought Grapevine or Euless or Bedford to be closer. “That's where you live?”

  “Yes, ma'am.” The taller woman turned to the stove. “Lee! Martha! Time to head home.”

  With a clumping noise, Mr. Hamilton hobbled down the stairs to see them leave.

  “Good day, miss,” the colored woman said, still sounding somehow angry. "Mr. Harwood. Mr.

  Hamilton. Sir."