by Yvonne Jocks
The panic felt like a ringing in her head, made her hands awkward in their repeated attempts to fix this.
But some mistakes could not be fixed. She of al people knew that.
Audra did not expect the shoe polish to work, but she tried it anyway. As long as she had something to do—one foot in front of the other, one attempted cure after another—she could rein her panic back to mere dizziness, mere clumsiness. But that last hope ended in streaky, mud-dull hair and brown splotches on the blue calico of her wrapper. She had no more ideas, no more directions.
She hadn't meant to. She'd tried so hard not to. But she'd broken the rules. Again.
The school board would dismiss her. Aunt Heddy would send her home. She would have brought disgrace on her family not once, but twice. Just imagining her father's disappointment, she covered her face with her hands, elbows on the table. Nothing would ever—
Melissa leaped to her feet even as, with a gasp, Audra heard a soft knock on the back door. No, not company! Not now!
Even if discovery was unavoidable, she foolishly wanted to postpone it a little longer.
“I sent for help,” insisted Melissa, which was of little comfort. “Wait here.”
Audra stood, awkwardly pushing her wet, heavy hair behind her shoulders to disguise the worst of index
it—the part closest to her head had escaped damage—and backed away from the intruder.
Apparently it wasn't who Melissa expected; the girl's greeting was a surprised, “You're alone?”
“I might be of use without bringing someone else in,” drawled a too-familiar voice. How easily and immediately she recognized it should have surprised Audra, but she could react to nothing more than the shock of it.
Jack Harwood. Here. Now.
Could her day get any worse?
As soon as Jack ducked through the doorway, his blue eyes sought her out. To his credit, he looked at her kindly enough, hat already in hand. He seemed concerned, even sympathetic.
Only when Audra felt the sting of tears did she recognize how sympathy endangered her
precarious sense of control. She had been away from home for a month now, and she longed for someone's concern with an almost physical ache. But she could not trust his, of all people's.
“You sent for him?” she asked Melissa, confusion warring with embarrassment.
“He was supposed to bring someone with him!”
Jack said, “Seems to me, the fewer folks know about this, the better.” His hushed tone seemed to show that he understood the magnitude of Audra's dilemma. That felt as dangerous as the concern.
“But what . . . ?” Belatedly Audra realized her rudeness in not greeting him properly. Then again, he should not even be here—propriety demanded she order him out. Why did the man always seem to arrive with dilemmas for her at his heels?
Too emotionally battered to sort out her warring obligations, she went with her instinct. "Good afternoon, Mr. Harwood."
“It's all right, Au— Miss Garrison,” Jack reassured her gently, stepping to her and taking her hand in one of his. His palm felt dry, soft, protective. “You don't need to act brave. Your friend here gave me a fair picture of what's happened. I'm here to...”
For a moment, her multicolored hands distracted him. The walnuts had stained even worse than the beets. But he recovered quickly and cleared his throat. “I'm here to help, if I can.”
The surprise of his appearance began to fade, allowing the afternoon's crisis to rush over her again. Audra sank onto one of Aunt Heddy's chairs before her knees gave out. At least this time she did not overshoot it. “That is kind of you, but I doubt anyone can help me.”
Not releasing her hand, Jack sat on the chair closest to hers without being asked. "As you know, I am not unfamiliar with the seedier side of... that is ... the mistakes folks can make. I ... I am assuming this was a mistake."
She'd never seen him speak so hesitantly. “I wouldn't do something like this on purpose!”
“No, ma'am.” He said that firmly enough, at least.
“Now everyone will think I'm...” How could she say it? But at least Jack Harwood himself lived outside the rules. His eyes held no censure. “Loose,” she finished, agonized.
“Not if nobody finds out,” he assured her earnestly.
Did he mean . . . ? Audra looked from the handsome man across from her, to Melissa, to Jack again. Was this why Melissa had fetched him? He knew about this kind of thing?
Hope mingled with a darker, less defined emotion as it occurred to her how Jack Harwood must know about this sort of thing. He obviously did not dye his own hair—it was too natural a shade of dark brown for that—so he must know women who did. But of course. He was a gambler, and gamblers associated with who knew what measure of lowlifes?
She withdrew her hand from his, unsure why that angered her so. She'd known the truth about him for a week now, after al ! And he was here to help.
“You can make sure nobody finds out?” she asked, more cool y than before—but too desperate for his help to throw him out.
“I've got something we can try, anyway.”
She nodded. She would try pretty much anything. But when she nodded, some of her hair caught on her shoulder and, in doing so, caught Jack's attention as well.
He pulled his gaze from her shoulder back to her face ... but then it crept back, as if of its own accord. He stood for a better look before sitting again, eyeing her with puzzlement.
She resisted the urge to close her eyes in shame—even if he did not mean to shame her.
“Miss Garrison,” he said hesitantly. “I do not wish to be insensitive at a time like this, but... what in tarnation has happened to your hair?”
The contrast of his observation against what had already been said alarmed her somewhat.
Something was not quite right—something other than the tragedy she already faced. "I thought Melissa explained it." .
“So did I.” Mesmerized by the horror that her hair had become, he reached out, caught a shank of it in his hand, then drew more of it over her shoulder. Shoe polish came off on his fingers. He studied them for a moment, then raised his confused gaze again to her. “You dyed your hair?”
Something about the warmth of his hand brushing by, so close to her cheek, stole Audra's grasp of words even to answer him. So Melissa did.
“Well, that's why you're here, isn't it?” the pupil demanded. 'To help us fix it before anyone finds out."
Jack looked at her. Then he looked at Audra, his eyes bright, searching.
Then he said a rude word and began to laugh. He had an infectious laugh, melodic and full, but Audra had no idea what was so funny about her ruin. He laughed until he fell out of his chair. And even that did not stop him right away.
Chapter Nine
Teachers who engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
—Rules For Teachers
Audra did not understand. Her life lay in ruins and this man, this gambler, was laughing?
“Stop it!” commanded Melissa. “How dare you laugh at her!”
Then Audra felt even worse. She'd become a laughingstock.
Somehow Jack Harwood caught his breath, but even then he lay on his back on Aunt Heddy's kitchen floor, knees up, grinning to himself. That he was there, much less prone, felt wrong.
Everything was wrong.
“I thought you came to help,” Audra reminded him coldly.
He sat up, seemed to be fighting another bout of laughter. “Yes, ma'am, that I did. I just...” Looking away, he chuckled.
Audra turned away. "You are the only one here who finds this amusing! I'll lose my job, go home in disgrace ..."
Jack scrambled around her chair to half kneel beside her, bracing an elbow on an upturned knee, ducking to see her face. “Hold your horses there. It can't be all that bad, can it?”
His eyes still danced, amused, but at least some of the concern had returned. This felt amazingly inappropriate, him beside her, his chest by
her thigh... but he wasn't touching her.
She'd never been told not to let a man kneel by her ... perhaps because the topic had never arisen.
“Hair dye is against the rules,” she explained quietly. “And if teachers break the rules, they lose their position.”
“But this was an accident,” Jack insisted, as if to convince her. “You said so yourself.”
If only it were so simple! "Rules are rules, no matter one's motives. Without consequences, they might as well not exist at all ."
“And that would be a bad thing because ... ?”
How could he ask that? Rules helped society function, kept ladies like herself safe, enabled one to differentiate between the people one could trust and those who ... well ...
If rules did not matter, then her struggle to stay within their confines would be meaningless and leaving home unnecessary. She could not bear to imagine that! Jack was a gambler, perhaps a drinker as well. He broke rules on a regular basis.
“I thought,” she said again, “that you were here to help.”
He gazed up at her for a solemn moment, his thoughts seemingly deep. Then he shrugged, smiled, and the impression vanished. "That I am. Let's get this ... shoe polish? ... out of your hair and eyeball the real damage first, shall we?"
That he touched her hair again when he said it did nothing for her frail composure. There should be a rule against men kneeling so close to women.
Nobody had thought of it before, was al .
By the time they'd washed Audra's hair twice more, Jack could see the hopelessness—for her hair, anyhow. What the gals hadn't ruined right off, they'd surely abused with their attempted cures.
The end result reminded him of the multicolored mottling on a tortoiseshell cat.
Still, it was easier to fix than an illegitimate child. Every time he thought of the medicine bottle in his pocket, he wanted to laugh again. The urge lingered long after the humor of the situation should have waned. He reckoned relief kept him so tickled.
The pure lady he'd thought Audra to be remained just that— pure—which for some reason kept him cheerful as a jaybird.
Although the pain in her gray eyes, surveying the results of the second wash as she combed her hair by the stove, sobered him some. Aroused him, too—when had he ever watched a young lady, much less one as lovely as Audra, do something so innocently intimate? He'd never seen her hair down before this afternoon. But they soon realized as it dried that her “accident” could not be hidden. And he could see that the realization nearly shattered her.
“You mean to tell me,” he asked, still resisting the concept, “that you'll be dismissed for an accident?”
“Yes.” Audra sighed, studying her hair instead of him. “That is what I mean to tell you.”
“Those sons of—”
“Watch your language, please.” But she could not even muster up a glare for him.
Her misery pained him, no matter its cause. “My apologies.”
“You were supposed to help,” noted Melissa, hovering at the edge of the room. “Or bring someone who could.”
“Someone . . . ?” Obviously Audra hadn't helped with that scheme—more proof of her continued purity. Sitting with her tortoiseshell hair almost to the floor, her face wan in the light of the setting sun, her large eyes overcast with pain, she was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen.
“It was suggested that I find a sporting woman who could help you out,” Jack explained.
Audra's eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
“And you didn't,” accused Melissa.
“I don't know any,” he defended himself.
Audra closed her mouth, looking at him with unsettling intensity and ... hope? “You don't?”
He wanted to claim that he wasn't even sure what the term meant, but while Jack Harwood might bluff now and then, he was no liar. “Not local y, no.”
“Oh.” She lowered her gaze, long lashes hiding her disappointment, and continued combing her hair.
“Then what good are you?” demanded Melissa. He was beginning to wonder if he'd misjudged Claudine.
“Well, I know that even if we could find us a sporting gal, she could no more put Audra's hair to rights as restore her own—” Oops. Best not mention virginity around ladies. especially virgins. "—
reputation," he finished lamely.
Audra's pupil wasn't satisfied. “How do you know?”
“Because I've seen enough women with dyed hair to know it never looks natural.”
'That depends,“ Melissa said stiffly, ”on how one does it."
Jack said, “Don't put on airs. I knew you bleached your hair soon as I saw you.” That nobody had yet said how Audra contrived to dye hers added credence to his observation.
Melissa's face fell—not that he had much sympathy for her. Likely she stood at fault in this whole mess. “You did?”
“I did.”
When Audra said, “I didn't,” he could hardly make her out. She'd bowed her head under the weight of more than just a yard of damp hair.
It spoke of her distress, he thought, that when he took her hand again she didn't pull away. She had such a dainty hand, despite its residual stains. She didn't deserve this, minor though it might seem to him. “That,” he told her, “is because you don't know the kind of folks I do.”
“But if I'd been smarter from the start, I could have been more careful. Now ...”
Oh, Lordy. Was she starting to cry?
“Don't you give up just yet!” For the second time that afternoon he found himself on his knee beside her chair, to better see her pinched face no matter how she tried to turn away from him.
“No need to pack your bags just yet. We just can't dye your hair back, that's all.”
When he touched his fingertips to her jaw and drew her face toward him, he saw that she was indeed crying. They were quiet, exhausted tears, but they got his thumb just as wet. Her voice came out too high. “Then what can I do?”
He should know? Not that it took much thought to hit on the obvious choice. "You know those rules of yours fairly well."
She nodded.
Jack took a deep breath. “Is there any prohibition against teachers cutting their hair?”
Both girls looked at him with wide eyes. Cut Audra's hair? He might as well have suggested she strip naked as do something so unladylike as cut her hair short.
“It's drastic,” he agreed quickly. “I'm not saying it isn't. But is it against those rules?”
Audra raised her chin, swallowed hard, and gave it some real thought. “No,” she admitted finally.
“But I'm sure that's only because nobody imagined a teacher ever would cut her—”
“Rules are rules.” He used her own words. “Didn't I hear tell that motives aren't at issue?”
It amused him to watch the play of emotions over her pretty, china-doll face—disbelief, then shock, then curiosity. She was considering it.
Jack began to grin. Maybe those blinders of hers weren't on so tight, after all.
After curiosity came hope and then, even better, rebel ion. And he'd thought she was beautiful before she set that chin of hers! “You are right,” she decided, her voice gaining strength. “There are no specific rules against a teacher cutting her hair.”
He longed to kiss her, tortoiseshell hair and all . “The top part looks decent.”
Her return smile came more tentatively, hope alternating with dismay. Good girls wore their long hair down and good women wore their long hair up. The only decent ladies he'd ever seen with short hair were recovering from serious illness. But really, with the hand she'd been dealt, did Audra have any chance but to bluff?
Hope won out. “Will you do it?” she asked him, and dropped her gaze. “Jack?”
At that moment, he would do anything in the world for her.
“I would be honored.”
Audra could not believe she was letting him do this to her. actually, she could hardly believe he was even there,
much less alone with her and Melissa—unchaperoned!—in Aunt Heddy's house.
That, she knew, was just plain wrong.
So why, instead of her initial shame, was she almost beginning to enjoy it?
The haircut was exquisite torture. Unwilling to let herself think ahead to the trouble her new coiffure would cause, she focused on the moment... and to her amazement, took subversive pleasure in it. Jack stood behind her chair, his body a wall of warmth against her back. Despite his efforts at cheer, she heard the unsteadiness of his inhale before he actually made the first cut.
More than anything else, that hint of empathy from him reaffirmed her decision.
Her hair made a faint, gritty noise as the sewing shears sliced it away. A long, streaked shank fell to the floor beside her.
Melissa, watching from across the room, put a fist to her mouth to muffle whatever protest might escape. Audra looked at the amputated length of hair and swallowed back nausea.
Jack, behind her, took another overly deep breath and Audra followed his example. Too late to turn back now. “In for a penny,” she said, only a little tremulous, “in for a pound.”
“That's my girl,” said Jack—not that she was his girl! But the part of her that craved concern hungered equally for praise. She did not rebuke him.
His fingers brushed the back of her neck as he lifted another lock of hair, then another, holding it carefully away from her skin before slicing it away. Such sure hands he had. Soft, gentle—and yet the sensations that sizzled through her at their touch were not gentle at all. Sometimes, when he made a cut that demanded he rest his knuckles against her shoulder or throat, her eyes drifted shut of their own accord. It should frighten her, the intimacy she felt with this man, this gambler behind her. Perhaps it did frighten her—but it excited her, too. Every bit of her felt alive, even bits that he was not touching, especially bits he was not touching. The sensations warmed secret parts deep inside her.
And shockingly, instead of fighting it, she savored it as she would sugar candy. Nobody had to know
... did they?
“Well, looky here,” murmured Jack, fingering ends of her shorn hair. His soft drawl only spread that seductive warmth. If he were to move his hand a bare inch, caress her cheek, or touch her lips, she wasn't sure she could object.