by Jodi Thomas
“Both, if time allows.”
“We’ll do Boot Hill another day.” His tone was sharp. “It’s several miles out.”
“I can go on me day off. Ye do not have to take me today.” He seemed so distant now, though he was sitting only inches away. Was the closeness she felt toward him last night, when he’d held her in his arms, a figment of her imagination or some magic conjured by the night? “Ye seem angry. Have I offended ye in some way?”
“Why would you think that?”
She stared at the robin-egg sky overhead with its lack of clouds. “Perhaps ’tis yer frowning face and angry tone that gave me the clue.”
Briar looked at her like she’d lost her senses then suddenly burst out laughing. “Are you always so direct?”
“I try to be. It gets things said quicker.”
“Why do you feel the need to say things quickly?” His eyes searched hers for understanding.
“It comes from moving around a lot, I suppose.”
“You’ve lived a lot of places? Had a lot of adventures, have you?”
She heard the longing in his voice. The boredom. “’Tis one thing I learned in me many travels, Briar. Places are not the adventures to be enjoyed. People are. Ye should enjoy what time ye have with yer wee one. She’ll grow up and leave ye long before ye’ll be wanting her to.”
“That I know all too well, I’m afraid.”
The spark that had shone in his eyes a moment before now faded with his smile. He was remembering his wife’s passing and she had been the fool to remind him. “I seem to be saying ’tis sorry I am quite often this morning. First, for allowing Violet to wear the trousers. Now asking ye to take me to the graveyard. ’Tis where yer wife is buried, is it not?”
He nodded. “You’ve no need to be sorry. I’m the one who should apologize for my bad temper. I just can’t seem to bring myself to visit Katie Rose’s grave.”
“Not since her passing?”
“Not once. I have the minister put flowers on her grave for me, but I can’t. It would be admitting…I just can’t.”
“Had something come between ye?”
“Nothing like that. We loved each other as much as the day we agreed to marry.”
“Then let me go with ye this first time,” Mina encouraged as she threaded her arm through his to offer support, “so ye willna be alone.” She knew how it felt to be alone. She was a master at being alone.
“No, and I don’t want you ever taking Violet to it either.” He flicked the reins to speed their journey. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”
“I do more than ye think, Briar.” And she did. Mina decided to share the reason she visited cemeteries so that he would realize she knew sorrow as intense as his own. “I search every graveyard in every town I visit. Ye see…” She had never said it aloud before. Never shared the truth with anyone till now. “I study the names on the tombstones for the one name I need most to read—my mother’s.”
He seemed even more driven than before, his grasp on the leather straps fiercer than before. Mina placed a hand upon the reins to restrain the anger that drove them. “Stop running from it, Briar. Stop running from yer future. Some day ye’ll have to look at yer own Katie Rose’s tombstone and know that yer time with her is past. At least ye have her memory. At least ye know she never abandoned ye. She died, Briar. Maybe not of her own choosing, but she’s gone. Ye just doona want to tell her good-bye.”
The gallop slowed to a canter, and it was only then that Mina realized that her breath had been racing too. Racing to make him understand, to make him stop denying the truth, to make him start living again for himself, for Violet, and…somewhere deep in her heart…she heard a whisper that said his acceptance would affect her own future as well.
They sat in silence until he pulled up rein at the cemetery. When Briar put his hands on her waist to help her from the surrey, he quickly set her down and acted as if he’d touched something most foul.
Despite understanding his grief, she couldn’t help feeling hurt by his brusqueness. “Forgive me if I ask too much, Briar. I only mean to help.”
“Go do what you must, but don’t ask me to participate. I find no comfort in seeing the dead’s name written in stone.”
She swung around in fury. “And ye’ve a cold heart, Briar Duncan, if ye think I enjoy looking for me mother’s name among the dearly departed.” Despite her best effort, tears brimmed in Mina’s eyes when the depth of her lifelong anguish took voice. “’Tis easier to believe me mother died than that she actually abandoned me. Look for her I will, till I know the stone-hard fact, for sure and certain. At least ye had a past to put to rest so ye can go on.”
Chapter 7
Later that afternoon, Briar watched Mina’s fingers tap out the reply to General Pershing’s previous telegram and had to admire the dexterity of her movements.
“Ye’re being too wordy.” She frowned at the note he’d scribbled down to answer the commander’s questions about what news there had been concerning the Villistas in the area. “Whyna condense it by shortening these two lines. Ye’re saying the same thing twice.”
He nodded his approval. “You’re good at editing. Go ahead and make any other changes you think necessary. I’ll get us some coffee.”
The battered pot heated on the stove. It kept passengers warm who waited in the lobby. The lobby was empty at the moment, the westbound long gone and the northbound not due in for at least a couple of hours. As Briar filled two cups with the steaming brew, his mind focused on the woman who’d filled his every thought since he’d met her. She seemed adept at the telegraph and knew when to offer suggestions without altering his intent. Mina was not an easy woman to read, but he’d found her fascinating. She seemed hard as a pine nut in her directness, yet vulnerable as a kitten that had been abandoned by its mother. The moment he made the comparison, Briar’s gut wrenched. She was no kitten, but a flesh-and-blood woman who had been abandoned at an early age and, apparently, by a mother too little known to describe further.
Since their ride from the cemetery, Mina insisted upon talking about Violet’s right to know more concerning Katie Rose—a subject that he preferred to cast off as quickly as it intruded upon his thoughts. Though he defended himself by telling Mina that he intended to wait until Violet was old enough to understand more, the truth was that it hurt too much to talk of his wife’s passing. But Mina would have none of it.
The woman made him think more in twenty-four hours than he had in several years. Made him question some of his choices when he had not allowed anyone else even to broach the subject. Hell, Mina McCoy had made him feel like he never felt before. And that was the most startling aspect of all. It was as if she could see beyond the granite wall of reserve he’d built around his heart and decided to slam a maul against his suffering and make him acknowledge the pain, instead of chipping away at it a little at a time. Quick and constantly challenging. That’s how she’d entered his life and that’s how she kept his thoughts stirred.
He didn’t need a suffragette to tell him he should make changes if he was ever to find contentment with his life again. He didn’t need to hang on to her every word about places she’d been and things she’d done to know that he was a poor example of how to get on with one’s life after an emotional storm. But what he admired, and discovered he craved, was the honesty she’d brought with her. He’d lived the lie of his life for nearly four years now, denying that Katie Rose was gone forever and that he must make a life for him and Violet without her. From the moment he met Mina, she’d sensed the lie and that same openness that radiated from her as if it were a fragrance somehow washed over him like a cleansing tide. He may have met her questions with stone silence, but Mina’s concern had awakened the roaring discomfort of his choices.
“Thanks.” She took one of the mugs from his hand and sipped. “I canna remember the last time I had coffee.”
“It’s one of the few things I cook well. We drink a lot of it around here.”
“I favor berry juice or jasmine tea, meself. Coffee will keep ye up nights.”
Briar took a seat on the cot he’d moved back into the office for the day, glad that their earlier anger with each other was subsiding. “I tend to work a lot of nights, so it keeps me going.”
Mina leaned closer, the honey of her eyes warming. “I can see I have a few things to teach Violet’s father as well.”
The look was blatantly suggestive. Provocatively inviting. He’d felt the attraction between them from the start. Wanted to give in to it when he’d held her in his arms last night in the yard. Prayed for the strength not to wrap his arms around her in church when she’d sat pressed against him. The time had come to see if what she’d stirred within him was one-sided or if she felt any attraction toward him as well. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself when she might only be trying to help Violet by aiding Violet’s father. Yet, the prospect of experiencing something sensual, something close, with Mina had its allure. He was rusty at flirting, wasn’t even sure he had ever been adept at it. “And what would you teach me, Miss McCoy?”
She reached out, took the cup of coffee from his hands, and set it down. “First of all, I would have ye learn the value of a good vegetarian diet and healthy beverages.”
Had he mistook her meaning? Was he so enamored with her that he wanted to read more into their relationship than actually was there? Briar frowned, trying to douse the fire of want that flamed any time she drew near. He needed some sort of distraction. Anything to cool his thoughts. A joke. Say something funny. She appreciates a quick wit. “A vegetarian diet, in the cattle capital of the country, and this from the woman who wolfed down a side of roast beef last night?”
She giggled, her eyes lit with challenge. “A sassy tongue ye have on ye, Briar Duncan, and I have a taste for many things.”
God in heaven, help him! Taste and tongue. Words that sent seductive images coursing from his mind to ignite all points less rationally motivated. Her hair curled so wild and free around her cheeks, he could do nothing but reach out to caress one blond silken strand. The air between them grew thick and electric, as expectant as right before a thunderstorm. The world around Briar faded as if nothing but he and she existed, and time ceased to move. Briar could barely form the words as his heart pounded in his throat, his voice deep and low, “I want only one thing right now, and that’s a taste of you.”
Push me away, he pleaded, but her eyes softly shut and Mina leaned closer. He pulled her to him and covered her lips with his. Her mouth opened invitingly as her arms went around him, pressing her length against his. He needed no further encouragement and his tongue slid lazily between her lips to taste deeply of her. A low moan dissolved against his mouth, the kiss becoming ravenous, rough and wanton. Their rapid breaths soughed together as the attraction that had consumed him heated into exquisite pleasure.
“Open yer eyes,” she whispered against his lips. “I want ye to know who this is ye’re kissing.”
Briar’s eyes sprang open in direct challenge, the moment threatening to subside into the reality of the woman in his arms being a stranger only yesterday. Her slow lazy smile held no hint of reprimand but something more of an askance, a need to be desired; she wanted to be kissed for herself and not as a stand-in for Katie. “God help me”—he flicked her earlobe with his tongue, pressing hot, urgent kisses against her neck—“why did you let me kiss you?”
“Because I damned well wanted to be kissed, and by ye.”
Her throaty groan vibrated against his lips, sending them urgently to reclaim the treasure she offered. He combed his fingers through her hair, loving the way it felt silky and smooth as it slid between them. Drifting over her shoulders, his fingers caressed the vee of ribs that slimmed to a sensual swell of hips. He gently slid one hand beneath her tunic to palm a warm, soft globe that peaked exquisitely against the thin material that felt like nothing more than butterfly wings. Her groan became a soft gasp of yearning, a sound so feminine he wanted only to tame, yet protect it in the same instant.
“W-What’s this?” he wondered aloud at the sound of a loud rip that startled him from his revelry. She was not wearing a corset but some strange contraption to cover her breasts, now rendered beyond repair by the impulsiveness of his passion. He raised the triangular patches of cotton netting and the ribbon that held them together. “I’ve torn your undergarment.”
What should I call it? Briar wondered, never having seen anything like it in the fashion catalogs.
“I can always find a new one.” She shook her head, as if unable to regain her focus.
“Buy a new one, you mean.” Briar took a deep breath, attempting to recover his own good sense. No, she meant find. She continuously collected things anyone else might have discarded. She’d been in the office one morning and already there were five new items he’d seen her pick up and place on the desk. Had she picked him up too, like a foundling who was broken and need of repair?
He stepped away from her, more to put distance between himself and his need to touch her again than for his embarrassment over damaging her finery. “I apologize, Ms. McCoy. I don’t quite know what came over me.”
“I came over ye, just as ye came over me. Plain and simple. Not the kiss, by any means”—her fists ended as balls against the lovely hips he’d admired with his hands only moments before—“at least as far as I am concerned. ’Twas one ballyhoo of a brassiere buster, in me way of thinking.”
“I take it that this is a brassiere?” He held up the contraption. Despite the awkwardness of the moment and stab at his pride, Briar began to laugh. His pent-up passion needed release and the laughter allowed him to rid himself of the tension. “I’ve heard of them but never seen one before.”
She nodded. “A homemade one, but it serves the purpose.” She took it from him and laid it on the cot. “I should say served its purpose. I’ll be for finding something else to string it together again.”
Coffee. I need coffee, Briar decided, his throat now parched for anything to quell the taste of Mina. Hell, I need a beer. Briar searched for something to do with his hands to stave off the feel of her. Of all times for the telegraph to lay silent. What he wouldn’t give to hear a ten-liner humming the wires. “Here, better drink your coffee before it gets cold,” he suggested, handing her a cup and taking his own. “No telling when the messages will start up again, and Violet ought to be in soon. She’ll be full of stories, I’m sure.”
Challenge radiated from the golden eyes that seemed to reach straight down into him and twist his gut.
“So we’re gonna pretend we didn’t kiss, are we?” When he took too long to mull exactly how to answer her, her chin lifted indignantly. “I would like to know if ye’re gonna be glad or sad that we did it.”
“Really, Miss McCoy, you continue to amaze me.” Briar stared at her over the rim of his cup. “Why is it is so important that you know how I feel about it?” Yet, he could see that it did matter to her…greatly.
“To see if ye liked it well enough to do it again.”
Do it again? Briar bolted to his feet and put distance between himself and the temptation she presented. Blazes, that’s all he could think of was doing it again, and again, and again. But he wasn’t sure how to handle a woman who wanted in such equal measure. Katie was…well, Katie just wasn’t so hot a burn. “I’m supposed to be the one who…The man’s suppose to—”
“What? Take the lead?” Her hands flung out to encompass the world about her. “I’ve no time for it. If ye canna tell that what we just shared was something God-golden-glorious, then ’tis my sworn duty to help ye find yer wits.”
Briar didn’t know if he liked her blatant, in-your-face sexuality. Hell, admit it man, you like it too much. “We think a little differently, you and I.”
“’Tis rightly so, and ’tis different ye’ve been wanting. I’m just the change of flavor ye’ve been hungry for and yer kiss told ye so. Deny it, if ye like, but the truth is the truth.”
> Briar’s eyes met hers. His lips still tasted like hers; the fire of her seduction still simmered in his veins. He may have made a mistake in kissing her, but he would never deny that he was forever changed by it. “I wanted the kiss. Wanted you. But I can’t give you what I don’t have to offer.”
“And what is it that ye canna offer me? That ye’ve no ability to give?”
“A heart that can love again,” he answered with more truth than any she’d demanded of him.
Till now.
Chapter 8
The afternoon had been hectic, leaving Mina little time to think about what had transpired between her and Briar. Incoming and outgoing telegrams were so frequent that she’d barely had enough time to settle Violet in for her nap. But the lass must have enjoyed the hayride. She was asleep almost as quickly as her head lay on the cot. Small wonder Briar had been swamped with all his duties, if today’s activities were any indication.
The moment she thought of him, it was almost as if she could smell the wonderful essence that surrounded her any time Briar was near. A clean, musky, masculine scent that forced her attention away from the machine to see if her imagination had willed him closer.
“You okay?”
Mina wondered how long he’d been standing in the doorway watching her and hoped it had been for a while. That might mean he enjoyed what he saw and, after the kiss they shared and his certainty that she could not persuade his heart to soften, she was determined to make him enjoy being with her. She deliberately stretched her arms and yawned, hoping to define her femininity to its finest. “Tired. But ’tis a good tired I am. Got a lot done.”
His gaze traced her movement, lingering at her breasts then widening as it raised and locked with her own. A grin suddenly lifted his lips as a look of acknowledgment warmed his eyes. Mina smiled back.
For a moment, she savored his grin for all it promised.
For a moment, she let him see that she was making a promise of her own.