Linda Broday - Give Me A Texan

Mina took coins from her pocket and placed them by her plate. She laughed. “Just how old is yer da?”

Before the tattler could answer, Briar reached over and scooted the coins back to Mina. “Older than Exodus. Now keep your money. Supper’s my treat, remember.”

“Twenty-seven.” Violet giggled, then squealed when her father poked her gently in the ribs and began to tickle her.

“Cowboy counsel, gabby-girl, remember?” It felt good to hear her sweet giggles against his throat as she tucked her head and moored herself against him. “Especially with family secrets.”

“Cowboy counsel?” Mina asked. “’Tis an Amarillo saying, I’m thinking.”

“A Texas saying, ma’am,” Briar announced in his best Lone Star drawl. “Which means that you don’t run off at the mouth about things that should be kept private.”

“Angel says she’s twenty-three,” Violet interjected, then cupped her mouth. “Uh-oh, Daddy, it ran off all by itself.”

“Violet!” Briar and Mina objected in unison.

“Well,” she defended, spreading her fingers just enough to let through her explanation, “It just came right out and I was too tired to stop it.”

“God help us both.” Briar made a visual pact with Mina as he offered his free arm to escort her out of the restaurant. “We’re going to need Him.”

They walked only a few streets before opening a gate to a yard that housed a handsome wood cottage painted the color of her ancestral homeland and trimmed with white gingerbread molding. Was this the Duncan home? “Ye’re not thinking of putting her to bed and leaving her alone while ye escort me to the station, are ye?”

“No, ma’am. I’m not. You’ll both be staying.”

Her fingers unlocked from around the muscular band of his forearm and she backed away. No matter what employment he offered, she could not sleep under his roof with him. Though she had never worn a heavy cloak of propriety about her shoulders, she tried to maintain a thread of decency. “I’ll not be obliged to sleep in yer home, sir. ’Tisn’t fitting.”

“It wouldn’t be if I were going to be sleeping there with you.” Though his voice reassured, the deep timbre of it enticed with the playfulness of their earlier banter. His eyes darkened to moonlit globes framed in lashes of ebony. “I’m loaning you my bed.”

Mina’s heart altered its beat, as if it were a tossed stone skipping along the surface of a pond. A warm bed where she would be safe from her troubles was what she had hoped for so long that now, when offered, it seemed more dream than reality. But sleeping in a place that would be filled with the sights and scent peculiar to this man seemed more dangerous than any of those nights spent hiding under tarps on the wharfs of St. Louis. He’d captured her interest with that first look they’d shared when she disembarked. The allure only deepened the more they had talked…when he touched her hand at supper. She must remember her anger with him concerning his daughter’s welfare, lest she be swayed by his charm.

Despite the voice of reason stirring her thoughts, her feet moved forward as if they had a will of their own.

He accepted her hand again and guided her to the porch. “Bunking in at the office and letting you and Violet sleep here really is the logical thing for me to do, Miss McCoy. It’s getting late, so I’ll need to situate Violet for the night. After I remove a few of my things we’ll have our discussion, then I’ll be off to the station. No one will find fault with those arrangements.”

Our discussion? She reviewed their talk at supper and realized he meant to interview her about her qualifications for employment. She was tired, and it had been a long journey. But she must remain alert. She would tell him just enough to satisfy his curiosity and nothing else. “Very well, then. If ye’re certain ’tis no trouble to ye.”

“I’ve practically been there every night this last month. One more won’t make a difference.”

“Ye’ve left that wee lass alone in the house?”

“Let’s get out of the night air, shall we?” He opened one of the two front doors that graced the cottage’s facade. “And yes, I suppose I did. But I checked on her hourly to make sure she didn’t need me.”

“’Tis a good thing ye live so close to ye work. Not that ye have to worry about strangers getting off the train and needing a warm place to stay.”

“Touché, Miss McCoy.”

He left her standing in the parlor of his home while he disappeared behind a dark-wooded door that shone like a freshly washed apple at the back of the room. She set her valise down by the armchair made of the same wood and a red velvet backrest and cushion. Side tables held kerosene lamps designed in floral bouquets. Someone had lit one of them, offering a warm welcome to those who entered. Had Briar stopped by while he was gone to make the phone calls?

She noted another lamp hanging in the center of the ceiling, its mother-of-pearl base and crystal chandelier shade not quite as fancy as those she’d seen back east. Before she could notice further details of the room, Briar returned and waved her to the chair. “Please take a seat, Miss McCoy.”

“Yer home is lovely.”

He glanced about as he sat opposite her on a davenport of a similar design as the chair. “It’s one of the kit houses brought in from Sears, Roebuck. The family who ordered it pulled up stakes, so I was able to get it for less than the usual cost. I’m no carpenter by any means, but Nathaniel and I had a cussing good time putting it together.”

Naturally curious, she wanted to know more of what made his eyes spark with such a happy memory, but he steered the conversation back to the business at hand. At least he seemed capable of providing for his daughter, and quite well from the look of it.

“I thought we could start things off while Violet dresses herself for bed.” He lifted a palm. “Now don’t object…she won’t let me help her. Has something to do with her latest ‘suffer-gette’ doings.”

Mina smiled despite her initial reaction. Violet would be the sort to latch onto the craze that had menfolk drinking deep in their cups. The lass would be more than a handful once she took on her full petticoats. “So, ’tis yer questions I’ll be hearing now.”

“First, how do you know Nathaniel?”

A safe enough subject if she handled it just right. She noticed the Shoninger desk organ and wondered if he or Violet played the instrument. Her fingers rubbed together in anticipation of teaching the lass a few tunes. Playing a lively jig was the one true teaching her da had passed down to her before throwing her into the streets.

She looked Briar straight in the eye, a practice she found helped to convince people of her sincerity. “I knew him when he lived in St. Louis years ago. He was acquainted with me father.” She made sure she didn’t say friend to her da, so it would not be a lie. Seamus McCoy had few friends and Nathaniel was not among them. “He managed to get me a badly needed job. I told him I would pay him back one day for the favor.”

Lines creased Briar’s brow. “That had to be ten or more years ago. He’s lived here for more than eight.”

“Nine would be the whole of it.”

“You worked at fourteen?”

“Lots of people work at that age.” Her chin rose at the criticism.

“They do.” He looked apologetic for having offended her.

He couldn’t know he had touched on an embarrassing aspect of her life. She kept the reason she had been forced to take the employment secret from anyone who didn’t have to know. What had he called it…cowboy counsel? “And for that reason, ’tis here I am. To pay him back.”

“Sounds like you have a lot of experience working.”

She shifted in the chair, feeling as if she were losing ground instead of gaining a firm foothold. “More than I care to admit.”

“May I be blunt?”

His eyes had a way of looking at her so deeply that she could feel their searching as if it were a tangible touch that left smoke drifting in its wake. Like a blaze whose heat simmered long after the burn. “I prefer that ye speak yer mind,” she whispered, feeling vulnerable and unable to hide the breathy rush of her voice. “Ye can be certain, I will.”

“I need to know any reason you wouldn’t be a proper teacher to my daughter.”

Mina stood abruptly. “If ye mean to ask if I ever worked in an improper place, then ye can rest assure I have not.”

Genuine regret filled his face. “I’m sorry, Miss McCoy, if I’ve spoken out of turn. My daughter’s upbringing, no matter what it may seem, is of the utmost importance to me. I’m very careful of the women who come into her life because she is a motherless child. As you can tell, she’s eager to attach herself.”

“That I can understand.” And she could, better than he would ever suspect. “So, have there been many? Women, I mean? Since her mother’s passing?” The fact that other women may have been close to the Duncans bothered Mina, more than she wanted to admit.

“I’ve tried several governesses. Let’s just say, none seemed up to the challenge.”

Mina was relieved to find her good humor again. “The lass has a crafty wit about her, even at this wee age.”

“I thought we were going to be blunt.” He laughed, a sound filled with both exasperation and pride. “She’s the devil’s own taskmistress at times.”

“I knew that from the moment I met her, but ’tis no deed yer lass has done that I have not stumbled over meself.”

“Good then, you feel up to the task?”

“Aye, and qualified to see her come out the better for it, I am. I worked four long years in Mrs. Higginbotham’s Lady’s School. I know all the refinements she’ll be needing and have taught them a time or two to others. There is, to me regret, the matter of diction. Though it doesna transfer across the wire as brogue, I’m not prepared to teach the lass proper English.”