Give Me A Texan

“Okay,” she said too agreeably, “but can we go now?”

“We will after Mina has a chance to meet some of our friends.” Briar watched the other children gathering with the McCord family. All of the children appeared more jubilant than usual. “Today is the hayride out to the breaks, isn’t it?” His brow furrowed. “I didn’t remember that when I made plans for us this morning.”

“Can I go, Daddy, please? You said I could last week and everybody’s going.”

She rattled off some of the ragtime language Mina had heard back East, and one of the boys answered back. Mina shook her finger at the pair of them. “Ye’ll be wanting to make sure none of them tadpoles swim in the punch, me precious darlings, or ye’ll be too sore to sit yer bottoms to a pew next Sunday.”

Briar glanced from his daughter to Mina. “You know what they’re saying?”

“’Tis jive or rag talk and little else. Have ye no ear for it here in Texas?”

“Apparently some of us Texans do.” Briar frowned at his daughter. “What’s this about tadpoles in the punch?”

“It wasn’t gonna be me, Daddy, I promise. I knew about it, but I wasn’t gonna do it this time.”

“Have you considered it before? No, don’t answer that. I don’t really want to know.” He shot Mina a look of gratitude. “It’s a good thing you know jive or jag or rag or whatever it is she called it.”

“I know seven other languages as well, and a few twists of the English version, I assure ye.”

Surprise etched Briar’s expression. “You’ll have to tell me how you came about developing that talent, Miss McCoy, but for now I guess I better decide whether or not I’m going to let her go with the others. What do you think?”

She couldn’t deny the lass a chance to be with other children and have fun, even if it meant putting off time spent between Violet and her father. “I say a hayride might be just the thing to practice her social skills.”

“Well, her clothes fit the purpose, don’t they? Can’t say the choice had anything to do with remembering the hayride, though, can we?”

“No, sir,” Violet admitted. “But I promise I’ll wear a dress next time.”

He ruffled his daughter’s hair. “All right, you can go, but only if you follow the McCords’s instructions to the letter and stay in eyesight of an adult. Remember what almost happened yesterday with that car. And I better not hear you gave anyone-boy, girl, or adult-any trouble.”

“I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“Am I to go along with her?” Mina started to nudge past him.

“No, there will be plenty of chaperones. They’ve had this planned for weeks. So it seems you’ve been given a reprieve. Maybe there’s something you would like to do, some place you’d like to visit in town while you have some time to yourself?”

His gaze averted to those leaving the sanctuary and she wondered if he wanted to go with his daughter and felt an obligation to entertain her as his guest. Well she wasn’t his guest. She was his employee. “I can find something to do on my own.”

“That won’t be necessary, unless you just prefer being alone.”

Alone was the last thing she wanted to be again. She’d had enough of “alone” for a lifetime. “What will ye do until she returns?” Mina asked, not wanting him to see how much his company had already come to mean to her.

“I usually take part of Sunday morning off so we can go to church, but today I asked Sam-you’ll get to know him soon-to stay a little longer than usual so I could show you some of the town. I’ve got the rig until noon if you’d like me to take you somewhere particular.”

Before she could answer, the woman with the pearl-studded brows and double chins waddled up beside him. “Good morning, Mr. Duncan. I assume this is Violet’s new governess. I’d like to talk to you about what your daughter did yesterday.”

“Gotta go. See ya.” Violet rushed to join the others.

So, ’twas the lass and not meself ye were oogling all sermon, Mina decided once she heard the reprimand in the woman’s tone. Mina glanced at Violet who now blatantly peeped from behind one of the pews to see what transpired between the congregant and her father. Innocence did not play well upon the child’s features this morning.

Nonetheless, whatever the blessed lass had done to irk the woman, it served her no purpose to attack Violet full brow. Best loosen those clips, High-Brow, Mina warned silently as she abruptly faced the woman once again, or those pearl studs will be plowing new paths in those wavy, red roots. “Aye, that I am her new governess, madam. And I can assure ye Violet will be no trouble to ye again. She has asked that I express her sincerest apology for yesterday and begs ye to understand that she must be on her way with the others and canna tell ye herself.”

“May I offer my own personal apologies, Mrs. Humphrey,” Briar joined in. “And, of course, I will be glad to repay any damage you might have incurred because of my daughter’s antics.”

Mina glared at the woman, daring her to demand anything more from Briar than an apology. It may have been his fault Violet got away with whatever she did, but Violet needed to be the one to make amends or she’d never learn where to draw the line between prank and harm.

High-Brow must have thought she could exact any price from Duncan. She seemed to grow uneasy in Mina’s presence, pressing a laced handkerchief to her forehead, daubing away a bead of perspiration that had a pinkish tint in its dew.

“Just see to it that she has appropriate guidance from now on and that will be repayment enough.” She nodded at Mina. “We do hope you’ll stay a long time with our community, Miss-? I don’t believe I caught your name.”

Mina swapped names with her.

“Do stay as long as you can, Miss McCoy. I’m sure Violet will benefit greatly from your teachings.”

“My intention completely, mum.”

Mavis Harper Humphrey was just the first of many names Mina learned in the ensuing bevy of introductions. By the time the sanctuary was empty, she had met so many people she thought she would never get their names straight. Still, none of them were the right name or the treasured face that she searched for any time she met someone’s gaze.

The headmistress at the Lady’s School where she had worked called her frank study of faces unladylike. Arrogant. Mina had said it was nothing more than curiosity and the need to search for resemblance to her own features. No woman here looked anything like Mina. No chance that any of them were her mother. After a while, she had grown tired of the disappointment and waited quietly for Briar to finish his discussion with the minister.

“You seem lost in thought.” A voice stirred her from her reverie. Briar grabbed his hat from the rack where others were stored during services.

“I was thinking about where I would like to be taken,” she fibbed. To me mother, she wished, then decided she might yet be speaking the truth if circumstances proved such. “To the graveyard, if ye have time.”

“The graveyard?” Briar busied himself with walking her down the steps and getting her settled into the surrey. He commanded the horse into action and they were long past town before he spoke again. “Do you mean Boot Hill at Tascosa or the one closer to Amarillo?”

“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?”