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.
“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
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
