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CH 18 -- A DAY IN FORT WORTH
This is another example of me wanting to spend basic, happy time with my characters, instead of advancing the plot!

          By making the concerted effort to curb her burgeoning sense of rebellion -- with one exception -- Audra did manage a truly lovely day.  But first, when Thad knocked at her door for dinner, she took a deep breath for courage and said, "I would like to carry my own room-key, please."
          Thad blinked at her, as if unsure why she might want such a thing, but offered the key easily enough.  "If you want."
          After that, in moments when she began to worry -- either about her indelicate behavior of the recent past or the looming choices of her immediate future -- she took note of the extra weight in her reticule, and it somehow encouraged her.
          She and Thaddeas had a delicious restaurant meal, then visited the beautiful new county courthouse of red-granite, on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River. Then they enjoyed some shopping, although none of the sales clerks Audra spoke to had half the charm of a certain temporary storekeep in Tarrant City.  She chose her purchases carefully, and insisted on buying them with her own money -- and it felt more gratifying than she would ever have imagined.
          "I earn a salary now, " she reminded Thaddeas when he offered to pay for a new bonnet.  She fancied it might replace one that she'd accidentally crushed two weeks earlier.
          "Hard to believe," Thaddeas marveled, shaking his head -- but he obediently returned his money clip to his pocket.  "You were the baby for such long time."
          She'd been almost six when Kitty was born.  Audra could still remember the stabs of jealousy she'd felt when a family member referred to "the baby" and no longer mean her.  Perhaps that sense of loss had, in part, contributed to her willingness to be coddled and protected, when others of her sisters insisted on their independence.
          "I couldn't stay a baby forever," she reminded Thad gently -- and that, too, felt remarkably gratifying.
          They dressed in their party finery to attended the play they'd chosen, and the comedy's romantic plot had Audra holding a gloved hand to her chest, as if to keep her own heart from joining in the songs ... especially the love songs.  In the dark of the theater she found herself wishing again, secret things she knew could not come true.  She held those wishes close inside herself when she danced at the New Year's parties as well, mainly with Thad but occasionally with other gentlemen who asked respectfully and treated her with the utmost courtesy.
          If she found herself longing for someone to surprise her with a little gentle flirtation, much less to shock her by risking such a thing in front of her brother's guardianship ... well, perhaps she could blame that, too, on the after-effects of seeing "Sweet Anne Page."  It had nothing to do with a blue-eyed gambler whose teasing sense of mischief could enliven any party, whose embrace could melt her best resolve, and who insisted that she make decisions for herself instead of blindly following those of others.  Could it?
          If she had any hope of maintaining her respectability, it must not.  Because if she could not behave herself, especially after the shock of this morning, she would prove Thaddeas right.  Her honor and that of her family was at risk -- had always been so, though it took this reunion with her brother to remind her fully of that.  If she meant to cherish romantic dreams about a gambler -- and possible drunkard! -- then she SHOULD leave.
          The very idea distressed her to the core, but she surreptitiously hefted her beaded purse and found renewed comfort in carrying her own room key.          
          When she and Thaddeas tired of the orchestra at the Delaware, they reclaimed their coats and walked the well-lit block and a half to the equally posh Mansion House and resumed dancing there until midnight fireworks brought them out of doors again.  Arm around her brother's waist, simultaneously drinking in the beautiful, illuminating colors and cringing from the explosions, Audra made a decision.  If she lived for another century she could never repay Thad for putting aside his own Christmas in Sheridan to give her this outing.  But with her own immediate future so uncertain, looming in the threshold of this grand new year, neither could she show proper gratitude by being less than honest with him. 
          Nor could she prove her maturity by being less than honest with herself.  And in truth, her self-respect was worth the ... gamble.
          So when they left for their own hotel, she braced herself and said, "I have decided that I should stay in Texas."
          "You have," challenged Thad carefully....

END OF 18 -- HELL'S HALF ACRE
In every book I write, it seems there's a scene that is almost physically painful to remove.  The Hell's Half Acre scene was that for BEHAVING HERSELF.  I'd done large amounts of research, and I've walked those streets--well, where they once were--and I wanted to show Hell's Half Acre!  But the book was way too long, and I was spending too much time with Jack and Audra apart.  So this scene became a memory of Audra's, instead..

          Thaddeas had Audra wear her cape with the hood up and forward, to hide her face.  The hood and her panic-narrowed eyesight somehow transformed the Acre to a series of wretched tableaus:  shoddy buildings, staggering men, carriages racing far too quickly through dark, crowded streets.  And even as grotesque stereoscopic images, they terrified her.  This, unlike  pictures on a stereoscope, was inescapably real.
          One thing she noticed, as they penetrated the outer edges of the Acre, was its stench: horse manure steamed in the street, and the smell of human waste, like from poorly kept outhouses, fouled dark alleys.  Whiskey laced the urine smell, the reek of sweat and occasional vomit, so strong that Audra had to cover her mouth and nose with her gloved hand.  Over it all floated burning, smoky smells staining the cold air -- tobacco and kerosene, coal and ... and something sickly sweet that drew Audra's timid attention to one of a seemingly endless row of unpainted, ramshackle "businesses."  Several China-men, guarding the front door, stared blankly back at her.
          
          Thaddeas let his hand drift closer to his gun, as they passed that place, and Audra was afraid.  In fact, she found herself looking at other human beings as terrifyingly alien, simply because of their race, for the first time in her life.  Saloons with names like The Bucket of Blood and The Black Elephant seemed to cater to more colored patrons than white -- so MANY of them, so loud and overwhelming that she could barely equate them to the polite-and-distant black cowhands her father employed, the two quiet colored girls who had attended school with her.  Unlike in Wyoming, she did not see a single Indian -- perhaps a good thing, considering what she'd heard of Texas tribes.  But even some of the whites, especially those with thick Irish accents, seemed just as foreign, although few seemed aware of her and Thad at all.
          It was the women of the Acre who most noticed Audra.  Thad stopped on one corner and pivoted slowly around.  "Look," he said, sounding surprised himself.  "Every corner's a whorehouse."
          Audra winced at such language -- and from her brother!  But she did look, and quite a few women loitered around open fires in front of these tenement buildings, incongruously holding their hands out to the warmth while their Mother-Hubbard dresses hung open to show their underwear.  Audra quickly hid her face from their immodesty, and she wished she could plug her ears too; from inside one boardinghouse, two women screamed shocking words at each other, mixed with the equally ugly word, "Mine!"  Cross-corner from that, on the second floor, a female scream was abruptly silenced.
          To Audra's horror, her brother took a deep breath and stepped back from her attempt to hide against him, though he did keep one hand securely on her shoulder.  "This is HONEST sin," he reminded her grimly.
          So she looked, ashamed to feel such aversion for women who had done nothing to her, but repelled all the same.  The smell of whisky-sweat was strong here; the women's hair and clothes did not look clean.  The ones who did not glare at her with curiosity or outright malice had the bleary expression of glass-eyed wax dolls, as if their minds had gone far away.  And, most shocking of all ....
          "How ... how old is that one?" Audra whispered, somehow finding her voice as she stared at a small, black-haired demi-monde who studied Thad with particular interest.
          "How old do you think she is?" countered Thad.  He was stoically looking over everyone's heads, including hers.
          "Maybe..."  Was it possible?  "Twelve?"   Their sister Kitty was twelve, and still wore short skirts and played with a hoop. 
          "Could be," said Thad. "Twelve's the age of consent for ... this."
          Looking more closely, Audra suspected that half the girls she saw were no older than she.  While she'd been watching, several men arrived at the houses, sometimes speaking to the women but more often just grabbing one by the arm and heading inside.  Once, an anonymous carriage stopped and picked a girl up.
          "Three dollars," called one girl toward Thaddeas, finally.  When another, in front of a different house, called "Two-fifty," the first one picked up a bottle from the street and hurled it at her, along with another epithet.  Both shattered against the side of the building.  One of the most dazed-looking women did not even duck from the flying glass.
          "Come on," said Thad, abruptly steering Audra away from what looked to have the makings of a brawl.  An older woman stepped into their path -- fully dressed, though her neckline showed far more flesh than was modest, fashionable, or even healthy in this weather.  "You got something to sell, Handsome?" she asked, her voice strident.  "Or you just looking for a special arrangement?"
          Thad made as wide a circle around her as he might have a dangerous animal, and the woman's laughter floated after them.  From then on, Audra saw the rest of the "boardinghouses" for what they were.
          Most noise came from the saloons.  Audra recognized a cacophony of warring sound as piano music, a rift of "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" here, a few bars of "Hot Time in the Old Town" there, the different songs from different bars played with more enthusiasm than ability.  Through windows open despite the cold snap -- a testament to the heat of pressing bodies -- the continual clink of glass against glass battled the music, as did drunken laughter, angry shouts, horrible language -- and a constant clamor of what turned out to be gambling.
          "That's a wheel of fortune," explained Thaddeas, pointing through one window at a spinning, hypnotic blur of black-and-red -- it made a whirring noise, faint under everything else, until it stopped, at which point some of the people watching it whooped, while others cursed.  "Or roulette.  And those tables in back, where the man's taking numbers out of an urn, those are where they play--"
          "KENO!" shouted someone in the crowd, leaping to his feet, and several other voices cheered the apparent victory.
          "Keno," agreed Thad grimly.  "If you look through there--"  She could not seem to move, for staring at the intensity of the games and, more, the gamers.  He took her by the shoulders and turned her himself, walked her down the uneven boardwalk, to look through another window.  "Yup -- they're playing faro.  And the game with the dice is called craps.  Most of the poker games are in the corners and upstairs, I'd guess."
          Obediently, Audra looked, connecting the dice game with the sound of bony clicks she'd been hearing -- and immediately, amidst the sea of smoky unfamiliarity, she focused on the nicely dressed man behind the faro table.
          JACK?!
          Her inhale trembled in her throat.
          Actually ... the man DIDN'T look like Jack, not really, which was perhaps worse.  He had light hair, despite its slicked-back style, and a long moustache.  But he wore tailored clothes with a similarly fashionable cut to those Jack favored, and striped pants; she even caught a glimpse of high, shiny boots.  Beneath his frock coat he wore an embroidered vest, complete with gold watch chain.  When one of the men in his game slapped his hand down on the table, obviously upset, the fancier man smiled charmingly and relieved him of something.  It was the charming smile that delivered the worst blow, like a knife through Audra's chest.
          ...no...
          But it was like the "boardinghouses."  Now that she had noticed, Audra could not stop seeing the other men in particularly tailored coats, almost always worn with rich vests and jewelry and ruffled shirtsleeves peeking out at the wrists.  From what little she could tell, looking through dirty windows, the professional gamblers seemed to win a lot more than they lost.
          She did not have to ask Thaddeas if that were normal.  She was an Audra who could think for herself, an Audra with her room key in her purse.  She knew, with sick instinct, that most of the gamblers were winning not because of skill but because they cheated.
          And Jack Harwood was one of them. 
          He might not be here in person, but she saw him in every graceful movement, every dexterous hand maneuver, every laugh or smile or wink.  These were Jack's people, standing in the midst of hell and enjoying the companionship, untouched by the misery on all sides.
          And she had let him kiss her.  She'd kissed him back....
          This cruel, loud, reeking world started to spin around her -- like a wheel of fortune -- and she clutched Thad's arm with all her strength.  She felt a low, anguished wail building in her chest, suspected nothing would stop it....
          Then a cheerful voice to her side said, "You can go on in.  Nobody's gonna stop you just 'cause you got a woman along."
          "No, thank you," said Thaddeas, before Audra could even make herself turn her head, locate the source of the voice.  It was a boy, perhaps seven or eight years old, his skin color indeterminate between the light from the saloon and the dirt on his cheeks.
          He hooked a little thumb on the one suspender remaining on his torn pants -- no coat, noted Audra numbly -- and grinned an engaging, gap-toothed grin, incongruous against the surroundings.  "You lookin' for somethin' else, maybe?  Just ask me!  Nobody knows the Acre like Frankie does."
          Audra looked to Thad, horrified.  Surely that couldn't be true! 
          "I think we've seen enough, Frankie," said Thaddeas, staring solemnly back at Audra while he spoke.  "Maybe you ought to go home and go to bed."
          "Can't.  My ma's working."  When Thaddeas turned Audra blessedly back in the direction of uptown, of their hotel, Frankie fell into step behind them.  "Ain't there NOTHIN' I can help you find?"
          Before Thaddeas could say anything, Audra heard herself ask:  "Are there any churches near here?"
          "I could show you one," the boy suggested quickly.
          Thad, one arm braced behind Audra, did not slow his step.  "We aren't going anywhere with you, Frankie.  Just answer the lady's question."
          "What's it worth?"
          "We didn't bring any money, either."  Thad stopped long enough to fix the boy with a particularly intense, Garrison glare.  "And if you don't keep arm's length, Frankie, you might end up being the one who pays.  Sabe?"
          On top of the rest of the night, Audra wasn't sure she could bear her brother's seeming rudeness too -- and to a child!  But when Thad continued to lead her away, Frankie's laugh sounded almost impressed.  "How you gonna have a good time in Hell's Half Acre without money?" he asked, scampering after them.
          "This visit was for...."  Thaddeas hesitated.  "Educational purposes."
          "Huh."  Obviously the boy did not understand.  But that didn't seem to bother him.  "We got a fancy Catholic church, just a couple blocks thattaway," he offered, freely now.  "St. Patrick's, down Eleventh Street from Mary Porter's house.  My ma beat another whore unconscious with a rock once, right on the front steps during mass!"  He laughed at the memory.
          Audra could not laugh.  "Is she all right?"
          "Just had to spend a week in jail, that's all," assured Frankie.  "Hey, and we got the St. Paul over there!"   He pointed to what was obviously a saloon, despite the worn sign reading, St. Paul's Methodist Evangelical Congregation.  "But the church folk moved off and left it behind.  The Union Bethel Mission ladies give Sunday School at Miz Porter's old house -- not the one on Eleventh, but the one the law took off her, on Rusk.  Does that count?"
          Somehow, Audra managed to keep breathing, to keep walking.  Focusing on the little boy's conversation, no matter how horrid, helped.  "Do you attend?" she asked.
          "Shit no!"
          She winced.  "Then it doesn't count."          
          They walked on, further from the noise, further from the stench.  "I found a dead body, t'other morning," Frankie offered.  "One of the ladies my ma works with.  Lotsa whores do 'emselves in, but I ain't never found one myself before."
          Audra's throat closed up before she could even consider responding, and a roar in her ears vied with the noise of the traffic in the Acre, behind them.
          "She did it with heroine," Frankie added, sounding somehow disappointed.  "So it wasn't as good as finding Sally musta been.  I wasn't even born, then, and folks STILL talk about that 'round here.  But nobody's nailed a whore to an outhouse since."
          Audra whimpered, stumbled.  Thaddeas stopped walking and drew her against him, kept her on her feet and let her head fall on his shoulder.  "That's, uh, probably more education than we need, Frankie.  Thanks anyway."
          "Sure," said the little boy.  "Hey, is she okay?"
          "I hope so," said Thad, his voice uneven.  Audra kept her eyes shut -- wasn't sure she would ever open them again -- and so could not see whether regret or disapproval thickened his words.  "You want to earn a dollar?"
          "A DOLLAR?" exclaimed Frankie through her self-imposed darkness.
          "Run up the street to the Delaware Hotel and ask them to send a hack."
          Audra bit her trembling lip, felt tears begin to burn under her closed eyes.  It was over, and Thaddeas was taking care of her again.  She'd never felt so desperately grateful.  Especially after seeing what happened to women who DIDN'T have protective brothers, well-off fathers, schooling....
          Maybe it wasn't over after all.  Maybe the worst had only started.
          "You're gonna rent a carriage just so's she don't have to walk five blocks?!"
          "You know where the Delaware is, right?"
          "Sure.  But ain't no driver gonna give your woman a ride if'n you don't got money."  Audra heard the boy clear his throat and spit.  "Maybe she can just walk it off.  Ladies can't hold as much hooch as we men can, ya' know."
          "I can pay him when we get to the hotel.  He'll see I'm good for it."
          "You better be," warned Frankie.  Then his footsteps skittered off in the direction of the Delaware and, without that distraction, Audra could sink deeper into her protective darkness. She was faintly aware of Thaddeas running a hand up and down her back, murmuring, "I'm sorry, Audie.  I'm so sorry.  It was a stupid idea.  I'm so sorry," until the hack arrived.
          The ride back to the Delaware, Frankie's joy at getting paid what was probably more than a dollar, and Thad's careful escort back to her room all blurred together.  She did not WANT to notice anything else, did not want to even think.  Walnut furniture and Brussels carpeting aside, the world was too ugly a place to merit thought.
          Thad took her purse, to get the key, and as soon as he had her in her room again, settled her into one of the silk-upholstered chairs and relieved her of her cape, he apologized again.
          "No," she protested numbly ... and realized that, at some point, she'd opened her eyes again -- just in time for them to well up with tears.  "It's all right.  You were right.  No wonder... no wonder decent people hide it all behind closed doors...."
          Something wavered in the back of her mind, a protest she felt too exhausted to admit even to herself.  Something to do with decency....
          "It's NOT all right," Thaddeas insisted, bringing her a glass of water and kneeling beside her chair, offering her a handkerchief.  "I should never have done that to you.  I was so afraid that fancy-dan gambler would somehow destroy your innocence, I ... I did it to you myself.  My God...."
          She wiped away more tears with his handkerchief, betrayed yet again.  Thaddeas wasn't supposed to swear.
          "But it worked," she admitted, low.
          "What?"  His brown eyes, usually so composed, radiated such guilt that she ached to see them.  When he reclaimed his handkerchief and held it to her nose, murmured "Blow," she obeyed -- and swallowed back whatever ghostly protests tried to surface.  It was protests and questions that had gotten her into this.
          "You..."  A few steadying breaths, then a swallow of water, made it easier.  In fact, a nervous laugh escaped her.  "You certainly did make your point about the evils of vice."
          Thaddeas hardly looked comforted.  She could not bear his pain, not on top of everything else she'd seen tonight, everything else she had to feel wrong about.
          "It's late," she said.  "I want to go to bed now, please."
          "You're sure?"
          She nodded.  "Please.  I'll be fine.  I just need to wash some of the ... the smell of that place off of me.  And then I need some sleep.  I'll feel better in the morning, really."
          Her brother hesitated, but either she was convincing enough or the lure of escape proved too much for him.  He nodded a curt nod, kissed her cheek, and all but bolted for the door.
          There, though, he hesitated.  "You'll need to lock the door behind me, Audie."
          Simply lifting her head from her focus on the water glass back to her brother seemed to take an inordinate amount of strength.  She could not imagine crossing the entire room, just now.   "You take the key," said Audra listlessly.  "It's all right."
          But she only said that last part because she knew it was what he needed to hear.
          She'd been living an illusion, and she wasn't sure anything would ever be all right again.

CHAPTER 19 -- JACK MISSING AUDRA
          It was the only thing she'd ever given him that he could keep.
          The next week was worse.  Jack waited outside the church on Sunday afternoon, figuring she'd show up to practice her piano music, but either she'd only been practicing for the Christmas services, or she'd given up on it because of him.  He went back to the dark, empty store chilled and depressed, and didn't even bother to wonder where the hell Ferris vanished to every week.  He considered getting drunk, but that would feel like a kind of defeat -- like he had no hope of winning Audra back.
          Jack didn't defeat that easily, so he chopped wood instead.
          Either Melissa Smith or Claudine Reynolds fetched the mail for the teacherage, that week.  Sometimes they were accompanied by other students -- including Early Rogers and Jerome Newton.  Jack resorted again to the painfully obvious, with questions like, "So how are you young folks liking school?"
          Claudine rolled her eyes, as if disgusted at the very idea.  Early shrugged, stumped his booted toe against the floor, and said, "I reckon it's okay."
          "It's DANDY," insisted Jerome, scowling at Early.  "We ain't -- HAVE never had a better teacher."
          Jack persisted.  "She's doing well, then?  That teacher of yours?"
          It was Melissa who met his gaze, her own disturbingly sympathetic.  "She's fine, Mr. Harwood."
          "I'm telling," said Claudine.  "We aren't supposed to talk to his kind!"
          "We aren't supposed to do a LOT of things," warned Melissa, right back, and from the way they were glaring at each other, Jack would've laid odds he saw a cat-fight brewing -- over what, he didn't care to ponder.
          HIS kind?  Surely it wasn't Audra who'd labeled him that way ... was it?
          In any case, he obviously wouldn't get information about her from the young folk.  Over the next few days, he told himself that if he just gave her a bit more time, she'd be back.  Sooner or later the gal was bound to start hankering for new buttons, or a paper of needles, or something sweet.    How long could a woman go without visiting the only store in town?
          Apparently, she could make it at least two weeks, because Audra still did not show.
          By Saturday, Jack was in a fine froth.  The week had disappointed on too many levels to count.  News from Fort Worth was that all gambling in the Acre had been closed down.  Of course, that was nothing new; it happened every few years, just so the politicians could make hilariously optimistic statements like "There is no longer any gambling in Fort Worth."  But this time, sixty indictments had been returned by the grand jury against those engaged in "unlawful gaming."  SIXTY!
          If Jack had been there, it could well have been sixty-one.  And the fines were going up every year.  The morality brigade just couldn't seem to stop hunting down bad guys.  And it wasn't just gamblers.
          Paranoia about Tarrant City's colored neighbors to the west was on the rise, as well.  Folks along the lines of Ernest Varnes and Whitey Gilmer latched onto the story that a six-year-old girl in New Orleans had been "outraged" by a colored man.  The fact that New Orleans was in another STATE did little to diminish their concerns about the close proximity of Mosier Valley to "our own innocent daughters."

CH 19 - AUNT HEDDY MISSES THADDEAS; AUDRA GETS PRISSY
(no wise cracks about "GETS prissy?" please <G>)

          When Thaddeas had reluctantly left, along with their solemn old grandmother, a pall had settled onto Aunt Heddy's home.  Audra felt more alone than ever, with nobody to come to her aid if she knocked on the wall, nobody to keep guard over her, nobody to walk with her in the woods.... 
          Nobody appropriate, at least.
          And she found Aunt Heddy crying in the pantry, which unsettled her on surprising levels.  The older woman tried to hide it, when she caught sight of Audra, but it was too late.
          "He is a good boy," she explained, tersely as ever.  "Your father raised him well."
          "You certainly helped," Audra reminded her aunt carefully.  With someone else, she might throw her arms around her or at least offer a handkerchief.  But surely Aunt Heddy would rebuff anything like that!  "Why, you raised Thaddeas for over ten years!"
          "Too few," sighed Heddy in agreement, then turned and pointedly began to sort through jars of tomatoes that she had put up over the summer.  "But past is past."
          SHE MISSES HIM, Audra realized.  Not just that day -- Aunt Heddy must have missed Thad for twenty years!  For the first time, she imagined the heartbreak of single-handedly raising a child from infancy, only to lose him to an unmet, unknown woman.
          Why had she never noticed before how unfair the world could be?
          "I am sure Thaddeas missed you too," she suggested softly.
          Heddy shrugged.  "It is not important."  It sounded like a lie.  But ... she'd never come to visit, either.  She'd never invited Thad back to Texas.
          "Did you ... did you even let anyone KNOW you wanted to see him?" Audra ventured.
          "Such questions!"  Having spent too much effort simply choosing tomatoes, Heddy bustled past Audra and into the kitchen.  "A good woman knows what she may and may not have.  Thaddeas belonged with Jacob, and that was that."
          Clearly, that was that for their conversation, too.  But Audra wondered at such cruel simplicity.  How could Aunt Heddy know for sure what she could and could not have without even ASKING?
          For some reason that line of thinking disturbed her, so Audra turned her attention instead to composing a note to Mr. Harwood.  Of course she could not keep the beautiful pen he had given her without implying an acceptance of his lifestyle, much less what they'd done together.  Remembering the ugly world that resulted of vices such as his, she meant to write harshly ... but somehow, fairness interfered.  He was accustomed to cruder surroundings and looser women than he'd met here.  SHE, as the lady, bore the responsibility for setting the moral tone for their acquaintance, and she had failed miserably.
          It HAD been kind of him to give her the pen -- the memory of how the gift had brightened her Christmas morning still warmed her.  She was the one who knew better than accept it, who did not even deserve it!  She had given him every reason to think she would further compromise her principles.
          Audra almost lost track of that thought, remembering just how nice it had been to compromise her principles... then recovered with a start.  How could she possibly enjoy those memories, now that she had seen where such compromise led?  Ironically, even now she found herself placing her faith in Ja-- in Mr. Harwood.  Now that she had explained herself clearly, in writing, he would surely do the right thing.
          And he DID mean to leave anyway.
          When Melissa and Claudine returned, Audra had more important matters to concern herself than the loss of a mere pen, no matter how beautiful.  Now that she knew ... well, what she knew ... she bore with it the responsibility of safeguarding other young girls.
          "That is not an appropriate song for a lady, Melissa," she said, as gently as possible, when she found her friend singing "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" over chores.  The unsavory memory of that same tune mingled with a clamor of drinking and gambling only made her job easier.
          Melissa looked up from her work, surprised.  "Nobody's here but us."
          It could have been the argument Audra had used with herself when Jack had kissed her.  But what one did in private still counted.
          "And we are ladies," Audra reminded her.  So Melissa stopped singing.
          Or, "Claudine, your skirt's rather ... close.  You'd best put on another petticoat before we leave for school."
          Since Aunt Heddy, in the outhouse, could not hear, Claudine said, "None of your business!"
          Instead of taking offense, as she might have only a month ago, Audra realized that of all her students, Claudine was surely in the most danger of losing both her reputation and the safety it afforded.  Perhaps she did not know the peril of her foolishness -- but Audra did.
          "As long as you are my student, it IS my business," she insisted patiently.  "You want people to respect you, do you not?"
          "I want my skirts to show a little of the shape of my legs," Claudine countered.  "Surely it's no secret that we HAVE legs, is it?"
          And really, it wasn't.  But...  "Discretion requires that ladies keep some things hidden."
          "Well thank YOU Miz Cribb," snarled Claudine, as if there would be anything wrong with Audra taking after her aunt.
          Except ... no matter how decent and self-sufficient a woman Hedda Garrison Cribb might be, Audra DIDN'T want to take after her.  Aunt Heddy seemed so lonely, and she so rarely had, well ... fun. 
          All Audra had to do was remember the mindless chaos of the Acre -- especially the half-naked girls by the boardinghouses, girls who must once have been innocent themselves -- to remember that fun was overrated.  She took solace in the fact that Claudine DID go back to the room she shared with Melissa and put on a second petticoat.
          When Jerome Newton stayed in during recess for telling an inappropriate joke, he paid gratifying attention to Audra's lecture on the dangers of such a callous attitude.  She would have sworn he would behave after that.  But not two days later he leaned stealthily across the aisle and lifted Emily Calloway's skirt almost to the knee before anyone, even Emily, noticed.  So Audra had to keep him in again.
          "I'm too old to be in school anyway," Jerome insisted, when asked to explain himself.  "I'm a man, and I have ... well ... men's interests."  And he WAS as old as she, at that. But it made for a poor excuse.
          "If you were in fact a MAN, Jerome Newton," Audra told him, fighting a blush at his implications, "then you would behave as one.  MEN do not play rude tricks; that is what BOYS do.  And as for your...."  She had to look away, clear her throat.  "As for your interests, I suggest you speak to your father or the Reverend Collins.  However, MEN treat women gently, with respect.  I am quite sure that no MAN worth his salt would take inappropriate interest in schoolgirls."
          Despite the age of the average soiled dove.
          "Yes, ma'am," said Jerome, with surprising sincerity.  He remained especially helpful the rest of the week, arriving early to carry in coal and water or staying late to clean the chalkboards.
          If she sometimes, in quiet moments, felt a hollowness deep within her, Audra simply focused more determinedly on her work.  If hardly an afternoon went by that she need not force herself to turn toward Aunt Heddy's, instead of hurrying up the hill to the mercantile to apologize for her distance and to ask Jack to explain the horrible things she'd seen, that was just force of habit.
          And if she sometimes dreamed of him, sweet, warm dreams of belonging that left her aching to return to them....  Well.
          Audra told herself she must simply try harder.
          All in all, by the second Sunday since her epiphany in Fort Worth, she could walk to church with some measure of moral balance.  Thank goodness she had caught herself in time!
          Then, from the bench she shared with the girls and Aunt Heddy, she heard whispering from the door -- and not just one or two people, either.
          Audra considered chiding Melissa and Claudine for turning in their seats to look, but such constant severity, even for a good cause, exhausted her.  This was Sunday; surely she need not be their teacher now, as well.  And they were by no means alone in their restlessness.  Then Melissa twisted back and stared at Audra with such voiceless MEANING that Audra had to see for herself.  Feeling more guilty than apprehensive, she turned....
          She swallowed.  Hard.  Oh my....
          He'd come.
          She'd not seen that blue suit on Jack before.  It brought out the color of his eyes, skimmed the lines of his body with tailored grace.  He'd been barbered recently, also lending him a certain sleekness, especially amidst a congregation of mainly farmers. 
          Just like those other gamblers, she reminded herself quickly, clutching at the memory like a Catholic might clutch at rosary beads.  Except ... Jack held his hat in a way that seemed almost uncertain.  And when she dared meet his searching blue eyes....
          Well, he WASN'T just a gambler.  He was Jack Harwood.  A friend.
          A "FRIEND" WHO COULD HAVE RUINED YOU.
          But she had not exactly fought his overtures.
          His gaze wanted something from her -- to tell her something, or ask her something -- and from someplace deep inside, beyond rules and good sense, she responded to that impression with like need....
          And then he smiled, eyes dancing, cheeks dimpling -- and his charm released her. Audra spun quickly forward to sit, spine straight, feet on floor, hands in lap.  NO!  She must not trust his smiles!  Just because he might not INTEND to hurt her did not mean that, as with the nudge of an affectionate draft horse, or the sandpapery lick of a friendly cow, she would not end up hurt, just the same.  And really, was even THAT not too generous an analogy?  Jack had more intelligence than livestock.
          He knew she did not wish to see him anymore.  She could not have been more clear.  So either he meant to ignore her wishes, or....
          Was it possible that he had come for the services themselves?
          Audra hoped so -- oh, she wanted that to be true!  As Mrs. Kent -- the usual piano player -- began the first hymn, and Audra with the others, she found it difficult to sing for the force of her wanting it.  PLEASE BE HERE FOR THE SERVICES, JACK.  PLEASE BE REFORMING. 
          Because if he were here simply for her, then she really COULDN'T trust him.  She had, after all, been avoiding the gambler for a reason.
          She wasn't sure she could trust her heart, either.

CHAPTER 29 -- BREAKFAST WITH HEDDY
          The end-of-school entertainment would be an all-morning, outdoor event, with most of the town in attendance.  This display of the students' progress -- or lack thereof -- could be either the making of a teacher or her ruin.
          But instead of fretting about her showing, at breakfast the next morning, Audra could hardly wait to escape to it.  Tension thickened the teacherage air so heavily, she could barely swallow her eggs.
          Heddy had agreed to Mother's offer to cook, only to then question her sister-in-law's decisions.  "The little one should eat more," she said, when Elise only took one egg and a piece of toast.
          "Elise is a light eater in the morning," Mama explained easily.
          "She should--" began the older teacher, when Papa interrupted.
          "Hedda," he said.  "Elizabeth cooked."  And as far as he was concerned, that was that.  On the range, Audra knew, cooks had as much autonomy as the boss.
          But this was Hedda's home.            "And YOU, Jacob!  Allowing your girls to run wild!"
          Kitty, Elise, and Audra all looked up from their plates at the same time.  Kitty even appeared distressed by the accusation ... but then again, Kitty often seemed distressed.
          "Audra's display yesterday was wholly out of line, and you said NOTHING to discipline her!"
          Papa's solemn glance slid toward Mama.  Mama, Audra noticed, was beginning to look murderous.  Papa, taking a sip of coffee, seemed to consider that with interest.  "Left my whip in Wyoming."
          "I should THINK--" Heddy continued -- or tried.
          Mama interrupted her.  "Yes, Hedda, perhaps you SHOULD give thinking a try!"
          "THAT--"  And Papa put down his coffee cup with such finality that even Claudine and Melissa jumped.  "Is enough."
          Heddy said, "But she just--"
          "After the meal," warned Papa.  And it WAS enough.  The rest of breakfast passed in almost complete silence, except when Elise began to quietly do an excellent imitation of the bear cub Papa had rescued from a wolf trap, the winter before.  It was so unexpected that everyone had to look at each other first, as if to ascertain that they were really hearing it, before Papa said, "Elise Michelle, what ARE you doing?"
          Elise said looked up with large, solemn eyes.  "I'm being wild," she explained.  And, as ever, she seemed to delight in the responding smiles her announcement provoked.  Even when she didn't understand the joke, Elise generally enjoyed it.
          Neither Papa nor Aunt Heddy smiled.  But when Papa said, "I expect tame behavior at the breakfast table," his sister's disapproval visibly expanded to encompass him as well as the rest of them.
          "Yessir," said Elise.  Then she considered it.  "May I be a bear at lunch?"
          "No.  Nor supper either," Papa warned, before she could open her mouth for that obvious continuation.  "But once we've et, you can help me hunt down some fryers for the girls' lunches."
          "Then I'll have to be a fox," Elise decided.  "Or a stoat.  Right Mama?"
          And Mama, smiling, said, "Yes, Elise.  After breakfast you may be a stoat."
          Perhaps, thought Audra desperately, her family had the tolerance to accept Jack after all.  Assuming she and Jack could ever be enough to each other to require anyone's tolerance.  He'd proposed marriage once ... but in a less than delicate situation.  Even a woman of Audra's limited experience knew to doubt promises made in a hay loft.
          But if that were so ... could she not also doubt other decisions made in a hayloft?  They'd both been so vulnerable, that night.  They'd had so little time....
          Not that they would have much more time today!
                    She hardly dared hope....

CHAPTER 30 -- RESISTANCE: AUDRA VS. SCHOOL BOARD
          Audra had expected moderate resistance to her offering, especially with its ... unusual ... decoration.  But she had to let Jack know which one was meant for him, so she risked it, and caused a bigger stir than she would have imagined.
          "Teachers," insisted Aunt Heddy, "may not participate in box socials."
          "The decoration IS somewhat ..."  Reverend Collins, one of the school-board members, hesitated in an attempt to remain charitable.  "Unorthodox?"
          Mr. Parker, also on the school board and father of four students, clarified.  "It's as if you're inviting that gambler to lunch with you, Miss Garrison!"
          Relieved that her parents were busy with her sisters, Audra considered what kind of excuses she might make, then settled on the truth.  "I am."
          And the truth felt remarkably liberating.
          "You are a TEACHER," repeated Aunt Heddy.  "We expect you to BEHAVE as one."
          Mr. Parker said, "That is true, Miss Garrison.  You did agree to the rules of conduct when we hired you."
          They were SCARED, Audra realized.  Aunt Heddy, Mr. Parker, even Rev. Collins might not fully realize it, but something about Jack Harwood FRIGHTENED them.  He threatened their sense of order, she supposed, as surely as he'd threatened her own.
          Well ... she fought back a smile.  Perhaps not THAT surely.
          "I did agree to the rules of conduct," she agreed quietly.  She did not mean to upset anyone.  But neither did she intend on compromising her own happiness by denying herself what could easily be her last afternoon with Jack Harwood -- or allowing anyone else to deny it.  She had made Jack play a poor second to the rules for months.  Today, he came first.  "And I have at least TRIED to follow them.  But the school term is finished."
          Mr. Parker said, "We meant to tell you this after eating, Miss Garrison, but the town of Camden, Tarrant plans to invite you back to teach next year."
          Rev. Collins said, "It's expected that a teacher maintain a certain degree of refinement, even during the summer break."  By which he meant, even when she was not being paid to postpone her own life.
          Aunt Heddy said, "The school term does not end for several hours yet, young lady."
          Perhaps it was the "Young Lady" that did it.  Either that, or the way they'd dangled the offer of another position for months now, only to use it to bribe her into obedience.  Audra looked at the three representatives of the school board and considered their fears.  She understood them, of course.  They feared the moral example she might set for the children.  They feared attracting calumny from neighboring towns.  They feared having a schoolteacher who might stir up more trouble than they could deflect.
          And perhaps, just as she had, they feared the responsibility of thinking for themselves, of having to judge every newcomer by his or her own actions instead of by profession or past or race or social standing.
          She understood.  But that did not mean she condoned.
          "I'm still a teacher until day's end?" she asked, to make sure.  Aunt Heddy nodded, and Mr. Parker said, "Officially, I believe you are."  Rev. Collins, bless him, just looked uncomfortable.
          Audra said, "Then I quit."


Top of Page                                                            Rancher's Daughters HOME





I am a loooong writer.  I write very, very long books, indulging myself in the characters and their world, and then I have to struggle to cut it down to reasonable length.  What's reasonable?  Part of it has to do with what the publisher can afford to print--to be economically made, books must fall within a certain range of page-count.  Part of it has to do with what makes for a good story, too--in a romance, for example, it's rarely a good idea to have one's hero and heroine separated for more than a chapter or two at a time, at most.

Who knows--you might be able to tell JUST why these scenes shouldn't have made it to the book!  But it's my website, so here they are, just in case anybody's interested....
CHAPTER 2 -- Audra's Thinking Wistfully of Home
CHAPTER 4 -- After Walking Audra Home
END OF CH 5 - Audra Unburdens to Jack
CHAPTER 6 -- Praising Jack
NO LONGER HAPPENED -- Driving to Mosier Valley
CHAPTER 14 -- Christmas Eve Thoughts
CHAPTER 15 -- Presents from Home for Audra
CHAPTER 15 -- Talkg with Thad about Home
END OF CH16 -- More of Thad's Visit
END OF CH18 -- Hell's Half Acre
CHAPTER 19 -- Jack, Missing Audra
CHAPTER 19 -- Aunt Heddy Misses Thad/Audra Gets Prissy
CHAPTER 29 -- Breakfast with Heddy & the Family
CHAPTER 30 -- Resistance; Audra vs. the School Board
FROM CHAPTER TWO--THINKING OF HOME:
(While Audra and Melissa are heading out to the schoolhouse, we get a little more of audra's thoughts about the life she left behind....)

          No, Audra very much feared that she hated living at Aunt Heddy's.  She knew such thoughts were childish, even self-indulgent ... but she did!  She hated sharing a  room and bed with her aunt, instead of with the girls closer to her own age.  She hated going last when they heated water for their bath last night.  She missed her family, missed being talked to as if she mattered.  She missed being petted and hugged.  And if her aunt made one more disparaging comment about how Texas differed from "the lawless wilds," meaning Wyoming, Audra feared ... well, she had no idea what she feared she might do, but it would hardly speak well of her upbringing!
          True, Texas was no longer riddled with the outlaws and Indian attacks of old.  Fort Worth, where she and Papa had spent their last night before coming to Tarrant City, had been grand indeed.  They had ridden a trolley, and stayed at the elegant Stockyards Hotel.  But Tarrant City itself?
          It was a small farming town, not a city at all.  Tarrant was not even its official name yet!  The town's meager populace was making a bid to change it in hopes that a proposed rail-line would put a depot in a place called "Tarrant" -- after the county -- instead of ignore the rather inauspiciously named "Candon."
          The two-room schoolhouse had been a shock, since Audra had originally hoped to teach where she had finished school herself, a fine, two-story brick structure, complete with an auditorium.  She could not, in all fairness, expect Aunt Heddy to have, oh, a telephone -- Audra's family home on their "wild" ranch did not.  But the ranch house did have electric lights, powered by a generator from an old threshing machine, and it had running water from a cistern in the attic.  Their townhouse in Sheridan, which her family kept for school terms, had all those luxuries and a telephone that could call almost anywhere in town as well!
          How Audra wished she could find a telephone in Tarrant City -- one that could magically connect all the way to Wyoming, so she could hear her mother's voice again!  Mama would understand.  Papa, who allowed all those modern novelties in his homes only out of deference to Mama, would likely accuse Audra of behaving like a spoiled city girl with all her priorities in the wrong place.
          Perhaps rightly so, she reminded herself.  Telephones and electricity in no way indicated character, and her character had proven less than sterling, this year.  This week, even....

FROM CHAPTER FOUR--AFTER WALKING HER HOME
After Jack walks Audra home, I had a few more paragraphs of his thoughts on the subject, but I cut it down to "Jack returned to the mercantile" (p. 52).

          Head bent over the book exchange, she whispered, "I hope to get a letter from my parents any day now."  Then, even as he belatedly remembered that the store was also the post office -- realized she was looking forward to seeing him, even if on such an innocent errand as that -- Audra Garrison scooped her taller charge in front of her with one hand, and they made their obedient way into the house.
          Hoping to get a letter?  Too bad he wouldn't be there when she came looking, he thought helplessly.  But he couldn't do her the disservice of telling her that in front of her disapproving aunt.
          In fact, Auntie Axe remained on the porch until both girls vanished inside, giving Jack the evil eye.  Whether she distrusted him as a stranger, as a man, or simply as someone who'd committed the crime of drawing a much needed smile or two out of her delicate niece, Jack couldn't guess.  But she obviously smelled trouble on him.
          And he sure as shooting smelled it on her.
          But if she wanted more bluffs, he was a professional.  Jack remained on the street, keeping his expression pleasant as a preacher's howdy, for the same amount of time.  Just in case outlaws, Indians, or maybe some poor dirt-farmers from Mosier Valley chose that moment to attack.  Only once the young ladies were safe inside did he nod once more to the sour Widow Cribb, turn full away before mouthing the words "old bat," and stroll back toward Main Street.
          Were it not for Miss Garrison's well being, he wouldn't mind shocking the battle axe by saying it a bit louder -- about the only kind of people he didn't naturally take to were self-righteous pillars of the community like her.  But he was right fond of the younger schoolmarm, brief though their acquaintance had been.  After she'd behaved so painfully proper with him, he would be loathe to make things difficult for her.
          Though he might not have a choice in that -- making things difficult, that is.  Could be he'd even set himself up to hurt her feelings.
          She would really be looking for him at the store?

THE END OF CHAPTER FIVE--AUDRA UNBURDENS TO JACK:
In my original draft, the slates that Audra's students buy are to donate to the Mosier Valley school.  I changed that for two big reasons--one, it was distracting from the main point; and two, it was a bit condescending to Mosier Valley, which was a flourishing community at the time, racial differences aside.  Here's how the scene originally read....

          "No," said Audra firmly.  This time she did not bother to thank him first.
          "It's just a piece of penny candy," Jack -- Mr. Harwood -- insisted.  She wondered:  had the serpent in the Garden of Eden had tempted Eve with any less charm?  "Nothing in those rules of yours about candy, now is there?"
          "You must know it is improper for any lady to accept gifts from men!"  To her amazement, Mr. Harwood looked startled by her pronouncement.  Perhaps he hadn't known?
          But then he lay the brightly striped stick of candy on the counter in front of her.  "If you happen to change your mind, help yourself."
          Audra turned away in frustration -- and no little confusion.  When she was home with Aunt Heddy, her thoughts never failed to return to the store and its proprietors.  Yet when she came to the store, what stayed topmost in her thoughts?  How her behavior would appear to people like Aunt Heddy.
          Not that she behaved herself for such shallow reason as that!  If so, this would have been the perfect time to ignore her upbringing.  The weather was so mild that the checker-players had moved their game onto the store's porch, and the store was all but empty.  Even Hamilton Ferris had disappeared somewhere.  Only a little Negro girl stood nearby, hands behind her back as if to keep herself reaching out and touching the clean black slates she gazed upon.
          Now would be the time to do something untoward, if she were so inclined.  But Audra was not so inclined! 
          And even if she were, she would have no idea how to act on such an inclination.
          Mr. Harwood said, "Seems ending the school week would be worth some celebration," and Audra betrayed herself by sighing.
          "Or ... not?" added the gentleman behind her.
          "Of course I am pleased to finish my duties for the week," she insisted, turning back.  Two whole days vacation from  battling the big boys like Jerome Newton and Early Rogers.  Two days of solid, simple chores that gave her a sense of accomplishment, unlike her lack of progress as an educator.
          Two days without Melissa to chat with during those chores.  Two days in Aunt Heddy's and Claudine's dour company.
          "But...?" Jack prompted, his eyes kind and inviting, his broad shoulders seemingly capable of carrying any burdens.
          And to Audra's horror, she found herself telling him. 
          Her students remained distant from her, even after two weeks.  They did not seem to fully appreciate their readers; she had confiscated yet another dime novel the day before.  Their poor grasp of arithmetic shocked her.  She was failing miserably in the duties for which she had been hired and, worse, she did not know how to improve.
          To her relief, Mr. Harwood neither laughed at her concerns nor suggested she ask her resistant aunt for help.  In fact, for a long moment after Audra finished her embarrassing lament, Mr. Harwood said nothing at all.  He seemed to weigh her dilemma with gratifying attention.
          Then, when he finally did speak, it was to tease a smile out of her.  "Them dime novels are against the rules as well, eh?  Now that there is a shame."
          "Not officially," she admitted, ducking so that he would not see his success.  Then she thought:  why not let him see?  And she lifted her head and smiled right at him.  "But I imagine it would run counter to the spirit of the law."
          He blinked as if momentarily surprised.  Then he grinned back.  She felt a surprising rush of warmth, as surely as if the sunlight had shifted to arc in through the mercantile's plate-glass window and directly onto her.  "We can't have you doing anything like that, then."
          She swallowed.  Hard.  The sensation of Jack Harwood smiling at her was far sweeter than penny candy. "No."
          "I don't see as it will help you any," he offered.  "But the way I learned my figures was by doing something I enjoyed.  Numbers on a slate don't amount to much.  It's only when they stand for something real, like money, that they count.  So to speak."
          He understood!  He understood, and he took her concerns seriously!  More than ever, she wished she could go walking with him, wished they could go dancing!  Suddenly she felt sure that, if she had gone for a buggy ride with Jack, instead of Peter Connors, he would have somehow gotten her home before dark and she would never have been beset by scandal in the first place.
          "Thank you, Ja--  That is, Mr. Harwood," she whispered.
          "You could thank me," he coaxed, his own voice velvet-soft, "by accepting this here piece of penny candy.  Hamilton Ferris won't much want me putting it back into the jar."
          Obediently, Audra reached out, picked up the colorful candy stick.  It did look delicious.  If only....
          As her father would say:  If if's and but's were fruits and nuts, they'd all have a Merry Christmas.  She had gone riding with Peter Connors.  She was a teacher now, hiding from that scandal.  Wishes could not change that.
          So she turned and offered the treat to the child who was still ogling the slates.  "This is for you."
          The little girl's brown eyes widened.
          "Truly," Audra assured her.  "You take it.  It's a present from Mr. Harwood and me."
          That was all the prompting the little girl needed.  She took the treat and even said "Thank you, Miss."
          Audra tried not to stare at the girl's worn dress or bare, dusty feet -- did Tarrant not have a ladies' aide society?  Instead she said, "Thank you for keeping it from going to waste."  Then, chin lifting, she turned to face the man she'd just defied.
          If anything, Jack Harwood's delighted smile at her maneuver radiated more esteem than ever.
          Audra stumbled through her excuses and escaped the mercantile as quickly as possible, yet again running from ... something.  Not from him!  If not a complete gentleman, neither had Mr. Harwood done anything to make her feel truly threatened.
          Audra very much feared she was running from herself.
          It was not until after supper that night that she realized she had never seen the little girl, nor any other coloreds, at school.

          Jack wasn't sure Audra would be by on Monday -- his second Sunday boycotting church services had not likely endeared him to her -- so he figured he would hand-deliver the letter himself.  He would not be around much longer anyhow.  Hamilton Ferris could move around with growing ease on a crutch, and the siren song of Fort Worth's red-light district called to Jack of an evening, especially evenings when Miss Garrison had not been by.  It pained him to leave with so much unspent credit still in his name, but hell, he had little use for money he could not bet and a natural affinity for moving on.  It was not as if Audra had in any way encouraged his less-than-proper curiosities about her.  Matter of fact, she'd proven about as bendable as a silver-dollar and just as true.  She reproached his advances more gently than he perhaps deserved, but he didn't see her running low on propriety any time soon.  
          Still, if he was to go, he at least owed her a decent farewell.  They'd become friends, of a sort; he liked to think she might even miss him.  So an afternoon when she'd received a fat letter from her folks in Wyoming would be his best opportunity to do the deed.
          He headed up the hill from the store, enjoying the quiet of the dirt road and the natural latticework of bare elm and blackjack oak, the shelter of live-oak which would not shed its dark leaves until spring.  He would not be here in the spring, of course.  If luck smiled on him, he would be on another Mississippi riverboat.
          Then he reached the two-room schoolhouse against an outpouring of farm children -- and luck smiled a helluva lot faster than that. 
          The children themselves seemed to be in good spirits, the older ones calling plans for some kind of money-making venture--selling produce in Bedford, having a baked-goods sale after church.  Then Audra herself stepped appeared in the doorway of her room, chattering with equal excitement to her very blonde friend Melissa. She looked up, spotted Jack -- and all but crackled with pleasure at the sight of him.
          "Mr. Harwood!" she exclaimed.  "Just the person I'd hoped to see!"
          Before Jack could will his stunned senses to react, he was surrounded by several of Audra's oldest students -- including that poor excuse for a poker player Early Rogers, Audra's friend Melissa, and a darker-haired fellow of about the same age who looked to be trouble on two feet.  Likely that Jerome that Audra had spoken of.
          Audra captained the discussion, her beautiful face aflush, her eyes alight.  "I had the most wonderful idea, and it's all thanks to the advice you gave me on Friday ... that is, when I was checking for mail at the store."
          Jack said, "Now that you mention it, I do remember we exchanged a few words.  Don't know as I recall taking it upon myself to give advice, though.  You weren't there but a minute."
          The little schoolmarm beamed at his slant on the truth before reminding him:  "You mentioned that you learned arithmetic more quickly when the numbers stood for something. And a little girl there -- you, um, gave her some candy...."
          That must've come too close to a lie, because she dropped her gaze.
          "I did," Jack agreed, intrigued.
          That was all the encouragement she needed.  "After I went home I realized that the girl did not attend our school.  So I asked my aunt about it and learned that the colored children have their own separate school in Mosier Valley.  They don't likely have very good supplies, such as schoolbooks or enough slates." 
          She did not appear particularly upset by their plight; in fact, she could hardly contain her excitement.  It make her talk quickly, breathily, and Jack had an uncomfortably inappropriate thought about under what circumstances he would truly like to see Audra looking so passionate.
          It would not be surrounded by schoolchildren.
          "So I talked to my students about it," she continued, her bodice expanding beautifully as she caught her breath, "and we have decided to make a project of it!  We will raise money as a community effort and use it to buy them slates and textbooks and whatever else they need.  The students can use it as a lesson in arithmetic and we all get the satisfaction of doing something good, just like my mother does at home.  Is that not a wonderful plan?"
          Well, it was a plan anyway.  Jack's felt the muscles in the back of his neck bunching up at the very thought of what-all would go into this piece of charity.  The first thing he would do, were he to come upon a plan such as that, would be to ask the folks of Mosier Valley what they thought of it.  But gazing down into Audra's pleasure-flushed face -- and past it to her primly-buttoned bosom --, only peripherally aware of the other young folks joining with their own ideas and contributions, he could see no good in calling their enthusiasm.
          He'd only known her for two weeks but, with the exception of when she received a letter from home, he'd never seen her look so happy.  And just as well.  If she always glowed like this, he'd never get far enough away to see Hell's Half Acre again -- and more's the pity for her!
          His shoulders began to tense up, too.
          "That is one humdinger of a plan," he agreed for now.  "Don't see as how I can take any of the credit for it."  After all, when he'd made the point about numbers standing for something, he'd meant in poker and three-card monte.
          Before Audra could fend off the compliment, a completely different voice broke the excited chatter that surrounded him.
          "Audra Garrison!  What is that man doing here?"
          Battle-axe auntie, right on cue.
          Jack would have figured such a question would snuff Audra's inner light right out, like it had after he'd walked her home that time.  But apparently even her aunt could not completely dim Audra's enthusiasm this afternoon.  In fact, he saw a definite snap of rebellion in her gray eyes when she turned to her fellow schoolmarm.
          It was that rebellious snap that hooked Jack like a trout on a line.
          "As for what this man is doing here, Mrs. Cribb, you will have to ask him.  He was here when class let out.  If instead you mean to ask why I'm speaking to him, my students and I are explaining our plans for the Mosier Valley schoolhouse. Mr. Harwood works at the mercantile and that is where we will be ordering our supplies.  We are practically business partners."
          The Widow Cribb regarded them with staunch suspicion, then nodded the most begrudging nod Jack had ever seen.  "He is not to walk you home," she instructed, before marching off.
          Then why don't I just walk her down to the Trinity River instead and have an enjoyable time away from any more old biddies like you?  But Jack didn't say that.  Audra -- rebellious snap or not -- would never go along with it. 
          Would she?
          "I'll walk them home," offered the dark-haired troublemaker -- yes, that must be Jerome -- too quickly.
          "Why thank you, Jerome!" exclaimed a young lady Jack hadn't noticed before, one with curly black hair and sly eyes.  She was eyeing Jerome the way the gals who worked the finer houses in New Orleans eyed their customers before retiring to their private rooms.
          "I'll go too," added Early, more slowly.  But big, blond Early didn't appear to have a quick bone in his body.
          "Only if y'all help us figure this out," insisted Melissa.  When the dark-haired girl made a mewing sound of disapproval, Melissa simply rolled her eyes and continued.  "It's our homework.  If we buy ten slates at ten cents each -- that one's easy."
          "A dollar," said Jerome, looking to Audra for approval.  With a warm smile and a nod, she happily gave it.  Then she shifted her approving gaze to Jack and her smile became downright radiant.
          Jack ignored the increasing ache in his neck to challenge, "What if Ferris and I give you a discount, take off three cents per slate?"
          Audra and Melissa caught their breath at his perceived generosity.  Early, still ticking off fingers from the previous question, frowned at having to start over from scratch.
          "That'd make each slate seven cents," Jack prompted. 
          Jerome said, "Seventy cents."  But he said it more like a challenge.
          "That's a savings of thirty cents!" Melissa added, and now the students were looking to him like some kind of saint.
          Oh hell.  Jack's head had started to throb.  He did not need to involve himself in this scheme of theirs.  It would take them time to raise their money, more time for their supplies to be ordered and delivered.  He meant to be in Fort Worth, damn it, not in Tarrant City making sure that the tight-fisted Hamilton Ferris honored his discount.
          But Audra, too, gazed up at him as if he were some kind of a god.  The students' enthusiasm was downright contagious.  Hell's Half Acre would be there at the end of the month as surely as now.
          "Matter of fact," Jack said, the tension easing from his shoulders as he gave in to what felt suspiciously like fate, "I'll sweeten the pot some.  That is--" he quickly translated, when the girls looked confused, "I'll add some encouragement to your charitable efforts.  You'd best be able to divide by two, because the Ferris Mercantile will match any of the money you raise and pay for half of whatever you order."
          That should take a bite out of the still-large lump of credit he had remaining!
          Even better was how joy and admiration warred for supremacy across Audra's pretty face and the way she grasped his hands with hers.  "Oh, thank you!  You are a wonderful man!  Thank you so much!"
          Once, in a lightning storm, he'd watched a tree struck barely twenty feet from where he stood.  The crackle of the air was nothing compared to the electricity that surged through him at her soft touch, at the sight of her welcoming, slightly parted lips.
          He closed his hands possessively around her own, began to lean closer to her, and her gray eyes continued to glow up at him.  You are a wonderful man.  At this moment, he could kiss her.  It would earn him a hell of a slap, but every male instinct in him, every ounce of gambler's timing, insisted that his chances were ripe.  He could have a kiss worthy of a true beating.  He wanted to claim those lips so badly, he ached with it, especially when they silently formed the surprisingly intimate word:  "Jack."
          He could taste her, even from here -- her innocence, her sweetness, her passion.
And yet, before he knew what he was doing, Jack straightened, released her hands, fed a little more friendliness and a little less desire into his grin.  "I'm obliged," he said, his voice uneven but polite.
          After a moment of visible confusion, Audra nodded and flushed, looked down at her hands.  When she smiled back up at him it was with gratitude.
He could still taste that kiss....
          The students continued to chatter, so involved in each other that they'd missed the near scandal.  Not that Jack had ever before avoided scandal.  Scandal was fun.  So why...?
          Not for the first time, he sensed that the stakes of this game were far higher than he'd first anticipated.
Why he didn't cash in his chips and get the hell out, he was not yet ready to ponder.

START OF CHAPTER SIX:  PRAISING JACK
A little more detail about the way the town is increasingly pleased by Jack Harwood....

          Over the next few weeks, Audra often heard a most gratifying opinion:  "What a nice man that Mr. Harwood is!"
          Her students, figuring contributions with an enthusiasm they'd never shown plain arithmetic, repeated it every time they multiplied their treasure by two.
          Women at the Ferris Mercantile stopped Audra to express their approval.
          Even the minister, Reverend Collins, mentioned it late one afternoon while Audra practiced piano at the church. "That Mr. Harwood seems to be a good fellow," he said.  "A shame he doesn't attend services."
          "I've told him that," admitted Audra, and Rev. White said, "Good girl." 
          Those were the same words her father would have used.  So why did they make her so uncomfortable?  Was she not thrilled to hear Jack praised so?  He was a friend, though purely platonic, and she felt proud for him, her faith in him validated. 
          Not that this good opinion of the interim storekeeper was universal!
          "There is something I do not trust about that man," stated Aunt Heddy more than once, when Melissa mentioned him at the house.  Audra tried never to comment on him there, lest her aunt assume -- falsely, of course! -- that their acquaintance was less than innocent.  But Aunt Heddy still scowled at HER when she made that pronouncement.  It soothed Audra's silent sense of injustice that in this, at least, her aunt was wrong.
          Claudine also disliked him -- "If I worked at a store and had plenty of money, I could buy everyone's respect too!"  She, too, targeted Audra with her statements. 
          But Claudine seemed to dislike Audra on principle.
          Yet the person most adamant in denying Jack Harwood's character was, oddly enough, Jack Harwood. 

NO LONGER PART OF THE BOOK--DRIVING TO MOSIER VALLEY
It would have happened before Audra found out Jack really was a gambler.  But since I dropped the "slates for the Mosier Valley folks" subplot, this got dropped too....

          "Now here is an interesting story," he told Audra one afternoon, out of the blue, when she was in the store looking at some new books.  "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by a fellow named Robert Stevenson.  You ever read that?"
          HE had, and it seemed remarkably apt.
          "I've heard of it," she admitted, studying the book he indicated in that way of hers, the way that made him suspect she was avoiding his gaze more than anything else.  "But ... it did not sound like proper reading for a lady."
          Then, with a gentle sweep of those long eyelashes of hers, she raised her dove-gray eyes and asked, "What do YOU think?"
          And damned if, thrown by the intensity of her direct attention, he didn't hear himself agreeing with her.
          Hell, he hardly knew who Jack Harwood WAS, any more, except that Jack Harwood was exhausted trying to maintain his double life.
          Only those fool slates kept him from leaving the game for good -- and not for any noble reasons.  No, the delivery of the books and slates, considering his charitable donations, meant Jack finally got his outing with the virtuous schoolmarm herself.
          If her students were easily enough distracted with the wonder of their out-of-town jaunt, Jack meant to see where not being so nice would get him.
          
          Audra took special care in harnessing the team that would pull Aunt Heddy's buggy to Mosier Valley.  Claudine, still in the house, tended to avoid the geldings altogether.  Melissa gamely held Buck's halter, but even she seemed nervous around the horses, keeping them at arm's length, and both Buck and Boy could sense it; they rolled their eyes, tossed their heads.  Of course, Melissa lost her tentative grip immediately, but neither horse did anything more than shift its weight or blow sharply into the November morning.
          Not that they could have easily done more, with the brake set.
          Audra caught Buck's halter, made soothing, hushing noises at him, and waited for Melissa to resume her post.  With a game smile -- warily there, then gone -- Melissa did.
          See to your animals before seeing to yourself.  Audra went back to checking the traces, savoring the earthy smell of horses and leather.
          "You really DO know how to do this!" exclaimed Melissa, and the awe in her tone surprised Audra, embarrassed her.
          "I've only done it a few times.  My father was there to tell me if I did something wrong."
          The weight of this responsibility, on top of leading their day trip itself, numbed her pleasure in the morning.  She began to check the traces a third time.  Nobody was there to catch her if she made a mistake this time except, perhaps, one of her older students, and she dreaded that possibility.
          Although....
          She smiled a little, inwardly more than outwardly, as some of the weight eased.  Jack Harwood was coming along, and he seemed like the sort of man who'd prove good with horses.
          Thank goodness he was respectable, too.  She felt a tension between her shoulder blades at her aunt's approach, and sent a quick prayer of gratitude for Mr. Harwood's respectability Heavenward.  For a month now, she'd struggled through the suspicion that her aunt found her neither sensible nor trustworthy -- Audra, the best behaved and most pragmatic of all the Garrison sisters!  Perhaps she imagined it ... but perhaps not. Most recently came Heddy's unspoken disapproval of this outing ... although just what part of the plan bothered her, Audra could not say.  Since Reverend Collins, superintendent of the school board, supported the venture, Aunt Heddy never actually spoke out against it.
          And yet....
          "It is unseemly that you drive yourself," noted Heddy, drying her hands on an embroidered dishtowel as she watched the proceedings. "How can we hope to civilize this wild place if you insist on performing such manly tasks?"
          MANLY tasks?  Audra had never been called manly in her life -- especially not in contrast to some of her other sisters!  But perhaps there lay her difficulty; she could not hide behind her sisters' skirts anymore.  She looked at her hands, in their boy-sized leather gloves, and hesitated.  Then, carefully, she noted, "But I have no male relations to drive me."
          Aunt Heddy simply scowled.  Claudine swept out the door of the house -- the "teacherage," as Melissa called it -- and came to stand with silent impatience, like a milk-cow at its manger, beside the buggy.
          "Help YOURSELF in," noted Melissa, clambering up on her own.  With a huff, Claudine followed.
          Buck and Boy tossed their heads, wary of the confusion of petticoats that ensued.  That gave Audra an excuse to look away from her aunt's silent disapproval -- as though Audra had encouraged Melissa in such rudeness -- and soothe the team.  But even once she had quieted the horses and climbed more carefully up into the driver's seat, she could sense her aunt's silent reproach.
          "Melissa packed our lunch," she told the older schoolmarm, erring on the side of the obvious simply to have something to say.  "We should be back by mid-afternoon."
          Aunt Heddy said nothing, simply stood with her arms folded and her gray gaze hard.  Unsure what else was expected of her, Audra released the brake with some effort, then clucked the team into motion.
          The tension of the reins in her gloved hands and the crunch of dirt beneath the wheels, as they moved out, felt so liberating, she almost wished they were not stopping by the mercantile for the men.
          Almost.

          "Looks like we're coming upon a cemetery," Jack announced, riding Queen back to Audra's buggy and its female occupants.  "I do believe that's the halfway point."
          Audra, driving the team with more skill than he would have suspected, smiled her thanks.  The sunlight made her hair look rosy, where it escaped her bonnet, and her eyes bright.  "We're making good time, then."
          She did have a fine smile.  Good lips for it....
          "I've never been farther from town than here," said a girl with brown pigtails and wide eyes, seated beside her.
          Jack said, "Well then, Miss, I reckon this outing is an education in more ways than one."
          She blushed, and Audra slanted her gaze toward Jack as if to accuse him of being a flirt.  But she did not seem to mind.
          He wondered if that was a good thing or not.  It was hard to think, the way his blood got up at the sparkle of mischief that accompanied her silent accusation.

 
          "I hear tell Bird's Fort was up thisaway," offered Jerome Newton, the dark-eyed fellow who looked to be trouble on two legs.  He and Early Rogers each rode one of Early's father's plow mules, bareback.  "First white folks in the area settled there, 'til the Injuns chased them out."
          The pigtailed girl's eyes grew wider still.
          Claudine said, "You should have let Jerome bring his shotgun."  Jack studied the girl from beneath the shadow of his hat.  If something was amiss -- and he'd put money on it -- this girl had something to do with it.  This girl and Jerome Newton, whom she eyed the way Jack had seen New Orleans whores eyeing customers.
          Jerome Newton, however, ignored Claudine to look to Audra.  "Miss Garrison knows we can keep her safe even without shotguns."
          Then he glanced at Early, who glanced at Jack, who stared the boy down.  Damn.  The pup couldn't remember what cards he had in his hand without checking every few seconds, but he remembered that Jack had a [sleeve gun].
          Hopefully he had the wits to keep quiet about it.
          From the way Jerome Newton glanced at him too, though, Jack wouldn't bet on it.
          "You boys are along as students," Audra reminded them all.  "Not guards.  Just because people are different from us does not make them dangerous."
          The boys -- and Claudine -- exchanged skeptical glances.
          Audra noted them, and Jack wondered if she, too, sensed that something was amiss.  "Even if there were still Indians in the area, they would want to be left alone, not to cause trouble."
          Nothing.
          "But there are NOT Indians in the area," she finished firmly and that, at least, the students seemed to understand.
          "If there were, you'd be bringing them slates too," agreed Jack.
          She favored him with another smile, almost enough to satisfy his hankering for more significant favors than smiles.
          Jerome, atop his mule, scowled in Jack's direction.
          Claudine scowled at Audra.
          Jack suspected this trip could prove more interesting than he'd initially feared.

CHAPTER 14 -- CHRISTMAS EVE THOUGHTS...
Again, this was introspection that didn't need to be there.  But as long as it's written..

          In Melissa and Claudine's absence, Audra had a bed to herself for once.  She stretched out her legs and arms under the weight of the quilt, tried to savor the treat ... but in truth, the extra room further lessened the sense that it was Christmas Eve.  Normally, December 24th was so cold that she and her sisters would have chosen to cuddle together if only for warmth, not to mention excited whispers, giggles, and hints at the gifts they had made for each other.
          Here in Texas she'd experienced several nights cold enough that she'd appreciated Aunt Heddy's warmth beside her, but tonight was not one of them.  So Audra slept -- or, more truthfully, lay awake -- dismally alone.
          She knew better than to wait for life to cheer her; wise people found their joy where they could or, failing there, made it themselves.  Her father had taught her that.  Still, separated by thousands of miles from almost everything she truly loved, she doubted the best of attitudes would keep this from becoming the worst Christmas in her life.
          Had her family forgotten her?
          The idea was ludicrous.  Not HER parents.  Not HER family.  Something must have happened to the package they had surely posted to her.  Perhaps it had been lost in the mail.  Or the snows might be too deep for the train to get through; that sometimes happened, in Wyoming.  No.  Even if everything she knew of life -- every standard she'd striven toward, every rule she'd kept within -- turned out to be false, she knew that her family loved her.
          She rolled over in bed, as if a new position would result in a new attitude.  It did not.  She missed her home and family as desperately as ever.  With no letter from home, and only Aunt Heddy for company, Christmas promised to be bleak.
          ONLY Aunt Heddy?  Audra frowned at her own ingratitude.  After all; Aunt Heddy had "only" Audra for company, as well.  She knew better than to consider her own feelings as more important than another's.  Her mother had taught her that.  Heddy had offered Audra the chance at the teaching job, given her a place to live, sight-unseen.  She'd promised to bake strudel for their Christmas dessert, and had agreed -- with reservations -- to let Audra make her mother's stuffing recipe for their roast chicken.  They would have potatoes as well, and turnip, beans and roasted corn.  It would be a delicious meal  ... if quiet, and not at all festive.
          Aunt Heddy had refused to let them hire somebody to cut a tree, refused to let Audra do so unladylike a thing on her own.  When Audra, unsure how to present her aunt with the handkerchiefs she'd embroidered as a gift, asked Heddy if she would be hanging her stocking, her aunt had called the practice "childish."
          Restless, Audra turned over in bed again and punched her pillow into a different shape ... and, finally, she found a more soothing thought.  She'd not been COMPLETELY forgotten.
          Jack had tried to sneak a gift to her, at the store.
          Of course she could not accept it.  She'd compromised her respectability so severely with him, of late -- and with such shameful enthusiasm! -- that she dared not risk ignoring such a clear point of etiquette.  Ladies did not accept gifts from men who were not officially courting them ... and of course, even if a man WERE courting them, ladies could only accept certain kinds of gifts.  A book, perhaps.  An inexpensive pin....
          Smiling, she snuggled deeper into the pillow.  Knowing Jack, it was probably for the best that she HAD refused his gift.  Goodness only knew what kind of shocking trinket he might settle upon....
          The next thing Audra knew, the room had lightened to deep gray around her and Aunt Heddy was telling her not to lie abed.  They had Christmas services to attend, after all!
          They both dressed in their best clothes -- suitably solemn as befit teachers, of course -- and took the same shadowy, frosted path to the church that had seen more than one of Audra's trysts with Jack Harwood.  Her heart raced as they passed the cedar break that had hidden her and her gambler only days before -- but not, to her chagrin, with shame so much as with the delicious memory.  Jack's embrace.  Jack's smiles.  Jack's kisses.... 
          It occurred to her that perhaps she DESERVED no package from home!           She seemed to resemble the real Audra no more than this hushed morning -- winter dark and certainly crisp, but no colder than Wyoming autumn -- resembled Christmas. 
          Unsettled by the thought, she sped her step past scenes of her further indiscretions until Aunt Heddy rebuked her "boyish stride."  When finally they emerged from the woods to behold the neat, white church, it took all Audra's self-control not to run toward it.  Church represented tradition, routine, security.  In church, she would be the Audra she had always been and was comfortable being -- the Audra who followed the rules, the Audra whose parents loved her, the Audra who could take her reputation for granted.  In church, she would be safe from....
          .... from what?  The sense of displacement eluded any attempt to label it.  But she still relaxed to see the small but growing growing cluster of buckboards and mules in the church yard, to nod good morning to the Tucker family and call Merry Christmas to the Elliott children.  She still took comfort in the candlelight gleaming from the church windows into the bleak morning and in climbing the familiar wooden steps to the building itself.
          Someone had hung wreaths of loblolly pine on each of the double doors, tied with red ribbon and hung with cowbells. And inside, Audra found Christmas....

p. 178, CHAPTER FIFTEEN -- PRESENTS FOR AUDRA
          After dinner, Christmas came all over again.  Thad had with him a satchel full of surprises from home.  Some of the gifts were for Heddy, of course, and some for Grossmutter.  But most were for Audra herself.  Her oldest sister, Mariah, and her husband had sent a sweater of the softest wool Audra had ever felt.  Laurel and her husband sent marmalade, which made Audra and Thaddeas both laugh; their English brother-in-law's predilection for marmalade had been a source of family humor since they met him.  Victoria sent two novels.  Kitty sent a painting of their snow-covered house in town, "so that you can remember what it looks like."
          "She didn't sit outside in the snow to do this, did she?" demanded Audra.  Kitty was younger than she, and got sick more than any other Garrison sister.
          "Some of it," admitted Thad.  "But she's better now."
          Little Elise had sent one of her favorite dolls, Lisette, "to keep you company."  Even a friend of the family Evangeline Taylor had knit a new scarf for Audra, almost identical to the one Thad had worn down -- "I think she learned to knit this year," Thad explained.  And Audra's parents had included treats from home-made candy and a locket with their pictures to a stereoscope -- with pictures of the Yellowstone park, among other American wonders -- and a beautiful party dress.  It was myrtle green, cut in fashionable "Gibson Girl" style, and mother had even included high-buttoned shoes with stylish cloth tops and a taffeta petticoat with lace-trimmed flounces.
          "Audra!" scolded Aunt Heddy, while Thaddeas averted his eyes, and she quickly refolded the beautiful "unmentionable" back into its wrapping.  "You will have to send it back, of course," her aunt continued.
          "Send it BACK?"

p. 169 - CHAPTER FIFTEEN, STILL -- TALKING ABOUT HOME
          She asked after the ranch, and Thad's law practice, and was relieved to hear that both were doing well.  Her parents and younger sisters were happy and healthy -- "though they miss you," Thad assured her, and squeezed her hand.  "We ALL miss you."  Even her older sisters, whose somewhat shocking choices in men had been upending the family for several years before Audra's own scandal, seemed well satisfied with their new lives.
          "Victoria's still writing those articles of hers," Thaddeas relayed.  "I think it will take more than a husband to stop her, no matter HOW good a shot he is.  And it looks like Laurel and her Marmaduke will prove up that homestead of theirs, just like she said they would."
          "He HATES being called a Marmaduke!" protested Audra in defense of her brother-in-law.  The cowboys had graced him with the nickname merely because he was English.
          "I know," said Thaddeas solemnly -- but his eyes shone with no real repentance, and Audra could not help but laugh.
          "What about Mariah?" she asked, of their oldest sister.  "She and Stuart's ... business ... is going well?  There's been no more trouble?"
          "Nothing to speak of, and they seem to be prospering," assured Thad, as careful as she'd been not to say out loud what it was Stuart actually DID.  To cattle ranchers, a sheep-herder in the family was just too shameful a thing to speak of.  Audra remembered, with some discomfort, the anger she'd felt toward Mariah for seemingly betraying their father ... as if her sister could have chosen who to love!  [Note:  at the time I wrote this, I didn't realize Mariah and Stuart would already have a baby.  Audra would have asked about Garry....]
          "Poor Papa," she sighed -- the standard comment, whenever the subject of Stuart MacCallum and his sheep came up, no matter how happy Mariah's husband made her.
          "He'll survive," said Thad drily, then slanted an amused glance back to Audra.  "But I think he's relieved that, as long as you're teaching, you CAN'T marry.  Pa's had more than enough unpleasant surprises from you girls."
          Unpleasant surprises like her going sweet on a reformed gambler?
          "Perhaps that is because YOU haven't married," she challenged, defending her sisters now ... and perhaps diverting the subject.  Especially when her behavior of late would, she feared, rival the worst of her sisters' romantic scandals.
          "When I do, rest assured I will choose someone who will be an asset to the Garrison family name."
          "Oh?"  Well THIS was interesting!  He'd always been not-so-secretly in love with a local woman named Desdemona Sinclair -- Desdemona Witherspoon, actually, ever since she'd broken Thad's heart by marrying mining entrepreneur Harrison Witherspoon.  Since then, Thad generally refused to discuss the likelihood of his own marriage, only son or not.
          Thad walked on in silence for awhile, then finally said, "There was some sad news in town, too.  Harrison Witherspoon died of typhoid two months ago."
          OH!  Audra took a long moment to formulate her next question.  "How is his widow?"
          Thad narrowed his eyes at her in mild warning.  "Why do you ask?"  Of course, he would neither welcome the news of Witherspoon's death, nor set his cap for the man's widow.  Not on purpose, in any case.
          How he could help but cherish some kind of hope, now that the only woman he'd ever wanted was free, awed her.  "Because you were the family lawyer?" she suggested.
          "Oh."  Luckily, he accepted the explanation.  "Mrs. Witherspoon is well enough, considering.  If I speak to her again, I'll say you asked after her."
          "Thank you," said Audra ... and wished she liked Desdemona Witherspoon, even a little! Outwardly, the heiress probably WOULD be an excellent marital choice, an asset to the Garrison name.  But in character, Audra preferred ANY of her brothers-in-law, no matter what troubles had come with them.  Even Laurel's Marmaduke.
          Even Mariah's sheep farmer.
          "This is Tarrant Main Street," she explained now, to distract herself and Thaddeas both from that line of thought. 

END OF CHAPTER 16 -- MORE OF THAD'S 'S VISIT:
          With the significant exception of missing Jack, Audra found herself enjoying the week after Christmas.  She still did not know if Thad would force the issue about her finishing out the school year, nor just how hard she would fight him if he did.  And she did not feel free to visit the store, now that she and Jack had aroused her brother's suspicions.
          Although, if he didn't want her going by the mercantile, he should remember to pick up the mail when HE went.  Thaddeas was rarely the forgetful type.  In fact, his memories of his childhood with Aunt Heddy fascinated Audra all week.  It made her feel better about the time she was spending so far from home, to remember that Papa's and Thad's roots -- and thus her own -- were in Texas.
          "She seems a good deal smaller than I remember," confessed Thad that Friday, which they spent hiking together to the Trinity River and watching its brown waters flowing inexorably toward the east.  The Trinity was by no means a particularly wide river, but its channel was deep and its current strong.  "And she seems ... friendlier than she used to."
          "Friendlier?"  Was this Aunt Heddy, the Widow Cribb, they were discussing?
          Thaddeas shook his head in wonder.  "She called me liebling."
          "She's never called ME liebling," Audra noticed, searching the steep riverbank for a stone to throw.  This area of Texas seemed particularly chintzy on smooth river-stones.
          "That's just it.  She never called ME liebling either!  I lived with her for ten years, and all she ever called me was--"
          "Child?" guessed Audra.
          Thad grinned, scooped a rock from the sandy soil, and handed it to her.  "Yes.  Child."
          Audra threw the stone.  It plunked into the dark water with a plopping noise.  She sighed.  "Maybe she missed you."
          Thad shrugged, found another stone.  "Maybe," he conceded, without any real confidence.  "Wouldn't you think she'd SAY something if she did, though?  When she got Pa's telegram, telling her to pack my things so that the Schmidts could take me north to live with him and Mother, she certainly didn't ACT like she'd miss me."
          He put the stone in her hand and took her wrist, silently reminding her how to make the arc that would let the stone skip across the water.  She felt so happy to be spending all this time with her big brother -- whom she normally had to share with five sisters AND all their friends who were usually sweet on him -- that Audra put concerns about Aunt Heddy aside.
          She thought that Jack would like this place -- not that she would be accompanying him so far out of town!  Not if he had no intention to reform.  Not if he didn't attend church again.
          Not if she had any sense at all.
          But he WOULD like it.
          "Can you believe," said Thad, indicating the steep banks to the river, the dirt crevassed with erosion and tangled with half-exposed tree roots, "that Pa used to take herds of longhorn cattle north across the Trinity, usually twice or three times a summer, without any bridges?  He and the other cowboys had to get the steers through the brush to get here, and then they'd have to get them down the sides without breaking their legs -- or the horses' -- and swim the river, and then climb the other side.  Hundreds or thousands of head at a time.  That was something to see."
          Audra stared at the deep river, little etchings on its otherwise placid surface a testament to its danger, and shivered at the image.  "You got to see it?"
          "Sometimes Uncle Mathew would bring me to watch.  From a distance," Thad clarified with a grin.  "But the most exciting time I ever got to see it was ...."
          Audra threw another stone while she listened, and it skipped twice -- but by then she'd noticed that Thad had stopped talking.  "What?"
          After all, she liked hearing about their father's adventures in the earlier frontier.  She thought maybe Jack would find them interesting, too.
          Thaddeas had an odd expression.  "Maybe I'll show you," he said.
          "When?"
          "When we go to Fort Worth on Monday."
          So she just had to wait.
          Jack didn't go to church, on Sunday, and she wished she'd gone by the store on Saturday after all, whether it might arouse Thad's suspicions or not.  She did not even know if Jack were still there, and the possibility that he might have already gone, without an official goodbye, made her feel hollow and fragile.
          Surely someone would have mentioned it after church, though, if he had left.  Wouldn't they?
          She considered going to the church to practice her piano, but Thaddeas would surely insist on accompanying her, and if Jack DID mean to meet her, that would invite disaster.  Instead, she stayed home and read some of DUTY AND DOMESTICITY:  BEING, A GENTLE GUIDEBOOK ETC. to Aunt Heddy and Grossmutter.  It did little to reinforce her sense of modesty OR comportment.
          "Hedda," said Grossmutter, knitting, "Fraulein Audra reminds me very much of you at her age."
          Thad, who was sitting quietly at the table, cleaning the shotgun Aunt Heddy kept to protect the chickens, glanced up long enough to share a private smile with Audra.  HE knew, at least, what a mixed compliment that was.  "Were you already a teacher then, Aunt Heddy?"
          Audra asked, "Did you have a beau?"
          "Oh no," their aunt insisted, apparently to both questions.  "I was too busy helping Mutter keep our home together.  Then Lisle died and we had Thaddeas to care for. "
          Lisle was Thad's mother, their father's first wife.
          "Hedda," said Grossmutter, nodding toward the book Audra held.  "She always did her duty.  She never complained, not once."
          Even while she got older, raising her brother's motherless infant and missing her best chance to court and have fun?  Audra thought that, in similar circumstances, she would probably complain ... although perhaps three months ago she'd have been more likely to suffer in silence.
          Obviously in need of guidance, she began to read from her Christmas book again ... but it just wasn't taking.  She would rather, she thought, read a dime novel.
          She could hardly wait to go to Fort Worth and wear a party dress again.
          She missed Jack.
          "Chapter Three," she read carefully.  "A Girl's Duty to Uphold Truth ... "  And she wondered, whose truth?
          It would be a long Sunday.










Yvonne Jocks
Von Jocks
EvelynVaughn                                                             

Audra & Jack's Lost Scenes
This is a page for hard-core Jack and Audra fans... or maybe for people interested in the writing process.  Some writers are short writers, who finish a manuscript and then have to go back and find places to add scenes or descriptions, to flesh it out.  Others, however, are like me....


FROM CHAPTER TWO--THINKING OF HOME:
(While Audra and Melissa are heading out to the schoolhouse, we get a little more of audra's thoughts about the life she left behind....)

          No, Audra very much feared that she hated living at Aunt Heddy's.  She knew such thoughts were childish, even self-indulgent ... but she did!  She hated sharing a  room and bed with her aunt, instead of with the girls closer to her own age.  She hated going last when they heated water for their bath last night.  She missed her family, missed being talked to as if she mattered.  She missed being petted and hugged.  And if her aunt made one more disparaging comment about how Texas differed from "the lawless wilds," meaning Wyoming, Audra feared ... well, she had no idea what she feared she might do, but it would hardly speak well of her upbringing!
          True, Texas was no longer riddled with the outlaws and Indian attacks of old.  Fort Worth, where she and Papa had spent their last night before coming to Tarrant City, had been grand indeed.  They had ridden a trolley, and stayed at the elegant Stockyards Hotel.  But Tarrant City itself?
          It was a small farming town, not a city at all.  Tarrant was not even its official name yet!  The town's meager populace was making a bid to change it in hopes that a proposed rail-line would put a depot in a place called "Tarrant" -- after the county -- instead of ignore the rather inauspiciously named "Candon."
          The two-room schoolhouse had been a shock, since Audra had originally hoped to teach where she had finished school herself, a fine, two-story brick structure, complete with an auditorium.  She could not, in all fairness, expect Aunt Heddy to have, oh, a telephone -- Audra's family home on their "wild" ranch did not.  But the ranch house did have electric lights, powered by a generator from an old threshing machine, and it had running water from a cistern in the attic.  Their townhouse in Sheridan, which her family kept for school terms, had all those luxuries and a telephone that could call almost anywhere in town as well!
          How Audra wished she could find a telephone in Tarrant City -- one that could magically connect all the way to Wyoming, so she could hear her mother's voice again!  Mama would understand.  Papa, who allowed all those modern novelties in his homes only out of deference to Mama, would likely accuse Audra of behaving like a spoiled city girl with all her priorities in the wrong place.
          Perhaps rightly so, she reminded herself.  Telephones and electricity in no way indicated character, and her character had proven less than sterling, this year.  This week, even....

FROM CHAPTER FOUR--AFTER WALKING HER HOME
After Jack walks Audra home, I had a few more paragraphs of his thoughts on the subject, but I cut it down to "Jack returned to the mercantile" (p. 52).

          Head bent over the book exchange, she whispered, "I hope to get a letter from my parents any day now."  Then, even as he belatedly remembered that the store was also the post office -- realized she was looking forward to seeing him, even if on such an innocent errand as that -- Audra Garrison scooped her taller charge in front of her with one hand, and they made their obedient way into the house.
          Hoping to get a letter?  Too bad he wouldn't be there when she came looking, he thought helplessly.  But he couldn't do her the disservice of telling her that in front of her disapproving aunt.
          In fact, Auntie Axe remained on the porch until both girls vanished inside, giving Jack the evil eye.  Whether she distrusted him as a stranger, as a man, or simply as someone who'd committed the crime of drawing a much needed smile or two out of her delicate niece, Jack couldn't guess.  But she obviously smelled trouble on him.
          And he sure as shooting smelled it on her.
          But if she wanted more bluffs, he was a professional.  Jack remained on the street, keeping his expression pleasant as a preacher's howdy, for the same amount of time.  Just in case outlaws, Indians, or maybe some poor dirt-farmers from Mosier Valley chose that moment to attack.  Only once the young ladies were safe inside did he nod once more to the sour Widow Cribb, turn full away before mouthing the words "old bat," and stroll back toward Main Street.
          Were it not for Miss Garrison's well being, he wouldn't mind shocking the battle axe by saying it a bit louder -- about the only kind of people he didn't naturally take to were self-righteous pillars of the community like her.  But he was right fond of the younger schoolmarm, brief though their acquaintance had been.  After she'd behaved so painfully proper with him, he would be loathe to make things difficult for her.
          Though he might not have a choice in that -- making things difficult, that is.  Could be he'd even set himself up to hurt her feelings.
          She would really be looking for him at the store?

THE END OF CHAPTER FIVE--AUDRA UNBURDENS TO JACK:
In my original draft, the slates that Audra's students buy are to donate to the Mosier Valley school.  I changed that for two big reasons--one, it was distracting from the main point; and two, it was a bit condescending to Mosier Valley, which was a flourishing community at the time, racial differences aside.  Here's how the scene originally read....

          "No," said Audra firmly.  This time she did not bother to thank him first.
          "It's just a piece of penny candy," Jack -- Mr. Harwood -- insisted.  She wondered:  had the serpent in the Garden of Eden had tempted Eve with any less charm?  "Nothing in those rules of yours about candy, now is there?"
          "You must know it is improper for any lady to accept gifts from men!"  To her amazement, Mr. Harwood looked startled by her pronouncement.  Perhaps he hadn't known?
          But then he lay the brightly striped stick of candy on the counter in front of her.  "If you happen to change your mind, help yourself."
          Audra turned away in frustration -- and no little confusion.  When she was home with Aunt Heddy, her thoughts never failed to return to the store and its proprietors.  Yet when she came to the store, what stayed topmost in her thoughts?  How her behavior would appear to people like Aunt Heddy.
          Not that she behaved herself for such shallow reason as that!  If so, this would have been the perfect time to ignore her upbringing.  The weather was so mild that the checker-players had moved their game onto the store's porch, and the store was all but empty.  Even Hamilton Ferris had disappeared somewhere.  Only a little Negro girl stood nearby, hands behind her back as if to keep herself reaching out and touching the clean black slates she gazed upon.
          Now would be the time to do something untoward, if she were so inclined.  But Audra was not so inclined! 
          And even if she were, she would have no idea how to act on such an inclination.
          Mr. Harwood said, "Seems ending the school week would be worth some celebration," and Audra betrayed herself by sighing.
          "Or ... not?" added the gentleman behind her.
          "Of course I am pleased to finish my duties for the week," she insisted, turning back.  Two whole days vacation from  battling the big boys like Jerome Newton and Early Rogers.  Two days of solid, simple chores that gave her a sense of accomplishment, unlike her lack of progress as an educator.
          Two days without Melissa to chat with during those chores.  Two days in Aunt Heddy's and Claudine's dour company.
          "But...?" Jack prompted, his eyes kind and inviting, his broad shoulders seemingly capable of carrying any burdens.
          And to Audra's horror, she found herself telling him. 
          Her students remained distant from her, even after two weeks.  They did not seem to fully appreciate their readers; she had confiscated yet another dime novel the day before.  Their poor grasp of arithmetic shocked her.  She was failing miserably in the duties for which she had been hired and, worse, she did not know how to improve.
          To her relief, Mr. Harwood neither laughed at her concerns nor suggested she ask her resistant aunt for help.  In fact, for a long moment after Audra finished her embarrassing lament, Mr. Harwood said nothing at all.  He seemed to weigh her dilemma with gratifying attention.
          Then, when he finally did speak, it was to tease a smile out of her.  "Them dime novels are against the rules as well, eh?  Now that there is a shame."
          "Not officially," she admitted, ducking so that he would not see his success.  Then she thought:  why not let him see?  And she lifted her head and smiled right at him.  "But I imagine it would run counter to the spirit of the law."
          He blinked as if momentarily surprised.  Then he grinned back.  She felt a surprising rush of warmth, as surely as if the sunlight had shifted to arc in through the mercantile's plate-glass window and directly onto her.  "We can't have you doing anything like that, then."
          She swallowed.  Hard.  The sensation of Jack Harwood smiling at her was far sweeter than penny candy. "No."
          "I don't see as it will help you any," he offered.  "But the way I learned my figures was by doing something I enjoyed.  Numbers on a slate don't amount to much.  It's only when they stand for something real, like money, that they count.  So to speak."
          He understood!  He understood, and he took her concerns seriously!  More than ever, she wished she could go walking with him, wished they could go dancing!  Suddenly she felt sure that, if she had gone for a buggy ride with Jack, instead of Peter Connors, he would have somehow gotten her home before dark and she would never have been beset by scandal in the first place.
          "Thank you, Ja--  That is, Mr. Harwood," she whispered.
          "You could thank me," he coaxed, his own voice velvet-soft, "by accepting this here piece of penny candy.  Hamilton Ferris won't much want me putting it back into the jar."
          Obediently, Audra reached out, picked up the colorful candy stick.  It did look delicious.  If only....
          As her father would say:  If if's and but's were fruits and nuts, they'd all have a Merry Christmas.  She had gone riding with Peter Connors.  She was a teacher now, hiding from that scandal.  Wishes could not change that.
          So she turned and offered the treat to the child who was still ogling the slates.  "This is for you."
          The little girl's brown eyes widened.
          "Truly," Audra assured her.  "You take it.  It's a present from Mr. Harwood and me."
          That was all the prompting the little girl needed.  She took the treat and even said "Thank you, Miss."
          Audra tried not to stare at the girl's worn dress or bare, dusty feet -- did Tarrant not have a ladies' aide society?  Instead she said, "Thank you for keeping it from going to waste."  Then, chin lifting, she turned to face the man she'd just defied.
          If anything, Jack Harwood's delighted smile at her maneuver radiated more esteem than ever.
          Audra stumbled through her excuses and escaped the mercantile as quickly as possible, yet again running from ... something.  Not from him!  If not a complete gentleman, neither had Mr. Harwood done anything to make her feel truly threatened.
          Audra very much feared she was running from herself.
          It was not until after supper that night that she realized she had never seen the little girl, nor any other coloreds, at school.

          Jack wasn't sure Audra would be by on Monday -- his second Sunday boycotting church services had not likely endeared him to her -- so he figured he would hand-deliver the letter himself.  He would not be around much longer anyhow.  Hamilton Ferris could move around with growing ease on a crutch, and the siren song of Fort Worth's red-light district called to Jack of an evening, especially evenings when Miss Garrison had not been by.  It pained him to leave with so much unspent credit still in his name, but hell, he had little use for money he could not bet and a natural affinity for moving on.  It was not as if Audra had in any way encouraged his less-than-proper curiosities about her.  Matter of fact, she'd proven about as bendable as a silver-dollar and just as true.  She reproached his advances more gently than he perhaps deserved, but he didn't see her running low on propriety any time soon.  
          Still, if he was to go, he at least owed her a decent farewell.  They'd become friends, of a sort; he liked to think she might even miss him.  So an afternoon when she'd received a fat letter from her folks in Wyoming would be his best opportunity to do the deed.
          He headed up the hill from the store, enjoying the quiet of the dirt road and the natural latticework of bare elm and blackjack oak, the shelter of live-oak which would not shed its dark leaves until spring.  He would not be here in the spring, of course.  If luck smiled on him, he would be on another Mississippi riverboat.
          Then he reached the two-room schoolhouse against an outpouring of farm children -- and luck smiled a helluva lot faster than that. 
          The children themselves seemed to be in good spirits, the older ones calling plans for some kind of money-making venture--selling produce in Bedford, having a baked-goods sale after church.  Then Audra herself stepped appeared in the doorway of her room, chattering with equal excitement to her very blonde friend Melissa. She looked up, spotted Jack -- and all but crackled with pleasure at the sight of him.
          "Mr. Harwood!" she exclaimed.  "Just the person I'd hoped to see!"
          Before Jack could will his stunned senses to react, he was surrounded by several of Audra's oldest students -- including that poor excuse for a poker player Early Rogers, Audra's friend Melissa, and a darker-haired fellow of about the same age who looked to be trouble on two feet.  Likely that Jerome that Audra had spoken of.
          Audra captained the discussion, her beautiful face aflush, her eyes alight.  "I had the most wonderful idea, and it's all thanks to the advice you gave me on Friday ... that is, when I was checking for mail at the store."
          Jack said, "Now that you mention it, I do remember we exchanged a few words.  Don't know as I recall taking it upon myself to give advice, though.  You weren't there but a minute."
          The little schoolmarm beamed at his slant on the truth before reminding him:  "You mentioned that you learned arithmetic more quickly when the numbers stood for something. And a little girl there -- you, um, gave her some candy...."
          That must've come too close to a lie, because she dropped her gaze.
          "I did," Jack agreed, intrigued.
          That was all the encouragement she needed.  "After I went home I realized that the girl did not attend our school.  So I asked my aunt about it and learned that the colored children have their own separate school in Mosier Valley.  They don't likely have very good supplies, such as schoolbooks or enough slates." 
          She did not appear particularly upset by their plight; in fact, she could hardly contain her excitement.  It make her talk quickly, breathily, and Jack had an uncomfortably inappropriate thought about under what circumstances he would truly like to see Audra looking so passionate.
          It would not be surrounded by schoolchildren.
          "So I talked to my students about it," she continued, her bodice expanding beautifully as she caught her breath, "and we have decided to make a project of it!  We will raise money as a community effort and use it to buy them slates and textbooks and whatever else they need.  The students can use it as a lesson in arithmetic and we all get the satisfaction of doing something good, just like my mother does at home.  Is that not a wonderful plan?"
          Well, it was a plan anyway.  Jack's felt the muscles in the back of his neck bunching up at the very thought of what-all would go into this piece of charity.  The first thing he would do, were he to come upon a plan such as that, would be to ask the folks of Mosier Valley what they thought of it.  But gazing down into Audra's pleasure-flushed face -- and past it to her primly-buttoned bosom --, only peripherally aware of the other young folks joining with their own ideas and contributions, he could see no good in calling their enthusiasm.
          He'd only known her for two weeks but, with the exception of when she received a letter from home, he'd never seen her look so happy.  And just as well.  If she always glowed like this, he'd never get far enough away to see Hell's Half Acre again -- and more's the pity for her!
          His shoulders began to tense up, too.
          "That is one humdinger of a plan," he agreed for now.  "Don't see as how I can take any of the credit for it."  After all, when he'd made the point about numbers standing for something, he'd meant in poker and three-card monte.
          Before Audra could fend off the compliment, a completely different voice broke the excited chatter that surrounded him.
          "Audra Garrison!  What is that man doing here?"
          Battle-axe auntie, right on cue.
          Jack would have figured such a question would snuff Audra's inner light right out, like it had after he'd walked her home that time.  But apparently even her aunt could not completely dim Audra's enthusiasm this afternoon.  In fact, he saw a definite snap of rebellion in her gray eyes when she turned to her fellow schoolmarm.
          It was that rebellious snap that hooked Jack like a trout on a line.
          "As for what this man is doing here, Mrs. Cribb, you will have to ask him.  He was here when class let out.  If instead you mean to ask why I'm speaking to him, my students and I are explaining our plans for the Mosier Valley schoolhouse. Mr. Harwood works at the mercantile and that is where we will be ordering our supplies.  We are practically business partners."
          The Widow Cribb regarded them with staunch suspicion, then nodded the most begrudging nod Jack had ever seen.  "He is not to walk you home," she instructed, before marching off.
          Then why don't I just walk her down to the Trinity River instead and have an enjoyable time away from any more old biddies like you?  But Jack didn't say that.  Audra -- rebellious snap or not -- would never go along with it. 
          Would she?
          "I'll walk them home," offered the dark-haired troublemaker -- yes, that must be Jerome -- too quickly.
          "Why thank you, Jerome!" exclaimed a young lady Jack hadn't noticed before, one with curly black hair and sly eyes.  She was eyeing Jerome the way the gals who worked the finer houses in New Orleans eyed their customers before retiring to their private rooms.
          "I'll go too," added Early, more slowly.  But big, blond Early didn't appear to have a quick bone in his body.
          "Only if y'all help us figure this out," insisted Melissa.  When the dark-haired girl made a mewing sound of disapproval, Melissa simply rolled her eyes and continued.  "It's our homework.  If we buy ten slates at ten cents each -- that one's easy."
          "A dollar," said Jerome, looking to Audra for approval.  With a warm smile and a nod, she happily gave it.  Then she shifted her approving gaze to Jack and her smile became downright radiant.
          Jack ignored the increasing ache in his neck to challenge, "What if Ferris and I give you a discount, take off three cents per slate?"
          Audra and Melissa caught their breath at his perceived generosity.  Early, still ticking off fingers from the previous question, frowned at having to start over from scratch.
          "That'd make each slate seven cents," Jack prompted. 
          Jerome said, "Seventy cents."  But he said it more like a challenge.
          "That's a savings of thirty cents!" Melissa added, and now the students were looking to him like some kind of saint.
          Oh hell.  Jack's head had started to throb.  He did not need to involve himself in this scheme of theirs.  It would take them time to raise their money, more time for their supplies to be ordered and delivered.  He meant to be in Fort Worth, damn it, not in Tarrant City making sure that the tight-fisted Hamilton Ferris honored his discount.
          But Audra, too, gazed up at him as if he were some kind of a god.  The students' enthusiasm was downright contagious.  Hell's Half Acre would be there at the end of the month as surely as now.
          "Matter of fact," Jack said, the tension easing from his shoulders as he gave in to what felt suspiciously like fate, "I'll sweeten the pot some.  That is--" he quickly translated, when the girls looked confused, "I'll add some encouragement to your charitable efforts.  You'd best be able to divide by two, because the Ferris Mercantile will match any of the money you raise and pay for half of whatever you order."
          That should take a bite out of the still-large lump of credit he had remaining!
          Even better was how joy and admiration warred for supremacy across Audra's pretty face and the way she grasped his hands with hers.  "Oh, thank you!  You are a wonderful man!  Thank you so much!"
          Once, in a lightning storm, he'd watched a tree struck barely twenty feet from where he stood.  The crackle of the air was nothing compared to the electricity that surged through him at her soft touch, at the sight of her welcoming, slightly parted lips.
          He closed his hands possessively around her own, began to lean closer to her, and her gray eyes continued to glow up at him.  You are a wonderful man.  At this moment, he could kiss her.  It would earn him a hell of a slap, but every male instinct in him, every ounce of gambler's timing, insisted that his chances were ripe.  He could have a kiss worthy of a true beating.  He wanted to claim those lips so badly, he ached with it, especially when they silently formed the surprisingly intimate word:  "Jack."
          He could taste her, even from here -- her innocence, her sweetness, her passion.
And yet, before he knew what he was doing, Jack straightened, released her hands, fed a little more friendliness and a little less desire into his grin.  "I'm obliged," he said, his voice uneven but polite.
          After a moment of visible confusion, Audra nodded and flushed, looked down at her hands.  When she smiled back up at him it was with gratitude.
He could still taste that kiss....
          The students continued to chatter, so involved in each other that they'd missed the near scandal.  Not that Jack had ever before avoided scandal.  Scandal was fun.  So why...?
          Not for the first time, he sensed that the stakes of this game were far higher than he'd first anticipated.
Why he didn't cash in his chips and get the hell out, he was not yet ready to ponder.

START OF CHAPTER SIX:  PRAISING JACK
A little more detail about the way the town is increasingly pleased by Jack Harwood....

          Over the next few weeks, Audra often heard a most gratifying opinion:  "What a nice man that Mr. Harwood is!"
          Her students, figuring contributions with an enthusiasm they'd never shown plain arithmetic, repeated it every time they multiplied their treasure by two.
          Women at the Ferris Mercantile stopped Audra to express their approval.
          Even the minister, Reverend Collins, mentioned it late one afternoon while Audra practiced piano at the church. "That Mr. Harwood seems to be a good fellow," he said.  "A shame he doesn't attend services."
          "I've told him that," admitted Audra, and Rev. White said, "Good girl." 
          Those were the same words her father would have used.  So why did they make her so uncomfortable?  Was she not thrilled to hear Jack praised so?  He was a friend, though purely platonic, and she felt proud for him, her faith in him validated. 
          Not that this good opinion of the interim storekeeper was universal!
          "There is something I do not trust about that man," stated Aunt Heddy more than once, when Melissa mentioned him at the house.  Audra tried never to comment on him there, lest her aunt assume -- falsely, of course! -- that their acquaintance was less than innocent.  But Aunt Heddy still scowled at HER when she made that pronouncement.  It soothed Audra's silent sense of injustice that in this, at least, her aunt was wrong.
          Claudine also disliked him -- "If I worked at a store and had plenty of money, I could buy everyone's respect too!"  She, too, targeted Audra with her statements. 
          But Claudine seemed to dislike Audra on principle.
          Yet the person most adamant in denying Jack Harwood's character was, oddly enough, Jack Harwood. 

NO LONGER PART OF THE BOOK--DRIVING TO MOSIER VALLEY
It would have happened before Audra found out Jack really was a gambler.  But since I dropped the "slates for the Mosier Valley folks" subplot, this got dropped too....

          "Now here is an interesting story," he told Audra one afternoon, out of the blue, when she was in the store looking at some new books.  "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by a fellow named Robert Stevenson.  You ever read that?"
          HE had, and it seemed remarkably apt.
          "I've heard of it," she admitted, studying the book he indicated in that way of hers, the way that made him suspect she was avoiding his gaze more than anything else.  "But ... it did not sound like proper reading for a lady."
          Then, with a gentle sweep of those long eyelashes of hers, she raised her dove-gray eyes and asked, "What do YOU think?"
          And damned if, thrown by the intensity of her direct attention, he didn't hear himself agreeing with her.
          Hell, he hardly knew who Jack Harwood WAS, any more, except that Jack Harwood was exhausted trying to maintain his double life.
          Only those fool slates kept him from leaving the game for good -- and not for any noble reasons.  No, the delivery of the books and slates, considering his charitable donations, meant Jack finally got his outing with the virtuous schoolmarm herself.
          If her students were easily enough distracted with the wonder of their out-of-town jaunt, Jack meant to see where not being so nice would get him.
          
          Audra took special care in harnessing the team that would pull Aunt Heddy's buggy to Mosier Valley.  Claudine, still in the house, tended to avoid the geldings altogether.  Melissa gamely held Buck's halter, but even she seemed nervous around the horses, keeping them at arm's length, and both Buck and Boy could sense it; they rolled their eyes, tossed their heads.  Of course, Melissa lost her tentative grip immediately, but neither horse did anything more than shift its weight or blow sharply into the November morning.
          Not that they could have easily done more, with the brake set.
          Audra caught Buck's halter, made soothing, hushing noises at him, and waited for Melissa to resume her post.  With a game smile -- warily there, then gone -- Melissa did.
          See to your animals before seeing to yourself.  Audra went back to checking the traces, savoring the earthy smell of horses and leather.
          "You really DO know how to do this!" exclaimed Melissa, and the awe in her tone surprised Audra, embarrassed her.
          "I've only done it a few times.  My father was there to tell me if I did something wrong."
          The weight of this responsibility, on top of leading their day trip itself, numbed her pleasure in the morning.  She began to check the traces a third time.  Nobody was there to catch her if she made a mistake this time except, perhaps, one of her older students, and she dreaded that possibility.
          Although....
          She smiled a little, inwardly more than outwardly, as some of the weight eased.  Jack Harwood was coming along, and he seemed like the sort of man who'd prove good with horses.
          Thank goodness he was respectable, too.  She felt a tension between her shoulder blades at her aunt's approach, and sent a quick prayer of gratitude for Mr. Harwood's respectability Heavenward.  For a month now, she'd struggled through the suspicion that her aunt found her neither sensible nor trustworthy -- Audra, the best behaved and most pragmatic of all the Garrison sisters!  Perhaps she imagined it ... but perhaps not. Most recently came Heddy's unspoken disapproval of this outing ... although just what part of the plan bothered her, Audra could not say.  Since Reverend Collins, superintendent of the school board, supported the venture, Aunt Heddy never actually spoke out against it.
          And yet....
          "It is unseemly that you drive yourself," noted Heddy, drying her hands on an embroidered dishtowel as she watched the proceedings. "How can we hope to civilize this wild place if you insist on performing such manly tasks?"
          MANLY tasks?  Audra had never been called manly in her life -- especially not in contrast to some of her other sisters!  But perhaps there lay her difficulty; she could not hide behind her sisters' skirts anymore.  She looked at her hands, in their boy-sized leather gloves, and hesitated.  Then, carefully, she noted, "But I have no male relations to drive me."
          Aunt Heddy simply scowled.  Claudine swept out the door of the house -- the "teacherage," as Melissa called it -- and came to stand with silent impatience, like a milk-cow at its manger, beside the buggy.
          "Help YOURSELF in," noted Melissa, clambering up on her own.  With a huff, Claudine followed.
          Buck and Boy tossed their heads, wary of the confusion of petticoats that ensued.  That gave Audra an excuse to look away from her aunt's silent disapproval -- as though Audra had encouraged Melissa in such rudeness -- and soothe the team.  But even once she had quieted the horses and climbed more carefully up into the driver's seat, she could sense her aunt's silent reproach.
          "Melissa packed our lunch," she told the older schoolmarm, erring on the side of the obvious simply to have something to say.  "We should be back by mid-afternoon."
          Aunt Heddy said nothing, simply stood with her arms folded and her gray gaze hard.  Unsure what else was expected of her, Audra released the brake with some effort, then clucked the team into motion.
          The tension of the reins in her gloved hands and the crunch of dirt beneath the wheels, as they moved out, felt so liberating, she almost wished they were not stopping by the mercantile for the men.
          Almost.

          "Looks like we're coming upon a cemetery," Jack announced, riding Queen back to Audra's buggy and its female occupants.  "I do believe that's the halfway point."
          Audra, driving the team with more skill than he would have suspected, smiled her thanks.  The sunlight made her hair look rosy, where it escaped her bonnet, and her eyes bright.  "We're making good time, then."
          She did have a fine smile.  Good lips for it....
          "I've never been farther from town than here," said a girl with brown pigtails and wide eyes, seated beside her.
          Jack said, "Well then, Miss, I reckon this outing is an education in more ways than one."
          She blushed, and Audra slanted her gaze toward Jack as if to accuse him of being a flirt.  But she did not seem to mind.
          He wondered if that was a good thing or not.  It was hard to think, the way his blood got up at the sparkle of mischief that accompanied her silent accusation.

 
          "I hear tell Bird's Fort was up thisaway," offered Jerome Newton, the dark-eyed fellow who looked to be trouble on two legs.  He and Early Rogers each rode one of Early's father's plow mules, bareback.  "First white folks in the area settled there, 'til the Injuns chased them out."
          The pigtailed girl's eyes grew wider still.
          Claudine said, "You should have let Jerome bring his shotgun."  Jack studied the girl from beneath the shadow of his hat.  If something was amiss -- and he'd put money on it -- this girl had something to do with it.  This girl and Jerome Newton, whom she eyed the way Jack had seen New Orleans whores eyeing customers.
          Jerome Newton, however, ignored Claudine to look to Audra.  "Miss Garrison knows we can keep her safe even without shotguns."
          Then he glanced at Early, who glanced at Jack, who stared the boy down.  Damn.  The pup couldn't remember what cards he had in his hand without checking every few seconds, but he remembered that Jack had a [sleeve gun].
          Hopefully he had the wits to keep quiet about it.
          From the way Jerome Newton glanced at him too, though, Jack wouldn't bet on it.
          "You boys are along as students," Audra reminded them all.  "Not guards.  Just because people are different from us does not make them dangerous."
          The boys -- and Claudine -- exchanged skeptical glances.
          Audra noted them, and Jack wondered if she, too, sensed that something was amiss.  "Even if there were still Indians in the area, they would want to be left alone, not to cause trouble."
          Nothing.
          "But there are NOT Indians in the area," she finished firmly and that, at least, the students seemed to understand.
          "If there were, you'd be bringing them slates too," agreed Jack.
          She favored him with another smile, almost enough to satisfy his hankering for more significant favors than smiles.
          Jerome, atop his mule, scowled in Jack's direction.
          Claudine scowled at Audra.
          Jack suspected this trip could prove more interesting than he'd initially feared.

CHAPTER 14 -- CHRISTMAS EVE THOUGHTS...
Again, this was introspection that didn't need to be there.  But as long as it's written..

          In Melissa and Claudine's absence, Audra had a bed to herself for once.  She stretched out her legs and arms under the weight of the quilt, tried to savor the treat ... but in truth, the extra room further lessened the sense that it was Christmas Eve.  Normally, December 24th was so cold that she and her sisters would have chosen to cuddle together if only for warmth, not to mention excited whispers, giggles, and hints at the gifts they had made for each other.
          Here in Texas she'd experienced several nights cold enough that she'd appreciated Aunt Heddy's warmth beside her, but tonight was not one of them.  So Audra slept -- or, more truthfully, lay awake -- dismally alone.
          She knew better than to wait for life to cheer her; wise people found their joy where they could or, failing there, made it themselves.  Her father had taught her that.  Still, separated by thousands of miles from almost everything she truly loved, she doubted the best of attitudes would keep this from becoming the worst Christmas in her life.
          Had her family forgotten her?
          The idea was ludicrous.  Not HER parents.  Not HER family.  Something must have happened to the package they had surely posted to her.  Perhaps it had been lost in the mail.  Or the snows might be too deep for the train to get through; that sometimes happened, in Wyoming.  No.  Even if everything she knew of life -- every standard she'd striven toward, every rule she'd kept within -- turned out to be false, she knew that her family loved her.
          She rolled over in bed, as if a new position would result in a new attitude.  It did not.  She missed her home and family as desperately as ever.  With no letter from home, and only Aunt Heddy for company, Christmas promised to be bleak.
          ONLY Aunt Heddy?  Audra frowned at her own ingratitude.  After all; Aunt Heddy had "only" Audra for company, as well.  She knew better than to consider her own feelings as more important than another's.  Her mother had taught her that.  Heddy had offered Audra the chance at the teaching job, given her a place to live, sight-unseen.  She'd promised to bake strudel for their Christmas dessert, and had agreed -- with reservations -- to let Audra make her mother's stuffing recipe for their roast chicken.  They would have potatoes as well, and turnip, beans and roasted corn.  It would be a delicious meal  ... if quiet, and not at all festive.
          Aunt Heddy had refused to let them hire somebody to cut a tree, refused to let Audra do so unladylike a thing on her own.  When Audra, unsure how to present her aunt with the handkerchiefs she'd embroidered as a gift, asked Heddy if she would be hanging her stocking, her aunt had called the practice "childish."
          Restless, Audra turned over in bed again and punched her pillow into a different shape ... and, finally, she found a more soothing thought.  She'd not been COMPLETELY forgotten.
          Jack had tried to sneak a gift to her, at the store.
          Of course she could not accept it.  She'd compromised her respectability so severely with him, of late -- and with such shameful enthusiasm! -- that she dared not risk ignoring such a clear point of etiquette.  Ladies did not accept gifts from men who were not officially courting them ... and of course, even if a man WERE courting them, ladies could only accept certain kinds of gifts.  A book, perhaps.  An inexpensive pin....
          Smiling, she snuggled deeper into the pillow.  Knowing Jack, it was probably for the best that she HAD refused his gift.  Goodness only knew what kind of shocking trinket he might settle upon....
          The next thing Audra knew, the room had lightened to deep gray around her and Aunt Heddy was telling her not to lie abed.  They had Christmas services to attend, after all!
          They both dressed in their best clothes -- suitably solemn as befit teachers, of course -- and took the same shadowy, frosted path to the church that had seen more than one of Audra's trysts with Jack Harwood.  Her heart raced as they passed the cedar break that had hidden her and her gambler only days before -- but not, to her chagrin, with shame so much as with the delicious memory.  Jack's embrace.  Jack's smiles.  Jack's kisses.... 
          It occurred to her that perhaps she DESERVED no package from home!           She seemed to resemble the real Audra no more than this hushed morning -- winter dark and certainly crisp, but no colder than Wyoming autumn -- resembled Christmas. 
          Unsettled by the thought, she sped her step past scenes of her further indiscretions until Aunt Heddy rebuked her "boyish stride."  When finally they emerged from the woods to behold the neat, white church, it took all Audra's self-control not to run toward it.  Church represented tradition, routine, security.  In church, she would be the Audra she had always been and was comfortable being -- the Audra who followed the rules, the Audra whose parents loved her, the Audra who could take her reputation for granted.  In church, she would be safe from....
          .... from what?  The sense of displacement eluded any attempt to label it.  But she still relaxed to see the small but growing growing cluster of buckboards and mules in the church yard, to nod good morning to the Tucker family and call Merry Christmas to the Elliott children.  She still took comfort in the candlelight gleaming from the church windows into the bleak morning and in climbing the familiar wooden steps to the building itself.
          Someone had hung wreaths of loblolly pine on each of the double doors, tied with red ribbon and hung with cowbells. And inside, Audra found Christmas....

p. 178, CHAPTER FIFTEEN -- PRESENTS FOR AUDRA
          After dinner, Christmas came all over again.  Thad had with him a satchel full of surprises from home.  Some of the gifts were for Heddy, of course, and some for Grossmutter.  But most were for Audra herself.  Her oldest sister, Mariah, and her husband had sent a sweater of the softest wool Audra had ever felt.  Laurel and her husband sent marmalade, which made Audra and Thaddeas both laugh; their English brother-in-law's predilection for marmalade had been a source of family humor since they met him.  Victoria sent two novels.  Kitty sent a painting of their snow-covered house in town, "so that you can remember what it looks like."
          "She didn't sit outside in the snow to do this, did she?" demanded Audra.  Kitty was younger than she, and got sick more than any other Garrison sister.
          "Some of it," admitted Thad.  "But she's better now."
          Little Elise had sent one of her favorite dolls, Lisette, "to keep you company."  Even a friend of the family Evangeline Taylor had knit a new scarf for Audra, almost identical to the one Thad had worn down -- "I think she learned to knit this year," Thad explained.  And Audra's parents had included treats from home-made candy and a locket with their pictures to a stereoscope -- with pictures of the Yellowstone park, among other American wonders -- and a beautiful party dress.  It was myrtle green, cut in fashionable "Gibson Girl" style, and mother had even included high-buttoned shoes with stylish cloth tops and a taffeta petticoat with lace-trimmed flounces.
          "Audra!" scolded Aunt Heddy, while Thaddeas averted his eyes, and she quickly refolded the beautiful "unmentionable" back into its wrapping.  "You will have to send it back, of course," her aunt continued.
          "Send it BACK?"

p. 169 - CHAPTER FIFTEEN, STILL -- TALKING ABOUT HOME
          She asked after the ranch, and Thad's law practice, and was relieved to hear that both were doing well.  Her parents and younger sisters were happy and healthy -- "though they miss you," Thad assured her, and squeezed her hand.  "We ALL miss you."  Even her older sisters, whose somewhat shocking choices in men had been upending the family for several years before Audra's own scandal, seemed well satisfied with their new lives.
          "Victoria's still writing those articles of hers," Thaddeas relayed.  "I think it will take more than a husband to stop her, no matter HOW good a shot he is.  And it looks like Laurel and her Marmaduke will prove up that homestead of theirs, just like she said they would."
          "He HATES being called a Marmaduke!" protested Audra in defense of her brother-in-law.  The cowboys had graced him with the nickname merely because he was English.
          "I know," said Thaddeas solemnly -- but his eyes shone with no real repentance, and Audra could not help but laugh.
          "What about Mariah?" she asked, of their oldest sister.  "She and Stuart's ... business ... is going well?  There's been no more trouble?"
          "Nothing to speak of, and they seem to be prospering," assured Thad, as careful as she'd been not to say out loud what it was Stuart actually DID.  To cattle ranchers, a sheep-herder in the family was just too shameful a thing to speak of.  Audra remembered, with some discomfort, the anger she'd felt toward Mariah for seemingly betraying their father ... as if her sister could have chosen who to love!  [Note:  at the time I wrote this, I didn't realize Mariah and Stuart would already have a baby.  Audra would have asked about Garry....]
          "Poor Papa," she sighed -- the standard comment, whenever the subject of Stuart MacCallum and his sheep came up, no matter how happy Mariah's husband made her.
          "He'll survive," said Thad drily, then slanted an amused glance back to Audra.  "But I think he's relieved that, as long as you're teaching, you CAN'T marry.  Pa's had more than enough unpleasant surprises from you girls."
          Unpleasant surprises like her going sweet on a reformed gambler?
          "Perhaps that is because YOU haven't married," she challenged, defending her sisters now ... and perhaps diverting the subject.  Especially when her behavior of late would, she feared, rival the worst of her sisters' romantic scandals.
          "When I do, rest assured I will choose someone who will be an asset to the Garrison family name."
          "Oh?"  Well THIS was interesting!  He'd always been not-so-secretly in love with a local woman named Desdemona Sinclair -- Desdemona Witherspoon, actually, ever since she'd broken Thad's heart by marrying mining entrepreneur Harrison Witherspoon.  Since then, Thad generally refused to discuss the likelihood of his own marriage, only son or not.
          Thad walked on in silence for awhile, then finally said, "There was some sad news in town, too.  Harrison Witherspoon died of typhoid two months ago."
          OH!  Audra took a long moment to formulate her next question.  "How is his widow?"
          Thad narrowed his eyes at her in mild warning.  "Why do you ask?"  Of course, he would neither welcome the news of Witherspoon's death, nor set his cap for the man's widow.  Not on purpose, in any case.
          How he could help but cherish some kind of hope, now that the only woman he'd ever wanted was free, awed her.  "Because you were the family lawyer?" she suggested.
          "Oh."  Luckily, he accepted the explanation.  "Mrs. Witherspoon is well enough, considering.  If I speak to her again, I'll say you asked after her."
          "Thank you," said Audra ... and wished she liked Desdemona Witherspoon, even a little! Outwardly, the heiress probably WOULD be an excellent marital choice, an asset to the Garrison name.  But in character, Audra preferred ANY of her brothers-in-law, no matter what troubles had come with them.  Even Laurel's Marmaduke.
          Even Mariah's sheep farmer.
          "This is Tarrant Main Street," she explained now, to distract herself and Thaddeas both from that line of thought. 

END OF CHAPTER 16 -- MORE OF THAD'S 'S VISIT:
          With the significant exception of missing Jack, Audra found herself enjoying the week after Christmas.  She still did not know if Thad would force the issue about her finishing out the school year, nor just how hard she would fight him if he did.  And she did not feel free to visit the store, now that she and Jack had aroused her brother's suspicions.
          Although, if he didn't want her going by the mercantile, he should remember to pick up the mail when HE went.  Thaddeas was rarely the forgetful type.  In fact, his memories of his childhood with Aunt Heddy fascinated Audra all week.  It made her feel better about the time she was spending so far from home, to remember that Papa's and Thad's roots -- and thus her own -- were in Texas.
          "She seems a good deal smaller than I remember," confessed Thad that Friday, which they spent hiking together to the Trinity River and watching its brown waters flowing inexorably toward the east.  The Trinity was by no means a particularly wide river, but its channel was deep and its current strong.  "And she seems ... friendlier than she used to."
          "Friendlier?"  Was this Aunt Heddy, the Widow Cribb, they were discussing?
          Thaddeas shook his head in wonder.  "She called me liebling."
          "She's never called ME liebling," Audra noticed, searching the steep riverbank for a stone to throw.  This area of Texas seemed particularly chintzy on smooth river-stones.
          "That's just it.  She never called ME liebling either!  I lived with her for ten years, and all she ever called me was--"
          "Child?" guessed Audra.
          Thad grinned, scooped a rock from the sandy soil, and handed it to her.  "Yes.  Child."
          Audra threw the stone.  It plunked into the dark water with a plopping noise.  She sighed.  "Maybe she missed you."
          Thad shrugged, found another stone.  "Maybe," he conceded, without any real confidence.  "Wouldn't you think she'd SAY something if she did, though?  When she got Pa's telegram, telling her to pack my things so that the Schmidts could take me north to live with him and Mother, she certainly didn't ACT like she'd miss me."
          He put the stone in her hand and took her wrist, silently reminding her how to make the arc that would let the stone skip across the water.  She felt so happy to be spending all this time with her big brother -- whom she normally had to share with five sisters AND all their friends who were usually sweet on him -- that Audra put concerns about Aunt Heddy aside.
          She thought that Jack would like this place -- not that she would be accompanying him so far out of town!  Not if he had no intention to reform.  Not if he didn't attend church again.
          Not if she had any sense at all.
          But he WOULD like it.
          "Can you believe," said Thad, indicating the steep banks to the river, the dirt crevassed with erosion and tangled with half-exposed tree roots, "that Pa used to take herds of longhorn cattle north across the Trinity, usually twice or three times a summer, without any bridges?  He and the other cowboys had to get the steers through the brush to get here, and then they'd have to get them down the sides without breaking their legs -- or the horses' -- and swim the river, and then climb the other side.  Hundreds or thousands of head at a time.  That was something to see."
          Audra stared at the deep river, little etchings on its otherwise placid surface a testament to its danger, and shivered at the image.  "You got to see it?"
          "Sometimes Uncle Mathew would bring me to watch.  From a distance," Thad clarified with a grin.  "But the most exciting time I ever got to see it was ...."
          Audra threw another stone while she listened, and it skipped twice -- but by then she'd noticed that Thad had stopped talking.  "What?"
          After all, she liked hearing about their father's adventures in the earlier frontier.  She thought maybe Jack would find them interesting, too.
          Thaddeas had an odd expression.  "Maybe I'll show you," he said.
          "When?"
          "When we go to Fort Worth on Monday."
          So she just had to wait.
          Jack didn't go to church, on Sunday, and she wished she'd gone by the store on Saturday after all, whether it might arouse Thad's suspicions or not.  She did not even know if Jack were still there, and the possibility that he might have already gone, without an official goodbye, made her feel hollow and fragile.
          Surely someone would have mentioned it after church, though, if he had left.  Wouldn't they?
          She considered going to the church to practice her piano, but Thaddeas would surely insist on accompanying her, and if Jack DID mean to meet her, that would invite disaster.  Instead, she stayed home and read some of DUTY AND DOMESTICITY:  BEING, A GENTLE GUIDEBOOK ETC. to Aunt Heddy and Grossmutter.  It did little to reinforce her sense of modesty OR comportment.
          "Hedda," said Grossmutter, knitting, "Fraulein Audra reminds me very much of you at her age."
          Thad, who was sitting quietly at the table, cleaning the shotgun Aunt Heddy kept to protect the chickens, glanced up long enough to share a private smile with Audra.  HE knew, at least, what a mixed compliment that was.  "Were you already a teacher then, Aunt Heddy?"
          Audra asked, "Did you have a beau?"
          "Oh no," their aunt insisted, apparently to both questions.  "I was too busy helping Mutter keep our home together.  Then Lisle died and we had Thaddeas to care for. "
          Lisle was Thad's mother, their father's first wife.
          "Hedda," said Grossmutter, nodding toward the book Audra held.  "She always did her duty.  She never complained, not once."
          Even while she got older, raising her brother's motherless infant and missing her best chance to court and have fun?  Audra thought that, in similar circumstances, she would probably complain ... although perhaps three months ago she'd have been more likely to suffer in silence.
          Obviously in need of guidance, she began to read from her Christmas book again ... but it just wasn't taking.  She would rather, she thought, read a dime novel.
          She could hardly wait to go to Fort Worth and wear a party dress again.
          She missed Jack.
          "Chapter Three," she read carefully.  "A Girl's Duty to Uphold Truth ... "  And she wondered, whose truth?
          It would be a long Sunday.









I am a loooong writer.  I write very, very long books, indulging myself in the characters and their world, and then I have to struggle to cut it down to reasonable length.  What's reasonable?  Part of it has to do with what the publisher can afford to print--to be economically made, books must fall within a certain range of page-count.  Part of it has to do with what makes for a good story, too--in a romance, for example, it's rarely a good idea to have one's hero and heroine separated for more than a chapter or two at a time, at most.

Who knows--you might be able to tell JUST why these scenes shouldn't have made it to the book!  But it's my website, so here they are, just in case anybody's interested....
CHAPTER 2 -- Audra's Thinking Wistfully of Home
CHAPTER 4 -- After Walking Audra Home
END OF CH 5 - Audra Unburdens to Jack
CHAPTER 6 -- Praising Jack
NO LONGER HAPPENED -- Driving to Mosier Valley
CHAPTER 14 -- Christmas Eve Thoughts
CHAPTER 15 -- Presents from Home for Audra
CHAPTER 15 -- Talkg with Thad about Home
END OF CH16 -- More of Thad's Visit
END OF CH18 -- Hell's Half Acre
CHAPTER 19 -- Jack, Missing Audra
CHAPTER 19 -- Aunt Heddy Misses Thad/Audra Gets Prissy
CHAPTER 29 -- Breakfast with Heddy & the Family
CHAPTER 30 -- Resistance; Audra vs. the School Board
CH 18 -- A DAY IN FORT WORTH
This is another example of me wanting to spend basic, happy time with my characters, instead of advancing the plot!

          By making the concerted effort to curb her burgeoning sense of rebellion -- with one exception -- Audra did manage a truly lovely day.  But first, when Thad knocked at her door for dinner, she took a deep breath for courage and said, "I would like to carry my own room-key, please."
          Thad blinked at her, as if unsure why she might want such a thing, but offered the key easily enough.  "If you want."
          After that, in moments when she began to worry -- either about her indelicate behavior of the recent past or the looming choices of her immediate future -- she took note of the extra weight in her reticule, and it somehow encouraged her.
          She and Thaddeas had a delicious restaurant meal, then visited the beautiful new county courthouse of red-granite, on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River. Then they enjoyed some shopping, although none of the sales clerks Audra spoke to had half the charm of a certain temporary storekeep in Tarrant City.  She chose her purchases carefully, and insisted on buying them with her own money -- and it felt more gratifying than she would ever have imagined.
          "I earn a salary now, " she reminded Thaddeas when he offered to pay for a new bonnet.  She fancied it might replace one that she'd accidentally crushed two weeks earlier.
          "Hard to believe," Thaddeas marveled, shaking his head -- but he obediently returned his money clip to his pocket.  "You were the baby for such long time."
          She'd been almost six when Kitty was born.  Audra could still remember the stabs of jealousy she'd felt when a family member referred to "the baby" and no longer mean her.  Perhaps that sense of loss had, in part, contributed to her willingness to be coddled and protected, when others of her sisters insisted on their independence.
          "I couldn't stay a baby forever," she reminded Thad gently -- and that, too, felt remarkably gratifying.
          They dressed in their party finery to attended the play they'd chosen, and the comedy's romantic plot had Audra holding a gloved hand to her chest, as if to keep her own heart from joining in the songs ... especially the love songs.  In the dark of the theater she found herself wishing again, secret things she knew could not come true.  She held those wishes close inside herself when she danced at the New Year's parties as well, mainly with Thad but occasionally with other gentlemen who asked respectfully and treated her with the utmost courtesy.
          If she found herself longing for someone to surprise her with a little gentle flirtation, much less to shock her by risking such a thing in front of her brother's guardianship ... well, perhaps she could blame that, too, on the after-effects of seeing "Sweet Anne Page."  It had nothing to do with a blue-eyed gambler whose teasing sense of mischief could enliven any party, whose embrace could melt her best resolve, and who insisted that she make decisions for herself instead of blindly following those of others.  Could it?
          If she had any hope of maintaining her respectability, it must not.  Because if she could not behave herself, especially after the shock of this morning, she would prove Thaddeas right.  Her honor and that of her family was at risk -- had always been so, though it took this reunion with her brother to remind her fully of that.  If she meant to cherish romantic dreams about a gambler -- and possible drunkard! -- then she SHOULD leave.
          The very idea distressed her to the core, but she surreptitiously hefted her beaded purse and found renewed comfort in carrying her own room key.          
          When she and Thaddeas tired of the orchestra at the Delaware, they reclaimed their coats and walked the well-lit block and a half to the equally posh Mansion House and resumed dancing there until midnight fireworks brought them out of doors again.  Arm around her brother's waist, simultaneously drinking in the beautiful, illuminating colors and cringing from the explosions, Audra made a decision.  If she lived for another century she could never repay Thad for putting aside his own Christmas in Sheridan to give her this outing.  But with her own immediate future so uncertain, looming in the threshold of this grand new year, neither could she show proper gratitude by being less than honest with him. 
          Nor could she prove her maturity by being less than honest with herself.  And in truth, her self-respect was worth the ... gamble.
          So when they left for their own hotel, she braced herself and said, "I have decided that I should stay in Texas."
          "You have," challenged Thad carefully....

END OF 18 -- HELL'S HALF ACRE
In every book I write, it seems there's a scene that is almost physically painful to remove.  The Hell's Half Acre scene was that for BEHAVING HERSELF.  I'd done large amounts of research, and I've walked those streets--well, where they once were--and I wanted to show Hell's Half Acre!  But the book was way too long, and I was spending too much time with Jack and Audra apart.  So this scene became a memory of Audra's, instead..

          Thaddeas had Audra wear her cape with the hood up and forward, to hide her face.  The hood and her panic-narrowed eyesight somehow transformed the Acre to a series of wretched tableaus:  shoddy buildings, staggering men, carriages racing far too quickly through dark, crowded streets.  And even as grotesque stereoscopic images, they terrified her.  This, unlike  pictures on a stereoscope, was inescapably real.
          One thing she noticed, as they penetrated the outer edges of the Acre, was its stench: horse manure steamed in the street, and the smell of human waste, like from poorly kept outhouses, fouled dark alleys.  Whiskey laced the urine smell, the reek of sweat and occasional vomit, so strong that Audra had to cover her mouth and nose with her gloved hand.  Over it all floated burning, smoky smells staining the cold air -- tobacco and kerosene, coal and ... and something sickly sweet that drew Audra's timid attention to one of a seemingly endless row of unpainted, ramshackle "businesses."  Several China-men, guarding the front door, stared blankly back at her.
          
          Thaddeas let his hand drift closer to his gun, as they passed that place, and Audra was afraid.  In fact, she found herself looking at other human beings as terrifyingly alien, simply because of their race, for the first time in her life.  Saloons with names like The Bucket of Blood and The Black Elephant seemed to cater to more colored patrons than white -- so MANY of them, so loud and overwhelming that she could barely equate them to the polite-and-distant black cowhands her father employed, the two quiet colored girls who had attended school with her.  Unlike in Wyoming, she did not see a single Indian -- perhaps a good thing, considering what she'd heard of Texas tribes.  But even some of the whites, especially those with thick Irish accents, seemed just as foreign, although few seemed aware of her and Thad at all.
          It was the women of the Acre who most noticed Audra.  Thad stopped on one corner and pivoted slowly around.  "Look," he said, sounding surprised himself.  "Every corner's a whorehouse."
          Audra winced at such language -- and from her brother!  But she did look, and quite a few women loitered around open fires in front of these tenement buildings, incongruously holding their hands out to the warmth while their Mother-Hubbard dresses hung open to show their underwear.  Audra quickly hid her face from their immodesty, and she wished she could plug her ears too; from inside one boardinghouse, two women screamed shocking words at each other, mixed with the equally ugly word, "Mine!"  Cross-corner from that, on the second floor, a female scream was abruptly silenced.
          To Audra's horror, her brother took a deep breath and stepped back from her attempt to hide against him, though he did keep one hand securely on her shoulder.  "This is HONEST sin," he reminded her grimly.
          So she looked, ashamed to feel such aversion for women who had done nothing to her, but repelled all the same.  The smell of whisky-sweat was strong here; the women's hair and clothes did not look clean.  The ones who did not glare at her with curiosity or outright malice had the bleary expression of glass-eyed wax dolls, as if their minds had gone far away.  And, most shocking of all ....
          "How ... how old is that one?" Audra whispered, somehow finding her voice as she stared at a small, black-haired demi-monde who studied Thad with particular interest.
          "How old do you think she is?" countered Thad.  He was stoically looking over everyone's heads, including hers.
          "Maybe..."  Was it possible?  "Twelve?"   Their sister Kitty was twelve, and still wore short skirts and played with a hoop. 
          "Could be," said Thad. "Twelve's the age of consent for ... this."
          Looking more closely, Audra suspected that half the girls she saw were no older than she.  While she'd been watching, several men arrived at the houses, sometimes speaking to the women but more often just grabbing one by the arm and heading inside.  Once, an anonymous carriage stopped and picked a girl up.
          "Three dollars," called one girl toward Thaddeas, finally.  When another, in front of a different house, called "Two-fifty," the first one picked up a bottle from the street and hurled it at her, along with another epithet.  Both shattered against the side of the building.  One of the most dazed-looking women did not even duck from the flying glass.
          "Come on," said Thad, abruptly steering Audra away from what looked to have the makings of a brawl.  An older woman stepped into their path -- fully dressed, though her neckline showed far more flesh than was modest, fashionable, or even healthy in this weather.  "You got something to sell, Handsome?" she asked, her voice strident.  "Or you just looking for a special arrangement?"
          Thad made as wide a circle around her as he might have a dangerous animal, and the woman's laughter floated after them.  From then on, Audra saw the rest of the "boardinghouses" for what they were.
          Most noise came from the saloons.  Audra recognized a cacophony of warring sound as piano music, a rift of "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" here, a few bars of "Hot Time in the Old Town" there, the different songs from different bars played with more enthusiasm than ability.  Through windows open despite the cold snap -- a testament to the heat of pressing bodies -- the continual clink of glass against glass battled the music, as did drunken laughter, angry shouts, horrible language -- and a constant clamor of what turned out to be gambling.
          "That's a wheel of fortune," explained Thaddeas, pointing through one window at a spinning, hypnotic blur of black-and-red -- it made a whirring noise, faint under everything else, until it stopped, at which point some of the people watching it whooped, while others cursed.  "Or roulette.  And those tables in back, where the man's taking numbers out of an urn, those are where they play--"
          "KENO!" shouted someone in the crowd, leaping to his feet, and several other voices cheered the apparent victory.
          "Keno," agreed Thad grimly.  "If you look through there--"  She could not seem to move, for staring at the intensity of the games and, more, the gamers.  He took her by the shoulders and turned her himself, walked her down the uneven boardwalk, to look through another window.  "Yup -- they're playing faro.  And the game with the dice is called craps.  Most of the poker games are in the corners and upstairs, I'd guess."
          Obediently, Audra looked, connecting the dice game with the sound of bony clicks she'd been hearing -- and immediately, amidst the sea of smoky unfamiliarity, she focused on the nicely dressed man behind the faro table.
          JACK?!
          Her inhale trembled in her throat.
          Actually ... the man DIDN'T look like Jack, not really, which was perhaps worse.  He had light hair, despite its slicked-back style, and a long moustache.  But he wore tailored clothes with a similarly fashionable cut to those Jack favored, and striped pants; she even caught a glimpse of high, shiny boots.  Beneath his frock coat he wore an embroidered vest, complete with gold watch chain.  When one of the men in his game slapped his hand down on the table, obviously upset, the fancier man smiled charmingly and relieved him of something.  It was the charming smile that delivered the worst blow, like a knife through Audra's chest.
          ...no...
          But it was like the "boardinghouses."  Now that she had noticed, Audra could not stop seeing the other men in particularly tailored coats, almost always worn with rich vests and jewelry and ruffled shirtsleeves peeking out at the wrists.  From what little she could tell, looking through dirty windows, the professional gamblers seemed to win a lot more than they lost.
          She did not have to ask Thaddeas if that were normal.  She was an Audra who could think for herself, an Audra with her room key in her purse.  She knew, with sick instinct, that most of the gamblers were winning not because of skill but because they cheated.
          And Jack Harwood was one of them. 
          He might not be here in person, but she saw him in every graceful movement, every dexterous hand maneuver, every laugh or smile or wink.  These were Jack's people, standing in the midst of hell and enjoying the companionship, untouched by the misery on all sides.
          And she had let him kiss her.  She'd kissed him back....
          This cruel, loud, reeking world started to spin around her -- like a wheel of fortune -- and she clutched Thad's arm with all her strength.  She felt a low, anguished wail building in her chest, suspected nothing would stop it....
          Then a cheerful voice to her side said, "You can go on in.  Nobody's gonna stop you just 'cause you got a woman along."
          "No, thank you," said Thaddeas, before Audra could even make herself turn her head, locate the source of the voice.  It was a boy, perhaps seven or eight years old, his skin color indeterminate between the light from the saloon and the dirt on his cheeks.
          He hooked a little thumb on the one suspender remaining on his torn pants -- no coat, noted Audra numbly -- and grinned an engaging, gap-toothed grin, incongruous against the surroundings.  "You lookin' for somethin' else, maybe?  Just ask me!  Nobody knows the Acre like Frankie does."
          Audra looked to Thad, horrified.  Surely that couldn't be true! 
          "I think we've seen enough, Frankie," said Thaddeas, staring solemnly back at Audra while he spoke.  "Maybe you ought to go home and go to bed."
          "Can't.  My ma's working."  When Thaddeas turned Audra blessedly back in the direction of uptown, of their hotel, Frankie fell into step behind them.  "Ain't there NOTHIN' I can help you find?"
          Before Thaddeas could say anything, Audra heard herself ask:  "Are there any churches near here?"
          "I could show you one," the boy suggested quickly.
          Thad, one arm braced behind Audra, did not slow his step.  "We aren't going anywhere with you, Frankie.  Just answer the lady's question."
          "What's it worth?"
          "We didn't bring any money, either."  Thad stopped long enough to fix the boy with a particularly intense, Garrison glare.  "And if you don't keep arm's length, Frankie, you might end up being the one who pays.  Sabe?"
          On top of the rest of the night, Audra wasn't sure she could bear her brother's seeming rudeness too -- and to a child!  But when Thad continued to lead her away, Frankie's laugh sounded almost impressed.  "How you gonna have a good time in Hell's Half Acre without money?" he asked, scampering after them.
          "This visit was for...."  Thaddeas hesitated.  "Educational purposes."
          "Huh."  Obviously the boy did not understand.  But that didn't seem to bother him.  "We got a fancy Catholic church, just a couple blocks thattaway," he offered, freely now.  "St. Patrick's, down Eleventh Street from Mary Porter's house.  My ma beat another whore unconscious with a rock once, right on the front steps during mass!"  He laughed at the memory.
          Audra could not laugh.  "Is she all right?"
          "Just had to spend a week in jail, that's all," assured Frankie.  "Hey, and we got the St. Paul over there!"   He pointed to what was obviously a saloon, despite the worn sign reading, St. Paul's Methodist Evangelical Congregation.  "But the church folk moved off and left it behind.  The Union Bethel Mission ladies give Sunday School at Miz Porter's old house -- not the one on Eleventh, but the one the law took off her, on Rusk.  Does that count?"
          Somehow, Audra managed to keep breathing, to keep walking.  Focusing on the little boy's conversation, no matter how horrid, helped.  "Do you attend?" she asked.
          "Shit no!"
          She winced.  "Then it doesn't count."          
          They walked on, further from the noise, further from the stench.  "I found a dead body, t'other morning," Frankie offered.  "One of the ladies my ma works with.  Lotsa whores do 'emselves in, but I ain't never found one myself before."
          Audra's throat closed up before she could even consider responding, and a roar in her ears vied with the noise of the traffic in the Acre, behind them.
          "She did it with heroine," Frankie added, sounding somehow disappointed.  "So it wasn't as good as finding Sally musta been.  I wasn't even born, then, and folks STILL talk about that 'round here.  But nobody's nailed a whore to an outhouse since."
          Audra whimpered, stumbled.  Thaddeas stopped walking and drew her against him, kept her on her feet and let her head fall on his shoulder.  "That's, uh, probably more education than we need, Frankie.  Thanks anyway."
          "Sure," said the little boy.  "Hey, is she okay?"
          "I hope so," said Thad, his voice uneven.  Audra kept her eyes shut -- wasn't sure she would ever open them again -- and so could not see whether regret or disapproval thickened his words.  "You want to earn a dollar?"
          "A DOLLAR?" exclaimed Frankie through her self-imposed darkness.
          "Run up the street to the Delaware Hotel and ask them to send a hack."
          Audra bit her trembling lip, felt tears begin to burn under her closed eyes.  It was over, and Thaddeas was taking care of her again.  She'd never felt so desperately grateful.  Especially after seeing what happened to women who DIDN'T have protective brothers, well-off fathers, schooling....
          Maybe it wasn't over after all.  Maybe the worst had only started.
          "You're gonna rent a carriage just so's she don't have to walk five blocks?!"
          "You know where the Delaware is, right?"
          "Sure.  But ain't no driver gonna give your woman a ride if'n you don't got money."  Audra heard the boy clear his throat and spit.  "Maybe she can just walk it off.  Ladies can't hold as much hooch as we men can, ya' know."
          "I can pay him when we get to the hotel.  He'll see I'm good for it."
          "You better be," warned Frankie.  Then his footsteps skittered off in the direction of the Delaware and, without that distraction, Audra could sink deeper into her protective darkness. She was faintly aware of Thaddeas running a hand up and down her back, murmuring, "I'm sorry, Audie.  I'm so sorry.  It was a stupid idea.  I'm so sorry," until the hack arrived.
          The ride back to the Delaware, Frankie's joy at getting paid what was probably more than a dollar, and Thad's careful escort back to her room all blurred together.  She did not WANT to notice anything else, did not want to even think.  Walnut furniture and Brussels carpeting aside, the world was too ugly a place to merit thought.
          Thad took her purse, to get the key, and as soon as he had her in her room again, settled her into one of the silk-upholstered chairs and relieved her of her cape, he apologized again.
          "No," she protested numbly ... and realized that, at some point, she'd opened her eyes again -- just in time for them to well up with tears.  "It's all right.  You were right.  No wonder... no wonder decent people hide it all behind closed doors...."
          Something wavered in the back of her mind, a protest she felt too exhausted to admit even to herself.  Something to do with decency....
          "It's NOT all right," Thaddeas insisted, bringing her a glass of water and kneeling beside her chair, offering her a handkerchief.  "I should never have done that to you.  I was so afraid that fancy-dan gambler would somehow destroy your innocence, I ... I did it to you myself.  My God...."
          She wiped away more tears with his handkerchief, betrayed yet again.  Thaddeas wasn't supposed to swear.
          "But it worked," she admitted, low.
          "What?"  His brown eyes, usually so composed, radiated such guilt that she ached to see them.  When he reclaimed his handkerchief and held it to her nose, murmured "Blow," she obeyed -- and swallowed back whatever ghostly protests tried to surface.  It was protests and questions that had gotten her into this.
          "You..."  A few steadying breaths, then a swallow of water, made it easier.  In fact, a nervous laugh escaped her.  "You certainly did make your point about the evils of vice."
          Thaddeas hardly looked comforted.  She could not bear his pain, not on top of everything else she'd seen tonight, everything else she had to feel wrong about.
          "It's late," she said.  "I want to go to bed now, please."
          "You're sure?"
          She nodded.  "Please.  I'll be fine.  I just need to wash some of the ... the smell of that place off of me.  And then I need some sleep.  I'll feel better in the morning, really."
          Her brother hesitated, but either she was convincing enough or the lure of escape proved too much for him.  He nodded a curt nod, kissed her cheek, and all but bolted for the door.
          There, though, he hesitated.  "You'll need to lock the door behind me, Audie."
          Simply lifting her head from her focus on the water glass back to her brother seemed to take an inordinate amount of strength.  She could not imagine crossing the entire room, just now.   "You take the key," said Audra listlessly.  "It's all right."
          But she only said that last part because she knew it was what he needed to hear.
          She'd been living an illusion, and she wasn't sure anything would ever be all right again.

CHAPTER 19 -- JACK MISSING AUDRA
          It was the only thing she'd ever given him that he could keep.
          The next week was worse.  Jack waited outside the church on Sunday afternoon, figuring she'd show up to practice her piano music, but either she'd only been practicing for the Christmas services, or she'd given up on it because of him.  He went back to the dark, empty store chilled and depressed, and didn't even bother to wonder where the hell Ferris vanished to every week.  He considered getting drunk, but that would feel like a kind of defeat -- like he had no hope of winning Audra back.
          Jack didn't defeat that easily, so he chopped wood instead.
          Either Melissa Smith or Claudine Reynolds fetched the mail for the teacherage, that week.  Sometimes they were accompanied by other students -- including Early Rogers and Jerome Newton.  Jack resorted again to the painfully obvious, with questions like, "So how are you young folks liking school?"
          Claudine rolled her eyes, as if disgusted at the very idea.  Early shrugged, stumped his booted toe against the floor, and said, "I reckon it's okay."
          "It's DANDY," insisted Jerome, scowling at Early.  "We ain't -- HAVE never had a better teacher."
          Jack persisted.  "She's doing well, then?  That teacher of yours?"
          It was Melissa who met his gaze, her own disturbingly sympathetic.  "She's fine, Mr. Harwood."
          "I'm telling," said Claudine.  "We aren't supposed to talk to his kind!"
          "We aren't supposed to do a LOT of things," warned Melissa, right back, and from the way they were glaring at each other, Jack would've laid odds he saw a cat-fight brewing -- over what, he didn't care to ponder.
          HIS kind?  Surely it wasn't Audra who'd labeled him that way ... was it?
          In any case, he obviously wouldn't get information about her from the young folk.  Over the next few days, he told himself that if he just gave her a bit more time, she'd be back.  Sooner or later the gal was bound to start hankering for new buttons, or a paper of needles, or something sweet.    How long could a woman go without visiting the only store in town?
          Apparently, she could make it at least two weeks, because Audra still did not show.
          By Saturday, Jack was in a fine froth.  The week had disappointed on too many levels to count.  News from Fort Worth was that all gambling in the Acre had been closed down.  Of course, that was nothing new; it happened every few years, just so the politicians could make hilariously optimistic statements like "There is no longer any gambling in Fort Worth."  But this time, sixty indictments had been returned by the grand jury against those engaged in "unlawful gaming."  SIXTY!
          If Jack had been there, it could well have been sixty-one.  And the fines were going up every year.  The morality brigade just couldn't seem to stop hunting down bad guys.  And it wasn't just gamblers.
          Paranoia about Tarrant City's colored neighbors to the west was on the rise, as well.  Folks along the lines of Ernest Varnes and Whitey Gilmer latched onto the story that a six-year-old girl in New Orleans had been "outraged" by a colored man.  The fact that New Orleans was in another STATE did little to diminish their concerns about the close proximity of Mosier Valley to "our own innocent daughters."

CH 19 - AUNT HEDDY MISSES THADDEAS; AUDRA GETS PRISSY
(no wise cracks about "GETS prissy?" please <G>)

          When Thaddeas had reluctantly left, along with their solemn old grandmother, a pall had settled onto Aunt Heddy's home.  Audra felt more alone than ever, with nobody to come to her aid if she knocked on the wall, nobody to keep guard over her, nobody to walk with her in the woods.... 
          Nobody appropriate, at least.
          And she found Aunt Heddy crying in the pantry, which unsettled her on surprising levels.  The older woman tried to hide it, when she caught sight of Audra, but it was too late.
          "He is a good boy," she explained, tersely as ever.  "Your father raised him well."
          "You certainly helped," Audra reminded her aunt carefully.  With someone else, she might throw her arms around her or at least offer a handkerchief.  But surely Aunt Heddy would rebuff anything like that!  "Why, you raised Thaddeas for over ten years!"
          "Too few," sighed Heddy in agreement, then turned and pointedly began to sort through jars of tomatoes that she had put up over the summer.  "But past is past."
          SHE MISSES HIM, Audra realized.  Not just that day -- Aunt Heddy must have missed Thad for twenty years!  For the first time, she imagined the heartbreak of single-handedly raising a child from infancy, only to lose him to an unmet, unknown woman.
          Why had she never noticed before how unfair the world could be?
          "I am sure Thaddeas missed you too," she suggested softly.
          Heddy shrugged.  "It is not important."  It sounded like a lie.  But ... she'd never come to visit, either.  She'd never invited Thad back to Texas.
          "Did you ... did you even let anyone KNOW you wanted to see him?" Audra ventured.
          "Such questions!"  Having spent too much effort simply choosing tomatoes, Heddy bustled past Audra and into the kitchen.  "A good woman knows what she may and may not have.  Thaddeas belonged with Jacob, and that was that."
          Clearly, that was that for their conversation, too.  But Audra wondered at such cruel simplicity.  How could Aunt Heddy know for sure what she could and could not have without even ASKING?
          For some reason that line of thinking disturbed her, so Audra turned her attention instead to composing a note to Mr. Harwood.  Of course she could not keep the beautiful pen he had given her without implying an acceptance of his lifestyle, much less what they'd done together.  Remembering the ugly world that resulted of vices such as his, she meant to write harshly ... but somehow, fairness interfered.  He was accustomed to cruder surroundings and looser women than he'd met here.  SHE, as the lady, bore the responsibility for setting the moral tone for their acquaintance, and she had failed miserably.
          It HAD been kind of him to give her the pen -- the memory of how the gift had brightened her Christmas morning still warmed her.  She was the one who knew better than accept it, who did not even deserve it!  She had given him every reason to think she would further compromise her principles.
          Audra almost lost track of that thought, remembering just how nice it had been to compromise her principles... then recovered with a start.  How could she possibly enjoy those memories, now that she had seen where such compromise led?  Ironically, even now she found herself placing her faith in Ja-- in Mr. Harwood.  Now that she had explained herself clearly, in writing, he would surely do the right thing.
          And he DID mean to leave anyway.
          When Melissa and Claudine returned, Audra had more important matters to concern herself than the loss of a mere pen, no matter how beautiful.  Now that she knew ... well, what she knew ... she bore with it the responsibility of safeguarding other young girls.
          "That is not an appropriate song for a lady, Melissa," she said, as gently as possible, when she found her friend singing "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" over chores.  The unsavory memory of that same tune mingled with a clamor of drinking and gambling only made her job easier.
          Melissa looked up from her work, surprised.  "Nobody's here but us."
          It could have been the argument Audra had used with herself when Jack had kissed her.  But what one did in private still counted.
          "And we are ladies," Audra reminded her.  So Melissa stopped singing.
          Or, "Claudine, your skirt's rather ... close.  You'd best put on another petticoat before we leave for school."
          Since Aunt Heddy, in the outhouse, could not hear, Claudine said, "None of your business!"
          Instead of taking offense, as she might have only a month ago, Audra realized that of all her students, Claudine was surely in the most danger of losing both her reputation and the safety it afforded.  Perhaps she did not know the peril of her foolishness -- but Audra did.
          "As long as you are my student, it IS my business," she insisted patiently.  "You want people to respect you, do you not?"
          "I want my skirts to show a little of the shape of my legs," Claudine countered.  "Surely it's no secret that we HAVE legs, is it?"
          And really, it wasn't.  But...  "Discretion requires that ladies keep some things hidden."
          "Well thank YOU Miz Cribb," snarled Claudine, as if there would be anything wrong with Audra taking after her aunt.
          Except ... no matter how decent and self-sufficient a woman Hedda Garrison Cribb might be, Audra DIDN'T want to take after her.  Aunt Heddy seemed so lonely, and she so rarely had, well ... fun. 
          All Audra had to do was remember the mindless chaos of the Acre -- especially the half-naked girls by the boardinghouses, girls who must once have been innocent themselves -- to remember that fun was overrated.  She took solace in the fact that Claudine DID go back to the room she shared with Melissa and put on a second petticoat.
          When Jerome Newton stayed in during recess for telling an inappropriate joke, he paid gratifying attention to Audra's lecture on the dangers of such a callous attitude.  She would have sworn he would behave after that.  But not two days later he leaned stealthily across the aisle and lifted Emily Calloway's skirt almost to the knee before anyone, even Emily, noticed.  So Audra had to keep him in again.
          "I'm too old to be in school anyway," Jerome insisted, when asked to explain himself.  "I'm a man, and I have ... well ... men's interests."  And he WAS as old as she, at that. But it made for a poor excuse.
          "If you were in fact a MAN, Jerome Newton," Audra told him, fighting a blush at his implications, "then you would behave as one.  MEN do not play rude tricks; that is what BOYS do.  And as for your...."  She had to look away, clear her throat.  "As for your interests, I suggest you speak to your father or the Reverend Collins.  However, MEN treat women gently, with respect.  I am quite sure that no MAN worth his salt would take inappropriate interest in schoolgirls."
          Despite the age of the average soiled dove.
          "Yes, ma'am," said Jerome, with surprising sincerity.  He remained especially helpful the rest of the week, arriving early to carry in coal and water or staying late to clean the chalkboards.
          If she sometimes, in quiet moments, felt a hollowness deep within her, Audra simply focused more determinedly on her work.  If hardly an afternoon went by that she need not force herself to turn toward Aunt Heddy's, instead of hurrying up the hill to the mercantile to apologize for her distance and to ask Jack to explain the horrible things she'd seen, that was just force of habit.
          And if she sometimes dreamed of him, sweet, warm dreams of belonging that left her aching to return to them....  Well.
          Audra told herself she must simply try harder.
          All in all, by the second Sunday since her epiphany in Fort Worth, she could walk to church with some measure of moral balance.  Thank goodness she had caught herself in time!
          Then, from the bench she shared with the girls and Aunt Heddy, she heard whispering from the door -- and not just one or two people, either.
          Audra considered chiding Melissa and Claudine for turning in their seats to look, but such constant severity, even for a good cause, exhausted her.  This was Sunday; surely she need not be their teacher now, as well.  And they were by no means alone in their restlessness.  Then Melissa twisted back and stared at Audra with such voiceless MEANING that Audra had to see for herself.  Feeling more guilty than apprehensive, she turned....
          She swallowed.  Hard.  Oh my....
          He'd come.
          She'd not seen that blue suit on Jack before.  It brought out the color of his eyes, skimmed the lines of his body with tailored grace.  He'd been barbered recently, also lending him a certain sleekness, especially amidst a congregation of mainly farmers. 
          Just like those other gamblers, she reminded herself quickly, clutching at the memory like a Catholic might clutch at rosary beads.  Except ... Jack held his hat in a way that seemed almost uncertain.  And when she dared meet his searching blue eyes....
          Well, he WASN'T just a gambler.  He was Jack Harwood.  A friend.
          A "FRIEND" WHO COULD HAVE RUINED YOU.
          But she had not exactly fought his overtures.
          His gaze wanted something from her -- to tell her something, or ask her something -- and from someplace deep inside, beyond rules and good sense, she responded to that impression with like need....
          And then he smiled, eyes dancing, cheeks dimpling -- and his charm released her. Audra spun quickly forward to sit, spine straight, feet on floor, hands in lap.  NO!  She must not trust his smiles!  Just because he might not INTEND to hurt her did not mean that, as with the nudge of an affectionate draft horse, or the sandpapery lick of a friendly cow, she would not end up hurt, just the same.  And really, was even THAT not too generous an analogy?  Jack had more intelligence than livestock.
          He knew she did not wish to see him anymore.  She could not have been more clear.  So either he meant to ignore her wishes, or....
          Was it possible that he had come for the services themselves?
          Audra hoped so -- oh, she wanted that to be true!  As Mrs. Kent -- the usual piano player -- began the first hymn, and Audra with the others, she found it difficult to sing for the force of her wanting it.  PLEASE BE HERE FOR THE SERVICES, JACK.  PLEASE BE REFORMING. 
          Because if he were here simply for her, then she really COULDN'T trust him.  She had, after all, been avoiding the gambler for a reason.
          She wasn't sure she could trust her heart, either.

CHAPTER 29 -- BREAKFAST WITH HEDDY
          The end-of-school entertainment would be an all-morning, outdoor event, with most of the town in attendance.  This display of the students' progress -- or lack thereof -- could be either the making of a teacher or her ruin.
          But instead of fretting about her showing, at breakfast the next morning, Audra could hardly wait to escape to it.  Tension thickened the teacherage air so heavily, she could barely swallow her eggs.
          Heddy had agreed to Mother's offer to cook, only to then question her sister-in-law's decisions.  "The little one should eat more," she said, when Elise only took one egg and a piece of toast.
          "Elise is a light eater in the morning," Mama explained easily.
          "She should--" began the older teacher, when Papa interrupted.
          "Hedda," he said.  "Elizabeth cooked."  And as far as he was concerned, that was that.  On the range, Audra knew, cooks had as much autonomy as the boss.
          But this was Hedda's home.            "And YOU, Jacob!  Allowing your girls to run wild!"
          Kitty, Elise, and Audra all looked up from their plates at the same time.  Kitty even appeared distressed by the accusation ... but then again, Kitty often seemed distressed.
          "Audra's display yesterday was wholly out of line, and you said NOTHING to discipline her!"
          Papa's solemn glance slid toward Mama.  Mama, Audra noticed, was beginning to look murderous.  Papa, taking a sip of coffee, seemed to consider that with interest.  "Left my whip in Wyoming."
          "I should THINK--" Heddy continued -- or tried.
          Mama interrupted her.  "Yes, Hedda, perhaps you SHOULD give thinking a try!"
          "THAT--"  And Papa put down his coffee cup with such finality that even Claudine and Melissa jumped.  "Is enough."
          Heddy said, "But she just--"
          "After the meal," warned Papa.  And it WAS enough.  The rest of breakfast passed in almost complete silence, except when Elise began to quietly do an excellent imitation of the bear cub Papa had rescued from a wolf trap, the winter before.  It was so unexpected that everyone had to look at each other first, as if to ascertain that they were really hearing it, before Papa said, "Elise Michelle, what ARE you doing?"
          Elise said looked up with large, solemn eyes.  "I'm being wild," she explained.  And, as ever, she seemed to delight in the responding smiles her announcement provoked.  Even when she didn't understand the joke, Elise generally enjoyed it.
          Neither Papa nor Aunt Heddy smiled.  But when Papa said, "I expect tame behavior at the breakfast table," his sister's disapproval visibly expanded to encompass him as well as the rest of them.
          "Yessir," said Elise.  Then she considered it.  "May I be a bear at lunch?"
          "No.  Nor supper either," Papa warned, before she could open her mouth for that obvious continuation.  "But once we've et, you can help me hunt down some fryers for the girls' lunches."
          "Then I'll have to be a fox," Elise decided.  "Or a stoat.  Right Mama?"
          And Mama, smiling, said, "Yes, Elise.  After breakfast you may be a stoat."
          Perhaps, thought Audra desperately, her family had the tolerance to accept Jack after all.  Assuming she and Jack could ever be enough to each other to require anyone's tolerance.  He'd proposed marriage once ... but in a less than delicate situation.  Even a woman of Audra's limited experience knew to doubt promises made in a hay loft.
          But if that were so ... could she not also doubt other decisions made in a hayloft?  They'd both been so vulnerable, that night.  They'd had so little time....
          Not that they would have much more time today!
                    She hardly dared hope....

CHAPTER 30 -- RESISTANCE: AUDRA VS. SCHOOL BOARD
          Audra had expected moderate resistance to her offering, especially with its ... unusual ... decoration.  But she had to let Jack know which one was meant for him, so she risked it, and caused a bigger stir than she would have imagined.
          "Teachers," insisted Aunt Heddy, "may not participate in box socials."
          "The decoration IS somewhat ..."  Reverend Collins, one of the school-board members, hesitated in an attempt to remain charitable.  "Unorthodox?"
          Mr. Parker, also on the school board and father of four students, clarified.  "It's as if you're inviting that gambler to lunch with you, Miss Garrison!"
          Relieved that her parents were busy with her sisters, Audra considered what kind of excuses she might make, then settled on the truth.  "I am."
          And the truth felt remarkably liberating.
          "You are a TEACHER," repeated Aunt Heddy.  "We expect you to BEHAVE as one."
          Mr. Parker said, "That is true, Miss Garrison.  You did agree to the rules of conduct when we hired you."
          They were SCARED, Audra realized.  Aunt Heddy, Mr. Parker, even Rev. Collins might not fully realize it, but something about Jack Harwood FRIGHTENED them.  He threatened their sense of order, she supposed, as surely as he'd threatened her own.
          Well ... she fought back a smile.  Perhaps not THAT surely.
          "I did agree to the rules of conduct," she agreed quietly.  She did not mean to upset anyone.  But neither did she intend on compromising her own happiness by denying herself what could easily be her last afternoon with Jack Harwood -- or allowing anyone else to deny it.  She had made Jack play a poor second to the rules for months.  Today, he came first.  "And I have at least TRIED to follow them.  But the school term is finished."
          Mr. Parker said, "We meant to tell you this after eating, Miss Garrison, but the town of Camden, Tarrant plans to invite you back to teach next year."
          Rev. Collins said, "It's expected that a teacher maintain a certain degree of refinement, even during the summer break."  By which he meant, even when she was not being paid to postpone her own life.
          Aunt Heddy said, "The school term does not end for several hours yet, young lady."
          Perhaps it was the "Young Lady" that did it.  Either that, or the way they'd dangled the offer of another position for months now, only to use it to bribe her into obedience.  Audra looked at the three representatives of the school board and considered their fears.  She understood them, of course.  They feared the moral example she might set for the children.  They feared attracting calumny from neighboring towns.  They feared having a schoolteacher who might stir up more trouble than they could deflect.
          And perhaps, just as she had, they feared the responsibility of thinking for themselves, of having to judge every newcomer by his or her own actions instead of by profession or past or race or social standing.
          She understood.  But that did not mean she condoned.
          "I'm still a teacher until day's end?" she asked, to make sure.  Aunt Heddy nodded, and Mr. Parker said, "Officially, I believe you are."  Rev. Collins, bless him, just looked uncomfortable.
          Audra said, "Then I quit."


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