Chapter 19

Vince had been riding in a flat-out panic the whole way home. His long-legged thoroughbred was game. They’d made the trip from Luke’s in record time. Dare and Luke were right on his tail, but he’d gotten a jump on them while they gave orders to care for Red Wolf.

The sun had dipped below the horizon as he neared town. In the winter dusk he listened for bullets, imagining his mother being gunned down. His new sister dying in a hail of flying lead. Tina lying dead, all the fire and sass gone.

As they’d neared Broken Wheel, Vince heard no gunfire. Was it over? Was everyone dead?

He raced for the diner and pulled his well-trained gelding to a halt so hard it reared up. Vince’s feet hit the ground before his horse’s did.

With his gun drawn he sprinted for the diner door, wondering if he needed to go in low. Wondering if the women were being held hostage. Would he meet armed resistance? The diner door swung open just as he was reaching for it. Ruthy smiled, sitting in a chair, holding the doorknob in one hand and a gun in the other.

Vince skidded to a stop before he plowed over Luke’s pregnant wife. “What’s going on? I thought Lana was on a rampage. Tug said she was loose.” Vince heard his friends thundering up behind him and moved farther into the clearly unthreatened diner.

“We’re fine.” Ruthy shrugged, then looked past Vince and her face lit up with a smile she only used with Luke.

“Lana Bullard broke jail.” Jonas rose from where he sat playing checkers with Paul. Melissa, Tina, then a step later, Glynna came in from the kitchen. It was about the most peaceful scene Vince had ever encountered.

“Porter helped her. The two of them hightailed it straight west. Paul and I tracked them for a while, but they’d probably been gone for hours. We think they made the break right after you rode out of town, and we didn’t miss them until after the noon rush was over. They had enough of a jump on me I never caught a glimpse of them. I broke off the chase because I didn’t want to leave the women alone.”

Vince had his hands full not collapsing into a heap on the floor as the tension seeped out of every muscle in his body. He’d never been this scared in his life, and he’d fought in the Civil War.

Dare pushed past Vince and headed straight for Glynna. “She didn’t try anything?”

Glynna’s eyes filled with tears as she shook her head. “No, we never even saw her. We found out she was gone when Paul and Janny went over with dinner. I just let them go right in there. She could have been waiting. She could have hurt them . . . and I s-sent them.” Her voice broke, and Dare quickly wrapped her in his arms and held her as she sobbed.

Dare looked at Vince from where he stood holding his wife. “I’m taking Glynna home. We can’t start after Lana tonight. Tomorrow is soon enough.”

Jonas said, “We checked your house thoroughly and there’s no one there.”

“Thanks,” Dare replied. “Paul, get Janny and come with us now.”

Paul ran up the stairs and soon returned with Janny and Mrs. Yates. Dare steered his family toward the back door.

“Wait!” Tina rushed to the kitchen. “Let me send you with a meal. I made enough for everyone. There’s no sense letting it go to waste.”

Dare gave her a grateful smile as she ladled a smaller pan full of the stew. No one knew better than Dare this was the best chance he had of eating well tonight. Tina filled a plate with biscuits and covered them with a red-and-white-checkered cloth.

Paul had the pot of stew. Janny took the biscuits. Dare drew his gun. The family left, and Tina locked up after them. When she returned to the dining room, Jonas and Melissa were gone, and Ruthy had fallen asleep with her head resting on the table.

“Where’d Jonas go?”

Vince gave Tina a dry look that told her she didn’t want to know.

“I’m taking Ruthy upstairs for the night.” Luke eased Ruthy into his arms and together they left the room. They could hear his heavy boots clomping on the steps.

“Would anyone like to play a hand of whist?” Mrs. Yates looked around the room. “Now where did I leave those cards?”

Tina quickly set a plate of steaming stew in front of Mrs. Yates, and she must have been hungry because she forgot about cards and dove into the meal. Tina fed Vince and then threw a meaty bone to Livvy before sitting down to her own meal.

She set out plates for Jonas and Melissa and Luke, assuming they’d be back to eat.

By the time Tina was done eating, Mrs. Yates was nearly asleep where she sat on the bench. “Can you walk us over to the boardinghouse, Vince? You stand guard while I get your mother to bed.”

A deep snore sounded from overhead; there was no chance it was Ruthy. So Luke wasn’t coming back. “I’ll set the stew back on the stove so it won’t burn, and if Luke and Ruthy get hungry in the night, they can come down and eat something. Maybe Jonas and Melissa are over at Asa’s.” Tina realized then she was talking quite fast and not giving Vince much chance to arrange the evening. But all she could think about was getting Mrs. Yates settled, which meant shutting the woman in a room with Tina on the inside of the door and Vince on the outside.

Vince came around the table to where Virginia Belle sat next to Tina, and with a strong hand he helped his ma to her feet. “Let’s get you to bed now, Mother,” he said.

They walked to the boardinghouse, and Vince saw Tina and his ma all the way to the bedroom door.

“Tina, I think we should talk about—”

“Not now, Vince,” Tina interrupted. “Your ma is exhausted.” She then shut the door before he could say anything more.

Tina took her time getting Vince’s ma ready for bed—not that hard to take time at it because the woman was wearing all the underpinnings of a fine lady. A corset and chemise, petticoats and hoops, drawers and stockings and other things that Tina barely recognized, let alone figured out how to remove. Half of this wasn’t going back on the woman tomorrow, not if Tina was the one who had to get her dressed.

While she worked, she listened for Jonas’s voice, but it never came.

Tina finally admitted that her brother was so caught up in Melissa he’d forgotten he had a sister, a sister now left in a seriously improper situation.

If he did give it any mind, Jonas probably thought Ruthy and Luke were staying here.

Dare had herded his family home, wanting to get inside with the doors locked while Lana was on the run, not even thinking that within minutes Jonas and Melissa would abandon the diner to resume their courtship.

Then Ruthy had fallen asleep at the table, so tired she couldn’t keep her eyes open. The question was left open as to who would be chaperoning Tina and Vince. And Luke had probably never heard of the word chaperone.

Now here was Tina, wondering when Melissa would come back so she could take over the care of Mrs. Yates, and Tina could leave here and go to Jonas’s house. Until then, there was only one other person besides Mrs. Yates left to stay in this house with Tina, and that was Vince.

Which left Tina pretty much on her own with the most attractive man she’d ever known. A man whose intentions toward her were the exact opposite of honorable.

Tina’s excuses for staying closed in this room ran out when Virginia Belle quietly began to snore. Livvy lay on the floor near Virginia Belle’s feet. For a moment Tina considered sleeping right there with Livvy. Why not bed down beside the dog? But she had no nightgown, the floor was hard and cold, and there were no blankets to make up even a simple pallet.

Melissa had to come back sometime. She had to.

Tina knew Jonas to be an honorable man, so she’d come. Yet Tina could picture the two of them, sitting in front of the fireplace at the parsonage, talking and getting to know each other. Courting.

Tina couldn’t interrupt them.

I’ll just duck out of this room and wait downstairs. Vince may have already gone to bed. We won’t even see each other.

That was a sound plan.

Quietly she stepped out of Virginia Belle’s room.

Vince stood at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Standing guard.

“Uh . . . go on to bed, Vince. I’ll wait downstairs for my brother.”

Get away before he speaks. Before you find yourself kissing him!

Tina turned toward the stairs.

“Stop.” His voice was deep and smooth. It touched a chord in her that rang like music.

Like a brainless ninny, Tina turned back to face him. To face the big dumb charming varmint.

“I’ll come with you, Tina. We need to talk.”

Oh, there was no doubt about it. She was a complete half-wit where Vince Yates was concerned, because she headed for the stairs without a word of protest.

She had to slip past him, and when she did, her skirts brushed against his legs. Her arm touched his. She felt those brief touches all the way to her bones.

Lifting her skirts to keep from tumbling, she took a firm grip on the banister and hurried down before her knees grew as weak as her will—both tended to happen in Vince’s presence.

She went into the front room. Cantankerous old Asa hadn’t been one to open his home for social gatherings, which explained why everything in this room was shabby and coated with dust. Vince must have lit the two lanterns that burned here, then gone upstairs to lie in wait for her like a hungry cougar . . . only better looking.

Tina had no idea how long Asa had owned the boardinghouse, but she got the feeling the furniture had been here before him. There was a threadbare sofa that might have been green once upon a time. An overstuffed brown chair with what looked like horsehair poking out in spots. Two small tables stood on either side of the sofa, each with a lantern. All of it was centered around a fireplace that looked as if it’d never been lit. It was stone cold, but it hardly mattered. Tina wasn’t planning to sit in here long enough to need a fire. She sank into the overstuffed chair that was at a right angle to the sofa and faced the door to the hallway.

Vince followed her into the room. She tried not to look at him, instead straightening the skirts of her blue dress as if her life depended on tidiness. He took a seat on the old sofa, as far away from her as he could. A second later, he stood back up and moved to the hearth and leaned against it. The man was as restless as Dare Riker. Next he went to the door that led to the hallway. He opened the door wide and stood so he could see upstairs yet still keep an eye on Tina.

“Well? What is it, Vince?” Tina felt what little composure she possessed slipping away. “I’m tired. Unless it’s really important, let’s have this talk in the morning.” Or never.

Vince crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. He ran both hands through his hair and made a mess of it. Tina had to fight back the impulse to go smooth his hair back into place.

“How’s Mother?” he asked.

Tina knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Vince hadn’t brought her down here to discuss his mother. Still, it was a safer topic than any that were on Tina’s mind. “She seems fine. She asked for Missy a couple of times.”

Shaking his head, Vince said, “Looks like your brother will be marrying my sister. ’Course I just learned a little while ago I had a sister.”

“Love at first sight. Jonas believes he’s found his perfect mate, the one God chose for him.”

Vince shrugged. “So Mother wasn’t upset that Missy was gone?”

“Not really. She thinks I’m a housemaid. I told her my name, but she called me Clara a couple times today.”

“I don’t remember a Clara from our home in Chicago. Maybe it’s someone she knew when she was a child.” Vince sighed so heavily that Tina had to let go of some of her anger out of sympathy for him.

“Don’t worry, Vince, we’ll figure out a way to take care of your mother. Once Jonas and Melissa are married, Jonas can move in here with you and that will be one more helping hand. But it’s not proper for me to be here with you. I think I should go stay in your mother’s room until Jonas brings Melissa—”

“About that kiss . . .” Vince began, cutting her off.

She’d really hoped she could avoid this conversation for tonight. Honestly she’d hoped to avoid it forever, but one night at a time. “It was a mistake, that’s all.” Tina talked fast. “You were tired. I was upset. Let’s forget it ever happened.”

Vince jerked his head up, and his eyes blazed. “I’m having a little trouble forgetting.”

“You’ll have to apply yourself.”

“How about you? Have you forgotten?”

Silence stretched between them. At last Tina said quietly, “I’ll have to apply myself, too.”

“Which means no.”

Tina closed her eyes. There was silence again. This was the moment when a man with honorable intentions would propose. Vince seemed decent enough . . . except in his dealings with her.

“I’ll tell you simply, Vince. Seeing Jonas and Melissa meet and fall in love and instantly begin talking of marriage . . . well, that’s not how I think a couple should behave.”

“I agree with you there.”

“Jonas probably calls it love, and I’m hoping it grows into that, but the truth is, what they feel”—Tina dug deep and found the courage to look Vince straight in the eye—“is what we feel. That draw. That tug of attraction that’s almost too strong to deny. Yet my brother wants to put the word love on it. You, on the other hand, want to ignore what passed between us, or deny it, or possibly just tell the truth about it—that we’re attracted to each other but it’s not the same as love. So we need to behave in a more circumspect way. There will be no more kissing. And despite the attraction, you’re not the man for me any more than I’m the woman for you. We’d spend our entire married life at each other’s throats.”

“Oh, I think there would be some good moments.” Which sounded like Vince had considered joining their lives together. Considered it, and then rejected it. “But I’m never going to marry, Tina. I should never have kissed you, no matter how much I want to.”

“You want to?”

“Oh yeah, I do.” Their eyes locked. “But there’s something that stops me every time I think of spending my future with you.”

Tina waited to hear that she was a nag. She was too willing to fight for her causes. She was too stiff, too fussy, too unlovable. It was all true. She accepted that, and yet here was Vince in a seemingly honest mood. No doubt he would share all her shortcomings and why he refused to contend with them. She could hardly blame him. Some days she wouldn’t stay around herself if she could get away.

“Which one of my parents do you think I’m like?”

Startled out of her lowering thoughts, Tina said, “Which are you like? I don’t really know either of them that well. I was around your father for a total of maybe two hours, and your mother isn’t herself.”

“I think it’s almost a law that a child is raised in the way he will go. I believe that’s in the Bible, in fact. I’m either like my tyrant of a father, and believe me, I feel that inside me.”

“Really? You don’t seem all that tyrannical. Bossy maybe.”

“Or I’m like my mother. And that could well mean I’ll lose my mind as I age. Which one of those two people would you wish on someone, Tina? And my mother’s madness is passed down from her father, so I carry the seeds of it. I will most likely pass it on to a child. Do you wish that for yourself? Do you wish for a life spent, in your own declining years, caring for an addled husband who doesn’t know his own wife?”

Vince’s voice rose with every word. “Do you wish to watch your children go mad? Or would you prefer to live with a tyrant who can be so frightening he’d raise up a son who doesn’t know how to ever let down his guard? Which of those people do you want to marry?”

“Don’t pretend this is about you.” Tina rose and stormed right for him. “I know I’m not a lovable woman.” She got right up under his nose, furious. This was the unpleasant part of herself, the snippy, nagging part no one could warm up to. Well, he might as well know the truth of who she was. “I know my aunt was rigid, but even rigid people love children most of the time, and she couldn’t find anything about me to love. She loved her new husband easily enough, but not me. And I know Jonas is only letting me stay here out of pity.”

Jabbing a finger at his chest, she went on, “I know if a man really cared about a woman, he would be willing to do anything to have her in his life. I’m going upstairs now, and I don’t want you to touch me again or make excuses for why you want to kiss me one minute and shove me away the next.”

“You’re not going anywhere until we settle this.” Vince brushed her jabbing hand aside. “We’re stuck together caring for my mother, and we need to clear the air.”

“This is what happened before. We argued. We got too close. You grabbed me and I let you. Well, that’s not going to happen again. I’m going up to your mother’s room and I’m locking the door. I will remain in there until my brother comes to deliver your sister and return me to my home. You go to your room and stay there.” Tina whirled and started for the steps.

She felt Vince grab for her, his hands just barely missing as she moved. He wanted to force her to stay and listen to his excuses. Just as he probably wanted to kiss her again.

She rushed upstairs. When she reached the top, she realized there were no thundering footsteps chasing her. She looked over her shoulder to see Vince standing where he’d been, watching her, his eyes burning with temper and something more.

He hadn’t even cared enough to chase after her, not even in the heat of the moment.

In the heat of the moment Vince wanted to grab her and kiss her and probably make a bunch of promises he had no business making and no intention of keeping.

Their eyes held for a long while, and only fierce self-discipline kept him from running up those stairs. Then he realized that what he was seeing in her eyes was not anger, but hurt. It broke his control just as she spun and disappeared into Mother’s room. From way downstairs he heard the harsh click of the key turning in the lock.

Smart lady.

Jonas had no business leaving the two of them alone, even though Jonas almost certainly wasn’t thinking they were alone. With every Regulator right here in town, how in the world had Vince ended up alone with beautiful Tina? Well, alone except for his mother.

His gelding would’ve made a better chaperone than Mother. And Vince was sorely tempted to go sleep with his horse, except that would leave Mother and Tina alone in the house, completely unprotected with Lana Bullard on the loose.

With that in mind, Vince turned to check the lock on the front door. He’d gone all around the house twice while Tina had spent an interminable hour tucking Mother in. The house was secure. Lana couldn’t get to them, and she probably wouldn’t think to come here even if she did return to town.

Every time he thought of Tug racing toward him and the panic that had spurred Vince back to Broken Wheel, his heart lurched—even now after he’d assured himself they were all safe.

“Killing rampage,” Tug Andrews had said. Vince’s mother, his sister, his friend Jonas, his . . . He thought of Tina but she certainly wasn’t his. And yet she’d been far too much in the front of his thoughts as he’d spurred his horse toward town.

How had he gotten to be the man with so much family to protect? Sure, Luke and Dare had wives in danger. Dare had two kids. Luke had one on the way. But Vince figured he had more on the line than the both of them.

Vince hoped Lana and Porter pushed hard all the way to California. That might be wrongheaded for the town sheriff to hope his prisoner got clean away, but keeping Lana locked up had been a pure nuisance. The choice of places she might end up was brutal. Everyone was tired of feeding her. And good riddance to that no-account Mitch Porter. Vince was glad to see the back of him. If Vince could depend on the couple staying away, he wouldn’t even consider chasing them down.

When Tina had entered Mother’s room, Vince had heard her turn the key. He’d double-checked the closed latches on the windows in Mother’s room earlier, so Mother couldn’t do any nighttime wandering.

That left Vince with a long night and no hope of sleeping.

He went to the north window in the front room that looked down the length of Main Street. A second window on the east gave him a nice angle on Dare’s house.

That was who needed watching.

Vince leaned against the window frame, settling in to stand guard through the night. Without even asking, Vince knew Luke would watch later, and that was why he’d gone to sleep early. No doubt Dare was up and alert, too. Vince knew his friends well, his faith in them absolute. The only one Vince wasn’t counting on was Jonas. And even at that he’d have been on guard, except he knew Vince, Luke, and Dare were all in town.

It was getting late enough that soon Jonas would come and take Tina away. Maybe then Vince would get himself a couple of hours’ sleep in a chair stationed at this window. If he didn’t, he’d somehow get through the day without it. Vince had learned at an early age never to relax. Keeping watch was the only way he’d ever found to truly feel safe.

A lesson learned from a father who would kill a harmless little pony and think he was doing it for his son’s own good.

It was a way of life that had served Vince well, and he wasn’t going to abandon it now . . . especially since he wasn’t going to sleep anyway. Not with Tina so close he could practically hear her breathing.

Standing watch, though, wasn’t keeping his unruly mind under control.

He thought of that first moment when he’d seen Tina. When she’d gone flying into Jonas’s arms. Jonas had lifted her off her feet, whirled her around, and Vince had looked right into her eyes. More had passed between them in that first glance than he’d ever shared with a woman in his life. He’d seen all the way to her heart.

Clenching his hands, he could still feel the weight of her when he’d lifted the bedraggled little pest out of that mudhole. He’d wanted her in his arms. Carrying her to the diner, no matter how annoying she was, had been a pleasure.

When he’d foisted the job of sheriff on her, she’d been horrified but too stubborn to admit the job was beyond her. Vince had known Dare and Jonas were around to help out, so he’d gone right ahead and handed over his badge.

Then he’d come riding into town from New Orleans, filthy, exhausted, starving. And she’d come charging out of the jail to greet him, smiling that smile that made a man feel like the sun had come out from behind a cloud. Oh, she’d said it was because she was tired of being sheriff. But it had been purely nice to have her welcome him.

And then he’d kissed her. He could still taste her lips. Even if he spent a lifetime avoiding her—which he fully intended to do—he’d never forget how sweet she was.

Nope, he wasn’t going to sleep so long as she was in this house, and that was that.

He had an addled mother.

A little sister who was supposed to help but who had instead, at least for now, abandoned Mother to anyone else’s care.

His friend Red Wolf had been shot by a drunk, who’d made a clean getaway.

He had someone selling whiskey to the Kiowa tribe.

And he had a runaway prisoner who he oughta round up first thing in the morning—even though it might mean he’d be gone for days when he shouldn’t abandon his mother for more than a few minutes.

All that should give a man plenty to occupy his mind. But all he could think about was pretty, feisty Tina Cahill. And the fact that the two of them were stuck together minding Mother.

He shifted his stance to get a better look at Dare’s house and did his level best to think of something else.

And failed miserably.