Fired Up (15 page)

Tina Cahill blew into Broken Wheel tired, filthy, and scared. What if Jonas didn't want her?

Fighting down all her fears, she jumped off the back of the bumpy wagon just as a tumbleweed rolled across the street right in front of her. For days she'd ridden through the most barren wilderness, riding in a full wagon with the couple up on the bench seat mostly ignoring her.

She missed the lush green of Ohio. She missed the only home she'd ever known. She even missed stern Aunt Iphigenia . . . a little.

She missed her church work and even managing her home to Aunt Iphigenia's exacting standards. The woman had taken cleanliness being next to godliness to the Commandment level.

Then, after all her years of hard work and dedication, she'd been cast out as surely as if she'd been Satan leading a rebellion in heaven. The man Aunt Iphigenia had married was nearly sixty years old, overly fat, and none too fond of bathing. None of that was the problem. It was the
loathsome way her brand-new uncle Auggie had looked at her with hungry, wet, pink-as-a-pig eyes.

He liked to touch her when he walked past, lay a hand on her back—low on her back—and brush his body against hers when there was plenty of room to avoid it. The touches had grown bolder, the eyes hungrier. Aunt Iphigenia had noticed and accused Tina of flaunting herself. Then she'd cast her out.

Her aunt's betrayal, picking the wretched new husband over Tina, was disgusting, but Tina had been only too happy to leave. She'd had a letter from Jonas, so she knew he was here in Broken Wheel, Texas. She'd written him a letter and left before Jonas could get it and tell her not to come—a plan Aunt Iphigenia had wholeheartedly endorsed. Both of them were worried he'd tell her to stay away. Now here she was, unwanted and uninvited, to make her home with her brother, whom she hadn't seen in years.

At last.

Squaring her shoulders, she turned to instruct the driver and his wife how to best handle her trunks.

Motion drew her attention to a dark-haired man wearing a tidy black vest, walking across the street. She could see him over the backs of the horses, but he only had eyes for the wagon and its eight Missouri mules.

“Tina?”

She turned and saw a man coming down the board-walk toward her. “Jonas?” From the red hair she knew this had to be her big brother. He was nearly ten years older than her, and she hadn't seen him since she was a child. She
wouldn't have recognized the broad-shouldered man as her scrawny brother if not for his hair.

Aunt Iphigenia hadn't approved of Jonas back then, and she'd run him off quickly when he'd stop by for a visit. But Tina had always loved him.

Uncertain of her welcome, she managed a wobbly smile. “The red hair is a dead giveaway that you're Jonas.”

During the war, Jonas had turned to the good Lord and begun writing letters home. They'd been kind and full of his new faith. Tina had always adored him, even when Aunt Iphigenia had railed at what a scoundrel he was. When he'd become a man of God, Tina's love for her big brother had deepened. She'd poured all her dreams of family and love out to him in long letters. She'd never directly asked, but she'd hoped he could tell she wanted him to come for her and save her from the dragon that was raising her. She'd been devastated when he'd set out to preach the gospel in the West without even seeing her.

“Tina? My baby sister?” Jonas's good-natured shout sounded just as the dark-haired man reached the meager excuse for a board-walk.

“I'm not a baby anymore.” Her heart was warmed by Jonas's hearty welcome.

The approaching man's eyes went to her, then widened. His mouth dropped open. He walked right into the steps up to the board-walk, tripped, and landed flat on his face. With a sniff of disdain, Tina realized the man had no doubt found his breakfast in a whiskey bottle.

“You sure aren't.” Jonas reached out both hands and she clasped them, glad for someone to hold on to. Behind
Jonas a second man with overly long, dirty blond hair stepped out of two swinging doors. Smells wafted out of the building he'd emerged from. A saloon. Hmph!

The man turned, drawn perhaps by Jonas's voice. The man looked at her and walked smack into a post holding up the board-walk roof. He staggered under the impact and fell backward through the still-swinging doors.

Another drunkard. This town needed to shut down that saloon, and she'd be glad to help organize the effort to get it closed.

“You've grown into a beautiful woman.” With a delighted laugh Jonas slid his arms around her waist, hoisted her into the air, and swung her in a circle.

“Jonas!” Laughing, she slapped at his shoulders. “Put me down.”

But it felt wonderful to have someone in the world who was her very own family. She wrapped her arms around his neck and nearly strangled her big brother with a hug. “It's so nice to see you.”

On one of the swinging turns, Tina saw that the dark-haired man who'd fallen had stood back up. He had a faint flush on his cheeks, no doubt embarrassed to be caught intoxicated in the morning. On the next rotation she saw him flash a brilliant, if somewhat sheepish, smile. Jonas stopped twirling her so her gaze could lock on the man's. His smile faded. He began walking toward her again—slow, steady, relentless. He was in Tina's estimation the most handsome man she'd ever seen.

Intoxication notwithstanding.

“It's wonderful to see you, pretty one.” Jonas hugged
her tighter and drew her attention from the dark-haired man.

Jonas's voice held such kindness. Aunt Iphigenia was of a stern nature, and she'd been inclined to lecture any and all—most especially Tina—with fiery details of the afterlife for the unrepentant. Jonas's gentle flattery was like water in the desert, and the loving embrace was too wonderful. Unexpected and unbidden, she burst into tears.

“Don't cry, baby girl.”

She'd never been a baby girl. From her earliest memory she'd been an adult, living on sufferance.

“You're home.” He let her slide back to the ground.

She'd never truly had a home. Her parents had passed away very early on, and she'd lived with coldhearted Iphigenia from childhood.

“I'll take care of you.”

She'd done a lot more caretaking in her life than having any care taken of her. Jonas's strong arms and the idea that he was a man who'd welcomed her home and expected to bear her burdens made her cry harder. It was completely unlike her.

She was a while obeying his urging not to cry, but she finally did. When the storm eased, he stepped back as if he regretted letting her go, then offered her a white handkerchief.

She mopped her face with it and then looked up, sniffling. “I apologize for my outburst.”

Her voice broke. She fell silent as she tried to regain control of herself. The handsome man who'd fallen had stopped, still at a distance. He now stared at her in horror.
When their eyes met this time, Mr. Handsome Drunkard turned and walked briskly away.

Aunt Iphigenia had always scorned a drinker. She said consuming alcohol was like putting a thief in your mouth to steal your brains.

This man moved gracefully for a sot.

He was probably running due to shame for being inebriated in public in midmorning.

She then discarded that notion, for everyone knew drunkards had no shame.

“I'm telling you she was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen,” Vince told Dare, although this wasn't news.

Dare had heard the same thing from everyone he'd spoken to since yesterday morning when he'd decided Luke was going to heal just fine from the measles. “Jonas said she was chubby.”

“Well, she's slimmed down considerable.” Vince scowled. Which wasn't like him. Vince usually had a ready smile.

No one seemed much interested in the wagon that had brought in a good load of doctoring supplies. All anyone could talk about was the woman who'd moved into the parsonage. There was even talk about a few sinners repenting just so they could attend services and catch a glimpse of the “golden-haired angel.”

Duffy Schuster had come in to see Dare with big goose eggs on the front and back of his head and called her that. Vince had a small bruise on one cheek too, but he didn't ask for doctoring advice and Dare didn't offer any.

Dare wondered if God ever got plumb tired of the people He'd created.

Glynna stepped out of the kitchen with her heavy coffeepot, and five men stood like they had springs in their backsides and offered to carry the pot for her. Dare didn't stand by sheer force of will. Glynna might just slam the burning pot into his head. She hadn't forgiven him for mauling her the other day. And he hadn't stopped wanting to do it again, confound it.

“There's no prettier woman in this town than Glynna, so Jonas's sister can't be the prettiest,” Dare said.

Vince quit his nonstop yammering about the new woman in town to arch a brow at Dare. A challenge.

Dare didn't know how to decide which woman was prettier, short of a beauty contest, and he didn't see Glynna cooperating—nor Tina Cahill, for that matter.

“Then she started crying like her head was a storm cloud. She just poured. I'm surprised Jonas didn't get hit by a thunderbolt coming straight out of her soggy eyeballs.”

“You always have had a problem with women crying.”

“No, I haven't. A woman gets hurt bad enough, I understand if she cries. Why, I wanted to cry myself when I got shot in the head.” Vince rubbed two fingers over the scar, hidden by his hair, on the left side of his skull. “I didn't, of course, but I'd expect a puny little woman to go ahead and weep. But she wasn't shot, and there wasn't a sign of a broken bone sticking out of her anywhere. She had no cause to carry on like that.”

“Could we stop talking about women for a few minutes and decide what I need to do to buy Flint Greer's ranch
from Glynna? I need to get started with my new career. I think you should buy it, then sell it to me. She doesn't like me, and she won't cooperate.”

“I don't call it not cooperating if she offers to give it to you.”

“I can't just take it. I might as well stick up a stagecoach as steal that ranch from Glynna.”

“You treated her wounds when she was hurt, helped kill her no-account husband, saved her from an avalanche, and you come to her diner every day even though there's a lunatic right in the kitchen with sharp knives and a grudge aimed straight at you. And Glynna's determined not to gain from Greer's land. She refuses to, and stupid as it is, I admire it. I'd just say take the land, but then that's stupid too, considering you're a doctor and not a rancher.”

“I'm done talking about my former career. If I want a new job, that's my own business.”

“It's your business until you get gored by a longhorn because you tried to put a bandage on some scrape on the bull's backside.”

“I need to figure out a way to get Glynna to like me again—then she'll let me buy her land.”

“Why wouldn't Glynna like you?”

“I dunno.” In truth, Dare knew very well. “She just doesn't. And she won't sell to me.”

“She won't sell to anyone. Don't act like you're special.” As the two debated Dare's future, the diner began to empty of all the cowhands who rode in from the small ranches that dotted the countryside. No matter how much this town full of men liked looking at Glynna Greer Sev Yay,
or whatever her name was today, they all eventually had to go back to work—except for the fake doctor and the fake lawyer. If there was work for them, someone would come running.

“I think she's especially stubborn when it comes to me.” That kiss might explain exactly why.

“Why is that?”

Dare thought more about the kiss and forgot what he'd been saying.

“Dare!” Vince brought him back to the present.

“What?”

Rolling his eyes heavenward, Vince said, “Why would she be more stubborn with you than anyone else?”