Fired Up

by Mary Connealy

  “Well, people often love their doctors.”

  “That hasn’t been my experience.”

  “Well, you mostly treat men, and at least in Andersonville they mostly all died, right? That could be why you haven’t seen much devotion. Melanie Foster seems quite fond of you.”

  “When I finally convinced Lana she wasn’t expecting a baby, she accused me of killing her son.”

  Glynna sat up straighter. “What?”

  “And since there wasn’t any baby, it couldn’t very well have been a son, now, could it?”

  Silence reigned for a long moment as Glynna looked at Dare’s concerned expression. Finally she said weakly, “Her fried potatoes are just delicious.”

  Glynna didn’t want to hear anything that might make her lose her cook.

  Dare forged on. “It took me some time, but I finally realized she was past the age of bearing a child and she’d mistaken that for being in the family way.”

  “How could you tell that?”

  Dare gave her such a dark look, she regretted the question. “I’m not gonna talk with you about a woman’s time of life, Glynna.”

  That was probably for the best.

  “When I told her there’d be no baby, she ran off. And the next time I saw Bullard, he told me he’d come to town to kill me for what I’d done to his son.”

  “The poor woman was distraught.”

  Dare rolled his eyes at Glynna. “She wasn’t distraught; she was mad as a barking moon bat.”

  “I’m sure you’re overstating things. Any woman who believed a child was on the way might be forgiven for a moment of anger or odd behavior.”

  “What about the part where she treated me like she worshiped me and kept screaming at Bullard to share his whiskey?”

  Glynna fell silent, then looked at the diner. A moment stretched to several. Finally, Glynna said, “That woman can fry potatoes like nobody’s business.”

  “That woman near to wiped out the laudanum supply at the general store. Tug Andrews had to reorder. And she drained Duffy’s Tavern of his whiskey, and when he told her it was all gone, she got so upset he had to bar her from the premises.”

  “Duffy doesn’t bar anyone. His standards are so low, I’m surprised to hear he has any.”

  “Lana was mighty surprised, too. She was so surprised, Duffy ended up with a black eye and split lip.”

  “She mentioned whiskey once, the night she came. She’s never spoken of it again. I’ve seen no sign that she’s popping a cork on the sly, either.”

  “Probably because Duffy’s mad that he let a woman punch him, and he won’t sell her any.”

  “Well, for whatever reason, I’ve never seen her consuming liquor. I know she sleeps in Asa’s boardinghouse, gets up before sunrise every morning, and is hard at work by the time I get downstairs. Her eyes aren’t red, and her speech isn’t slurred. She never acts dizzy or complains of a headache or a sick stomach in the morning, nor have I caught her having herself a nip to stave off the symptoms left by excessive drinking from the night before.”

  Dare gave a humorless laugh. “Where’d you learn so much about how a drunk acts?”

  Glynna stiffened as she remembered just how she’d learned. She didn’t intend to speak of it. To change the subject, she asked, “So how much longer will you need to keep the boy here?”

  She stood from the table and walked over to Elias, still sleeping. As she adjusted his blankets that didn’t need adjusting, she waited for Dare to answer. At last in the silence he stood from the table and came to her side. “Glynna, do you want to tell me who the drunk was in your life?”

  Slowly, an inch at a time, she lifted her gaze to meet Dare’s. “You . . . you know I came out West to marry Flint, right? I was a mail-order bride.”

  “That’s what I heard.” Dare took her hand, busy tinkering with the blanket, and gently but firmly pulled her around to face him. “Were you leaving something behind that involved a drunkard?”

  Inhaling slowly, she said, “Among other weaknesses, my first husband, the children’s father, was overly fond of . . . of hard drink.”

  Glynna became very busy inspecting the toes of her shoes.

  “Among other weaknesses?” Dare’s hand tightened on hers, and he drew her back to the table and sat across from her. “What others?”

  Glynna shook her head. “Too many to count. My children aren’t just hostile because of Flint. They started learning at a very young age that a man could bring a world of trouble.”

  “They’ll be all right, Glynna.”

  “Paul is so angry. Janny is so quiet, and she’s scared of her own shadow.”

  “It’s fear for Paul, too. Men see fear as weakness, so when he’s scared he bulls up and turns sullen. Give them time and safety. They’ll heal.”

  She wanted to believe it so badly. To keep busy, she gathered the plates. Her hand trembled on Dare’s tin coffee cup and tipped it over. A thin trail of coffee spilled straight for Dare’s lap. Glynna leaped to her feet. Dare jumped up from his seat as Glynna grabbed the cloth she’d used to cover the tray and slapped it on the spilled coffee. As Glynna moved forward and Dare moved sideways, the two collided.

  Dare was six feet and then some of rock-solid male, and when she hit him, he didn’t budge. Her arm, reaching for the spill, and his reaching to steady her became an embrace. Looking up to apologize, their faces were inches apart. Dare’s blue eyes seemed to beckon her to somewhere safe. He leaned down slowly, his eyes open, asking. But she was too entranced to turn away—which was his answer.

  He kissed her.

  One of his strong, healing hands rested on her cheek. It reminded her of the times Flint had struck her, and Dare’s touch replaced that memory with something sweet and decent. He pulled back and met her eyes with his own. “Glynna, I think we need to—”

  A violent cough jarred them apart. Glynna stumbled back, away from Dare. She glanced at the coughing boy and saw he was wide awake, watching his doctor kiss a woman. If he mentioned this to his mother, the gossip would spread all over town.

  Blushing, Glynna dodged around Dare and quickly finished stacking the dirty dishes.

  “Glynna, stop. Leave the dishes.” Dare’s quiet voice almost lured her into trusting him. But misplaced trust had nearly destroyed her in the past. It had cost her a home, a husband, her father’s love, her community’s respect. Mostly it had cost her any sense of honor and integrity. If Dare knew of her past, the kissing would surely stop, and so it was better not to even start.

  Stacking the plates onto her tray with the loudest clatter she could manage, she drowned out whatever Dare was saying.

  Suddenly a hand landed on her shoulder.

  “No!” Whirling around, she moved toward the door. “Just stay away. Please—”

  “Glynna, we can’t share a kiss and then pretend it didn’t happen. Or pretend that it won’t happen again.”

  She was turning to leave with the tray of dishes when Dare stopped her again, this time more forcefully. The tray tipped, and the dishes threatened to crash to the floor. Wrenching free of his hold, she dropped the tray back down on the table, then ran for the door. But as she reached for the knob, the door slammed open and nearly struck her.

  “Ma, what’s taking you so long?” With suspicion in his eyes, Paul looked at her, then at Dare. Heaven only knew what he was imagining. Glynna didn’t take the time to ask.

  “Pick up the tray, please, Paul. I need to get back.” Then she rushed out of the room, leaving Paul and Dare to deal with each other.

  She knew all too well what Paul thought of her spending even a second enjoying the attention of a man.

  To encourage Dare might destroy her son’s last chance to grow up straight and strong and decent. Her son had to come before everything else.

  Paul stalked to the table. Dare stepped back enough so the kid wouldn’t be tempted to throw a fist.

  The dishes had scattered around, and Dare had a few seconds while Paul stacked th
em again. How could he reach this young man? Despite what had passed between him and Glynna, and no matter how this thing ended up between them, Paul needed help. He needed a man to be a good example to him. He needed some kind of outlet for all the anger he carried around.

  “Paul, hold on a minute.”

  “What was going on in here with Ma? She looked upset.”

  Dare didn’t want to lie, but he sure didn’t want to tell the truth. Instead he tried to divert the kid’s attention. “Elias will be going home soon, so I can finally keep that promise I made about taking you hunting. We talked about it on the ride home from the Kiowa village, remember? You and I could go. Maybe Vince and Jonas too, if they want to come along. If we got ourselves an antelope, you could serve the meat in the diner.”

  That might justify taking a few hours away from the diner in the youngster’s head. The boy worked hard for his family.

  Paul looked at Elias. “The boy’s going to make it?”

  “He sure is. He’s still coughing some, but he’s sleeping a lot now, and the rest is healing him.” The sick child had lapsed back to sleep after his coughing fit had interrupted Dare’s kiss with Glynna. The interruption was a good thing, too. Kissing her was a blamed fool idea when Paul wanted to tear his head off. Dare needed to clear things up with Paul before he got any closer to the boy’s ma. Glynna was right about that. Unless Glynna just didn’t want Dare around and she was using her children as an excuse . . .

  Dare knocked that idea aside before he started fretting about it, and it showed on his face. It didn’t matter anyhow, because whatever happened between Glynna and him, that didn’t change the fact that the boy needed help.

  Since Paul was showing interest in Dare’s treatment of Elias, Dare decided to see if the kid would let down his guard for a bit to talk doctoring.

  “The youngster’s temperature is normal. I got it down that first day he came in, but it went up a few more times, which happens sometimes with pneumonia. But it’s been down a couple of days now, and his lungs are clear.”

  Paul looked at Dare with a frown that didn’t cover a shadow of grudging interest. “I’ve seen Ma test our temperature by feeling if our foreheads are hot, but how can you tell if his lungs are clear?”

  Maybe this was a better thing to talk about with the boy than hunting. Dare went to the bedside table and picked up his stethoscope. “I use this.” Dare stuck the earpieces in place and rested the little trumpet end on Elias’s chest. Speaking softly so as not to disturb the boy, Dare explained, “It’s a medical instrument called a stethoscope, and it makes everything louder. I press it against Elias’s chest, and if the lungs are clear, the sound is smooth and steady. If they’re congested, as they are when someone has pneumonia, there’s a rattling sound. You can’t miss it.”

  Dare offered the tool to Paul. “Try it. You’ll hear what normal lungs sound like. Then if you ever hear infected lungs, you’ll know the difference.”

  “I’m not trained to listen to anyone’s lungs.” Paul’s scowl wasn’t as deep as usual, and there was a spark in his eyes.

  Dare smiled. “I probably wouldn’t let you perform an operation, but you can’t hurt Elias with this. And you know, Jesus sent the disciples out to practice medicine without a license, and heaven knows I do it, so why shouldn’t you?”

  A smile flitted across Paul’s face, quickly suppressed. He took the stethoscope, imitated Dare by putting the little plugs in his ears, then listened to Elias’s chest.

  “What’s the thumping sound?” Paul’s face grew solemn with concentration.

  “It’s his heart beating.”

  Paul straightened from the boy. “Really? It’s banging like a drum.”

  Dare nodded. “The stethoscope lets me hear all kinds of things going on inside someone’s body. And I can hear that Elias’s lungs have healed. He’ll go home soon.” Dare smoothed the boy’s hair off his forehead, glad the little one was healing up enough to want to get out of bed. “He could probably go right now, but I wanted him to stay a few more days and rest up, just to be sure. Once he goes home, he’ll be running outside in the cold if he can escape from his ma, and I’d like to put that off until he can regain his strength.”

  Paul pulled the earpieces free and handed the stethoscope back to Dare. “Thanks. I’ve never heard tell before of a tool that’ll let you hear inside someone’s body.”

  “Would you be interested in helping me with my doctoring?” Dare wanted to say, “Now that your ma’s not cooking anymore,” but he refrained. “Mostly it’s pretty quiet, not a lot of sick folks around these parts. But I could use help now and then. Some doctoring is a two-man job.”

  “You’ve been doctoring night and day for weeks.”

  “The Indian village was unusual, and having a boy this sick doesn’t happen very often. Once I get Elias on his way, I reckon I’ll go back to doing mostly nothing.”

  Until he quit and went to ranching.

  Paul looked straight at Dare for a long spell and finally said, quietly, “I see the way you look at my ma. No man is ever going to put her in the way of harm again. You say you’re a decent man, but my pa was decent, at first. Then times got hard and he turned on all of us. Greer seemed good, but that didn’t last long. I don’t think you can know how you’d act if times got hard. So nothing you say could ease my worry.”

  “Paul, you’ve heard how Vince, Jonas, Luke and I met in Andersonville Prison, right?”

  He nodded. “I know a bit about it. A prison camp for Yankees during the War Between the States.”

  “It was as mean a place as there’s ever been on earth. I’ve been stabbed and starved. I’ve lived with fear and I’ve had a hand in bringing bad men to justice and seeing them hung. I’ve stood over bedsides while men died in agony. So don’t think I don’t know how I’d act if times got hard. I’ve faced some real hard times, son, and I came through them without taking to a path of evil.”

  “You shot Greer.” Paul said it like an accusation.

  Dare knew that no one had wanted Greer dead more than this boy. “Yes, I did. He was doing his best to kill my Regulator friends and me after we helped get you and your ma and Janny out of his house. He was bent on getting you all back, and he wasn’t going to stop until someone stopped him. If there’d been a choice, I’d have let Greer live. Killing a man leaves a scar on your soul that never goes away. I hope and pray you never have to bear that scar, Paul.”

  “Are you going to stay away from my ma or not?”

  Dare wasn’t about to make a promise he couldn’t keep, and he wasn’t going to make the mistake Glynna made of giving this boy the power to make a decision as important as whether or not Glynna let a man into her life. Dare thought of their kiss but shook the vision away. There was no room in his life for kissing, not while he wasn’t sure what his future might hold.

  “I will promise you that I’ll never treat your ma with unkindness or disrespect. And I will promise that I’ll listen to you and do my best to earn your trust. But you need to promise me you won’t take your anger out on me for things other men did. Maybe we can make a start on your letting go of your anger by working here with me when I’ve got a patient. You think about it, and while you’re thinking, let’s go hunting once Elias has gone home.”

  By the frown on his face, Dare knew Paul wasn’t satisfied with their talk, but his eyes did light up at the thought of hunting.

  Then it flickered through Dare’s mind that teaching this kid to handle a gun might be a real poor idea.

  Chapter 11

  Dare and Vince rode side by side out to Luke’s cabin, and then the three of them would drive a herd to Gil Foster’s.

  Dare had asked Paul to come along, but the boy wasn’t interested. Just as well. Dare wasn’t going hunting or doctoring today; he was helping with some ranch work, hopefully to figure out what it was cowboys did all day.

  He thought he might end up embarrassing himself, and the fewer witnesses the better. He’d left Melanie to
watch Elias and asked Paul to be on hand if any more help was needed. Glynna was going to stay with them as much as possible, too. Every day Dare could keep Elias in bed helped, though it wouldn’t be for much longer. The young’un was healed enough to be restless.

  Jonas didn’t come. He was busy driving himself crazy getting his house ready for his chubby, bald sister to move in.

  Dare didn’t envy him the task or the sister.

  Vince and Dare met up with Luke and fell in with him behind a herd of twenty cows, most with a calf running alongside and a couple of bulls thrown in. Luke had picked young cows with calves, born after the spring roundup, still unbranded, so Gil could slap his own brand on them right away. Luke insisted that a chunk of the cattle Flint Greer had built up had come out of the Foster herd Greer had stolen, and it was only right that the Fosters get them back.

  The cattle were placid, and driving them was proving to be simple. Dare thought he could handle ranching just fine. True, he wasn’t learning any new cowboy skills, but he was enjoying the ride.

  Several of Luke’s cowpokes rode along, keeping the herd bunched. Luke, Vince, and Dare rode drag.

  It was a crisp morning, the sun still low in the eastern sky. As the sun rose, it lit up the red in the canyon walls as they wound their way along.

  “I’ve never seen the like of these red-striped stones,” Dare said. It was a raw, harsh kind of beauty. The ground was rugged. The canyon walls were torn away to show layer upon layer of red, all different shades. Palo Duro wasn’t a welcoming, fertile land like Indiana. The grass was clumped and widely scattered, not lush pasture broken by rows of tall corn like Dare had known back home. But Luke’s cattle were fat and contented.

  They moved along at a fast walk. Luke held a coil of rope in his left hand and waved it occasionally at a lagging cow. There was no trail. Luke was following an old memory. The canyon floor was broken and rocky, so they moved along slow and easy. No sense harassing the cows or risking their horses with a mad rush.