Fired Up

by Mary Connealy

  Vince noticed that she’d shut up at last. And quit struggling. She still looked skeptical, but why had she thought he was a drinker to begin with? He looked her in the eyes. “You said something about ‘the other morning.’ What morning? What did you hear or see that made you think I was drinking?”

  “The first morning I arrived in town. You stumbled in the street and fell flat on your face.”

  A twist of embarrassment reminded Vince of that moment. So she’d seen him make a fool of himself. Clearing his throat, he said, “I didn’t know you’d noticed that.”

  “It wasn’t the act of a sober man.” Tina arched one of her lovely blond brows, and Vince suddenly realized he was very close to her. Her wrists were firmly caught in his grip still, and he could feel her pulse, feel her life and strength and sass. Most women would’ve been intimidated, a little scared to be in the hands of a man, alone.

  Instead she stood there glaring at him, her eyes—the bluest, brightest things he’d ever seen—flashing with suspicion, still demanding he prove himself. He didn’t mean to run his thumbs over the soft underside of her wrists, but his thumbs were there and her pulse made him aware of how alive she was, and it reminded him he was very much alive, too. He was looming over her, and then he loomed closer, and in some place in a man’s mind where he didn’t really make choices but instead just followed his instincts, his eyes flickered to those rude, pink lips. He couldn’t help himself. He leaned even closer, and darned if she didn’t, too.

  Then she butted him in the face with her head.

  Really slammed into him hard. He turned away, feeling to see if his nose was bleeding.

  “Why are you blocking the door, Tina?”

  Jonas.

  She hadn’t head-butted him; she’d been shoved into him by her overprotective big brother.

  Even with his face half broken, Vince knew to head straight for the steaming coffeepot as if that was what he’d come in there for all along.

  It was true.

  Vince prided himself on always thinking fast, and he did so now. “Jonas, would you please tell your sister that I’m not a drinker? She seems determined to bleat at me about temperance.”

  Vince hoped Jonas would see that he and Tina had been wrangling—which they had been, except for right there toward the end.

  “If you say you’re not a drinker, then I’ll take your word,” Tina said. Bless her heart, she had all her sass right handy to slap at him. Music to Vince’s ears, since she could have told her brother, a man who knew his way around firearms, that Vince had shoved her up against the door and been about to steal a kiss.

  Not that she hadn’t seemed inclined to hand that kiss right back, no stealing involved.

  “Get your coffee and get back to your post, Vince.” Jonas sounded worried, not mad. “We stirred that youngster up. If he’s the one who burned Dare’s house down—”

  “Which he isn’t,” Vince interjected.

  “I agree.” Jonas stepped up to fill his cup of coffee, while Vince, not sure whether he had a big old bruise forming on his face or not, turned and headed for the door.

  But it struck Vince that Jonas had made a real good point. “If there are several people with a motive to kill poor old Dare, then I suppose it’s possible there are several people trying to kill him.” Vince then left the kitchen, not interested in standing still in front of Jonas’s eagle eyes.

  As he walked out, he heard Tina say, “What’s the matter with the doctor that people want to kill him?”

  Jonas ignored the question and said, “When did Vince get here? You shouldn’t be alone with a man at this hour, Tina. It isn’t proper.”

  Then Vince was too far away to hear any more, which was a blessing, unless Tina gave some half-witted version of events that made Vince’s good friend want to kill him.

  Vince returned to his post, leaned against the back wall of the diner, and crossed his arms to stay warm. He looked at Dare’s house . . . the front door. Something was wrong with it.

  Not waiting to think it over, Vince strode forward. He got close enough to see the door was ajar. Had Dare come out to see him and gone back in, forgetting to close it? Not likely on a cold night like this.

  When he was near enough, Vince saw black on the ground by the door and paused for an instant to look at the line, darker than the surrounding night. He crouched just long enough to know it was blood.

  He lunged to his feet, pushed the door open, and rushed into the house, his gun drawn.

  He found Dare facedown on the floor. A knife sticking out of his back and a pool of blood on the floor around him.

  With a quick sweep of the room, he made sure there wasn’t someone waiting to add another victim before hurrying back to Dare. Vince checked for a pulse and found one. That was the outside limit of Vince’s doctoring skills.

  Dare groaned. The knife. Vince reached to pull it out and stopped.

  He only hesitated a second before he ran for Jonas. Whatever they had to do, Vince couldn’t do it alone—not when some knife-wielding lunatic was still around.

  After pounding on Jonas’s door with his fist, Vince heard footsteps thundering toward him. “Dare’s been stabbed.”

  Vince had left his friend unguarded. There would be time later on to hate himself for that, but for now, the next closest thing to a doctor was Glynna.

  “He’s in his house,” Vince told Jonas. He wasn’t going to wait and have a talk with Jonas. “I’m going for Glynna.”

  Vince whirled and ran. He reached the back of the diner just as he heard Jonas leaving for Dare’s place. Banging on the diner’s back door, Vince gave Glynna ten seconds to open it, battering it with the side of his fist the whole time.

  He pulled back a foot to kick the door in, then heard commotion inside. He shouted through the door, “Glynna! Dare’s hurt and needs help.”

  The door swung open and the boy was there. His chest heaving, gun in hand.

  “We need your ma. Dare’s been stabbed.” Vince noticed the kid was dressed. Had he been up and about? Had he done the stabbing?

  Glynna appeared in a nightgown, barefooted. “What’s happened, Vince?”

  “You’ve got to come. Dare’s hurt.”

  “Where is he?” She dashed past her son, who made a move to stop her but he was too slow.

  “At his place.”

  She raced past Vince too, running flat-out for Dare’s house.

  “Ma,” Paul called after her, sounding furious, “you can’t go out dressed like that!”

  Chapter 20

  Glynna charged into Dare’s house to see Jonas firing up a lantern. Tina knelt on the floor at Dare’s side. A knife stuck out between his right shoulder and his backbone at a downward angle, as if the assailant had held the weapon high and slashed from above.

  Instantly Glynna was on the side across from Tina, also on her knees. “Where’s his doctor bag?”

  Vince sprinted for it and thrust it into her hands.

  When she took it, she wrenched it open and pulled a fistful of clean cloths from it. “That knife has to come out—now.” She handed the bag to Tina. “Find the carbolic acid. Dare believes in the stuff.”

  Vince moved to where Dare’s head lay. “Tell me what to do.”

  Furious, Glynna’s head snapped up and she glared so hard that Vince took a half step back. “You go find whoever did this.”

  Vince was dying to do just that.

  Dare was in good hands now, but whoever had attacked him was a backstabbing coward and there’d be no second attack, not even if only defenseless women were alert and working over Dare.

  Paul came into the room. Vince considered asking a few hard questions about the boy’s whereabouts. He was fully dressed, boots on and everything. But they’d ruled him out. “You stay here and watch over your ma and Tina. Jonas, let’s go.”

  Vince knew exactly where he wanted to check first.

  Jonas followed without a single word of protest. For a preacher, Jonas was might
y angry and mighty eager to exact some justice.

  Once they were out of earshot, Jonas asked, “Are we going after Lana Bullard?”

  “Yeah, she’s in the boardinghouse.” Vince strode for the darkened building that stood on the far south side of town. There were twenty yards or so between it and the diner. Asa’s boardinghouse was at an angle to town and off by itself a bit, but plenty close for someone to sneak around and catch Dare alone, especially if Dare was trusting his friend to be standing watch.

  To stop from punching himself in the head for leaving Dare, then staying away too long, bickering and . . . not bickering with that pill Tina Cahill, Vince charged up the front steps and tried the door. Unlocked. Asa Munson wasn’t a trusting man, but this was Broken Wheel, and most doors weren’t locked. Most doors didn’t even have a lock. Asa ran the place, another salty Texan who’d stuck it out in this tough corner of Indian Territory.

  “I don’t know which room she’s in,” Vince said. If any strangers were in town, this was where they slept.

  The boardinghouse was where Vince had taken Lana after she’d screamed her threats at Dare. Lana had thought she was expecting a baby. For a while Dare had believed her. As the months went by, Dare finally had to tell the woman she was mistaking a change of life for a baby on the way. Lana, whose devotion to Dare was a kind of madness, twisted her love into hate.

  When a woman made a man into a god, then watched him turn into a devil who’d kill a child, how could she not go mad?

  She’d sent her husband, Simon Bullard, after Dare. Simon was Flint Greer’s foreman and a known gunslinger. Flint, Glynna’s now-dead husband, had been eager to rid the town of the doctor who’d found out about Flint’s cruelty to Glynna. Bullard and Greer had come to Broken Wheel with a band of gunslingers to face Dare and retrieve Flint’s runaway wife. But Dare wasn’t standing alone. Instead they’d found Luke, who’d come back to reclaim the ranch Flint had stolen. Also at Dare’s side stood Vince and Jonas, who’d come to town to back their friend.

  In the chaos of that fight and the cleanup afterward, Lana vanished. Only recently had she turned up and was cooking now for Glynna at the diner. None of them had known where she’d gone during that time, however. Apparently she’d gone crazy.

  “There aren’t that many rooms here.” Jonas had his gun out. “We’ll check ’em all.”

  Vince really had to sit his friend down sometime and discuss gunslinging and preaching and how the two didn’t mix. He’d do that right after they dealt with Lana. For now, Vince was glad for the backup.

  They went up the stairs fast, but as quietly as they could manage. Asa lived on the first floor, and Vince saw no reason to announce themselves to the crusty old coot.

  There were four bedrooms upstairs. Vince went to the first one and tried the door. It swung open to show an empty room. It looked cleared out, not like its inhabitant was skulking around with a knife.

  The next room was locked. Vince pulled back his foot, but Jonas grabbed his arm and said, “It takes a skeleton key, and I’ve got the one from my house.”

  He produced it from his pocket, and they opened the door to find a man lying on the bed, snoring. An empty bottle of whiskey on his bedside table told the story of why he was sleeping through this visit.

  They closed the door and went on down the hall. Vince reached for the next doorknob just as it swung away. Lana stood there gaping at them. She was fully dressed. Vince reached for her, and she squawked like a startled chicken. Then her knife came up.

  “I’m going to pull out the knife.” Glynna glanced uncertainly at Tina. “If I do it smooth and steady, I shouldn’t do any more damage. At an angle like this, I’m hoping it didn’t go in too deep. If it didn’t get his lung or h-heart, he has a chance.” Glynna quit talking then before she had herself in tears.

  “I’ll press a cloth to the wound as soon as the knife is out.” Tina knelt close by, ready.

  With a quick, ruthless yank, and a sickening hiss of metal on flesh, Glynna removed the knife. She recognized the knife, let out a gasp, and then she set it aside.

  Dare groaned in pain. His first sign of consciousness.

  Tina quickly pressed the white cloth she held onto the gushing wound.

  Dare groaned louder.

  Pray.

  It came to Glynna like words whispered on the wind. She had little training and only the roughest kind of experience as a doctor. She needed God to guide her hands.

  Dare’s eyes flickered open.

  “You, Dare Riker, are going to stop needing so much medical attention. I’m fed up with you being hurt all the time.” Glynna took refuge in sternness.

  Dare’s eyes focused. They flashed with humor, which Glynna would’ve bet was beyond him at this moment. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She liked the sound of those two words. Maybe she should give up owning a diner and start practicing medicine.

  “Who did this, Dare?” Glynna asked.

  “I didn’t see. Couldn’t sleep. Came out to talk to Vince. Couldn’t find him and headed back in.”

  Which made no sense. Why was Dare going to Vince’s in the middle of the night?

  Tina, with most of her weight pressing down on Dare’s wound, narrowed her eyes to slits. “That man is completely irresponsible.”

  Glynna, her hands temporarily empty while Tina kept pressure on the wound, held up the knife she’d removed from Dare’s back.

  Tina said, “That might be a clue. It’s not a normal kind of knife for a man to carry.”

  “That’s because it’s from the diner,” Glynna said. “It’s one of only four sharp knifes we keep in the kitchen. It was there when I locked up today.”

  “When you locked up with only you and your young’uns inside?” Tina asked.

  Glynna glanced at her. “What do you mean by that?”

  “You’re the one who said no one had access to the knife except you and your . . .” Tina stumbled over the next words and looked over at Paul, who now stood, his back pressed against the door as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.

  Glynna’s mind went mushy. Tina couldn’t think she’d done this. And to accuse Janny was outrageous. And there’d been the uncomfortable glance at her son.

  Glynna’s heart clutched until she thought for a moment it’d quit beating.

  Jonas moved so fast that Vince was stunned. He dodged past Vince and shoved Lana’s hand straight up before she could plunge the knife.

  A scream fit to curdle a man’s blood ripped from Lana’s throat. She slashed her nails across Jonas’s face and wrenched her knife hand out of his grip.

  Vince dived into the fracas. He grabbed at her knife hand. She was fast and slippery, and the knife remained in her control.

  “What’s going on up there?” A roar from belowstairs was accompanied by the sound of a lever-action rifle getting ready to shoot. They had to get this shrieking woman under control before Asa shot them.

  Vince got her right hand but still grappled with her left. Jonas tried to help, but the two of them were getting in each other’s way, and if they weren’t careful, this little woman was going to best them and slit them open like prized pigs.

  Asa thundered up the stairs.

  Lana let loose with the kind of scream that sunk into a man all the way to the bone. The drunk in the next room had his snoring disrupted. The fourth bedroom door, the room they hadn’t inspected yet, slammed open.

  “We mean her no harm,” Vince shouted, hoping to head off any gunfire.

  Lana landed a punch to the side of his head that made his ears ring. A mean, dangerous woman, but who’d believe that?

  “It’s Parson Cahill,” Jonas yelled. Tacking the word parson on was a good idea. “We’re here to question Lana about a crime.”

  Jonas got her other hand finally, and now their only trouble was being kicked or bitten. Vince had to give the woman credit, as she wasn’t about to let herself get dragged away quietly. He respected that.

  Then she gave a good
kick to his knee and his leg buckled.

  In just that second, Asa made it to the top of the stairs and came at them with his rifle. The other sober man in the building stepped out of his room with two six-guns trained on the two of them. Vince was surprised to recognize Mitch Porter, who used to be the sheriff of Broken Wheel. The no-account weasel had been a loyal friend of Flint Greer. Flint Greer—now dead, thanks to Dare and his Regulator friends.

  Another man with a motive for murder.

  The crack of a cocking gun cut through the temporary break in Lana’s screeching. Mitch Porter said, “Let her go.”

  “Don’t sew me up.”

  Dare drew Glynna’s attention from thoughts she couldn’t bear. She couldn’t do a thing about Tina’s suspicions right now. She needed to doctor the doctor, and then she’d straighten out the mistaken notions about her son.

  “Why not? I did a fine job of it last time. I think we decided I’m the second best doctor in this town. You can’t fix this yourself.”

  “Yeah, you did the sewing just fine, but I see a look in your eyes that’s scaring me.”

  Glynna, drawn to him, her gaze locked on his, knew he’d gotten Tina’s unwilling accusation, and Dare wanted to buffer Glynna’s pain because . . . because . . . with a barely suppressed shudder she realized it was because Dare thought it was true, too.

  Well, the both of them were dead wrong. What they thought wasn’t possible, and she dismissed the very idea. She slid her eyes back and forth between the two of them. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  Dare’s gaze sharpened. Tina nodded.

  “Paul, help us get Dare off the floor.” Glynna had to worry about first things first. “Tina, you concentrate on keeping that cloth hard against Dare’s wound.”

  As gently as possible, they moved Dare. He managed to stand, but he was so wobbly that it took all three of them—well, four counting Dare—to get him up and on the bed.

  Glynna got the carbolic acid. “Paul, get some water. There are hot wells on Dare’s stove. If there’s not water in them, start some heating.”