Fired Up

by Mary Connealy

  “Am I gonna have to fight this woman every day for the rest of my life?” Vince shouted.

  Just then she caught him with a cruelly placed knee, howled right in his face, and spit on him. Next she went for his throat with her teeth.

  But a second later, Lana was yanked away from Vince. Paul had entered the fight and he had the woman wrapped tight in his arms, pinning her hands to her sides.

  Glynna stepped forward and stuffed a kerchief in Lana’s mouth, which dropped the noise level considerably.

  Dare began stumbling toward the ruckus.

  “You sit back down!” Vince told Dare. He staggered to his feet and caught Lana’s legs, wrapping both arms around her ankles.

  “Lana, please calm down,” Glynna said. She was going to handle this with kindness.

  Lana bucked in their arms. Vince had wrangled longhorns that didn’t kick like this woman.

  Lana continued to scream, muffled by the gag.

  “Lana, we’re not going to hurt you. Don’t be afraid.” Glynna’s pretty brow was furrowed with worry. She looked up at Vince. The uncertainty had him confused at first.

  “I don’t suppose I can get her calm enough to cook breakfast at the diner, can I?”

  Vince thought he saw foam coming from the corners of Lana’s mouth. “Nope. Don’t reckon she’s gonna be able to fry eggs today.”

  “We’re really going to miss her.”

  Nothing more than the plain truth.

  “I’m not going to miss her that much.” Dare drew Vince’s attention as he backed up a couple of steps and sat down on the bed. Honestly, it looked more like he collapsed, but at least Dare didn’t end up facedown on the floor again. Vince was too busy to catch him or to pick him back up.

  “Glynna, get over here.” Dare, sounding exhausted, still put a lot of command in his voice.

  Vince looked at Paul. “Go ahead, Glynna. We’ve got her.”

  The boy nodded. “Yep, I’ve got a solid grip.” Paul seemed less surly than usual. Maybe he was feeling useful.

  “You’ve been cut,” Dare said. “Your neck’s bleeding.” He looked almost frantically at Glynna’s neck as she approached the bed where he sat.

  Her hand went to her neck and she pulled away bloody fingers. The color seemed to fade from Glynna’s face.

  “Don’t even think of fainting,” Vince snapped. He’d ordered around men who were a lot bigger weaklings than Glynna. He’d found he had a voice that could clear most anyone’s head.

  Glynna gathered herself, looked away from her hand, and straightened her shoulder. Vince’s voice was as good as smelling salts.

  “Her neck’s not hurt bad, Dare. Leave it for now. We need to get Jonas over here. Go find him, Glynna. Janny will be safe now. Tell Tina to start cooking for the town, so we won’t have a bunch of men spittin’ mad that Lana’s been arrested.”

  Glynna nodded. “I’ll be right back.” She patted Dare on the shoulder and left.

  “Now, you need to lie down and rest, Dare.”

  Dare tipped sideways so easily, Vince figured his friend had been holding himself upright through pure iron will.

  “Paul, you and I need to get her calmed down somehow so we can question her.”

  “How’re we gonna do that when neither of us can let go?”

  A few minutes passed before Glynna came rushing back in. Vince was glad to see her. He thought having a woman present, considering this wrestling match with Lana, was the right thing to do.

  The woman in their arms gave a particularly wild wrench of her body and almost got away.

  “Maybe give her some laudanum.” Dare spoke barely above a whisper. “Just a spoonful from the bottle. That should help her regain control of herself.”

  It was a good idea, but Vince considered upping the dosage and dumping the whole bottle of the stuff down her throat.

  “It’s on that shelf there,” Dare said, pointing a listless finger. The man truly needed some rest.

  “Bring her over to this chair,” Glynna said. She got some long strips of cloth out of Dare’s stack of rags. “We’ll restrain her.”

  “We need to send a wire to Big John and tell him we’ve got two prisoners to transport.”

  “Two?” Paul asked.

  Vince ignored the kid. “And when that’s all done, Dare, I’ll slap a bandage on that scratch on Glynna’s neck.”

  He thought he heard Dare snoring.

  Jonas came in seconds later. Heaving a sigh of relief, Vince said, “Good. I’m glad you’re here finally.”

  Jonas arched a brow at Lana, who was twisting in the arms of Vince and Paul. He didn’t look all that eager to get involved in holding her prisoner.

  “We’ve got a crazy woman in custody and we have to interrogate her.”

  “Are you sure?” Jonas asked.

  Vince had looked through the front window of Dare’s house and seen Lana holding Glynna in time to change course and come instead through the back door. Paul had been halfway to crazy himself to see his ma with a knife to her throat.

  “I’m sure,” Vince said with a nod.

  Paul barely missed clunking heads with the lunatic as Vince toted Lana to the nearest chair. “I think the hard part is yet to come,” Vince said.

  “That woman makes the best eggs over easy I’ve ever had,” Dare said from where he lay on his belly on the bed.

  “Her fried potatoes put my ma’s to shame,” Jonas added. “And my ma was a mighty good cook.”

  Vince and Paul sat Lana on the chair. “This town is gonna miss her cookin’ and that’s a fact,” Paul said as she wrested one arm loose and clawed at his face.

  “Some of us’ll miss her more than others,” Dare mumbled.

  Vince let go of Lana’s feet, and he and Paul each grabbed an arm as she lunged from the chair. They sat her back down.

  “I don’t know if I can get close enough to tie her up.” Jonas, a long strip of white cloth in one hand, dodged a slashing foot.

  Vince looked at Glynna. “Get in here and help us. If she keeps fighting us like this, she’s gonna end up hurt, and we don’t want that.”

  Privately, Vince wanted to see this woman severely punished for stabbing Dare. But he’d leave that for the law. Although these days, unless their Regulator friend was in town, Vince was the only law in Broken Wheel. Big John Conroy made his home in town, but he spent most of the time traveling. He was overdue to come back home, though. They could get Lana locked up and figure out what to do with her until Big John got home.

  Working together, Jonas and Glynna finally got Lana bound to the wooden chair.

  She still had the gag in her mouth, so things were pretty quiet. Of course, they couldn’t keep her tied up forever.

  Vince grimaced. “It’s gonna be noisy when I take that gag out of her mouth.”

  “She’s a raving lunatic.” Jonas shook his head at the completely out-of-control woman.

  “No, she’s not,” Paul replied. “She’s been working for us for a while now, and she seemed real sensible.”

  “She was good at chopping potatoes,” Glynna said. “It was impressive, but I admit it made me a little nervous to see her flashing that knife with so much skill.”

  “Lana!” Vince crouched in front of her. Since her feet were bound, he was able to get pretty close. He tried to penetrate her frothing struggle.

  Glynna came up beside Vince. “She’s scared to death.”

  “This isn’t panic.” Vince rose. “She stabbed Dare. She held that knife to your throat. She attacked me when I knocked it away from her. This is rage, not fear.”

  Vince reached down and removed the gag from Lana’s mouth. Instantly her muffled screams became full-throated screams.

  “Let’s try the laudanum,” Glynna said.

  Suddenly Lana stopped screaming and sat up straight, looking at the bottle Glynna held.

  “Looks like laudanum is the magic word,” Vince said. He studied the now calmer woman. “Can you answer some questions for
us, Lana?”

  She turned on Vince. Her face was slick with sweat, and her hair was a tangle. Her eyes were so bloodshot, all the white had turned to red. She panted and tugged against her bonds, but she didn’t go back to the shrieking.

  “If you answer my questions, I’ll give you a dose of the medicine.” And if that wasn’t a temptation worthy of the devil himself, Vince didn’t know what was.

  He glanced over to Dare, who looked to be fast asleep at last. A man didn’t often fall asleep, no matter how weary, with a woman screaming a few feet away, so Dare was probably more unconscious than asleep. Vince needed to finish with Lana so his wounded friend could get some much-needed attention.

  “Whaddya want to know?” Lana asked. Her voice was hoarse from all her screaming, but despite her rational question, Vince wouldn’t have untied her for a million bucks.

  As she waited, breathing as if she’d run all the way from Fort Worth, Jonas moved forward and crouched down in front of Lana.

  “What did you do to Dare?” Jonas began.

  Vince was pretty sure any confession Lana blurted out in her current state wasn’t exactly fair. He thought he’d read that somewhere.

  “He killed my son.” Lana’s head lifted and Vince saw hatred in her eyes. Her voice rose, though not to a scream. Just hard, cold words.

  “No, he didn’t,” Vince interjected. He was wasting his breath, but he felt honor-bound to waste it. “There was no baby, Lana. You’re mixed up about that.”

  “He killed my husband.”

  Technically, Big John Conroy had killed him, but considering Lana’s addled state, it was probably more wasted time to point that out. Still, it needed to be said. “No, he didn’t. That’s not true, either. Dare was inside the livery stable, and Simon died outside—in a shootout with a lawman.”

  Vince decided not to mention Big John by name, just in case he convinced Lana he spoke the truth. No sense luring a murderous lunatic away from one friend only to point her to another.

  “I lost my home because of him.”

  “Lana—” Vince started, again.

  Jonas’s hand came up. “Let her talk, Vince.”

  “Everything I cared about was taken from me by the man I trusted to save me!” Lana’s voice rose to the cry of a wounded creature.

  There was a long silence. Jonas looked for all the world like a man who was absolutely stumped. He opened his mouth several times, then closed it again. What did a person say to a woman who was so furiously mad?

  Then Lana looked straight at Jonas—Vince’s friend, a truly decent man of God. Her eyes glittered with hate. Her cheeks flushed red with rage. With a growl that was more animal than human she turned to the bed where Dare lay unmoving. “And now he’s dead.”

  She looked from Jonas to Vince to a dumbfounded Glynna.

  “So you killed him.” Jonas, speaking quietly, didn’t correct Lana’s assumption that her attack on Dare had been fatal.

  How Jonas kept calm, Vince couldn’t imagine. Just hearing the sentence declaring Dare dead made Vince mad enough to swing a fist. And under the veneer of calm, Vince heard the anger Jonas was masking. Lana was real lucky to be in the hands of civilized men.

  “I’m not sayin’ another word until you give me that medicine,” Lana said. “I hurt all over.”

  They asked and prodded, but she stubbornly refused to comply. Finally, Glynna said, “Surely a sip won’t hurt.”

  Jonas and Vince looked at each other. Glynna made the decision for them by lifting the bottle to Lana’s lips. Lana made a sudden dipping motion with her head and managed to suck down a few good gulps before Glynna jumped back.

  “She got half the bottle.” Glynna held it up with alarm.

  Lana smacked her lips and gave a satisfied sigh.

  “Better get your answers quick, Jonas. Something tells me our prisoner is going to take a long nap here pretty soon.”

  Jonas spoke the same words he had before. “So, you admit you stabbed Dr. Riker?”

  “He’s dead. He had it coming.” She began lifting her head as if she was gathering her senses a bit, the medicine making her calm maybe. “Untie me.”

  “I’m not turning you loose.” Vince only had to feel the bruises on his own body and see the scratches on Jonas’s and Paul’s faces to know they were better off with Lana restrained.

  “Go on, Lana,” Jonas cajoled, “you were telling us about attacking Dare.”

  Lana glared at Jonas for a few seconds, then her eyes lost focus and her head slumped forward.

  Jonas lifted her chin and she snorted, then settled into snoring. “I think the laudanum got to her already. She’s fast asleep, and before we got a full confession.”

  The jailhouse had been reconstructed. Well, mostly it was still a wreck, but when Vince kicked Porter out of the cell and dropped a sleeping Lana down on the tattered cot, she shifted onto her side and tucked both hands under her face like an innocent child. An innocent child with prison in her near future.

  Jonas had stayed with Dare.

  “You should’ve never wrecked my jail like this.” Mitch Porter was a poor excuse for a man, let alone a lawman.

  “I didn’t wreck it. Greer did when he blasted Simon Bullard out. And it’s not your jail. I’m the law in Broken Wheel now.” It was a job with no pay because no one wanted to chip in, but Big John had sworn him in so it was official.

  Porter got a look at Vince’s determined glare. “This ain’t over. You aren’t Broken Wheel’s sheriff.”

  “Big John Conroy, the Texas Ranger, deputizes me whenever he’s on the road.” Over Vince’s fierce objections. He didn’t want to be sheriff. Right now, though, Vince had to admit it’d come in mighty handy. And fun besides to thwart this coyote.

  “You know, Porter, a lawman would question you about what happened last night. Should we do that now? You were next door to Mrs. Bullard. Did you hear her get up and move around?”

  “I was asleep. And I don’t have to answer any questions.”

  Vince ignored Porter’s refusal to be questioned. If Porter didn’t want to talk, he could leave. “You came out of your room dressed and wearing your boots.”

  “I heard you coming up the stairs. I knew someone was out there. I got ready for trouble.”

  “You got fully dressed mighty fast and quiet.” Vince decided he had a knack for prying questions that came in handy at a time like this.

  “Yep, now that you’re a lawman,” Porter said, “you’ll learn how to get ready for trouble fast and quiet, too.”

  “If you want to stay on the outside of that cell, Porter, get out of here.” Vince headed for the door, shoving Porter ahead of him, now that his prisoner was under control. “If I told my story right and convinced a judge you were covering for a would-be murderer, you might end up seeing things through bars for a lot of years.”

  Tina cooked for the diner that morning and she did a good job of it. Glynna wondered if she’d be available to work for her full-time. Lana was a better cook, to be sure, and Tina wasn’t half as skillful with a knife, but both women definitely had Glynna beat in the kitchen.

  Glynna had helped a little with serving breakfast, yet the job of checking on Dare had fallen to her and that was what occupied her thoughts right now. Or maybe she’d grabbed the responsibility and refused to let go. Vince and Jonas were splitting their time between the jailhouse and Dare’s side, though Glynna didn’t trust them to be as careful as she would be.

  However it had happened, she had to check on Dare throughout the morning, leaving Paul, Janny, and Tina shorthanded at the diner.

  She hurried back to work whenever she got a free minute, until she went in and saw Dare awake. Sitting up in bed. Vince and Jonas were sharing a cup of coffee with him.

  Dare turned to look at her. Pain etched lines in his face. He was pale and shaky, but he was all right. He’d proposed last night. Maybe in the heat of the moment, Dare had thought marrying her was a good idea. Maybe now he was sorry. Maybe . . .
/>
  “You two get out of here for a while.” Dare cut into her worries. “And, Jonas, don’t go far. You’re going to need to speak some vows between Glynna and me in a little while.”

  Vince grinned bright enough to blind a woman. She knew in a detached way that Vince was one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen, but it didn’t seem to affect Glynna overly. She only had eyes for Dare. His hair, always in need of a trim, and his scruffy face that always needed a shave touched her heart in a way no man, certainly neither of the ones she’d married, ever had.

  Jonas said, “I read a book that said a couple should be betrothed for a while before they marry, Dare. And I’ve done some studying about the things a man and woman ought to talk about before they wed. I don’t think you should rush in to this.”

  “Get out.”

  Jonas smiled over that rude order, for some odd reason. “I think you two, and probably Paul and Janny, should counsel with me for at least a couple of months before you get married.”

  Even Glynna could see Jonas was just teasing.

  “The wedding is before we eat the noon meal. Now leave us alone.”

  “I’m not speaking any vows until you’ve had this out with Paul.” Jonas had turned dead serious all of a sudden. “It’s the right thing to do and you know it—to tell the children what you’re planning to do and then give them at least a little bit of time to adjust to the idea. And I’m not going far. I’m not leaving the two of you alone in here for long. It ain’t proper.”

  “What kind of improper thing do you think’s gonna happen with my back slashed open?” Dare fairly growled the question.

  “I don’t underestimate you, my friend.” Jonas turned and followed a grinning Vince out the door. When it swung shut, Glynna heard them both start laughing.

  “Your friends are—”

  Dare stood up.

  “Stop!” Glynna rushed to his side.

  “I’m not in the mood to be lectured about my friends right now.” Dare let Glynna ease him back onto the bed. Sitting side by side, he said, “I suppose he’s right. We should have a long talk with Paul.”

  Glynna knew that was exactly what they should do—they should tell her son. She smiled, then shook her head slowly. “Let’s get married, Dare. I think this is too big a decision for a child to make.”