Stuck Together (Trouble in Texas Book #3) (20 page)

Snapping his head around to face sideways before she could catch him staring, he thought with a grim unhappiness that they were most certainly not like an old married couple in several really important ways.

“We need to think ahead about how to make Mother safe.”

“I said
don’t call her
that
,” Vince shouted, then reined in his temper and raised both hands as if surrendering before Tina fired a shot. “I’m sorry, Tina. You’ve helped so much. It’s just that . . . that . . .”

“That it hurts to have her think I’m her daughter and not think you’re her son. I understand.” The gentle way
she’d said those words helped a little. She did understand, to the extent anyone could.

“We need to think of her as a child,” Tina went on. “What would we do if we had a child sleeping upstairs?”

A child. Their child
 . . .

Vince needed to get his unruly thoughts under control even if he had to ram his skull into the brick fireplace to do it. “We’d make sure there are no breakables she could get her hands on.”

“With a child you can move sharp objects up high and lock doors with simple latches.”

“But Mother is tall enough, and knowing enough, despite her troubles, that those things won’t stop her.”

“The sturdy latches you and Sledge put on the windows took care of that.” Tina pulled a folded-up paper from her pocket. “I’m starting a list of other things we need to do.”

“No,” Vince said. He strode across the room to face her. “You’re trying to figure out how to keep her safe?”

Her brows arched in confusion. “Well, yes. Of course I’m trying to keep her safe.”

“I don’t want her safe!” It then hit him how backward that sounded. “I mean, of course I want her safe, but that’s not what we need to talk about.”

Looking wary, Tina said, “It’s not?”

The way she said it made him think of kissing her. From her expression he suspected that was exactly what she was thinking, too. “No, we need to talk about curing her.”

“You . . . you think there’s a cure? Isn’t it just old age? Nothing can cure that.”

“She’s not that old. If she were in her dotage, I’d agree that we just need to accept things as they are. But Mother
isn’t sixty yet, and most folks don’t become addled at her age. Her father too had something wrong with him—wrong in the head. I was never sure what, though. But it’s not simple old age, so there might be a cure for it.” Vince swooped his arms wide in frustration. “Did you really think I rode all the way to New Orleans to find a way to treat Lana Bullard?”

“Actually, yes, I did think that. I know you were thinking of your ma also, but mostly it was because of your prisoner.” Tina’s blue eyes were wide, and she gave a little shrug, as if she were the tiniest bit afraid of him and didn’t want to do anything to set him off. Which was how people often treated lunatics. “So you didn’t go there for Lana at all?”

“No!” Vince paused, then let out a big sigh. “I went to New Orleans because I’ve been tryin’ to find a treatment to help cure my mother.”

Dead silence settled thick over the room, to the point that Vince could barely breathe.

After a minute or two, Tina said quietly, “I know this has come on her at a young age, Vince, but . . . well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think she can get well from what’s ailing her.” Tina’s words were nothing but kind, and her eyes were full of compassion.

He wished she’d have slapped him instead. It would have hurt less.

“She’s been like this for years, getting worse all the time. I have to do
something
. I can’t just give up on her. I can’t stand . . .” He didn’t know what else to say. Words suddenly seemed stupid, useless.

“You can’t stand knowing that most likely she’s never going to call you Vince again.”

“She did after she fell. For that little while, she knew me.”

“And she may again on occasion, just not very often.”

“Which means that for the rest of my life, my mother’s going to confuse me with a cruel tyrant.”

Tina shook her head. “You’re angry with your father, but surely he wasn’t so bad you hate the idea of being called by his name. Maybe you can learn to accept it.”

“My father started trying to groom me to take over his company when I was only four years old.”

“Four? What can a four-year-old do?”

“I had a tutor. I spent every afternoon studying.”

“Most four-year-olds spend their afternoons napping.”

Vince felt a grim smile twist his lips. “My earliest memories are of being summoned to my father’s office, and that was just when I did poorly in my studies. It was the only time I saw him.” With a humorless laugh he added, “Mother came to me at different times. Not every day, but if she wasn’t out with friends, she’d visit and we’d have afternoon tea together. She was always kind in a distant sort of way—if I behaved myself and acted gentlemanly. I used to live for those days she’d come and see me.”

“I can’t imagine a life where parents
visit
their children. Aunt Iphigenia was always around. At the time I wished she’d leave me alone.”

“We come from different worlds, I guess. I’d have probably studied to please my mother, but she never asked much of me. And Father criticized mistakes and rarely commented when I did things right.” It might have been exhaustion, but before he knew it Vince found the story of his seventh birthday pouring out of him.

“He really had the pony killed?”

Vince nodded. “After that, I enjoyed seeing how far I could push him. But a boy who pushes a man, especially someone like my father, learns to stay on guard.” Vince thought of a hundred other cruelties his father had meted out, but he didn’t want to burden Tina with them.

“Makes sense,” Tina said. “It was the only way you could get attention from him.”

“I didn’t want his attention. I just wanted him to know he couldn’t control me. I managed to get expelled from every boarding school he found for me. If they didn’t kick me out, I’d run away. I learned to save up my allowance and sneak off from school. I could run wild all over Chicago for days, so long as the money held out.”

“And that’s how a rich boy from Chicago never got himself much schooling.”

Vince said, “But I learned anyway, only on my own. And reading Blackstone set me on the path to being a lawyer, even without the schooling.”

“Those are the books you read that taught you how to be a lawyer?”

“Yep. Blackstone’s
Commentaries
on the Laws of England
. And I’ve studied everything I can find about insanity as it applies to the law, and now I’m going to study up on the medical treatment of my mother’s condition until I can find a cure.”

“Vince—”

“Don’t say it.” He knew she was going to say it was a hopeless dream. “I won’t live out my life with
his
name on Mother’s lips every time she speaks to me. I won’t!”

“But I hear affection in her voice when she says ‘Julius.’”

Vince grimaced at the mention of the name. “I don’t
deny it. When she calls me that, she doesn’t sound as if she hates my father.”

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it?”

Shrugging one shoulder, Vince repeated, “Whatever’s wrong with my mother isn’t the normal confusion that comes with age. It happened too young. So we have to be able to treat her, and I’m going to find out how. I’m not quitting, not when it’s something as important as my mother. I’m going to keep reading and hunting for a way to bring her back.” A wave of exhaustion washed over him then, and he thought that tonight, maybe just this once he could stop standing guard enough to sleep. “Let’s go to bed.”

Tina jumped at his words.

Vince looked at her and realized what he’d said. “Uh . . . I mean . . .” He felt his cheeks coloring, and he never blushed. But she sure did. Her head was turning the color of a ripe cherry.

“I’m sorry . . . I’m going to bed now. Good night, Tina.” This was why they needed a better chaperone than Mother. Who right now was fast asleep, snoring.

“Good night. I’ll wait here for Jonas.” She turned away, but not before Vince saw another bright flush spread across her face.

Jonas walked Tina over to the boardinghouse the next morning and then ran off with Melissa. Tina got Mother dressed and over to the diner. Jonas and Melissa showed up over an hour later looking incredibly happy.

Mrs. Yates set her heavy coffeepot down with a
clang
. “Missy, you are discharged.” Then Mother picked the pot up again and called Sledge Murphy a honey pie.

Tina took in Missy’s befuddled expression and said quietly, “Come in the kitchen.”

Missy got there just as Vince came in the back door. Vince looked at Missy and said, “Good, we need Jonas. You women need to watch out for Mother today. Luke sent a hand in and told us we need to get out to his ranch and help him hunt Quince Wilcox.”

Vince went on through to the dining room.

Missy arched a brow at the high-handed orders and turned to Tina. “What happened? Why am I fired?”

“She thinks you tried to burn down the boardinghouse yesterday morning.”

Quietly nodding as if this were no surprise, Missy said,
“I’ll work with you in the kitchen while someone else cares for her. We’ll hope she forgets she’s upset with me.”

Tina appreciated the help. Maybe she could get off work a little early and put in some time marching her picket line. She missed the exercise. She wondered if Mother was good at tidy lettering—and maybe she’d like to have her own sign and march with Tina out front of Duffy’s place.

“Glynna is making sure she doesn’t leave the diner for now. We’ll worry about it after we finish up here.”

Tina and Missy kept busy cooking. They worked well together. A few questions flickered through Tina’s mind, but they all circled back around to some version of
How do I fit in Jonas’s
life if he marries you?
That seemed selfish, so she just kept working.

The kitchen door swung open, and Vince poked his head in. “Can you two come here a minute so we only have to say this once?”

There was nothing that could burn, so they rushed into the dining room in time to see Vince and his Regulator friends pulling on coats and gloves. Their horses were tied in a line to the hitching post in front of the diner.

Vince looked at her, and she remembered how he’d been last night. Her heart had come near to breaking as he talked of his childhood. Neither one of them had it easy. Maybe no one ever had it easy.

“We’re riding out to the S Bar S. There’s no sign that Lana has come back. You’ll be safe in town while we round up Wilcox, and we hope catching him will keep the Kiowa from wanting war.” Vince’s brown eyes slid from his mother to his horse. Then he asked a question focused directly on Tina. “Will you be all right?”

Tina knew he was asking her to watch Mother. And she was glad to do it. For all her confusion, Mrs. Yates was very kind to Tina. Too bad she’d decided to fire Missy, but hopefully a woman as forgetful as Mother would get over her upset soon.

“Go. We’ll mind Mother and the diner and the whole town. And if Lana comes back, we’ll catch her and lock her back in jail and throw Porter in with her.”

A smile showed a flash of Vince’s white teeth. “Well, a man can’t ask for more than that. Thank you.” He tugged on the brim of his hat while Dare and Jonas kissed their women goodbye. Vince gave Tina a sharp look that made her feel like he’d have kissed her too given half a chance. Then the men left, and Tina got back to work.

When the morning flood of hungry men slowed to a trickle, she turned her attention to putting on a ham for dinner while Missy washed up. Minding Mother and the diner and the whole town wasn’t turning out to be much different from most days. But Tina fervently hoped Lana didn’t show up to test Tina on the rest of her boastful promises.

Vince rode hard for Luke’s ranch. Dare was at his side, Jonas just a length behind because the trail was so narrow.

“We shouldn’t have left them.” Even riding at full speed didn’t keep Dare from being a little overactive. He was moving about as fast as a man could; it was just his brain that wouldn’t quit.

“You scouted hard, Dare. You know Lana and Porter were heading in a straight line with no sign of them circling back. She’s gone.”

“Somehow just listening to you be so sure is enough to make me turn and ride back to Glynna.”

“You don’t trust me? That ain’t right, Dare. You’re the one who told me it was safe to ride out.”

“I know.” Dare glanced back at Jonas, who tossed a really contented smile at the two of them.

“Go on back to town if you’d feel better, Dare,” Jonas called out. “We can handle this.”

“I’ve given it plenty of thought. But just because I think I’m right doesn’t mean I can quit worrying. I followed Lana far enough to know she was making a beeline for the West. No one who’s planning to double back rides for that many hours.”

Vince grunted as he rode through the tight canyon neck near Luke’s place. They found Luke already saddled up, with two of his men riding with him. “I was about to leave. I’ve had men out scouting all night, and we found where he rode into a dead-end canyon. But he got to high ground and took a shot at Dodger when he got too close.”

“Is Dodger all right?” Dare’s doctor instincts were always right near the surface.

“No one was hit. But another one of my scouts, hunting in a different area, came back and said the Kiowa are riding for that same canyon. They got word about Wilcox, too. If those Kiowa kill Wilcox, the government might decide it’s an uprising and send the cavalry in to strike at the Kiowa.” Luke reined his horse around and took off. Calling over his shoulder, he said, “We’ve got to get Wilcox before they do.”

Vince swatted his horse on the rump with the flat of his hand, and the gelding leapt into a full gallop, stretching out
his stride, gaining on Luke. Thundering hooves sounded behind Vince, and he knew his Regulator friends were coming fast. He caught Luke and matched him stride for stride. Dare came up on Vince’s right. Jonas appeared on Luke’s left. The four of them raced over the stony ground of the canyon, shoulder to shoulder, together, fighting, taking care of each other. The hooves of their horses pounded out a drumbeat that felt so right, something made Vince realize he’d always thought of Chicago as home, and Father and Mother as his family. But these men were his real family. They were brothers, closer than brothers, and home was wherever they were.

“Now we have to go in slow.” Luke reined in his horse. “We want to get close but stay out of rifle range.”

Luke pointed to a high canyon wall several hundred yards ahead. “I’m not sure what gun he has. I want to get as close as I can and hope we’re closer than the Kiowa so I can talk to them before they charge that canyon.”

At a much slower pace now, Vince realized they could take a moment to talk. “Do you all think . . . ?” He fell silent.

All three of his friends caught his uncertain tone and turned to him, waiting.

Vince swallowed hard. “Dare, do you think what’s wrong with Mother can be cured?” As they proceeded at a steady walk, Vince hated what he knew his friend was going to say.

“I don’t think so, Vince. I’ve never heard of an older person getting this kind of dementia and then getting better.”

“But she’s too young.” Vince’s stomach twisted at Dare’s grim prognosis. “This happens to old people. Seventy- or eighty-year-old people. Not a woman in her fifties.”

“I don’t know that much about illnesses of the mind. No one does. Vince, I’m sorry, but I doubt your ma is going to get better.”

“Lana Bullard did.” It made Vince furious, and that was better than the despair he was feeling. “What kind of God lets a woman like Lana get better, but leaves a good-hearted woman like my mother as she is?”

And that wasn’t a question for Dare; it was one for Jonas. Vince almost wished they were too close to a shootout to talk, yet they had plenty of time.

“God may know Lana needs more time. God may be hoping to bring her home to himself. Your mother, well, she might be stronger in her faith in this confused state than she was when she spent her time with teas and dress fittings. We can’t understand the working of God, Vince. We can only pray and hope and accept.”

Silence stretched, broken only by the clopping of horses’ hooves.

Finally, Vince said, “My grandfather was mad. I never got the impression it was about old age. Now Mother. Do you think the kind of . . . of madness they have is passed on to a son and grandson?”

His heart pounded at voicing his worst fears to his friends. Vince looked sharply at Dare. The doctor. Who’d just admitted he didn’t know much about these things.

It was neither the doctor nor the parson who answered.

Luke said, “A man like you, who’s used to thinking of himself as invincible, would have a special horror at the thought of being as out of control as your mother is. But you can’t worry about what may happen when you’re fifty, Vince. That makes now a nightmare for you. It makes every
day of your life something to dread, and that’s a terrible way to live. You have to trust God to take care of you. And for a man who’s the master at taking care of himself and everyone else, that might be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”

Breathing a prayer, Vince tried to do it, to turn his life and his future over to God. And as he did so, everything started to become clear. By fearing he’d become his parents, he’d allowed them to have more control over his future than God. That fear was ruling him. He begged forgiveness for not putting his trust in God. As he did so, the dark fears he’d always done his best to control lifted from his heart. He knew in that moment that he was neither of his parents. He could forge his own path, have his own future. And in that future, maybe God hadn’t marked him to be alone. And if he wasn’t going to be alone, he knew exactly who he wanted to be with.

But first he had to catch a drunken outlaw, stop a war party of Kiowa, protect his brothers, make sure a crazy woman wasn’t going to try to kill anyone, and get back to town. Then he was going to ask Tina Cahill to marry him.

It was gonna be the longest day of his life.

Tina handed Glynna a heavy, dripping skillet. It was the last of the dishes. She heaved a sigh of relief to have the cleanup done from the noon herd of men. Missy had gone to get a different dress on, after a splash of water soaked the one she’d worn all morning and through dinner.

Paul and Janny appeared out the kitchen window where Tina stood. They must have gone out the front door of the diner and rounded the buildings in Broken Wheel
to go home, avoiding the kitchen for fear of being given more chores. They’d worked in the diner all morning, and Glynna insisted that her children study every day.

Tina reached for the basin of dirty water to take it out back and toss it away, but then she dropped the basin and whirled toward the dining room. She shouted to Glynna, “If Missy is changing and the young’uns are at your house, then who’s with Mrs. Yates?”

Glynna gasped, and the skillet she was drying dropped to the floor with a loud metallic
clang
. They ran for the dining room, hit the door together and stopped.

Tina shoved herself through to find . . . “She’s gone.”

Tina remembered how they’d found Mrs. Yates the last time. “Get the dog. She’ll help us find Virginia Belle.”