Stuck Together (Trouble in Texas Book #3) (19 page)

There just weren’t enough hours in the day for all Vince had laid out in front of him.

Vince had seen a lantern come on in the diner, and after nearly wrestling the bucket of water away from Tina and carrying it, he’d left Mother in Tina’s care. He wanted to help any way he could, but he had no role in getting Mother bathed and dressed. So he’d come over to the diner to find Dare and Luke already there, while Ruthy made coffee and put bread on to bake.

“We have to go search for Quince Wilcox.” Luke sat at the table, his eyes so cold that Vince felt the chill as if he’d never stepped indoors. “Red Wolf’s people aren’t that happy with me, anyway. Dodger said he’d get Red Wolf home last night, and Red Wolf will stay friendly, but if the Kiowa are upset enough, he may not be able to control every warrior in his band. We need to lock Wilcox up and make sure the Kiowa know we aren’t going to stand for him shooting their chief.”

“No.” Dare slashed a hand to silence Luke. “We can round up Wilcox later. We have to go after Lana. She’s more dangerous than the Kiowa.”

Luke slapped the table. “Lana Bullard is
not
more dangerous than a tribe of restless Indians.”

“Well, she tried to kill me, Glynna, Paul, and you, Vince. The Kiowa haven’t done that.”

“Not yet.”

“We need to do both,” Dare said. He began pacing so fast it was making Vince’s neck hurt to follow the man.

“Jonas thinks she’s running,” Luke said. “If that’s so, then there’s little chance she’ll come back, and we’ll never catch her with this much of a head start. I’m not about to follow her trail all the way to California.”

“But she could circle back.” Dare’s back-and-forth path started curving, as if
he
were circling back. “I need to make sure she isn’t going to attack Glynna. That’s got to come first.”

Dare and Luke glowered at each other, then together they turned to Vince.

Invincible Vince. He knew—even though it was never spoken of—that he was their leader. It had always been that way. And now he had to say what was on his mind.

“Mother came within seconds of burning the boardinghouse down this morning. Even if we could’ve gotten the fire out, she’d have been badly hurt because she broke a lantern and spilled kerosene on herself while she stood there holding a lit match. I don’t dare run off right now chasing after an escaped prisoner.”

“So you’re saying,” Luke growled, “that our choices for today are between heading off a tribe of Indians, tracking down Lana, or tending to your ma?”

Vince had never felt less invincible in his life. “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that.”

“We can’t let Wilcox get away.” Luke shoved himself to his feet so hard the bench under his backside tipped over. “There could be trouble that might spread through the Indian Territory. The whole tribe could turn on folks in the area. Lives could be lost—”

“All right!” Vince said. “I get it. We’ll go after Wilcox.”

Dare shook his head. “You’re gonna let Lana just ride off? That woman held a knife to Glynna’s throat. She almost killed—”

“Dare!” Vince cut him off. “You know I never asked for the job of sheriff, and no one pays me a cent.”

“You took an oath.” Luke stood, pulling on his gloves. “We go after Wilcox first. We’re wastin’ time—let’s ride out to the S Bar S.”

“No, we ride after Lana first,” Dare countered. “She’s the one who broke jail. She’s the prisoner Vince was supposed to be in charge of.”

“She’s on the run and you know it,” Luke snapped.

“We don’t know any such thing.” Dare actually stood still, though the anger in his eyes as he faced Luke was an active kind of anger. “Yes, they ran when they first broke out, but who’s to say she didn’t lay down a false trail?”

The diner door swung open. Luke and Dare fell silent. Tina came in guiding Mother. The woman grinned at Vince as if the sun shone from his eyes. “Julius, good morning. It’s so nice of you to come home from work and join us for tea.”

The dog was moving pretty well, not limping at all.

Tina brought Mrs. Yates over to Vince. “I need to start cooking,” she told him. Mother was fresh and clean now, but Tina was a disheveled mess and she smelled a bit like kerosene.

Vince rested a hand on his mother’s back and smiled, even as he chafed at being called Julius again. Then all his common sense and leadership skills snapped into place. “Dare.”

Dare stood to attention, then caught himself and relaxed, glaring at Vince. “What?”

“We let Lana go.”

“We can’t—”

“You said I’m sheriff, and that’s the sheriff’s decision. We trust Jonas when he said she was quitting the country. You can ride out and check the trail if you’re worried, but Jonas knows how to track.”

“Yep, he’s a tracker for sure, but he can’t be trusted.”

“What do you mean he can’t be trusted? He’s a man of the cloth, for heaven’s sake.”

“Chasing Lana interrupted his courtship. He was looking for an excuse to come home.”

Vince had to concede the point, but Dare didn’t renew his demand that Vince chase down the escaped prisoner. Instead, Dare sped up his pacing—not happy but not swinging a fist, either.

“Luke,” Vince started.

“Don’t say we let Wilcox go. I refuse to let that—”

“Shut up for a minute!”

Luke didn’t even pretend to come to attention, but he did stop his talking.

“Wilcox is an idiot.”

“True enough, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Let me finish.”

Luke scowled.

“Go ahead and find him. You don’t need me. Go back
to your ranch and see if he’s there. A drunkard like him might have just gone back to the ranch and to bed. We didn’t have time to say much to Dodger. Tell Dodger to set your men to searching. Red Wolf’s mighty upset, and arresting that fool hasn’t got a chance of calming him down. He’s right—no court is gonna convict Wilcox of shooting an Indian. It ain’t right, but it’s a fact all the same. And Red Wolf knowing it’s true is what’s got him and his people in a lather.”

“I want to catch him and charge him and bring him to trial. It’s the right thing to do.”

“And we will do it, but we don’t have to do it today. It won’t appease the Kiowa one speck. In fact, go talk to them. Tell the Kiowa to go after Wilcox. If they want to start a war, tell ’em to aim it where it belongs.”

“Which means,” Dare said grimly, “you’ve decided that taking care of your ma is what you’re going to spend the day doing.”

Vince looked down at his mother, who was looking around the diner in a vague way, like maybe she was realizing she wasn’t home in her Chicago mansion and waiting for lady friends to come over for tea. “That, and maybe I’ll take ten seconds to resign as sheriff. I never wanted the job, anyway. You be sheriff, Dare. You decide which crime you want to solve next.”

The front door to the diner swung open, and Sledge Murphy came clomping in. “Breakfast ready?”

Glynna emerged from the kitchen with a coffeepot, smiled and said, “Virginia Belle, would you like to serve tea?”

Mother brightened and headed straight for the hot, heavy
tin pot. Sledge hurried forward and got the pot and took the cup Glynna had in her hand. “Let me pour it, Mrs. Yates, ma’am. It’s mighty heavy for you.”

Mother smiled and produced a fan that Vince hadn’t noticed before. She fluttered it in front of her eyes. “Why, bless your heart, you are a fine Southern gentleman.”

Luke and Dare both made about the rudest sound Vince had ever heard. And he’d spent nearly two years in Andersonville Prison, so that was saying something.

Sledge poured the coffee. “Actually, ma’am, I’m from Wisconsin. I killed me a passel of Rebs during the war. But you sure do remind me of my ma, except she smoked a pipe, and last I knew she didn’t have much left for teeth. Still, you put me in mind of her. Can I pour you a cup?”

“Yes, I’d love some tea, thank you.” Mother smiled and fanned and sat at the table, and suddenly Sledge was a waitress. He poured just as if the job were his own dream come true, then sat down beside Mother and asked after her health.

“I’m riding out to the ranch.” Luke stalked into the kitchen, no doubt to report his every move to his wife before he made it.

Dare shook his head again. “You’re a poor excuse for a lawman, Yates. I’m going to go check Lana’s trail. That lovesick parson probably had his head in the clouds and didn’t even look at the ground.”

“There’s no denying that sheriffing isn’t my finest gift, Doc.” Vince gave Dare a sloppy salute. “And I see no sign of getting better at it anytime soon. Can I get you a cup of coffee before you go?”

Dare growled and followed Luke into the kitchen to report his every move.

Vince had finally figured out how to be the sheriff of a town as small as Broken Wheel that paid him nothing. He quit. Or at least he ignored the job and looked after his ma instead.

Vince doubted Solomon would have approved the decision, but he made peace with it and refused to be shaken. Several had tried.

Not Tina, though. Tina seemed mighty grateful he’d stayed around town to help. Much of the care of Mother had fallen on her, and by the end of the day she’d started calling her Mother.

Jonas and Missy were off courting again. Vince wondered how long they could keep this up before they got married. Vince didn’t figure it’d be long.

Mother had been moved into the last remaining bedroom of the Yates house, which seemed like a place suited for a horror story. Tina had stripped the room of all breakables, while Vince had hung and locked the shutters Sledge had built.

Vince had left Tina to prepare Mother for bed and taken up sentry duty at the top of the stairway. He saw the door to Mother’s bedroom swing open and watched while Tina patted loyal Livvy on the head.

She took a hard look at him and said, “You’ve got to get some sleep tonight.”

Which Vince took to mean he didn’t look all that good. “I’m fine.” Vince rubbed his heavy eyes in direct denial of his words.

“If you don’t want to sleep, don’t sleep.” She locked Mother’s door and pocketed the key. “I’m going down to wait for Jonas.” She headed for the stairs.

Mother was now sleeping in the room on the south end. Vince’s was next. The empty room that still smelled of kerosene was between Vince and Melissa, who slept on the far north end.

When Tina walked past Vince, he caught her arm. “Can we talk again tonight?” Vince hadn’t meant for that to come out sounding quite so friendly.

“I don’t really want to talk. We both had an early morning and a long, hard day. I’m sorry Luke and Dare pecked at you today.”

“Luke wasn’t so bad. At least he went home early on. He and his ranch hands are better suited to hunting Wilcox than I am.”

Luke and Ruthy had gone home shortly after breakfast, and that had ended the nagging from them.

“Dare made it a long day, though,” Tina said.

“I reckon I don’t blame him for wanting me to chase after Lana. He didn’t want to leave Glynna and the children alone in town, so if someone was going to go after my escaped prisoner, it stood to reason it oughta be me.”

“But when you told him no, that didn’t mean it was all right for him to keep pestering until he near to drove you crazy.”

“Let’s don’t use the word
crazy
if we can avoid it,” Vince said.

“I’m fine with having a talk. I think we should go over some ideas I have for keeping Mother safe.” Tina gave
Mother’s bedroom door a longing look as if wishing she’d stayed in there.

“Don’t call her ‘Mother.’”

Tina rolled her eyes. “I don’t have a lot of choice.”

“Why does she think she’s your mother but not mine?” Sighing, Vince turned and plodded down the stairs. He didn’t even check to see if she was following. If she wanted to hide, he’d just let her.

Then he heard her footsteps behind him and was a little surprised at the smile that quirked his lips. He had his back to her so she didn’t know.

When they got downstairs, Vince leaned so he could see the front door, the stairway, and Tina just like he’d done the night before. Tina took the chair. Two nights and they already had a routine down . . . like an old married couple.

He let himself look at her beautiful blond hair and had one wild moment where he pictured himself pulling out her pins, one at a time, then sinking his hands into falling-down curls and getting another taste of those pretty pink lips.