Enchanted Heart (32 page)

The excitement of nature seemed to transfer to her while she stood on the porch of Josie’s house and waited for Greta and Buck to pick her up on their way to church. She watched the passing traffic for their surrey and then stepped down onto the bricked street so that she could wait until it stopped beside her when it finally came.

She saw Greta’s excited face and the smile that Buck was trying to hide and she knew that something good had happened. She could not figure out what had gotten them in this joyful mood except the warm spring morning that had given her a boost of energy. Knowing that they had already told her that Greta was pregnant, she wondered why they looked at her in such a curious way when she stepped into the surrey.

“We have to hurry to get to church,” Greta blurted out, but Buck stopped her from continuing with a narrow-eyed glance and by gruffly clearing his throat.

“Why?” Marty asked her sister, wondering why they were in such a hurry when they would be arriving early in the first place, but when they both ignored her inquiry, she pursed her lips and then watched the other traffic and the people that were walking to their perspective houses of worship.

Religion, she knew, played a significant role in the lives of the German immigrants. She and Greta were no exception, for as soon as they had settled at Buck’s home, they began to regularly attend services at Zion’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, still officiated by Reverend Dunham, who remembered them from their first visit to Fredericksburg. And this church had become such a blessing to Marty while she waited for Caid to come back to her. Many times, she had been comforted by the dear reverend and his wife, who was the church secretary and who thought of Marty and her sister as daughters. To Marty, not just the stone building was her sanctuary, but the sense of being loved was what drew her there, time after time.

The surrey took the three to the church, which was less than a mile from the boarding house, and then Buck lifted Greta to the ground before he went around the surrey to help Marty down. He looked around the church, down the street one way and then the other, causing Marty to wonder what he was looking for. They stood on the church steps while parishioners went inside and found their usual pews and Marty’s curiosity was peaked.

“Why aren’t we going inside?” she asked Greta, who looked to her husband for permission to tell her sister the secret.

Buck shrugged his shoulders before he looked down at Greta and whispered, “He’s not coming.”

“But he promised,” she whispered back, sneaking a peak at Marty to see if she had noticed their quiet conversation. Relieved that her sister had found someone else to talk to and was not paying them any attention, she whispered into her husband’s ear, “He has to come.”

“We can’t force him to,” Buck said with a huff before he took Greta’s arm and guided her toward the church doors. “Come on, we’ll be late for service.”

With a disappointed look on her face, Greta called to her sister to join them and they all went inside to worship. They sat through the sermon, talked through fellowship afterwards and then climbed back into the surrey without speaking of Caid again. It was quietly agreed between Greta and Buck as they walked behind Marty toward the surrey that Caid had changed his mind about making up with Marty. It was possible that he had left town, his anger at Marty having hardened his heart forever.

But they were mistaken. Caid did not go to church that morning because after he had left the boarding house the night before, he had gone back to the saloon to confront the man who had stolen his fiancée from him. But the saloon was empty except for one old red-nosed drunk who slept at a table with his upper body collapsed on the table top and his slobbering face showing no reaction to the noise that Caid had made when he’d burst into the room.

Caid stepped back onto the boardwalk and saw a shadow of a man and he knew that this was his target. He followed the man through the streets, passed the boarding house where the man had paused to peer at the window before moving on. Caid’s pace quickened when he saw that man looking up at what he assumed was Marty’s window and he began to run toward him so that he could take his anger out on the stranger.

But, through that window, a shotgun barrel slipped out and a female voice warned, “Get away from my house!”

The man moved back into the shadows with Caid close behind. He wished that he’d brought a gun with him so he could pick that man off like a bird in a tree, but he’d left his pistol at the hotel. It was just as well, he knew, for he had not held it in his hand except to clean it since the days of the Pony Express when a man needed protection. Since then, he’d kept it tucked away in a flannel shirt inside his saddlebag or slung across the saddle horn when he was in hostile Indian Territory. What he wouldn’t give for that pistol now, he thought as he unconsciously touched his hip where it would have been perched had he been wearing the holster.

Then he balled his fists and examined them closely in the light of the moon. They were a little marred, more than a bit bruised and they were missing some skin where he had missed his target and hit the hard wood of the saloon bar when he was fighting Buck just a few hours ago. But the pain in his hands was not a factor at that moment, for the pain in his heart bolstered his anger at the man who had disappeared into a small house at the edge of town.

Cursing under his breath, Caid knew that he’d missed his opportunity to take his anger out on the man who had kissed his Marty. He was determined to confront the man and make him understand that Marty was his fiancée and he was fully prepared to fight for her, if the need arose. But the lamps in the house were doused and Caid was too spent to go to the soft bed at the hotel to sleep off his anger.

He rammed his bloody fist into the wall of the house that he had hid behind and then he leaned his weary body there to wait until morning to see if another chance for revenge presented itself. He must have fallen asleep while keeping vigil on the offender’s home, for he squinted against the sun’s ridiculing rays the next morning.

When Sunday’s dawn brought the first songs of the morning birds, Caid awoke with a start. He stood up from the crouching position that he must have been sitting in all night long and he stretched the stiffness from his body. Then he folded his arms in front of his chest and waited for some sign that the man inside the house across the street would emerge.

When he did, Caid followed him. The man made his way back to the boarding house, causing fury to rise inside Caid’s mind all over again with the idea that the stranger was so obsessed with Marty that he could not stay away from her. By the time the man found his way to the front steps of the boarding house, Caid could hold his anger back no more. He lunged at the man with such fury, with such hatred, that the stranger fell against the banister of the porch and crashed through it.

Caid pulled the man to his feet and began to assault him with his bruised and bleeding fists, feeling nothing but the increasing anger in his heart. The man finally found his footing and fought back, which gave Caid a reason to keep pounding him.

Tyree Parnell pushed with all his might at his assailant and growled at the man when he had thrown him against the blue wall of the boarding house, “What the devil are you doing?”

Caid took in a long breath of indignation before he threw himself into the man’s stomach and yelled, “I’m showing you that I’m not going to stand by while you take what’s mine!”

Tyree was forced into the wall of the house next door and he very nearly lost consciousness, but he took in a deep breath and held up a hand to the man who came at him again and he said with exhausted puffs of breath, “Just what did I take from you, mister?”

Caid slowed his pace and his steps pounded out the pronunciation of each word that he uttered, “You stole my fiancée!”

Just at the moment that Caid’s head would have crashed into Tyree’s chest, the man pushed against his shoulders and diverted his assault as he asked in surprise, “Josie?”

Caid stumbled in confusion. Then, he turned back to the man and corrected, “Marty!” Then, he heaved himself toward the man once again.

But, at that moment, a gun barrel came between them and Josie’s ample hips eased into the gap that separated them and she growled in as auspicious a voice that she could muster, “There’ll be no fightin’ on my property.”

“Josie!” Tyree yelped as he stood straight and tall, pulling at the pointed hem of his vest and dusting himself off.

“Tyree Parnell,” Josie said with her eyes narrowed, her shining black braid tumbling against her large breasts. “What the devil are you doing on my property?”

“Josie,” Tyree started as he licked his swollen lip. “This man attacked me!”

“And who might you be, mister?” Josie asked as she wielded the gun in Caid’s direction. “And why are you beatin’ the fire out of Tyree?”

“The name’s Caid McAllister,” Caid told her with a nod. Then he waved his hand toward Tyree and told her, “He stole my fiancée!”

Josie lifted her shotgun into the air and rested the butt on her hip while she eyed the stranger and asked, “And who might your fiancée be?”

“Marty Ingram,” Caid growled, stepping closer to Tyree and raising a fist to the man’s face.

Josie stepped toward him and, almost laughing, she lowered the shotgun again as she gave him a sideways glance before she told him, “Mister, you are so full of horse apples that you’re spittin’ flies! You are all that girl talks about! Caid this and Caid that! How she just can’t wait another day for Caid to find her!”

“I guess she couldn’t wait,” Caid growled before he leaned in toward Tyree once again.

Again, Josie’s gun stopped him and she stepped in front of him to say, “She’s waited.”

“Well, then,” Caid accused. “Why was she kissing that man last night?”

Tyree’s face turned crimson and he clamored to explain to Josie as he stepped toward her and beseeched, “I was only trying to make you jealous. Don’t you see, Josie? I did it all for you!”

Caid leaned his hands upon his knees to take in breaths of air and he saw the man named Tyree Parnell for the first time. He was long and lanky, not particularly handsome, but not really ugly either. His face, which except for the cuts and bruises from the fight, was soft and fair—almost womanly. His tall, thin frame was not muscular, but feminine in its appearance. His sandy brown hair was thinning yet perfectly combed despite the physical battle that Tyree had just been involved in. Caid wondered what Marty had found appealing about this man that Caid almost felt sorry for.

“What are you talking about, Tyree?” Josie booming voice interrupted his thoughts. “You did what for me?”

“The bank, the saloon,” Tyree stammered, trying to convey all of his deeds to her so that she would understand. But seeing her confused face, he continued quickly, “I bought it all from Alfred when he was short on money.”

Josie threw her free hand into the air and pushed a gush of air through her pursed lips and said, “Alfred lost everything because he was a lazy worthless creature and he deserved everything that he had coming to him.”

“I know, Josie,” Tyree told her as he stepped closer to her and took her hand into his. “He didn’t deserve you. That’s why I bought it all from him, for you! I love you, Josie! I always have!”

“What do you mean, you always have?” Josie growled almost accusingly at the man who groveled in front of her.

Tyree cleared his throat, the Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck as he screeched, “Ever since that day when you came into town with your hair all mussed, looking like a ragged corn-husk doll, I thought you were the most beautiful woman alive! You probably don’t remember but I tried several times to get you to take notice of me when you came into my store.”

“Alfred’s store,” she corrected, to which he ducked his head. “And I noticed. But at the time you were just a skinny kid working for my future husband.”

Tyree rolled his eyes toward her, but still kept his chin planted low and he pouted. But as if he were a prairie rooster raising his head above the grama grass daring any other to confront him, he stiffened his shoulders with pride and conviction, lifted his head again and crossed his arms on his chest while he stuck it out, saying, “I saved all my money and bought that store when Mr. Winters started losing money. Along with the saloon and the bank...”

He paused then and took a long breath before he finished, “When I bought the store, you were still working there and I had hoped that you would someday want to be my partner. But then you quit and you said you didn’t want to have anything to do with it—or me!”

He shuffled his feet while he muttered, “That broke my heart, Josie. The way you talked to me when I bought the store, the way you told me how much you hated me. It made me wish that I had let it go to someone else. But, I just couldn’t. I had a plan.”

He straightened his back and proudly said, “Let me tell you, Josie. I was so poor when I came to town that I had to sleep on the slaughter house behind the butcher’s store. I had to pay for it by cleaning guts and blood off the floor and I’d smell that stench all day long and all night long so that now, I won’t eat beef. But I worked day in and day out, saving money because I had a plan!”

“I guess we both came to town with nothing but our boots on,” Josie said, slowly warming up to the idea of carrying on a conversation with a man without wanting to blow his head off. Then, she corrected herself, “Well, I wore moccasins.”

Tyree laughed nervously before he said, “You sure looked ravishing in your dusty moccasins and that leather dress with the beads dancing all around.” Then he ducked his head in embarrassment that he had revealed his inner thoughts.

She popped his shoulder with her fingers in jest and she was resigned to say, “We were young and impressionable back then.”

He flashed a boyish grin toward her while rubbing his shoulder to ease the pain or to brand the feel of her fingers upon his skin and said, “I haven’t changed much. I just got older.”