Stuck Together

by Mary Connealy

  He led her straight out the back door.

  The sun was setting and it was getting cool. But the building blocked the wind, and when Vince pulled her into his arms, Tina didn’t notice the weather at all.

  “You know, Tina, I said I’d never marry because of my worries about being like my father or my mother. Either would be a disaster for a wife and children.”

  “I remember.” Oh yes, she remembered it all too well. She braced herself to be told the same thing again. Otherwise why would that be the first thing out of his mouth?

  “Well, I was an idiot to say all that.”

  Tina’s head came up, and she met his eyes. Her heart sped up and her spirits lifted as he smiled that flashing white smile. “You were?”

  He definitely was, but she never thought he’d admit it.

  “I’ve wasted a lot of time, not just with you but in other ways, because I was worried about the future. Well, no more. I’m turning my life over to God, the present and the future. Please forget my foolishness and forgive me for the attention I paid you without honoring you as I should have with a proposal. Can you do that? Can you forgive me?”

  Tina couldn’t resist reaching up to touch his lips, to stop his words. “I understand why you were worried. And your worry was all for me, that you’d be a poor husband to me and a burden. Of course I can forgive that.”

  “I love you, Tina Cahill,” Vince said, then leaned down and kissed her.

  It wasn’t the kiss that touched her as much as it was the words he spoke. Tina’s heart ached with the pleasure of hearing those words when she’d given up on them at last. She wanted to believe it so badly she might have told herself to refuse the words, just to keep herself safe.

  She might have, if not for Vince’s kiss.

  It was a different kind of kiss. It wasn’t the stolen kiss that came out of an attraction they were trying to fight. This was an honorable kiss, though no less passionate because of that. In fact, it was more passionate because of that.

  When finally Vince lifted his lips from hers, they stood mere inches apart, his dark eyes shining, his handsome face full of kindness and love.

  “Marry me, Tina. Please tell me you’ll join your life with mine.”

  The only thing stopping her was that she had a smile so wide she hardly had control of her lips to speak. But her smile seemed to be enough to make Vince wait patiently. He kissed her again, and this time he tasted her smile so thoroughly he might well have forgotten he’d ever proposed.

  Against his lips, Tina whispered, “Yes, I will marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  He kissed her forehead, then her nose. “Mother will keep us busy, I’m sure. You already know how much that’s going to occupy our lives. Today, finally, I accepted that she’s not getting better. I understand now that I need to accept her and care for her to the best of my ability. It’s going to be hard work for the both of us.”

  “I love your mother, Vince. I think because I didn’t know her before, I don’t have any idea how she used to be. All I see is a genteel Southern belle who’s slightly dotty and in need of protection. I think, after I was so unkind to Duffy, only to find him helping at every turn, and that low-down Tug Andrews was the real outlaw, I might leave off my picketing and spend my energy caring for your mother.”

  Vince kissed her soundly. “Well, Duffy is innocent of what happened here, but you were right about whiskey being a scourge. So, if you want to picket in your spare time, I’ll help you paint up another sign. And maybe, if the weather’s fair, Mother can march with you.”

  Laughing, Tina threw her arms around Vince’s neck and kissed him back just as soundly.

  “Can we tell Mother now that we’re getting married?” Vince asked. “I like the idea of her knowing her son’s to be married to someone as beautiful as you.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Tina took Vince’s hand, weaving her fingers between his to get a good grip. “Let’s go get married right now and see if Jonas wants to make it a double wedding.”

  Vince flashed a smile at her and kissed her again, then pulled her back into the dining room.

  Tina kept up with her fast-moving, soon-to-be husband. In fact, she might have gotten a little ahead of him.

  “Dearly beloved . . .” Jonas began. Earlier, he’d put on his parson’s collar and led the happy couple over to the church. He and Missy had chosen to wait a bit for their own wedding. Jonas thought it might confuse Mother to have a double wedding.

  “You should really wait for Luke,” Dare said, standing beside Vince to act as a witness.

  “I told you why I can’t.” Vince tilted his head toward his mother, who stood smiling beside Jonas, almost like a second parson. But Vince wanted her to have a good view of the goings-on, so he encouraged her to be right there front and center.

  “Do you, Tina Cahill, take this man . . .”

  Glynna stood beside Tina, Missy beside Jonas—the man was surrounded and yet he didn’t seem to care at all.

  Jonas quit talking, and Tina said, “I do.”

  Vince felt Tina’s I do all the way to his heart. He looked at her and couldn’t stop smiling, and she smiled right back.

  “And do you, Vincent Yates, take this woman . . .”

  Vince had to pay close attention because this was his part. Although, honestly, the way Jonas held Missy’s hand while he talked, the man almost seemed to be speaking the vows with her in mind.

  Which was fine, but Vince sort of wished Jonas would pay more attention to the wedding ceremony he was performing.

  Jonas sped through the service, and that might’ve been because they were all afraid Mother would forget who Vince was any minute.

  “I do,” Vince said, more sure of this than anything he’d ever done.

  “If anyone here knows any reason why these two should not be wed, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”

  “Well, I think he should wait for Luke.”

  “Drop it, Dare.” Jonas broke out of his fast reading of the vows. “That don’t qualify as a reason they should not be wed. Luke woulda liked to have been here, though.”

  “Just get on with it,” Vince growled. Tina shot him an irritated look, and Mother reached out and whacked him with her fan.

  Vince was learning more about women every minute that went by. Growling during a man’s wedding was definitely not appropriate, and he’d never do it again. Of course he was only getting married once in his life, so any lessons learned were pretty much useless.

  “A reading from the book of First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels . . .’”

  Vince didn’t remember this part from other weddings he’d attended. Of course, Jonas had married Ruthy and Luke on a dark midnight, about two minutes after Luke proposed. And those vows had been spoken when Luke was figuring to get shot in the near future.

  Things hadn’t gone badly, but no one was real confident when Luke and Ruthy married.

  Jonas might well have lingered over Dare and Glynna’s marriage vows, except Dare had been stabbed only hours earlier and he was a little pale and none too steady on his feet. Jonas married the couple up quick so that Dare could sit down before he fell down.

  Jonas was lingering over this ceremony, although reading one chapter from the Good Book didn’t count as a whole lot of lingering.

  “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.” Jonas narrowed his eyes and leaned close to Vince. “As if you haven’t already kissed her, Yates.”

  Vince grinned, and Jonas couldn’t keep up his scowl. At least it was gone by the time Vince was done kissing the living daylights out of his brand-new wife.

  Jonas offered Vince his hand. They shook, and Jonas clapped him on the shoulder. Dare joined in, and Paul got in on it with a handshake too, while Glynna and Janny swarmed Tina, along with Missy and Mother.

  The burst of congratulations faded as Vince turned to Mother, who beamed up at
him, her eyes brimming with tears.

  “What a beautiful ceremony, son.” Mother dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, and it didn’t even bother him to see her cry, not over an important moment like this. “I’m so glad I got to Texas in time for the wedding, even if I did have to be abandoned by your worthless father and get kidnapped.”

  Vince hugged her hard. He pulled back and smiled at her. “There’s no one around here who doubts there is trouble to be found in Texas, and I’d say we’ve more than found our share.”

  “Well, I’d prefer if things quieted down now,” Mother said, looking right at him.

  She knew him. For right this moment, Mother knew she had a son and she was pleased by that. Then Mother turned and reached out for Tina, who went into Mother’s arms with all the kindness of a true daughter.

  Watching his two favorite women in the world share a hug was the sweetest moment of Vince’s life.

  Vince was waiting for her outside Mother’s room. Tina swallowed hard, but when he reached for her, she went into his arms without hesitation.

  He held her close, and all her fears about the wedding night eased. She was in the keeping of a fine man. She relaxed, and Vince raised his head. “Let’s go.”

  Nodding, he led her to his room . . . their room. When he drew her inside, she said quietly, “I’m so glad your mother was there for our wedding.” She hesitated. “Vince, you know . . .”

  “That she will likely wake up tomorrow and not remember any of it, including me?” Vince sounded sad but accepting.

  “I’m sorry for that. I know how much—” A kiss quieted her apology.

  “I consider myself a reasonably smart man, but I’ve been acting like a fool thinking I could cure Mother. Being called Invincible Vince by my friends went to my head. I let myself believe that if I wanted to solve a problem badly enough, I’d find a way. But part of realizing I can’t cure my mother is accepting that I haven’t been anything close to invincible in the most important things. I’ve never figured out how to make my parents love me.”

  “Vince, I’m sure they love you.” Tina touched his lips, wishing she could hold back those feelings even more than the words.

  Vince kissed her fingertips, gently lifted her hand away and kept talking. “Mother does. Father, well, my choices were to obey him and be a weakling, or defy him and be a failure.”

  “That’s a fight you were never going to win.”

  “So I quit fighting and left that life behind as soon as I was able. What’s left now is making sure Mother has as happy a life as I can arrange.”

  Tina ran one hand up and down Vince’s arm, thinking to comfort him.

  “I don’t want to talk about my parents anymore.” He lowered his head and kissed her.

  When finally he broke the kiss, she asked in a rather breathless voice, “What do you want to talk about?”

  “It’s our wedding night. I want to talk about that.” He dragged her into his arms, and there was very little talking between them for a long time.

  Epilogue

  Vince held his little blond daughter in his arms as he watched Sal Stone toddle unsteadily across the soft rug covering the wood floor of Luke’s living room. Ruthy had made a neglected house into a home.

  Baby Sal, named after Luke’s pa, had his father’s dark hair and eyes. The boy was a year and a half now and would be a big brother before too long.

  Dare and Glynna’s son, Michael, with his wispy white-blond hair, squealed and chased after his slightly older friend.

  “Stay with him, Paul.” Dare sounded exhausted, and in truth the whole family felt that way. The boy was getting to be as active as Dare, which was keeping his family tired to the bone. Even Dare had calmed down a bit. He had no choice. He was kept running so much to prevent the boy from toddling into disaster that Dare never passed up one of his rare chances to sit down and rest for a minute.

  As for Lana Bullard, she and Porter were never seen again, which saved everyone a lot of fuss.

  Jonas and Missy had a little one on the way, and Vince had never seen a couple so excited. And considering the Broken Wheel baby boom of the last year, that was saying something.

  Though she was nearing her delivery time, Missy, like all of the women, was in the kitchen and cooking. Well, maybe not Glynna. They might have Glynna busy setting the table.

  So, while the men looked after the little ones, Vince knew the women, including Mother, were working hard at getting the meal on. He glanced around the room, watching his friends. He loved seeing these tough Regulators become good husbands and fathers.

  Vince let out a sigh. “When we were all fighting to survive in Andersonville, did you ever think we’d see the day when there was so much happiness in our lives?” He cradled his daughter’s head in one big tanned hand. She gave him a toothy, drooling smile. Even though she was held high in his arms, she dove for the rampaging boys and would have thrown herself onto the floor if Vince wasn’t used to her tricks.

  “I carried that place around with me for years,” Luke replied. “For a long time I thought it had swept away all that was decent in my life. I never hoped to find home and family again.”

  Michael shrieked, grabbed Sal’s black curls and yanked. Dare rushed in while Sal bellowed. Paul pried his little brother’s fingers loose one at a time. The ruckus was normal when the Regulators got together.

  Luke lifted Sal, sobbing, and held his son against his chest. Michael was fighting Dare’s restraining hands, so Dare dangled him upside down for a while until the boy was giggling. Noticing their fun, Sal began demanding his father toss him around, too.

  Peace reigned—not counting the squealing—as Dare said, “And I was mighty mixed up about wanting to be a doctor and not believing I should be one with only the training I got in Andersonville.” Dare shook his head, chuckled. “When I think of how fired up I was to quit caring for patients . . . Now I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

  Dare hefted his son toward Paul, who settled on the floor with both children. He was used to being a baby wrangler.

  Vince’s little daughter was, of course, the cutest of them all. She was the spitting image of her mother. When Vince thought about how beautiful she was going to be, and how watchful he’d need to be with all the roughneck men running wild in Texas, he broke out into a cold sweat.

  They’d named her Bella after Vince’s ma, who’d taken to the child when she’d been born six months ago. Mother still couldn’t be trusted on her own for even a minute, but they simply took turns staying with her and mostly things were good.

  Vince’s father had died a few months after Bella’s birth. Vince had written and told him about a grandchild being born. Father had made no effort to see his wife or son or granddaughter.

  He’d left everything to Vince, even with the estrangement between them. And he didn’t bother to acknowledge Missy’s existence or leave provision for his wife. Vince corrected the injustice to Missy generously and continued to care for Mother. Beyond that, he used the new wealth like all the other money he’d been handed. He did his best to make his loved ones’ lives a little more comfortable and left the rest in a bank to collect interest.

  Vince’s lawyering business was a small concern, though it didn’t matter much because he was mighty busy taking care of his wife and daughter and mother, which didn’t leave him much time for practicing law. He’d had a conflict of interest in being sheriff when he arrested Tug and Wilcox, and then being the lawyer who prosecuted them. But Texas was an easygoing state about such things, and there was no trouble getting the coyotes convicted.

  “And I was so sure it was right to cut myself off from my father and mother. Now I can’t imagine life without Mother, especially as she’s like a grandma to all the young’uns. And with all of you getting hitched, I can’t believe the time I wasted trying not to end up stuck together with the only single woman left in town.”

  Dare laughed, then Luke and Paul joined in. Jonas was slowest, but loudest. Even
Vince had to laugh. The day Vince had claimed that spitfire of a woman was the luckiest day of his life.

  She hadn’t changed a bit, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. She didn’t have much to reform these days. Duffy and Griss Schuster had finally tired of having a mission field that covered their front door, and they’d left the territory. Broken Wheel was now a dry town.

  “So have you decided which of our sons you want Bella to marry, Vince?” Luke asked.

  Because Vince was laughing, he inhaled when he gasped and almost choked to death. His friends delighted in asking that blamed fool question now and then just to watch the color drain out of Vince’s face. He’d almost stopped getting light-headed when he heard it, but he suspected he’d gone a bit pale because Luke, Dare, and Jonas all laughed like loons.

  Tina came into the living room, and Vince thought back to the first time he’d laid eyes on her. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And after nearly two years of marriage, he felt exactly the same now as then, except even better because now he looked at her with love.

  “Dinner’s ready.” She spoke to the room, but she had eyes only for Vince and little Bella. She came over and made simple, unnecessary adjustments to the collar of their little girl’s dress, then looked up into Vince’s eyes and smiled in a private way she saved just for him. She hadn’t come over to make sure he was taking care of their baby to suit her. She just liked being close to him.

  Just as he loved being close to her.

  They’d filled the empty, lonely places in each other’s lives. And they were both smart enough to cherish that.

  The rest of his Regulator friends headed for the dinner table, leaving Vince alone with Tina for just a moment.

  He’d said it before, yet Vince didn’t think he could ever say it enough. “You know when all my friends were getting married and you were the only single woman in town, even though I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, I was scared because I didn’t want to . . . to burden a woman with all my problems. And it looked like the world was conspiring so we’d end up stuck together.”