A Lady in Defiance (28 page)

“Aye, there is a doctor, of sorts. A mine that employs over
two hundred men must have one. His office is down near the mine entrance, just
outside o’ town.”

“Why do you call him a doctor
of sorts?”

“The truth is, when he’s sober, he’s a fine physician.”

“Sober?” Rebecca felt a sinking feeling hit her gut. “You
mean he’s a drunk?”

“Aye, like a lo’ of the men in this town, they’re here
because they’re not fit for decent society. Dr. Cook, I believe, has a
checkered past. That dusna mean he canna deliver a baby, though.”

Rebecca was very unhappy with this news. She wanted the best
care possible for Hannah, especially if anything went wrong. “I assume he’s our
only choice.”

Ian thought for a moment. “Well, on occasion I have heard
that Mary Two-Horse, a Ute medicine woman, can be availed upon for such needs.
I believe a few of the girls from the Iron Horse have required her assistance
in, uh, well, ending a pregnancy.”

Rebecca’s stomach rolled. “Our choices are midwives with
who-knows-what level of skill, a drunken doctor or a baby-killer.”

Ian leaned over and took her hand to offer some comfort.
“Hannah is young, strong, and healthy. There’s no reason at all to assume the
worst.” Rebecca knew her eyes revealed her fear. “God dinna bring her all this
way to just let the child die, either of them.”

Considering what they had been through thus far, Rebecca
wasn’t so sure, but she appreciated his effort at comfort. In fact, for a
moment, she let herself get lost in those steely gray eyes that touched her
soul. The powerful force that attraction can be pulled them closer. Rebecca’s
rational mind flew right out the window as she wondered if he might draw her
even closer for a kiss. How long had it been since a man’s lips had touched
hers...?

When he was close enough for her to feel his breath, he
whispered, “Perhaps we’d best get to the dishes.”

She blinked and pulled away. “Yes, yes, absolutely.” Rebecca
jumped up. Flummoxed, and more than a little embarrassed, she started clearing
the table with jittery hands. Ian stood and assisted in a calm, measured manner
as Rebecca’s heart galloped like a wild mustang’s. Still, she didn’t miss the
slight smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

~~~

McIntyre waited until close to noon to go see Lil. At first
he had thought he would make this call when she was back on her feet, but that
timing didn’t really sit right with him. The fact was he owed Lil something.
What he couldn’t exactly say. How does one balance the scales for a pair of
eyes? He knew “sorry” didn’t cut it, but it was better than nothing.

He rapped once on Lil’s door and let himself in to the
Spartan, one-room cabin. Gustav Jorgensen, “Swede” as folks called him, was
sitting beside Lil’s bed, wiping her forehead with a towel. It surprised
McIntyre to see this burly, grizzled miner tending the woman as gently as if
she were made of China. Lil was propped up in bed and enormous bandages covered
each eye. One was tinged with a dark red spot near the bottom.  An
honest-to-God shiver went through McIntyre when he thought of the hatred it
would take to try to gauge out a person’s eyes. They would heal, Doc said, but Lil’s
vision wouldn’t return.

Gustav whispered something to Lil as McIntyre entered. She
stirred, spat a curse then straightened up. “You owe me big time for this,
McIntyre.”

There wasn’t the usual fire in the raspy voice and he felt
humbled. Exchanging a careful glance with Gustav, he sat down at the end of
Lil’s bed. The Swede put the towel in the bowl next to the bed and patted her
hand gently. “I step outside so you two can talk.”

They waited for the door to shut then Lil chuckled. “Well, I
guess if anybody’s happy, it’s Swede. He’s been after me to marry him for ten
years.”

“He’s a good man,” McIntyre reassured her. He heard the
awkwardness in his voice and loathed it.

“I always said I’d marry a good man when I was ready to
settle down, and sleep with the devil in the meantime.” She sighed here,
accepting her fate. “Reckon it’s time to settle down.”

“I am sorry about all this, Lil. I’ve got Rose in jail. Tell
me what happened and we’ll press charges.” It was the least he could do.

Lil stiffened and shook her head. “No, we won’t. The Broken
Spoke’s hers. That’s all you need to know.”

McIntyre froze. “What?”

“She has my half. Rose is your partner now. It was a fair
fight.”

McIntyre was struck dumb. It took what felt like an eternity
for the information to sink in. When it did, anger coursed through him like
acid. Slowly, he rose to his feet. “What have you done, Lil?”

“You know as well as I do that when a madame loses a fight
with one of her girls, she’s not fit−
or able
−to run her
house...that’s just the way it works.” McIntyre swallowed a sinking feeling.
Rose had scratched and clawed her way into being, God help him, his
partner
all because of some twisted jungle law among prostitutes? “She’s a power hungry
she-devil, that one,” Lil warned. “But maybe now, with a business to run,
she’ll be satisfied.”

Looking into the bandages that covered Lil’s eyes, McIntyre
didn’t think he would bet on it.  

~~~

Opening day for the Trinity Inn’s restaurant came with an
explosion of small crises, wrong deliveries, shortages, overcooked food, and a
packed house. Naomi had been prepared for such mishaps. What she wasn’t
prepared for was the unwashed, smelly, leering customers. She had foolishly
thought that something about the restaurant’s atmosphere would bring out their
better character. She was wrong. Table after table, she took their orders,
tolerated their ogling and tried desperately to maintain a polite, professional
demeanor…until Grady O’Banion sat down.

Naomi recognized him and the dirty bowler hat instantly as
she approached his table. She braced herself for the comments and stares as two
other men joined him. Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and
greeted the men. “Good evening, gentlemen. Our menu tonight is elk steak, fried
potatoes, cornbr−”

“Tell me, darlin’, do ye remember me?” O’Banion snatched his
hat off his head and grinned menacingly. His glassy eyes were bloodshot and he
reeked of whiskey. “I’ll bet I was the first to welcome ye to Defiance.”

“Actually, you were the fourth,” Naomi told him, recalling
the men playing keep-away with Hannah’s bonnet. “Now, may I take your order?”

Her tone was icy and belatedly she remembered that was a
provocation with the belligerent Irishman. His dander up, O’Banion turned more
fully to Naomi and grinned wider. “Well, perhaps I can be yer first real
customer tonight, eh, darlin’?” O’Banion’s hand snaked out and latched on to
Naomi’s bottom like a vice. Mortified and furious, she slapped him hard enough
across the face to convince her she’d broken her hand. O’Banion jumped to his
feet, flipping his chair over behind him.

Before he could lunge at her, Mr. McIntyre quickly inserted
himself between the two. Eyes blazing, he pushed O’Banion back with a
determined shove. The room fell silent as the customers watched intently. “If
you don’t want to be barred from here permanently, Grady, take your friends and
go.” The warning was delivered with a gravity Naomi could not recall ever
having heard in a man’s voice. Grady stared past Mr. McIntyre and burned her
with his vicious glare. For the moment, her anger anchored her to the spot and
she stared right back. Mr. McIntyre raked the room of interested on-lookers
with a hard gaze and explained, “Any ungentlemanly conduct will result in your
worthless hides being tossed out onto the street. You got that?” He looked
again at Grady and shoved him again for emphasis. “Am I clear?”

Ian and the marshal joined the group, the two of them
towering over Grady. The lawman chucked a thumb over his shoulder toward the
door. “Take your friends and go, Grady.”

A tense moment passed as O’Banion kept Naomi in his sights.
His anger actually frightened her, but she refused to show it. Perhaps
understanding this was a battle he couldn’t win, the man grudgingly dropped the
challenge. “Aye, we’ll be havin’ our dinners elsewhere.” O’Banion signaled for
his friends to join him and the three left the dining room.

Naomi felt like her skin was on fire as the humiliation of
that man’s hands on her rear end seared its way into her soul. The filthy,
despicable man had groped her in front of all these people. She felt so dirty,
so completely debased. Desperate to run from the dining room, to escape the
fascinated stares of the amused patrons, and−especially−the
sympathy in Mr. McIntyre’s eyes, she closed her eyes and tried to compose
herself.

Rebecca hurried out from the kitchen and rested her hands on
her sister’s shoulders. “Naomi, I saw what happened. I think you should take a
break. We can manage for a while without you.”

“Aye, ye’ll not have to,” Ian offered quickly. “I can tie on
an apron and serve meals to the likes of these buffoons.”

Without waiting to debate the offer, Naomi shoved her slate
at Ian and scrambled from the dining room before anyone could see her
tears. 

Chapter
24

Because it helped him think, McIntyre sat at a table bathed
in morning sunlight and played a game of Solitaire. In the quiet, he pondered
the women troubling him. After seeing O’Banion treat Naomi as if she was one of
the Flowers, the urge to throttle the imbecile had nearly consumed him. Still
aggravated by this chivalrous emotion, he flipped his cards with short, sharp
movements. It would not have done to look like the over-zealous knight in
shining armor…not at all. Her Highness would not have appreciated it, and the
men in town would have seen it as a weakness. Rose would have seen it as
weakness. In Defiance, any kind of vulnerability, real or perceived, could get
a man killed.

Knowing there was no easy answer there, McIntyre turned to
Rose. At least he had a plan for handling her. If he played his cards right
maybe he could get her to focus on running the Broken Spoke and nothing else.
She needed to forget about their past relationship; she needed to forget about
the three women at the other end of town. Perhaps a few days in jail had
humbled her to the point that she might be interested in new possibilities.

He heard the bat wings and looked up. Wade tipped his hat to
his boss from the doorway. “She’s on her way.”

McIntyre nodded and set his cards down. Before he could lean
back in his seat, Rose shoved past the marshal and sashayed into the Iron Horse
wearing a confident grin and faded red silk dress. McIntyre noted immediately
that she looked more gaunt, hollow-eyed, and baleful. He motioned to the seat
beside him. “Sit down.”

Rose fairly slithered into the seat and grinned wider. “Are
you happy to see me? Have you missed me?”

“Only the way one misses a toothache,” he said, bored with
her.

Every muscle in Rose’s face hardened and her eyes glittered
with a dangerous warning. Like scenery changing on a stage, the difference in
her mood was stark and sudden. “You shouldn’t talk to me like that. I came to
forgive you…and start over.” Just as quickly, her mood changed again. Rose’s
eyebrow twitched, her chin quivered and tears choked her voice. She reached out
and grabbed McIntyre’s hand, clinging to him with an alarming desperation. “I
love you. I’ve never stopped loving you and I’ll do anything for you. I just
want things to be the way they used to be…just tell me what you want.” She
trailed off and swallowed. A silence as heavy and cold as a spring snow settled
between them.

McIntyre slowly withdrew his hand, not only stunned by her
outburst, but actually revolted by it. The woman really was coming unhinged.
“I’m giving you the Broken Spoke, Rose. Not as a reward and certainly not
because I have any feelings for you. I’m giving it to you because I don’t want
anything more to do with you. Fight with the dogs in Tent Town but stay away
from this side of Defiance.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “And stay
away from Naomi, Rebecca and Hannah. I don’t know what you meant by what you
did to Lil, but if there was a message there, then you need to know my
response. Touch one hair on their pretty little heads and I’ll bury you
myself.”

Rose’s chest started to heave and her cheeks flushed. Her
mouth set into a petulant, thin line and she stood up. Tapping her knuckles
restlessly on the table, she shook her head. “I’m not afraid of you. I have
never been afraid of you or any man. But I tell you this, Defiance will be
mine...and I will rid it of those
gringas
.”

“You’re at the end of your leash, Rose. Don’t do anything
else foolish.”

She merely gave him a crooked smile, spun on her heels and
marched out of the Iron Horse. When the doors swung closed behind her, McIntyre
ran a tense hand over his forehead and through his hair. The sense that he had
just freed an injured she-bear wouldn’t leave him. Wounded animals were
dangerous…and unpredictable.

~~~