The Firecracker Gets Her Man Page 6

  “No. The ticket agent knew me; he was a patient in our practice.”

  “Speaking of patients, daughter, let’s get a plate ready for Clay. He is extremely hungry this morning. He tolerated broth yesterday, so we’ll give him food today.”

  “I will take our plates into the office and eat with Clay, Doc, if that is all right with you?” Mary asked permission.

  “I think it is a splendid idea,” Caleb replied. “He could use some company, and some help from his wife to eat his meal. Don’t try to push him eat; let him set his own pace, Mary. He’ll regain his strength eventually, but don’t rush him.”

  “Yes, sir, Doc. I’ll do whatever you say. I’m so happy Clay is alive, and I want to take the best care of him now.”

  “You’ll do just fine, honey. Seeing you come in that door yesterday was the best medicine for him.” Caleb was smiling at her and then he looked at the plate his daughter had filled for Clay. “Fine, Rachel. If he eats half of this I will be more than pleased. Mary, if Clay feels hungry in a couple of hours, let us know. He can have more to eat whenever he needs it.”

  “Thank you,” Mary replied, then took the tray and left the room, anxious to join her husband.

  “Have a seat, son,” Caleb invited as he sat at the head of the table. “I can see that Rachel made plenty of food.”

  “I truly didn’t come to eat, sir,” Lance insisted. That dream had scared him silly, just like he said. When he learned they were all safe, he felt as though he’d had a close call!

  “I believe you, Lance, but now that you’re here, and since Rachel looked for you, it would be silly to waste good food. Have a seat,” Caleb invited once more, and this time Lance took the same chair he’d used last evening.

  “Stop fiddling around, Rachel; come, sit down and eat your breakfast,” Caleb ordered. “Our food is getting cold waiting for you to join us.”

  Rachel did not want to sit down. She could barely sit on the side of her bed when she woke, and that was a soft mattress. The kitchen chairs were wooden and didn’t have cushions on the seats. Still, she’d promised to obey her parent, and she carefully eased her bottom down on her seat.

  “Are you really that sore?” Lance asked with a frown.

  “Yes,” she whispered, thoroughly embarrassed.

  “My daughter told me you spanked her, Lance. Thank you. I am beginning to think you are the right man for her after all,” Caleb said, chuckling.

  “I didn’t intend to bruise her, sir!”

  “She is a redhead, and she has the fair skin that goes with it, son. That’s why I couldn’t bring myself to spank her. A sore bottom won’t kill her, and perhaps she will learn to listen when someone tells her not to do as she pleases.”

  “She put herself in danger yesterday,” Lance explained. “I cannot permit Rachel to do that. Doc, I am in love with Rachel, and she feels the same about me. I know we’ve just met, but I want to be with her for the rest of my life. Will you give your blessing?” he asked.

  “You met each other yesterday afternoon, and you both have such strong feelings already?” Caleb demanded.

  “Yes!” Lance was sure of himself and his feelings for the lovely redhead.

  “Daughter?” Caleb turned his eyes on her to inquire.

  “Papa, I love Lance.”

  “We’ll see how each of you feel about the other in another month. By then an infatuation should start to fade. You can wait that long to make sure these feelings are truly love, correct?”

  “We will do as you ask, sir. This is important to us; we want your approval, and I give my word not to take advantage of the situation.”

  “Thank you, Lance. Daughter, I expect you to be on your best behavior too. The responsibility does not fall entirely on Lance’s shoulders; do you understand?” he asked in a soft voice.

  “I do, Papa, and I promise to do my very best to make it easier for Lance, but I do so love him,” she insisted.

  “I know you do,” Caleb agreed, not about to argue with his hotheaded daughter. He wouldn’t win, and he knew it. He already had her promise and it was all he could ask. “So, what do we do now?” he asked Lance.

  “Sir, you go about your doctoring as usual. Just be alert, and if you are approached by anyone you don’t know, be in a hurry to get back here for whatever reason you can come up with: to check on a patient, or deliver a baby. If they ask about Rachel, try to look offended and tell them you kicked her out and she already left town and you have no idea where she went. Lie for all you are worth. Don’t let them take you anywhere under false pretenses. We don’t want you to get shot like the doctor Rachel worked for.”

  “My guess is that they would pretend to be ill and just come here to my office. It would get them into the house and they could see for themselves that Rachel is here. And, they won’t come until closer to the fourth. They will want to test the air about town, and see if people are wary or just excited and looking forward to the festivities.”

  As soon as the doctor finished speaking there was a knock at the front door. He hurried to his feet. “This was a wonderful breakfast, honey. It sure is good to have you home.” He hurried through the house, and when he opened the door, he immediately called out. “Rachel, come quickly! I need your help!”

  Rachel dropped her fork on the table and went running, Lance on her heels. He heard the man at the door say, “It happened so quick, Doc. Please help Jack!”

  “I’ll do everything I can, Bill. Rachel, set up the surgery. Lance, help me get Jack inside.”

  Lance hurried to help lift the unconscious man and carry him inside. “I’ve never met you, mister,” the one Doc had called Bill stated.

  “I’m Lance Underwood. I’m courting Miss Rachel,” he explained his presence in the house.

  “Bill Hadley. This is my little brother, Jack. He’s only twenty years old. We were going to add onto the house because he’s planning to get married, and the lumber fell off the wagon and buried him. I don’t know how bad he’s hurt!”

  “Doc will do all he can,” Lance promised. Jack didn’t look a bit good to him.

  Caleb showed him where to place Jack, and then said, “You get on out of here and take Bill with you, son. Rachel will be busy for quite a while.”

  One glance at his little redhead, and Lance nodded and left the room, gently pushing Bill along with him to the kitchen. “Did you eat this morning?” he asked. “Rachel made enough for ten people, I think. There’s plenty left warming.”

  “I am hungry,” Bill sheepishly admitted. “I was inside fixing us breakfast when the load fell on Jack.”

  “Sit down, and I’ll feed you.” Lance made quick work of dishing up food for the other man.

  “I wonder how long it will be before Doc knows something about Jack. I need to let Beth know, but I hate to go and tell her until I know more.”

  “I understand.” Lance went ahead and started clearing the table of dirty dishes. He put hot water from the stove’s reservoir in the dishpan with some soap and started washing the dishes. To his surprise, Bill finished eating and then picked up a dishtowel and started drying.

  “It’s good to see another man not afraid to do the dishes,” Bill said with a smile. “Jack and I have been fending for ourselves for the last five years.”

  “Ma taught me to help out, and I don’t mind.” He wanted to keep a close eye on Rachel, too. Sometimes the dreams he had were warnings. There was more banging on the front door, and he went to answer the summons, hoping there wasn’t another emergency.

  “Where is Jack?” A young woman stood there, tapping her toe and glaring at him with snapping brown eyes.

  Bill had followed him down the hall. “Beth? How did you find out so quickly? I was going to come and tell you when I knew something. Doc is treating Jack now, doing surgery.”

  “I cannot believe you didn’t send for me, William John Hadley!” the pretty brunette scolded.

  “Would you rather I let him die while I ride over and fetch you to
come?” Bill demanded. “You need to settle down, missy!”

  “Don’t you call me that!”

  “I will call you what I please when you are acting like a hotheaded little brat,” Bill told her. “I’m tired of your childish games, and you can stop pretending you love Jack. We both know it isn’t true, don’t we?” he demanded.

  Beth’s mouth dropped open and her brown eyes filled with tears. “He’s nicer than you are!” she declared.

  “You are going to make both of your lives miserable if you don’t come clean, missy.”

  The door to the doctor’s office opened and Rachel stepped out. “Papa asks that you two stop yelling at each other. It will be a while before Papa is finished, and he does not like noise when he needs to be so careful.”

  “Is Jack going to be all right, Rachel?” Beth asked.

  “It’s too soon to answer that, Beth. Papa tells me that you have been seeing Jack, and I cannot believe that. He is too young for you and I think you know it.” Rachel looked from Beth to Bill, and then said, “You two need to talk and stop pretending you don’t care for each other. I cannot imagine anything worse than being in love with a man and married to his kid brother. Beth, you know very well that Jack is still a kid!” With that she entered the office again and quietly shut the double doors.

  Beth suddenly burst into tears and Bill took her by the arm and led her into the parlor saying, “Excuse us, Lance. We need some time alone.” He shut those doors and Lance smiled to himself. If he were a betting man, Miss Beth was going to have a very sore backside in a few minutes.

  He went back to the kitchen, finished the dishes, and wiped down the table. Trying to stay busy, he swept the floor. When he was finished with that, Lance decided to see if the ingredients for vegetable soup were handy. He could fix a pot of that and help Rachel. He didn’t find everything, so he put on his hat and headed for the front door. He would look around for Jared Cane and then he would meet the stage again to see if Misty Feathers was arriving earlier than Rachel thought she would. He could hear raised voices coming from the parlor as he walked past, but decided to keep his nose out of the situation.

  * * *

  “Stop crying and talk to me, missy!” Bill said sternly once he seated her on the sofa. “Is Miss Rachel right? Are you really in love with me and just pretending to be in love with Jack?”

  When she just sniffled and dabbed at her leaking eyes with her pretty embroidered handkerchief, he raised his voice. “Answer me right now, and tell me the truth for once!”

  “Rachel is right, Bill. I love you, and I always have!”

  “Then why would you pretend to love Jack?” he asked, truly baffled and angry all at once.

  “Because all you ever did was scold me, Bill. You treated me like a bratty kid sister instead of a grown woman! I hoped you would be jealous and stand up and claim me for your own! You never did, and I gave up! I want to marry and have children. I’m tired of living with Mike and Amy. I want my own home!”

  “I treated you like a bratty kid sister because I was waiting for you to grow up, Beth! I fell in love with you when you first pinned up your hair and started wearing long skirts. You didn’t seem to know how to be an adult, however. All your damn stunts – I felt more like spanking you than kissing you. Then you turned to Jack, and I wasn’t about to fight my brother over a woman who seemed fickle.”

  “I’m not fickle! You were mean to me all the time!”

  “I wanted you to grow up.”

  “I am grown. I am!”

  “A grown woman doesn’t lead on one brother while in love with the other brother. That is just plain ridiculous, and it is dangerous. How do you think Jack is going to feel when you tell him the truth, and you are going to tell him the truth, Elizabeth.”

  “Please don’t call me that. He did, and I can’t bear it, Bill,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry. I know he was cruel, but did he force you, honey?” he asked in genuine concern. Her stepfather was a real bastard, and there wasn’t one person around Rusty Bucket who liked the man.

  “No. He was going to one night after Mama died, but I screamed, and Mikey came running with the shotgun and told him if he ever touched me again, he would kill him. He left the next day. Mama had fixed it so he didn’t inherit anything she and Papa worked for. It went to Mike like they planned, and I have a good size dowry that Mikey will give me when I marry. I just don’t like to be chastised by my given name; it brings back bad memories. He didn’t beat me, but I spent hours doing chores and wasn’t allowed to have any fun. Mama told him he was too hard on me, but he claimed I was spoiled rotten.”

  “You aren’t spoiled. You work hard; I’ve seen that.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a pleased smile.

  “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I am not upset as can be with you, because I am. You need a good spanking.”

  “You can’t spank me! I’ve told you I am not a child!”

  “You behaved like a child. You just don’t lead a man on the way you have Jack! It wasn’t fair to him, and it sure as hell wasn’t fair to me!”

  “It’s your own fault!” Beth immediately realized that was the wrong thing to say. Bill pulled her to her feet and then he sat down on the sofa. Before she surmised his intentions, Bill jerked her down over his lap and his large hand landed on her backside with a whap! “No, Bill! No!”

  “Hell yes, I’m going to do this! You’ve needed a good spanking since you were fourteen years old and dared Chuck Wheeler to fight you over some stupid nonsense that only a little girl would deem important!” He swatted her again and she cursed, shocking him. “There will be none of that, Miss Beth, unless you want me to soap your mouth when I’m done with this spanking!”

  “No! No soap! Please, Bill, don’t do that! I would throw up all over you if you did!” She was pleading for mercy as he continued to spank her bottom. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” she hollered.

  “You are protesting too much, missy! I know you have so much padding covering your butt that you can barely feel a thing!”

  “That’s not so! It really hurts! Please stop!”

  “No. You need this in the worst way.” He spanked her twice more and then shook his head when she cried out. “I’m going to show you what a real spanking feels like,” he promised, and to her shock, he lifted and pushed her skirts out of the way, exposing her pretty lace-trimmed drawers. “Now I’ll give you something to holler about,” he stated, and started spanking her in earnest.

  Beth gasped as the force behind the spanking quickly turned her bottom into a burning mass of flesh! “Stop! Please, Bill! Stop!” He ignored her, and within a minute she was crying and then sobbing, too overcome to beg.

  Bill knew he was finally making the impression he wanted to make, and he scolded her, punctuating his words with even harder spanks.

  “I’m sorry!” she finally bawled. “I’m so sorry! I was wrong. It was unfair of me to lead Jack on, and I am beyond sorry. I will apologize to him, and I apologize to you, Bill. Please forgive me now!” The words were difficult to understand because she was crying so hard, but Bill was satisfied. He pulled down her skirts and then stood her on her feet. “I forgive you, Bethie, but I do expect you to tell my brother the truth and you will apologize to him too. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” She hiccupped the words.

  “I would offer you comfort, but until you are officially unengaged from Jack, I won’t hug you or do anything that I would do if you were mine.” He got up and opened the doors to the parlor as Caleb came out of his office. “Doc?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t as bad as I first feared, Bill. Jack is young and strong, and he will heal quickly. He has three broken bones, and I set those. He had two long splinters, and thankfully, they didn’t puncture any vital organs. If we can keep infection at bay, he should be able to go home with you in a couple of days.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Bill was overcome with emotion and tears filled his eyes. “I love the kid.”
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  “I know you do, son.” He looked in the parlor and spotted Beth. “Beth? Did you hear?”

  “Yes, sir. Doc, when Jack wakes up I need to speak to him. May I wait?” she asked.

  “Of course. I think it would be a good idea if you were here too, Bill,” he stated bluntly as was his fashion. “Bad news is best shared with loved ones.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m not leaving,” Bill said.

  Lance picked right then to come back, carrying an armful of packages. “I’m fixing vegetable soup to help out, Doc,” he explained when Caleb looked at him in surprise. “Is surgery all done now?” he inquired.

  “Yes, it is. Jack will be fine. My daughter is going to be surprised,” he added, grinning at Lance. “Never figured you could cook!”

  “I can do a fair job, just don’t have a kitchen to use most of the time. I guarantee that Rachel is much better at it than I am.”

  “I hear my name being used; am I in trouble?” Rachel asked with a smile as she looked up at Lance.

  “You are beautiful, Miss Rachel, truly beautiful. I love your sweet smile.”

  “Thank you. What’s in the packages?” she asked, curious.

  “I am fixing vegetable soup. I found beef and almost everything I needed, and I went to the store and got the rest. I was telling your father that I can cook, but nowhere as good as you do.”

  “I am amazed, Lance; thank you! Papa is going to need to see patients in a few moments, and I need to keep an eye on the surgery. Thankfully, Mary is taking care of Clay this morning.”

  “I wanted to help out,” Lance explained. “You’ve done nothing but cook for me since I came to town, and I want to do the same for you.”

  “See how wonderful he is, Papa?” she asked. “I am so lucky to have Lance.”

  “I am the lucky one. You help Doc, and I’ll tend to lunch.”

  “Did you check with the sheriff?”

  “I did, and nothing. I’ll go out and meet the stage later, just in case.”

  “I’ve been thinking of a plan to help out,” she stated.

  “Do you want another spanking?” Lance asked softly, but firmly enough that she would know he was very serious.