Texas Fierce (The Tylers of Texas 4)

“You heard me,” Ham said. “You’re a man now. It’s time you stopped fooling around, grew up, and took some responsibility for your actions. The reverend is expecting you to show up, on Sunday after the service, dressed in your best, for a good old-fashioned shotgun wedding. I told him you’d be there.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then you’ll be out of that pretty red car, out of the house, and out of my will. Understand?”

A bead of nervous sweat trickled down Ferg’s cheek. “But . . . what about Susan?”

“She’s gone, you fool. You had your chance with the girl. She was even willing to marry you, at least for a while. But then you had to go and show her what a horse’s ass you could be, sneaking out to sleep with that waitress. I don’t blame her for breaking up with you.”

“It wasn’t me that broke us up! It was Bull Tyler. He took her away from me!”

Ham’s eyes narrowed. “Is that how you got those bruises on your face? From fighting with Bull?”

Ferg slumped in his chair. “I drove over to the Rimrock ’cause I’d seen that water-stealing operation he was rigging on the creek. We talked about that for a while—he pretty much told me to mind my own business. Then the talk got around to Susan. He made some claims about how he’d had her. That was when I went for him.”

Ham’s grizzled eyebrow slid upward. “I hope Bull got the worst of it.”

“Pretty much,” Ferg said. “I would’ve beat the bastard to a bloody pulp, but this crazy girl, about fourteen, came out on the porch with a pistol. The little wildcat shot in the air and said she’d aim lower next time if we didn’t break it up. So I left. But I blacked Bull’s eye real good. You know. You saw him.”

“Never mind that.” Ham leaned forward, his gaze focused and intense—like a snake watching a mouse. His hand reached across the desk and gripped Ferg’s arm.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me about the girl.”

CHAPTER 16

THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY, HAM AND FERG, DRESSED IN WHITE SHIRTS and Western-style suits with bolo ties, climbed into Ferg’s freshly washed T-bird and headed for the Blessed Harmony Christian Church on the outskirts of Blanco Springs.

Ham had insisted on driving. Maybe he was afraid his son might floor the gas pedal and shoot off in some other direction. And he would’ve done just that, Ferg groused to himself as he gazed out the side window. Humping Edith in the backseat was one thing. Marrying her, when he’d hoped to do so much better, was something else.

Boiling with silent anger, Ferg cast sidelong glances at his father. Ham could’ve gotten him out of this mess if he’d wanted to. Offered enough money, the reverend would have settled for raising Edith’s second child. But no—Ham wanted grandchildren to continue his dam

ned dynasty. He wanted to settle his son on the ranch and end his wild nights once and for all. And he didn’t give a shit about Ferg’s happiness.

They parked in front of the unpretentious red brick church. The Sunday service had just ended. Families were trooping down the steps and out to the weedy dirt lot on the side, where they’d left their vehicles. A few people, however, paused to stare at the red convertible, then turned around and headed back into the church. If there was going to be a show, they didn’t want to miss it.

Reverend Timmons, tall and storklike, his spectacles balanced on his outsized nose, stood in the doorway of the church where he’d been seeing his flock out. Spotting Ham and Ferg, he smiled, waved, and motioned them inside.

“This is a happy day,” he said as they mounted the front steps. “The start of a new family is always something to celebrate.”

Several members of his flock were within earshot as he said this. Ferg could only imagine what the good reverend was really thinking.

“We’re here,” Ham said. “Let’s get this over with.”

The organist had stayed on her bench. She began playing a hymn as Ferg and Ham entered and walked to the front of the small chapel.

Garn was sitting in a pew with his grandmother, a blond woman as nondescript as Edith. The other seven children in the family sat in the row behind them, arranged in stair steps from oldest to youngest.

Ferg had never paid much attention to Garn. Lord, he couldn’t even remember how old the boy was. Dressed in a suit he’d outgrown, showing bony wrists and ankles, he looked like a younger, blonder version of the reverend. The child cast a nervous glance at Ferg, then looked down at his hands.

Ham took a seat alone on the front row. The people who’d invited themselves to watch the little drama sat in the back.

The reverend motioned for Ferg to stand at the foot of the podium. Then, as the “Wedding March” began, he strode back to the chapel entrance to escort his daughter down the aisle.

Ferg watched his bride walk toward him. Edith had made an effort to look pretty. Her dress was old-fashioned, as if it might have been her mother’s, but she’d dabbed a little makeup on her pale face, and her veil was attached to her blond hair with a garland of fresh flowers. She looked like an innocent maiden, which she wasn’t. Maybe that was all right. But if he had to be married, he could only wish that beautiful, sexy Susan was the woman coming down the aisle toward him.

Bull Tyler would laugh his head off when he heard about this.

The ceremony took just a few minutes, including a homily by the reverend. When it was done, Ferg gave Edith a self-conscious kiss and they left, trailed back up the aisle by Ham and by a scared-looking Garn.