than two fryer chickens and a big bottle of whiskey until he’d set the purchases, including the gun, on the table in the cabin.
The moment Jonas had seen the gun, he’d lit into Silas and wouldn’t let up.
That’s also when she’d become theatrical about their fighting and kicked both men out of the house. That allowed her privacy to change out of—and to try to clean up—her blood-stained dress.
Examining the stab wound had proven difficult given it was in a spot she couldn’t see—not even with the help from her hand mirror. She could only feel the length of it, but if she touched it, it bled. Treatment of the wound beyond cleaning it would have to wait until she returned to Doc’s.
The bruises on her arm would be harder to hide.
Zeke had wrenched her arm so violently she understood why Silas believed his arm had been broken the time he got into it with Zeke. It’d been agony holding the reins on the ride home. Lifting her arms to get undressed. Using force to cut through chicken bones. She still had pie crust to roll out and if Silas saw her struggling, he’d demand to know why and she could not—would not—tell him.
Keeping her injuries from him was a matter of life or death this time.
She’d used her mother’s best trick, adopting a chipper “can-do” attitude to mask her emotions, even when part of her was bothered that Silas believed everything was fine and dandy as soon as they’d reached home and hearth.
“Listen to me,” Jonas said sharply, outside the window, snagging Dinah’s attention again. “Gimme the gun.”
“Nope.” Thwack. Crack. “You have your own collection of guns. A big collection.”
“They’re not all mine. They’re ones I’ve confiscated after they’ve been used in a crime.”
“This one ain’t ever been fired, so back off on your need to confiscate it.”
“Maybe, you stubborn bastard, I’m tryin’ to head off a crime before it happens.”
“Is that a new law enforcement tactic? Or just one you’re usin’ on your younger, hotheaded brother?”
Dinah shook her head. Silas could be so ornery sometimes, especially with Jonas. Jonas was the older twin only by twenty minutes. But to hear Silas tell it, Jonas acted years older. Sometimes she saw it—like now, when Silas overreacted like a petulant child.
Whatever Jonas said in response, Dinah didn’t hear.
But Silas’s derisive snort was loud and clear.
Then the thwacks became louder. Faster. Not in a natural way. She listened as she dredged the chicken pieces in flour. That done, she stepped outside to wash her hands and saw Silas and Jonas each with an axe, chopping wood as fast as they could.
“What in the world is going on out here?”
“No time to talk, darlin’, me’n Jonas is havin’ a contest. The winner gets—”
“Silas McKay, didn’t you learn your lesson the last time you took a bet?” she demanded.
He grunted.
Jonas laughed and Silas told him to piss up a rope, which only made Jonas laugh harder.
Even laughing, Jonas didn’t miss a swing in his quest to finish his log pile first.
Dinah rounded the corner of the cabin to the new cold storage box Silas had built. She pulled out two eggs and a jar of cream. She purposely ignored their huffing and puffing as she walked past them into the house.
She scooped a dollop of duck fat into the biggest cast iron pot. As she waited for it to heat, she mixed up milk batter, adding a touch of vinegar, and dunked the chicken into it. After tossing all the pieces into the pan, she slid the lid on and moved on to her next task.
“Dinah, come quick!”
She raced out of the house muttering, “I knew one of you would get injured.”
Silas and Jonas were both bent over, air soughing in and out of their lungs.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’,” Silas wheezed. “Whose is bigger?”
“Excuse me?”
He gestured to the piles. “Who has more wood.”
This was what the “Dinah, come quick!” had been about?
They were both looking at her as if they had every right to interrupt her work to play mama and declare a winner in their petty games.
Nope.
Propping her hands on her hips, she said, “Well, stand up and drop your drawers.”
“What?”
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? To prove which one of you has a bigger c—”
“DINAH!” Silas yelled. “That ain’t what we were doin’ at all!”
“Oh. Right. If you’re identical in all ways then you’re probably endowed the same, so you have no need for me to be out here judging the size