Colorado Bride (22 page)

“Come on, I’m taking you back to the station. Than Jake and I will go after those horses.”

“Why go back? You’ll lose too much time. They can’t be too far ahead.”

“Because I’m not tackling any bunch of Indians with a woman in my camp. I couldn’t concentrate, and that’s a good way to get killed.”

“But I can help, and three guns are better than two.”

“I can’t take the chance on you being captured. Suppose the shots bring their friend. We’d be outnumbered, and you have no idea what the Indians do to women.”

“He’s right, Mrs. Simpson,” Jake said, speaking for the first time. “It would be much better if you let us take you back.”

That’s a foolish waste of time,” Carrie stated indignantly, “and I won’t allow it.”

“I’m not one of your employees and I’m not asking,” Lucas told her, anger making his eyes hard. “Now turn your horse around or I’ll do it for you.” Carrie suddenly spurred and whipped her horse forward, but Lucas had anticipated her move, and he reached out and grabbed the bridle of the bucking horse. Carrie was furious!

“Take your hand off that bridle, Lucas Barrow, or I’ll use my crop on you.”

“Not unless you want it across your backside,” Lucas replied, and Carrie had no doubt from the blazing anger in his eyes that he would be as good as his word. “You may be intent upon getting yourself killed, but you’re not going to do it where people can say I should have taken better care of you.”

“Leave me alone. I don’t want you to protect me. I’m not your responsibility.”

“I know that, but out here menfolk feel obliged to take care of a woman,
all of them. Other
people, not knowing what a stubborn, hard-headed female you are, might think I neglected my obligation.” Carrie reached for her shotgun in anger, but found her scabbard empty.

“I thought we’d all be a mite safer if I was to hold on to the weapons,” Jake explained apologetically. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, ma’am, but you’re wrong, and the sooner you let Lucas take you back to the station, the sooner we can get after those horses.”

“You forgot my pistols.”

“No I didn’t,” replied Lucas, leading her horse back toward the station. “You’d never shoot me in the back.”

“Maybe not, but you’d better not turn around, or I’ll shoot you between the eyes.” Carrie couldn’t swear to it, but she thought she saw Lucas’s shoulders shake. If he was laughing at her, the black-hearted, bullying monster, she
would
shoot him in the back and be proud of it. But instead she sagged in her saddle and allowed herself to be led home. No matter how furious she was at having to go back without the horses or how much she would have liked to murder him for the high-handed way he had treated her, she was honest enough to admit she had bitten off more than she could chew. At least this once she probably was better off back at the station, but she would die before she would admit it to Lucas.

She looked at his broad, powerful back as he sat easily in the saddle, powerful legs hugging the side of his horse, the reins held loosely in equally powerful hands, and realized how relieved and happy she was to see him. It was impossible to feel threatened when he was watching over her. She tried to drive away the memory of his kisses, of how it felt to be held in his arms, but it was impossible to be this close to Lucas and ignore him. It was almost as though his body reached out to hers and found an answering response. She felt the now familiar surge of excitement, the acceleration of her heartbeat, the release of adrenaline, and she felt supercharged, as though her body were threatening to jump out of its skin.

Suddenly she didn’t have any time to think of Indians or missing horses. Lucas was all that filled her mind. He had come back and had come after her. He was furious and had acted like the pigheaded male he was, but he had come after her, and she knew that whatever he was looking for in a woman, no matter how much he was sure they didn’t fit, he could not give her up. And for now, that was enough.

The lines of anger were set firmly in Carrie’s face. If there was one thing she meant to do before she grew much older, it was to prove to that insufferable Lucas Barrow that no matter how much she might want to have him and his big shoulders around, she’d be damned if she was going to depend on him to help her run her station. She had been almost in charity with him by the time they reached the station. He had been wise enough not to open his mouth and give her any more reason to be angry with him. Unfortunately, he could not see that what worked perfectly in one situation might not work at all in another, and he had made the serious mistake of leaving without saying anything. Well, he had said
one
thing, but it would have been better if he’d preserved his silence.

“I’ll be back to get you in a few hours. You be ready.”

“Get me?” Carrie echoed furiously.

“Yes. We’ve got a lot of talking to do.”

“You set one foot on this porch and what you’ll be
getting
is the business end of a shotgun” Carrie had shouted just before she slammed the door hard enough to pull one of the slats loose.

“Unless you’re good at trimming wildcat claws, you’d better stay on your side of the corral tonight,” Jake said, a half grin on his face as they headed back after the Indians.

“Unless you’re good at dodging bullets, you’ll do nothing to attract my attention. I still might skin you alive for letting Carrie go off alone.”

“What was I supposed to do,” Jake asked plaintively. “Tie her up?”

“If you had to.”

“You know what she can do with a pistol.”

“She’s still just a woman.”

“That
woman
is more than I can handle, and I ain’t afraid to admit it. I don’t mind doing what I can, but if she makes up her mind to do something, I’m getting out of her way.”

“Then you’d better make damned sure nothing happens to her,” Lucas replied, and spurred his mount into a gallop.

“You’d think somebody would give me credit for going with her,” Jake called after Lucas. “After all, I’m not too keen on getting my hide ventilated with Indian arrows.”

Lucas didn’t answer him.

It was beginning to look more and more to Jake as if he had gotten himself into a situation where it was impossible for him to win. Just my luck, he thought. Fall into the best job I ever had, and it’s liable to cost me my neck.

Carrie didn’t know any of the things Lucas said to Jake, but it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. Her anger boiled over.

“Did you tell Lucas where I had gone?” she demanded of Katie before that sorely worried young woman could welcome her back.

To be sure I did,” Katie said, giving Carrie an impulsive hug. “How was I to know Jake had gone after you? I was worried you would get into trouble.”

“Don’t you ever tell that man a single thing about me ever again, or you can go look for a job somewhere else,” Carrie stormed. “I will not be hounded and pandered to and made to feel like an empty-headed fool by that great hulking cowboy!” she exploded, wishing she could get her hands on him for just one minute. “Do you know what he did? He forced me to return. He didn’t ask, he didn’t try to convince me that I should. He just grabbed hold of my horse’s bridle and forced me to come home.”

Katie started to speak, then changed her mind.

“I’ve been surrounded by rude, selfish, egotistical, unthinking men my whole life, but never have I run into one that carries the art of presumptuousness to such Olympian heights. He wouldn’t even let me stay and help, said he couldn’t
concentrate
with a woman about, just like I was a head cold or something.” Carrie stalked across the room and threw herself into a chair. “And that horse can keep on wearing her saddle until they get back because I’m not taking it off even if it does give her a rash.

“You just wait until he gets back. I’m going to give him his walking papers. He’s not to set foot in this station, do you hear, not for coffee, not for meals, not for
anything!
If he wants to play rough, I’ll show him what rough is. I’ll write Duncan Bickett and get him replaced. Anybody can break mustangs. I don’t have to put up with this kind of insolence from a no-good drifter.”

“I don’t think he is a drifter, ma’am. He doesn’t act like one.” Katie tactfully declined to point out that Carrie had been the first one to doubt Lucas’s announced profession.

“He acts like he thinks he’s God, but you see if I don’t get rid of him. I didn’t come two thousand miles to escape a houseful of domineering males to fall into the clutches of another one.” Carrie paced the room for a while then setded back down in her chair, a fierce frown on her brow. She looked up when Katie nonchalantly headed for the door. “And don’t you dare unsaddle that mare. She’s my horse, and I can take care of her just fine by myself.” With that Carrie got up and stalked out of the station.

Katie let out a long breath very slowly. “Faith, has she ever got it bad.”

Unsaddling the mare gave Carrie something to do while she cooled off, and it wasn’t long before she started to worry about Lucas. For a few moments, that made her angry all over again, but it didn’t last long, and soon she was imagining all the things that could go wrong. Lucas had been certain there were only two Indians, but what if more had joined them since then? What if they were ambushed? She didn’t know anything about Indians.

You idiot, she said to herself. If the Indians are harmless enough for you to go after alone, surely two men can handle them. But Carrie would not be pacified by that argument. Thinking about what might happen to Lucas had the double benefit of also telling her what might have happened to her. She was honest enough to admit she had been extremely foolish to start off alone and very lucky she
hadn’t
found the Indians.

But he had no right to treat her as he did, she thought, her anger flaring briefly once more. But all the fire and energy was gone out of it now and she could only think of the danger to Lucas, and Jake. What would she do if either of them were killed?

For a moment Carrie could hardly think for the wild pounding of her heart. But when her mind was able to grapple with thought, she almost wished it were paralyzed again. She was in love with Lucas, and that was a fact she didn’t want to face.

Carrie’s legs gave out from under her and she sat down right where she was. She ignored the inquisitive looks of the mare, the straw that was getting into her hair, or the dust that was soiling her skirt. That could all be fixed; she wasn’t sure her heart ever would be.

Up to a point, Lucas was everything she wanted in a man. Just thinking about being near him caused her blood to warm. He was strong, decisive, and he had the most exciting body she had ever seen. He was handsome, he could be charming, and he was definitely exciting to be around. Just about everything a girl could hope for in a man,
up to a point.
Unfortunately, at that point he turned into just about everything she disliked and distrusted in men. He was egotistical, autocratic, overbearing, stubborn, temperamental, and probably a dozen other things she hadn’t yet had time to discover. He also thought a wife should be hedged about by senseless restraints, and that was much more of a barrier than being a drifter.

She would have preferred to marry a man with a greater goal in life instead of a drifter someone who wasn’t hiding out in the remote parts of Colorado from whatever it was he had done back East. But she didn’t really mind that as much as she’d thought. He was good with horses, better with men, and could do practically anything that needed to be done around the station. If they could manage to get over their differences, they could run it together, but it was those differences that kept intruding on her hopeful dreams of the future until she was sure she was doomed to die an old maid.

She thought of what her family back in Virginia would say about her choice of husband and she almost broke out laughing. She realized that her sisters-in-law would probably be just as attracted to him as she was, but he did not fit into their notion of what a socially acceptable man was, and they would ultimately turn their backs on him no matter how regretfully. Her brothers would probably find him an enjoyable companion, but they would never invite him into their home. He would be kept for those mysterious activities which men indulged in on their own, far away from the watchful eyes of the females of their families and the inquisitive ones of their children. As for the older ladies in her town, those dowagers who considered themselves the arbiters of public conduct, she didn’t even want to think of the mayhem his appearance would create in several socially prominent parlors. Those that didn’t pass out from shock would probably take to their beds for the better part of a week.

Well, she didn’t care. She would happily put up with his dust and sweat and Levi’s if he would only come back safe.

Chapter 12

“When do you think dieyll get back?” Carrie asked for the twentieth time that afternoon. “All they had to do was find the horses and drive them back. They’ll probably even head home on their own.”

“There’s no way I can know for certain,” Katie had returned that answer the same number of times.

“But Jake and I must have been close to the horses when Lucas found me. It shouldn’t have taken them more than a few hours, yet it’s been six hours since they left. And I’ll have a stage in here in less than thirty minutes expecting to find a fresh team waiting for them.” Several attempts to forget her worries by immersing herself in work hadn’t succeeded. Neither did they fool Katie into thinking it was the horses Carrie was most worried about.