Colorado Bride (27 page)

“Did you hit anybody?”

“No. I just gave two of them a handful of splinters.”

“I didn’t really hurt anybody either.”

“Did they turn out all the horses?”

“I still got the mare in the barn, but it don’t make no difference. Those horses won’t run far from their feed. I expect they’ll be back before the stage pulls in.”

As it turned out, they were back even sooner. When Lucas and Jake rounded the corner of the barn, their surprised gaze fell on Katie driving two of the horses back toward the corral.

“Seems to me like you can’t keep up with your horses even when you’ve got a barn and a corral to do the work for you,” Katie said disgustedly, herding the horses past a suddenly lackadaisical Jake and into the corral. “‘Tis a mystery to me why Mrs. Simpson keeps you about the place.”

“Probably because she likes to see a pleasant smile and hear a kindly word once in a while,” Jake responded, choosing this particular moment to scratch vigorously at a part of his body normally considered unsuitable to receive attention in public.

“A hyena can smile,” Katie shot back, “but that doesn’t make it any less a carrion beast nor any easier on the eye.”

“Are you saying I’m hard to look at?” Jake demanded, acting as though there was nothing unusual about his wearing long underwear in the barnyard.

“I’m saying you’re not fit to be consorting with decent folks,” Katie responded sharply, “you with your dirt and your shoddy ways.”

“Supposing I was to take a bath in that there horse trough?”

“I’ve no doubt you’d get wet through and smell worse than a hound dog,” Katie stated with a toss of her head and turned toward the station.

“Damned sharp-tongued female,” Jake said loud enough for Katie to hear him. “I bet she wouldn’t need no knife to take the hide off a rabbit.” Katie continued on her way without any sign that she had heard him.

“You’re wasting your time with her,” Lucas said, a trace of a smile on his lips. “I don’t think she likes you at all.”

“I ain’t wanting no part of that uppity female neither,” Jake said, then grinned happily. “I just like to get a rise out of her now and again.”

“Watch it. You get too much of a rise, and you’re liable to find yourself squaring off before a preacher.”

The female ain’t been born who can get me inside a church,” Jake swore. “My pa weren’t never married, and I ain’t going to be either. First thing you know women start trying to change you. They pick at a man until his life ain’t worth a bent horseshoe. They want you to go to church, stop cussing and drinking and gambling, come home of evenings, and spend some time looking after the children. That ain’t no life fit for a man. Why, I’d rather be shot and tortured by one of them Indians. It hurts like hell for a while, but it don’t last forever.”

Whatever else of his philosophy on women and marriage Jake may have been willing to share with Lucas had to be saved for later. A stranger was coming up the road from Fort Malone driving the remaining horses before him. He was a nice-looking young man, and one neither of them had ever seen before. He rode his horse easily, as though he was used to being in the saddle, but he was dressed like a man who was accustomed to living and working in town, his only concession to riding being a pair of expensive boots, most of which were hidden under his pant legs.

“These horses yours?” he said, addressing both men as he rode up. “I found them down the road a piece and figured they must have gotten loose from here.”

“Just some Indian boys playing a prank on us,” Jake said nonchalantly. “I would have had to go after them myself, so I’m much obliged to you for saving me the trouble.”

The young man said no more while Jake put the horses in the corral, but once the gate was closed, he turned to Lucas. “Brian Kelly is my name. I’m fairly new to this part of the country.”

Lucas gave him a long, slow look before his gaze shifted to the horses in the corral. “Lucas Barrow,” he said at last, “and that’s Jake Bemis.”

“You work around here?”

“Yeah,” Lucas replied without amplifying his answer.

“I’m looking for Katie O’Malley,” Brian said after a pause. “I was supposed to meet her here about a week ago, but I got held up. “I’m engaged to marry her.” Jake’s head came up with a snap, but Lucas continued to look at Brian out of the corner of his eyes. “Is she still here?” Brian asked.

“Yeah.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”

“Up at the station I expect.”

Brian paused. “What does she look like?”

“Step inside and you can answer that question for yourself,” Lucas replied. Brian stood there a minute more, undecided, then with a nod of his head headed off toward the station.

“So Katie’s man did show up,” Jake said.

“Yeah. Fancy that.”

“I don’t,” Jake said, hostility rampant in his voice. “I don’t trust nobody dressed up as slick as a wet otter.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter what you fancy as long as Katie’s happy.”

“Who was that?” Carrie asked, coming up from the direction of her cabin. She had just had time to change her clothes and tidy herself up. She was careful to avoid looking at Lucas just yet. She knew it wouldn’t be long before everyone knew she’d spent the night with him, but she wasn’t ready for that quite yet.

“Katie’s young man,” Lucas informed her. “It seems he was held up.”

“Oh damn!” That exclamation brought startled looks from both men. “I can’t help it,” Carrie said, not in the least apologetic. “I’m as concerned for Katie’s happiness as either of you, but I don’t want to lose her. What am I going to do for a cook?”

“I think the question is what is Katie going to do?”

“Well, I can’t stand here all morning waiting to find out. I’m going up to the station, and I want both of you to come along with me. It won’t look so much like prying if we all come in naturally like it was time for breakfast. And don’t you laugh at me, Lucas Barrow. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it.”

But nothing had been decided when they entered the station. Nervous and ill at ease, Katie was going about her preparations for breakfast, her eyes held firmly on her work. Brian had taken a seat at the long table as though prepared to wait until Katie lost her shyness, but Carrie knew instinctively that it was not timidity that was causing Katie to hesitate.

“Good morning, Mr. Kelly. I’m Carrie Simpson, the station manager.” Brian stared at Carrie in open surprise and admiration. It was clear he had not expected to find a woman running the station, but it was even more obvious he hadn’t expected to find someone like Carrie at Green Run Gap.

“How do you do. Glad to make your acquaintance.” Brian’s gaze wandered over Carrie’s petite, shapely body in a manner that made Lucas’s whole body stiffen, but Carrie was more displeased that he would continue to lounge in his chair. Even in Colorado, it was the custom for a gentleman to stand when he was introduced to a lady.

“I was just explaining to Katie why I was late.”

“Why
were
you late?” Carrie asked, deciding that if he had no delicacy of manner, then she need have none either. “Leaving a young lady alone and unprovided for can have serious consequences in this country.”

“I marked the wrong week on my calendar,” Brian said with a ready smile. “I threw the letter away and didn’t even think about it until I was setting out today and remembered that the date was supposed to be the seventeenth and not the twenty-fourth.”

“I’ve been telling him why I can’t leave right now,” Katie announced as she served the plates with unusually hurried and awkward movements. “At least not until you can find someone to help with the cooking.” There was something in Katie’s voice that made Carrie look at her more intently, but Katie kept her eyes on her work.

“Are you sure?” Carrie asked. “It shouldn’t take more than a few days to find somebody.”

“You know you can’t do all this work by yourself,” Katie repeated, her head still bowed. “You tried before, and you nearly wore yourself out. He’s waited a whole week extra. It won’t hurt him to wait one more.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Simpson,” Brian assured Carrie, his eyes still glued to her body. I’m going to be away a lot for the next couple of weeks. I will come back when I return to Fort Malone.”

“Then you must stay and have breakfast with us before you go. That’s the least I can do for you for bringing the horses back.”

“You needn’t thank me for that. They were all over the road. I was going to have to do something about them before I could get by.”

Breakfast was an uncomfortable meal. Katie didn’t raise her eyes from her plate, Lucas spoke only when spoken to and then in monosyllables, and Jake seemed to have something in his craw. It was left to Carrie to carry on the conversation with Brian. He seemed an amiable young man, certainly a nice-looking one, and Carrie became more convinced as the meal progressed that Katie should marry him. There couldn’t be many young men like him in the West.

“I’ve been with the Overland Stage Company a little more than three years,” Brian was saying in a voice almost entirely free of the Irish brogue that so strongly colored Katie’s speech, “but one day I hope to buy myself a ranch, maybe in Arizona.”

“A thing like that takes a heap of money,” Jake observed.

“That’s why I don’t have one yet,” Brian admitted with becoming modesty. “But I’m expecting to come into some money soon, enough for a ranch I hope.”

“You mean you’re coming into an inheritance?”

“Yes.” The pause before he answered was so slight Carrie wondered if maybe she had imagined it.

“If you change your mind about staying here, you can send a message into Fort Malone,” Brian said to Katie as he rose to his feet at the end of the meal. “I’ll be around for a few days yet.”

“I’ll start looking for someone to replace her immediately,” Carrie assured him when it was obvious Katie wasn’t going to answer him. “I wouldn’t want her obligations here to stand in the way of her future happiness.”

But after the men had gone, Katie didn’t seem too eager to discuss her engagement to Mr. Brian Kelly.

“He’s a handsome young man,” Carrie said, trying to get around Katie’s unaccustomed reserve. “And he looks like a nice, steady type. It’s not often a girl finds a husband who has a dependable job and plans for something even better.” At last Katie looked up, and Carrie was surprised by the hunted look in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” Carrie asked, immediately troubled.

“I don’t know,” Katie admitted uncertainly. “I don’t understand it. I was sure I wanted to marry Brian—I haven’t been thinking about much else for months now—and I never had any wrong feelings about it. But I no more set eyes on him than I felt all funny, like something wasn’t right.”

“But what could be wrong?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. I know it sounds like I’m daft, but I can’t help it. I can’t go marrying any man I don’t feel right about.”

“Are you trying to tell me you don’t love him?”

“I never looked to be in love, at least not like you and Mr. Barrow,” Katie said, shocking Carrie right down to her toenails. “All I wanted was a steady man who would provide for me and the children. All I asked was that he be no drunkard.”

“But you don’t know anything about Mr. Kelly’s habits. What makes you think he’s a drunkard?”

“It’s not that. There’s something else that don’t be right.”

“But how can you say that when you’ve just met him? I thought he looked like an exemplary young man, just about the nicest-looking I’ve seen out here, and I think you ought to drop that pan right where you stand and run after him as fast as you can. He can’t have gotten far. If I were to ask Lucas to go after him …”

“Would you take him in place of Mr. Barrow?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Carrie protested, badly shaken. “I don’t know that Mr. Barrow is in love with me. He certainly hasn’t asked me to marry him.”

“He’s in love with you, and you with him for all you haven’t gotten around to talking about marrying, but that’s not what I mean either,” Katie said, a plea for understanding sounding in her voice. “Brian has the appearance of being everything you say, but he hadn’t been in the room more than a minute when I realized he couldn’t hold a candle to Mr. Barrow. And he never will,” she declared passionately. “But even worse, I found I trusted Jake more than I could trust him.
Jake!”
she reiterated as though she were talking about some reptilian creature. “I pray every day you’ll send that man back to where you found him. He’s filthy, slovenly, and has the soul of a drunkard for all he’s been sober since he started working for you, and I wouldn’t marry him if the Virgin Mary herself was to get down on her knees and ask me. If I can trust
him
before Brian, then something’s terribly wrong, and I’m not budging from here until I know what it is.”

“If you want to know what I think, and I don’t suppose you do or you would have asked, I think seeing Brian has given you cold feet and you’re just looking for an excuse to put the wedding off until you’ve had a little time to think things over. That’s fine with me. Take all the time you want, but don’t wait too long. And if you decide you
do
want to marry him, you can leave at any time. With Jake and Lucas to help me, you know I can handle things for a little while. Now I’ll finish up here. You go on back to the cabin and see if you can sort things out in your mind.” Katie tried to protest, but Carrie would hear none of it and she soon went off, her brow furrowed with uneasiness.