Colorado Bride (34 page)

“But you can’t go after them by yourself. There’s bound to be several of them.” She had to think of something to stop him. If outlaws could get killed, Lucas could too.

“Eight to be exact, and I do have to go by myself. I’m not trying to catch them, just find out where they are.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better.” Lucas took her in his arms.

“No, I’m not. It wouldn’t do me any good to catch them now. There’s no way I can prove they stole the gold unless I find them with it, and they’re bound to have hidden it somewhere long ago. I want to find their hideout, try to figure out what they intend to do, and then catch them when they try to rob the stage.”

“You promise that’s all you’ll do? You will be careful, won’t you?”

“You sound like you’re actually worried about what might happen to me.”

“Of course I am, you idiot,” Carrie said. Lucas had never thought he would like hearing himself called an idiot, but when Carrie said it that way, it sounded like a caress.

“I couldn’t have told it from the way you acted yesterday.”

“You know exactly what I was doing and why,? Carrie said, too desperate and upset to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. “You were trying to coddle me and I wasn’t going to have any of it, but this isn’t the same thing. Wouldn’t those men shoot you if they thought you were going to spoil their plans?” Lucas nodded his head. “That makes it altogether different. I don’t want you to go. I’m sorry if the company is losing its gold, but they can always find some more. Where are they going to find another one of you if those villains decide to shoot you full of holes?” Lucas held her tightly and kissed her hard on the mouth.

“I’ll take very good care of myself. I have a debt to collect.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You owe me for treating me so abominably yesterday after I went to the trouble of looking for you. I mean to collect this very evening.”

“And just what might you mean to collect?”

“We can decide that later.”

“Don’t start making too many plans. After all, I have to be consulted in this, you know.”

“I know, and I plan to consult you quite thoroughly.”

Carrie felt a shiver of desire race through her, and she clung a little tighter. “Do you really have to go?”

“Yes, and you are not to follow me under any circumstances.”

“Lucas Barrow, I thought we had already decided—”

“This has nothing to do with me trying to coddle you. I don’t know what I’ll be walking into. I may not find anybody, or I may find the whole gang, but I’ll need by whole concentration on what I’m doing. If you were somewhere about, I wouldn’t be able to think for worrying about you. The most dangerous thing you could do would be to follow me. One of us would be bound to be seen, and they would be sure of getting both of us if they had one.”

“This really is that dangerous then?” she asked, realizing fully for the first time what he might be facing.

“Deadly dangerous, but that’s all the more reason you should stay close to the station. If they did find me, they wouldn’t have any reason to suspect me. I’m just a wrangler looking for a way to earn some extra money, but you work for the company, and they would know you wouldn’t have any reason to be that far from the station unless you were looking for them.” Carrie felt a cold chill. She had been told about the dangers of the frontier many times before, but they had never seemed very real to her until now.

“I promise I will wait here, but you’ve got to promise me you won’t do any more than try to find where they are hiding. I don’t want you attempting to capture them or sneaking into their camp and pretending you want to become one of them so you can learn their plans.” Lucas grinned sheepishly. “I know, that’s just the kind of thing you think would be very clever, but if you find them, I want you to come right back here. I’ll write the company and tell them to send somebody else to go after these men.”

“You really don’t want me to get hurt, do you?”

“Sometimes men can be remarkably thickheaded,” Carrie said, worry making the tone of her voice sharper than she meant.

“Men are no different from women,” Lucas assured her. “I want to hear you say you love me just as much as you want me to say it to you.”

“Then say it, you blockhead, and maybe I will.”

“I love you, Carrie, alias Carolina Marsena Terwillinger, alias Mrs. Robert Simpson. I love everything about you from the tip of your rioting copper curls to the bottom of your tiny feet, and I intend to go on loving you for a long time yet. You’re such a thin-skinned, sharp-tongue virago I haven’t had much chance to either tell you or show you that I love you, but I plan to start doing so the minute I get back.”

“And I love you too, you narrow-minded, egotistical medieval overlord, and I just might pull in my horns long enough to let you show me. When I first saw you, I thought you were different, but you’re just like every other man I’ve ever known. Still I love you anyway. I guess I’m going to have to figure out some way to put up with you because I’m finding it harder and harder to think about giving you up.”

“You mean you’ll—.”

“I’m not making any promises about anything past tonight. Every time you start ordering me around, I remember that you’re exactly the kind of man I swore I’d never have anything to do with, but every time I see you, I forget all about my vows. I’m much more weak minded than I ever thought, but I’m not so stupid as to ignore the fact that the things we want are exactly opposite of each other.”

“I don’t think we’re all that far apart, not really. I’m sure you’ll find I’m not so terrible.”

“I never thought you were terrible,” said Carrie, remembering the wonderful feeling of being in his arms. “You’re just impossible. Please, Lucas, don’t push me toward anything. I love you as I never thought I could love anyone, but I’ve endured life with my father and brothers and I know that love isn’t always enough. It’s easy to fall in love—I did it without even knowing it was happening—but there are so many things that go into making a loving relationship into a successful marriage it scares me. I don’t want to end up being constantly angry with you or at cross-purposes. That would kill everything we have to share before it has a chance to grow into something wonderfully warm and permanent. I want to
know
I will want to live with you as much thirty years from now as I do today.”

“You don’t have to worry about thirty years from now,” Lucas said, impatient at her reluctance to listen to his persuasion. “After living with you for thirty years, how could I help but love you even more than I do now?”

“It won’t be as easy to love me after the children have grown up and you realize you have to look at the same old wrinkled face across the breakfast table for the rest of your life.”

“I’ll love them because they’re your wrinkles.”

“That’s an absurdly foolish thing for a grown man to say.”

“Is it any more absurd to say that I love your red hair and crazy temper because they’re yours? Or that I don’t like your taste in shoes, but that I don’t care because I love the rest of you too much for it to matter?”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Yes it is, or it’s close enough that it doesn’t matter. Why are you always discounting the power of love? Don’t you believe it can overcome our differences?”

“I guess it can if it’s strong enough.”

“Are you saying my love for you isn’t strong?”

“Of course not,” Carrie snapped, feeling cornered, “but marriage is forever. I would rather live out my days alone rather than have to face you across the table each day and see your eyes grow cold when they rest on me, your body draw back when I pass, have you stay away from home rather than spend time with me.”

“But you know I would never do that.”

“Lucas my love, you may not intend to do any of those things, but if I can’t bring to the marriage what you want and need, then you will ultimately be unable to help yourself. You will fall out of love just as inevitably as you fell in love, and it will happen whether you want it to or not.”

“You’ve got to be the most unromantic woman in the world,” Lucas said, trying to banish some of the seriousness of her mood. “Here I am, a fairly good example of the American male, doing his best to sweep you off your feet, swear eternal fidelity, swear to worship you forever, and all you can do is tell me love is a partnership and you’re going to have wrinkles. Don’t you think there’s more to you than skin, hair, and eyes?”

“I know there is, but I’m scared.”

“You spent too much time watching your brothers.”

“I had little else to do all those years while I cooked and cleaned. But we’ve got to stop talking about this now. I don’t want you to be worrying about it while you’re out in those hills. Keep your mind on business and get back here with a whole skin.”

“That’s not much of an invitation to return.”

“It’s all you’re going to get.” Suddenly Carrie smiled. “If I make it too interesting, you might get distracted and end up with a bullet in your head. I don’t think I would like that.” There’s no room for anything else in my head or my heart. You’ve filled them both.”

“Get out of here. If you start thinking as silly as you’re talking, you’ll never make it back with a whole hide.” Lucas managed to get his arms around Carrie and extract several more substantial kisses from her far from unwilling lips. In fact, he was so bemused and contented, he rode away whistling, and Carrie hoped the effect would wear off before he found any outlaws.

Chapter 18

Lucas turned into the yard of Found’s cabin. It was on his way, and he decided it might be a good idea to have a look about before he went any father. If the outlaws, or any one of the outlaws, had been using this place recently, they would have left some signs of their presence, and right now Lucas needed to know when they had been in the vicinity almost as much as where they had been.

The cabin looked deserted and forlorn in the morning sun. Lucas rode in slowly, not expecting to find anyone there but ready in case he did. He dismounted, and tying his horse to a tree, he approached the house carefully, his hand never far from his gun. A quick look about convinced him no one had used the cabin recently, and neither the back room, which had obviously been used as a bedroom, nor the loft, which was probably where Found had slept, had been used in quite some time if the abandoned field mouse nests were any indication. There was no food in the cabin either, but it was impossible to tell if the odds and ends he saw lying about belonged to Found’s father or to some man who had been here since. He made a careful inspection of the ground nearest the cabin, but any tracks that might have been left had been obliterated by wind and rain.

He unexpectedly found a shed behind a large rock outcropping; he was even more surprised to find signs that it had been occupied recently, within the last week if he could judge by the droppings. The graves in the front yard were much older than that. Someone had been here, and it wasn’t Found. A brief inspection of the surrounding canyon walls turned up a small cave which had clearly been occupied off and on over a long period of time. From the old clothes and other discarded items, Lucas gathered the occupant had been Found but that this was no casual playground. It had been used recently, at the same time the horse had been stabled in the shed, Lucas guessed. Whoever he was, Found felt he had reason to stay out of sight. Lucas decided to go over the cabin again, but he found nothing to shed new light on the situation. Clearly, the cabin had not been used as a hideout for the whole gang. No more than one or two men had stayed there, and then only briefly, probably even less than a day.

Lucas got back in the saddle and headed back up the canyon at a trot. He had spent much more time at the cabin than he had intended, and he would have to hurry if he was to reach the canyon Found had indicated and return that night.

The hidden canyon was not many miles from the station, but the terrain was extremely difficult and Lucas found he was unable to travel quickly. There were times when he had to retrace his steps, a promising trail leading to a boxed canyon or a trail only a deer could negotiate. The hills were heavily wooded with spruce and aspen, and at times it was difficult to get through or see where he was going. Lucas was unfamiliar with the area, and he lost valuable time picking his way between the ridges and through canyons that stood in his path. Soon it was well into the afternoon, and he realized he might have to spend the night in the hills. It would be dangerous to retrace his route in the dark, but maybe he could find an easier way in, the one the outlaws took
into
their hideout.

Lucas would never have been able to identify the canyon when he came to it without Found’s map. The ground was very rocky and the few hoofprints the outlaws had left behind had almost been eradicated. Lucas unholstered his gun and walked his horse forward very slowly, keeping his eyes and ears open to the slightest sound or movement. But if the footprints were to be believed, no one had been here for a couple of weeks, maybe even longer. The canyon curled in on itself like a giant snail’s shell, and Lucas could soon see why it was such an excellent hideout. Every step he took seemed to bring him to the end of a boxed canyon, but as he approached what looked like a flat wall, it would curve around to the left. It was unlikely that anyone who didn’t know the canyon would even bother to go to the end.