Colorado Bride (32 page)

“Carrie Simpson, you know very well you’re just manipulating the situation, and doing a damned good job of it, I might add. You have no intention of turning this boy over to the court anytime soon, if ever, and you’re not the least bit sorry about the trouble, or worry, you’ve caused me.”

“You were worried about me, Lucas? I thought it was Carolina Marsena Terwillinger you were concerned for. That was the name you mentioned, wasn’t it?”

“Careful, girl. I’ve never wrung a woman’s neck, but you’re just about to give me ample reason to overcome my scruples.”

“I do hope you mean to tell me whose neck you’re wringing before I’ve drawn my last breath, Carrie’s or Carolina’s.”

“Both!” Lucas nearly shouted, the words exploding from his lips. “For it’s both of them you use, first one and then the other, to plague a man and keep him off balance.”

“I promise not to do it again.”

“You can’t help it. It’s in your blood.”

“And you can’t help charging around acting like Sir Galahad, certain I can’t do anything for myself and will come to grief if I’m out of your sight for as much as an hour.”

“Just look at what you’ve gotten yourself into since you’ve been here. I never knew a woman with such a talent for stirring up things.”

“And just look at what I’ve done without your help.”

“You’ve had Katie and me here the whole time and then Jake. Now you’ll have Found too.”

“Lucas Barrow, no wonder you’re unwed. If you don’t change your condescending attitude, you’re going to stay a bachelor unless you can talk some poor ignorant soul into marrying you before she has any idea what a hide-bound woman hater you are. Can’t you give me credit for anything?”

“I don’t hate women. I thought I’d given you proof of that.”

“I’m not talking about physical interest,” Carrie said scornfully. “I was talking about your absolute certainty that a woman can’t do anything herself.”

“I never said that.”

“You may not have stated it in so many words, but your every action screams it.”

“I was under the impression that women liked to be pampered and cared for.”

“Pampered and cared for, yes, but not suffocated. It’s a wonderful feeling when a man treats you like something precious. It makes you feel like the most important person on the face of the earth.”

“Then why-”

“But no woman wants to feel a man is taking care of her because she’s incapable of taking care of herself. You’d be treating her exactly like you would a baby, spending lots of time making sure she’s comfortable and happy, but looking elsewhere when you wanted companionship. I don’t want to be your equal in strength, I know I can’t be, and I don’t want to be able to do everything you can do—there are plenty of things I can do that you can’t—but I don’t want to be despised because of my weaknesses or shortcomings any more than you do.”

“I never said I was per—”

“And you have both, even if you are a member of the mighty male sex.”

“If you’d ever let me finish a sentence, you might not be under so many misapprehensions. Of course I realize that might force you to give up all your prejudicial thinking, but then you just might have a chance to learn what
I
think, rather than what you
think
I’m thinking.”

“I don’t think we should talk anymore until we reach the station,” Carrie said, urging her mare to pull ahead. It’s getting us nowhere, and it’ll probably upset Found.”

“Of course it doesn’t matter to you that
I
might be upset or that
I
might want to keep on talking?”

“As a matter of fact it does, but not very much at the moment.”

Lucas was so angry at this point he didn’t trust himself to speak. Once he had cooled down, he didn’t know what to say, so he accepted Carrie’s ending of the discussion and followed her back, all the while making plans for her total and utter capitulation.

The saints be praised,” Katie exclaimed as she came running down the steps to greet them when they rode into the station yard. She had been standing on the porch under the light of two blazing lanterns, and the relief in her face was easy to see.

“You might praise me just a little bit for finding her,” Lucas remarked sulkily. “I’m certainly not going to get any thanks from Sacajawea over there.”

“I’ve been worn down with worry over you,” Katie rushed on, too taken up with her own agitation to have time to care that Lucas’s eyes flashed with anger. “You should have been back hours ago.”

“It was a long way,” Carrie said, “and I didn’t see any point in pushing the horses, not with Lucas to protect us.” A choking noise made Katie turn and Carrie struggled to cover a smile, but there was no sign of amusement on Lucas’s face when he finally got off his horse and moved within the ring of light.

“I hope you’ve saved me something to eat,” he growled as he climbed the steps, leaving Carrie to dismount by herself. “And I trust you don’t mean to charge me this time,” he said, swinging swiftly back toward Carrie. “Chasing after you across half of Colorado should have earned me at least one meal.”

“Make sure Mr. Barrow has all he can eat,” Carrie said to Katie. “I wouldn’t want to think I didn’t have a proper appreciation for myself.” Carrie winked at Katie, who turned away quickly to hide a grin. “You come too, Found,” Carrie said. “You deserve the best seat in the house for finding me.”

Lucas didn’t say anything, but Carrie could tell he was hurt, and it wasn’t just male vanity this time. He was really hurt, and she quickly moved to correct her mistake.

That wasn’t a fair thing to say. You both found me, and I’m equally grateful to both of you.” But it didn’t work. Lucas had had time to get over his initial fear that something had happened to Carrie and then his reaction of unreasoning anger at her attempt to find Found by herself. He had moved on to thinking about tonight as it affected his dreams of their future, and Carrie could tell that what he was thinking was not making him happy. She suddenly wondered if she had gone too far. Proving to a man that you could take care of yourself was a far cry from convincing him you could do without him altogether. It would be disastrous if he should get the idea she
wanted
to do without him. She wasn’t sure just yet what she did want, but she knew she didn’t want to lose him. Still, from the gathered brows and the fact that he hadn’t said a word during the meal, she concluded that this was not the time to try to retake the ground she had lost. It would be much better to allow him a good night’s sleep and hope he would have calmed down by tomorrow.

“Come on, Found,” Lucas said when he had finished his coffee and gotten to his feet. “It’s about time we cleared out and let the ladies clean up. Besides, I want to see if Jake’s still alive.”

“’Tis no thanks to you if he is,” Katie said, surprising Carrie by the sharpness of her tone. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he has the marks of your fingers on his neck for several days to come.”

“He should be glad he’s still alive and able to have bruises. I don’t know how a great fool like him escaped being murdered anytime these last twenty years.” Katie didn’t answer Lucas, but the clatter of the plates as she stacked them made certain Lucas knew she wasn’t in agreement with him.

“Did he really assault Jake?” Carrie asked when Lucas and Found had gone.

“It’s not for me to say what happened before I got there,” Katie said, dropping the plates into the hot soapy water so carelessly Carrie was surprised some of them didn’t break, “but if I hadn’t arrived when I did, Mr. Barrow would be standing his trial for murder. Jake’s face was as black as night, and I would have taken me oath he was already dead. I won’t be telling you that Jake isn’t a great trial, but the poor man couldn’t do no more than make hoarse, rasping sounds for close to an hour afterward. A man like Mr. Lucas doesn’t know his own strength, especially when he gets angry, and he shouldn’t be going about taking things out on people who are nowhere near up to his weight.”

“He was quite angry then?” Carrie inquired, unable to deny a twinge of pleasure.

“I can’t remember that I’ve ever seen anybody that mad, not even me pa when he was drunk, and he used to be ready to take on the whole village when he’d had enough whiskey. You’d better be glad you weren’t here, because if you were, you’d still be wearing the marks of the spanking he would have given you.”

“He was
that
mad?” Carried asked, feeing guilty for taking pleasure from Lucas’s misery but enjoying it nevertheless.

“I should say he was. Unless you want him to haul you into town and marry you for spite, you’d better make sure not to set him off again. The poor man was in such a taking, I don’t think he could stand another thing without his mind becoming unhinged.”

A muffled giggle escaped Carrie. Katie looked up from her dishwater, prepared to be filled with righteous indignation, but the unholy gleam of amusement in Carrie’s eyes overset her gravity, and both women fell into a prolonged fit of helpless laughter.

Chapter 17

The next day Found was at the mustangs’ corral before Lucas stepped out of his cabin. Lucas had endured a wretched night, and seeing the instigator of the latest round of his troubles only served to renew his feeling of injustice over the manner in which Carrie had treated him. This was one pair of ears that needed pinning back, and he intended to see it was done right away. His ambling walk changed to a purposeful stride which had become an angry stalk by the time he reached the corral. He reached down, picked the boy up, and set him on the fence rail.

“I’ve got something to say to you, Found, and I want you to listen closely because I don’t intend to say it again.” The boy stared back at him out of guileless eyes, but Lucas didn’t let that stop him. “You had no way of knowing what was going to happen when you ran away yesterday, you probably still don’t understand what a can of worms you opened, so I’m going to try to explain very simply the way things are around here. Nobody asked you to come up to this station and get yourself caught stealing food, but if there is one thing that gets to a woman faster than a bolt of lightning, it’s a hungry kid who’s fresh out of family. The only way you could have done the job quicker would have been to wrap yourself up in a blanket and leave yourself on the doorstep.

“Anyhow, once you got yourself caught, Mrs. Simpson still gave you a chance to leave. She asked you if you wanted to stay. Now I have nothing against you staying here, in fact, I sort of like you, but we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about Mrs. Simpson. Once you told her you wanted to stay, the damage was done and the gate slammed shut behind you. There was no backing out and no changing your mind. You
had
to stay here. If you hadn’t wanted to, you should have thought about it before you nodded your head. You do want to stay here, don’t you?” Found was still for a moment, then he nodded his head.

“Then you stay, do you hear me? I won’t have any more of this running off or running away, whichever it was. I guess you were upset about us taking your money, but we didn’t mean any harm, really we didn’t. I don’t hold it against you for taking your money back, I probably would have done the same thing, but don’t you ever run away again because when you do, you endanger Mrs. Simpson as well. You didn’t think she was just going to let you leave and forget about it, did you? If you did, then you don’t know Mrs. Simpson. That woman would have followed you all the way across this country if need be. It wouldn’t have mattered to her that half the country is still covered by Indians who will scalp her as soon as look at her, or worthless white folks who would probably do even worse. She’d have kept going until she found you. Now I know it’s not a very smart thing to do and no sensible man would set out to go somewhere by himself when he didn’t know a thing about the country or living off the land, but womenfolk don’t think like men, more’s the pity. You can’t ever predict what they’re going to do, but you can be sure it will cause some poor man a heap of trouble.

“But that’s beside the point,” Lucas said, realizing he was getting sidetracked by his own sense of ill-usage. “What I mean to say is if you don’t stay here and make sure you’re where she can keep her eye on you every minute, I’m going to tan your backside so bad you won’t be able to go anywhere for quite some time. You can kill yourself if you like, you can even go back and live in that tumbled-down cabin if that’s what you want, but Mrs. Simpson will break her neck trying to help you, and I won’t have you helping her to do it. Now you make up your mind right now. Either you’re going to stay as long as she wants you to, or you’re going to leave
today.”

Lucas turned away from the boy. He felt a little ashamed that he’d put the issue to him so roughly, but he had to make him understand what he was doing to Carrie. He simply couldn’t allow anything to happen that would cause her to run off again. Twice she had escaped any serious consequences, but it was pressing her luck to think she would be able to do it a third time. Lucas wouldn’t let himself think about the things that could happen. He had been mad enough last night to think it would serve her right if she received a good scare from some Indians or one of the gangs that kept hideouts in the remote canyons all through the state, but today the thought of such an eventuality served only to fill him with a cold fear. It was obvious he was not going to be able to make Carrie understand the danger of such little jaunts, so he was going to have to see to it she didn’t have any reason to light out without him to look after her.