“Well now, Carrie ma’am, it seems you turned out not to be a married woman. I wonder what else you will turn out not to be?” Carrie was thankful the moonlight didn’t illuminate the telltale flush in her cheeks.
“Whatever it is, it’s no concern of yours. As you told me earlier, out here it’s only honor, courage, and honesty that count.”
“But that’s just for men, Carrie ma’am. We still like to know where our womenfolk come from.”
“Well, you can keep on liking to know. I’ve told you all I’m going to tell you. Now please go away and leave me alone.” Carrie wondered for the umpteenth time how Lucas’s smile could make her say things she didn’t mean.
“I had me a mind to sit a spell in this moonlight. I’m awful fond of moonlight.”
“I suppose that short of shooting you, there’s nothing I can do to stop you, but I won’t put up with being ma’amed to death, and I won’t listen to your cowboy drawl. Use it, if you must, for whatever it is you’re doing here, but I’ll go inside if you don’t drop it now.”
“Are you always this contrary, ma’am?” Lucas asked, settling into the chair next to Carrie. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your father and brothers were relieved to get rid of you.”
“My name is Carrie,” Carrie enunciated with great clarity, “and if you wish to have me reply to any further remarks, you will use it.”
“Okay, Carrie it is,” Lucas said, dropping the remaining shreds of his drifter act. “But you’ve got to call me Lucas. My uncle is Mr. Barrow, and I don’t think he’s ready to share his name with me just yet.”
“So you have an uncle. I had begun to wonder if you might not have come into this world full-grown, clothed, shod, and ready to come to my aid whether I wanted you to or not.” Lucas laughed softly at the mockery of her words.
“I had a mother and a father just like everybody else, but they died when I was a little boy. My uncle raised me.”
“A mere mortal, huh? What happened?” Carrie asked, her compassion immediately aroused in spite of her sarcasm. Lucas waited a long time to reply, and Carrie began to feel uncomfortable. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “You already said people weren’t supposed to ask questions.”
“It’s not that,” Lucas replied. “It’s just a hard memory. My grandfather had a ranch in Texas. My uncle Max left years before I was born, but my father stayed and married his childhood sweetheart. Then somehow a range war got started with the Robertson family, and my uncle came home to find our dams busted, our cattle run off, my father and grandfather dead, and my mother dying of a broken heart.” Carrie felt a great rush of sympathy, and she was startled and confused when Lucas suddenly started to laugh.
“Those Robertsons didn’t know what a fight was until they got Uncle Max mad. Before he was through, they were all dead and their land and cattle were ours. He sold both places, and the herds, and took me back with him. We haven’t stopped traveling yet.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to go back?” Carrie asked, bewildered that a man could laugh about death.
“What for? There’s nothing there for me but bitter memories. Best to forget them. You see, I really am a drifter, not quite the kind you thought, but a drifter nevertheless.”
“I see. You just drifted in here, and any day now you’re going to drift right back out again.” The sound of her words was hard and abrasive, like shards of glacial ice, and she shrank from their meaning.
“Something like that.” He turned and faced her. “I never knew you were going to be here.”
“Would it have made a difference?” There was such a long pause, Carrie was afraid he wasn’t going to answer.
“I would still have had to go.”
“I see.”
“No you don’t.”
“I see enough.”
“You don’t see anything, and I can’t tell you now, but one day I will.”
“Maybe it won’t matter by the time you get around to telling me.”
“Does it matter now?”
Carrie didn’t want to answer that question, but she knew she must. She also knew she couldn’t pretend to him, or herself, any longer. “Yes, I think it does. You’ve been very kind and thoughtful. It really would have been very difficult without your help.”
“To hell with kind and thoughtful!” Lucas suddenly exploded. “You make me sound like some kind of ladies’ aid society. Don’t you have any blood in your veins? Has all that aristocratic interbreeding back East taken every bit of mettle out of you?”
“Certainly not,” Carrie replied with vigor. “But neither has it deprived me of manners.”
“So you think it’s bad manners for a woman to tell a man he means something to her?”
“I didn’t say that,” Carrie protested.
“You might as well have. If you think kind and thoughtful are anything but a mouthful of pabulum, you’ve never been in love, and I don’t understand why you ever married your husband.”
“That is none of your concern,” snapped Carrie, furious that he could say such a thing about her, and yet at the same time searching for a way to tell him she had never been married and had never been in love.
“Yes it is,” Lucas insisted, “because I can tell you your presence means something to me. I doubt you’ll take this the way it’s meant, but I was never so glad to hear anyone was dead as when I heard about your husband. It was nearly driving me crazy to see you all the time and know I was forbidden to even touch you.”
“As I recall, you didn’t succeed.” Carrie had meant it to be a sharp retort, but to her horrified ears it sounded more like an invitation.
“I know. That’s when I knew I had to leave or do something I’d never be able to live down.” Carrie knew she shouldn’t ask, it was dangerous territory and foreign ground to her, but she couldn’t stop her tongue from forming the question.
“Why?” It was such a little word. Surely it couldn’t do much harm.
“I’ve met a lot of women, but never one like you.”
“How am I so different?”
“I’m not sure yet, but the minute you stepped off that stage, I knew you were unlike any other woman in the world. I couldn’t let Baca Riggins put you back on that stage because I might never find you again.”
“And to think I put it down to old-fashioned gallantry when all the while it was nothing but curiosity,” Carrie said, trying to keep her trembling limbs still.
“It was both, but don’t ask me to say which was stronger.”
“And I suppose that kiss was part of your attempt to see just how different I was,” she said with an ironic smile.
“No. It was supposed to make you so mad you would stay away from me. I already knew I couldn’t stay away by myself.”
“Well, you did make me mad.”
“But you didn’t stay away.”
“With you eating at the station and helping with the teams, as well as presenting yourself whenever you liked, it would be impossible not to run into you.”
“It’ll be impossible for you to stay away from me from now on. I’m going to follow you everywhere you go.”
Is that what you came here for tonight, to tell me I now have a second shadow?”
“No, I came to get a kiss. I liked the first one very much.”
“You lost the wager,” Carrie told him, her heart pounding so hard it was difficult to keep her voice steady. “Or have you,, forgotten that?”
“I haven’t forgotten a thing you’ve done since you got here.” That statement nearly rocked Carrie off her feet. If it wasn’t a declaration, she didn’t know anything about men.
“You can’t think I go about handing out kisses to everyone who asks.” For an answer, Lucas stood up, took her clasped hands into his, and pulled her to her feet.
“Not everyone. Just to me.” He was so close her body trembled with excitement.
“Why just you? I don’t mean that,” she corrected herself quickly. “I mean why you at all?”
“Because you’re not indifferent to me either. Look at you now. You’re trembling like a leaf.”
“I’m cold,” Carrie said. Lucas’s twisted grin prompted a chuckle and an unwilling truth. “No, I’m not completely indifferent, but I am cold.” In her agitation Carrie had allowed her shawl to slip off her shoulders. Lucas wrapped it more securely around her then enfolded her in his arms.
“Is that better?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re not indifferent to me?”
“I never was,” she admitted reluctantly. “How could I ignore anyone who could pitch Baca Riggins into the water trough.”
“I’m not talking about Baca, or harnessing the horses, or following you to town. I’m not taking about anything I did for you. I’m taking about me. Are you indifferent to me?”
“No,” Carrie said without hesitation. “Not from the very first.” Lucas raised her chin until she had to look into his eyes.
“I knew you weren’t, but I wanted to hear you say it.”
“How ungallant to force a lady to reveal her innermost feelings,” Carrie said, her words barely louder than a whisper.
“It would be much worse if she didn’t have any to divulge.”
Carrie couldn’t think of any answer to that, but it wasn’t needed. Lucas bent down until his lips met hers, and kissed her long and tenderly. How like Robert, she thought, and yet how utterly unlike his kisses. Robert’s kisses had left her unruffled, thoroughly composed, feeling as though she had just received a compliment. Lucas’s lips, while they did no more than seem to taste her lips, left her feeling weak, confused, and assaulted. Suddenly she realized what she felt for Robert was some tepid, pale thing when compared to the emotions that now stirred within her. If a kiss that was hardly more than a brushing of lips could cause such a reaction, what would she do if he kissed her hard like before? And suddenly she realized she wanted him to kiss her again, and to kiss her very hard. She wanted to know everything that had been hidden from her up until now. She wanted to know what it was like to feel so strongly about someone that almost nothing else mattered.
Suddenly she felt Lucas stiffen; then his arms fell away from her, he stepped away, and leaning against one of the porch posts, looked out into the night. Carrie felt stunned. She couldn’t imagine why he would reject her so abruptly and without a word. What had she done? Had he changed his mind?
“You better sit back down,” he said. “Maybe even go inside.” Carrie tried to get her feelings under control. She made no attempt to understand or catalog them, just to corral them so she could get through these next few seconds, or minutes.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have kissed me if it was going to be that disappointing,” she managed to say. “I guess we Eastern girls just haven’t learned to kiss like your Western women.”
“It’s not that at all,” Lucas said, whirling to face her. “I could have kept on kissing you for the rest of the night.” Carrie’s heart rebounded with such a lurch she spoke before she thought.
“Then why-”
“Someone’s coming, probably Jake Bemis, but it won’t do to have people see me kissing you. It’s bound to lead to somebody getting killed.”
Carrie felt she was rapidly losing any understanding of what was happening around her. That Lucas’s interest in her could lead to someone being killed was an idea too fantastic to be accepted. He must have meant something else. She tried to gather her sorely tried wits; the rider had come into view, and it was Jake Bemis.
“Evening, ma’am,” he said as he pulled his horse to a stop in front of the porch. “I hope I’m not late.”
“I’m sure you’re right on time. Mr. Barrow has been waiting to show you where to bed down. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay in the barn for a while. There’s a room for you at the station, but I haven’t had time to finish cleaning it yet.”
“If it’s anywhere Baca Riggins stayed, I’d just as soon sleep in the barn, thank you,” Jake said. “Besides, then you won’t find me underfoot when it comes time to do the cooking.”
“But it’s a perfectly good room. I’ve already washed the bedclothes and scrubbed the floors and walls. I’ve still got to wash the mattress ticking and fill it with new stuffing.”
“You don’t worry about no room for me. I’ll just make myself comfortable in the tack room. The smell of horse sweat and manure always did make me sleep better.” Carrie rather thought it would have made her sick, but she was rapidly learning that not everyone wished to drink from the same cup, and the brew that satisfied some of these Western palates was an odd one indeed.
“That’s fine with me. You take him on over, Lucas, and I’ll lock up here.”
“We’ll wait until you’re done.”
“There’s no need. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
“We’ll wait.” It was not a statement to be argued with, so she went inside quickly. She was at the door in a minute, a pot and two cups in her hand. There’s some coffee here and it’s still hot. I thought you might like some before you went to bed.”
“That’s mighty thoughtful of you ma’am. I am a mite chilled from the ride.”
Carrie stepped back inside and came out in another minute. “And here are some blankets. Keep the extras. You’ll need them when it starts to get cold.” Then she stepped back inside, took one final look around, and blew out the coal oil lamp. “Breakfast is at seven. If you oversleep, you don’t get fed. Now I will say good night to you, gentlemen. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
That’s a handful of woman,” Jake commented to Lucas after Carrie was out of hearing distance.
“That she is,” Lucas agreed, “and not one to be taken lightly.”
“She right nearly scares the pants off me. I was afraid to show up, but I was even more frightened she’d come after me.
“She wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
“It’s okay for you to say that. It wasn’t your cigar she shot in half, or your hat she darn near lifted off your head.”
“Then I suggest you be at breakfast on time, with your face washed and your hair combed.”
“Lord, she’s not one of those, is she?”
“There’s a wash bucket with soap and water sitting against the station. Even got a towel for drying off with.”
Jake groaned. “Leastways I don’t have to eat my own cooking,” he said, brightening a little. “I hope she’s handy with the pots and pans.”
“Oh, she doesn’t do the cooking. There’s another woman to do that.”
“If I’d known there was two women here, I’d a lit out for Denver as soon as she left town. She never said nothing about no other female.”
“You can’t back out now,” Lucas said, not bothering to hide his broad grin. “If you tried to leave now, she would come after you.”
“Oh hell,” Jake moaned, and spurred his tired horse toward the barn.
Chapter 9
“I’m right pleased you found someone for those horses,” Katie said as she broke another egg into the pan. It’s time you stopped having to worry over them.”
“I never really did, not with Lucas here.”
“Lucas? And just when did Mr. Barrow start being Lucas?” The look in Katie’s eye was so much that of the big sister Carrie never had that she burst out laughing.
“Last night on the porch,” she replied, mischief dancing in her eyes. Katie’s hand paused above the frying pan.
“And what would a young widow like you be doing on the porch last night?” she asked, a stern look in her eye.
“Nothing at all, so you can go back to scrambling those eggs before you scorch them and have to throw them out.” With a guilty exclamation, Katie plunged her fork into the eggs and swirled it around vigorously as she dropped bits of bacon into the thickening mixture. “I just got tired of his calling me ma’am, and he wouldn’t agree to call me Carrie unless I called him Lucas.” Katie’s look of disapproval relaxed, but didn’t disappear altogether.
“You
be careful, ma’am. It won’t do for you to be getting too familiar with that Mr. Barrow. Men have a way of taking more than they’re offered, and they don’t respect a widow any more than if she had never been married.”
Carrie didn’t know how to reply to that statement so she changed the subject. “The new man I hired came in last night. You’ll meet him at breakfast.”
“I thought I heard a horse come up. What’s he like?”
“I think he’s what you call a confirmed bachelor, a lifelong woman hater.” Carrie laughed. “At least that’s what he likes to think he is, but I suspect there’s some good in him. There has to be if he’s good with horses, and Lucas says he’s the best around.”
“Horses are no smarter than people, so don’t you be letting that old wives’ tale get you into trouble,” Katie cautioned, once more neglecting her eggs. There’s been more than one girl brought to grief by that road.”
“I think we ought to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe your cooking will soften him up a mite.”
“I fancy not,” Katie said, repugnance inexplicably sounding in her voice.
“But you’ve never seen him.”
“I have now, if you’re meaning that shuffling, shiftless scarecrow coming across the yard with Mr. Barrow. I’d not hire him to feed me pigs.”
“I don’t have pigs, I have horses,” Carrie said, “and I want you to be nice to him.”
“I’ll be making no promises I can’t keep,” Katie said, unyielding. “I don’t like the looks of him, and when I don’t trust a body, I say so.” Carrie felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, but she stepped out on the porch to welcome Lucas and Jake with a friendly smile.
“I see you got up on time,” she said to Jake.
It was Lucas here. He pulled the covers off me then threatened to dump a bucket of water over me if I didn’t get moving.”
“From the looks of you, it’d take more than a bucket to make any difference a body could notice,” Katie volunteered. She had followed Carrie onto the porch and was glowering at Jake’s disheveled appearance over Carrie’s shoulder.
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