“Duncan Bickett is coming to inspect the station, and Bap says he means to take it away from me,” Carrie said by way of explaining who she was expecting and why.
“And all this is supposed to convince him to change his mind. You’re dressed up like you’re going to the Christmas cotillion. And I had hoped it was for me.”
“How could it be when I didn’t know when you were getting back?”
“Don’t you think you’re a little overdressed?” It was a statement, and Carrie could see Lucas wasn’t going to understand.
“Of course, but I’m trying to make the strongest impression I can.”
Lucas looked at the rioting copper curls, the turned-up nose and pursed mouth that he had dreamed of for days, skin that courtesans would envy, and a figure that no dress could hide, and he decided that Duncan would have to be three parts dead for Carrie not to make a powerful impression on him no matter what dress she wore.
“You still don’t want me to have the station, do you?”
Lucas knew Carrie wouldn’t understand his answer without a long explanation—she probably wouldn’t understand it under any circumstance right now—and he decided to skirt the issue. “What I think doesn’t matter right now, but if you mean do I want to help you convince Bickett he’s wrong, the answer is yes.”
Carrie looked as if she didn’t care for that answer in the least, but before she could ask Lucas what he meant by it, she heard the call of the stage driver and then the sound of the stage itself.
“I’ve got to be up at the station when the stage pulls in the yard,” Carrie said, her preoccupation with the inspection and her desire to welcome Lucas battling for her attention. Business won. “You go take care of your horse or whatever you do when you come back from a trip. I’ll come up to your cabin after Duncan leaves.”
“Don’t you want me to stay here with you?”
“No. Don’t misunderstand,” Carrie added quickly, “but I don’t want Duncan to think I depended on anyone but myself.”
“It’s really important to do this by yourself, isn’t it?” Lucas asked, and Carrie was not so absorbed with her own affairs that she didn’t notice the plunge in his spirits. It was almost as if he had hoped she would have changed her mind while he was gone. But she hadn’t, and she wasn’t going to.
“You know it is, and you also know why. This is the first chance I’ve had to do something on my own, and I can’t fail.”
Lucas almost started to tell her what she was doing to him, that he had spent the last seven days and nights thinking about her, planning their future together, dreaming of holding her in his arms again, but he didn’t. She was filled with impatience to be off, and he wasn’t sure she could stand still long enough to listen to him.
“You won’t fail. There isn’t a station on the whole line that can compare to the way this place looks now, and there’s none that has the food either. Since Jake is one of the best stock men, all Duncan can do is decide that you’re the best station manager in all of Colorado and give you a new contract. The company would be foolish to do otherwise. They’ve already been hearing about you in Denver.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that to make me feel good?”
“Yes, really, but “I’ll tell you about that later too. The stage will turn the corner any minute.” He kissed Carrie quickly, and picked up his horse’s reins. “I’ll be back shortly to hear the verdict.”
Carrie watched Lucas as he turned away from her and led his horse off toward the cabin, and the sight of his long, powerful limbs and his tightly encased rear end caused a knot of desire in her stomach. In spite of the chill in the breeze coming down from the mountains, she felt herself flush with the heat of desire, with the warmth of a remembered embrace, and her whole body felt charged with the excitement of his presence. She found herself thinking of the coming night in his cabin, and suddenly it was very difficult to remember Duncan Bickett and the inspection.
Carrie felt a wild impulse to forget the station and Duncan Bickett and run after Lucas, to tell him that nothing mattered in the world but the two of them. His long absence and his unexpected return had cleared away any remaining doubts as to whether she loved him and wanted to marry him, but she could feel the station almost within her grasp, and she couldn’t let it go. Everything she had dreamed about since the day she decided to leave Virginia, everything she had worked for since she came to Colorado, all of it could be hers within a matter of minutes. How could she turn her back on it just now?
The sound of the wheels of the stage as they crunched the small stones in the road captured her attention. For a second she stood poised between Lucas and the station, unable to make up her mind as the two battled for her heart.
“You better hurry if you don’t want Mr. Bickett to find you standing in the yard,” Katie called from the porch. “You can’t surprise him that way.” For one second longer Carrie remained undecided, then she dashed inside the station. By the time Duncan Bickett stepped down from the stage, she and Katie were discreetly watching through the curtains inside the dining room.
“His eyes are as big as saucers,” Katie said with a delighted giggle. “I fancy he’s never seen a station like this.” The look of stunned surprise on Duncan’s face was plain enough for all to see. Even though he was the first out of the stage, all the other passengers had alighted and filed past him before he could stop staring at everything around him.
“Well, it’s time,” Carrie said as she prepared to step out on the porch to welcome her guests. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need it, ma’am. Everything here is perfect. And I’ll take me oath he’s never set eyes on a woman as pretty as you. He won’t be able to think except to do what you tell him.”
“I’ll settle for his being very impressed,” Carrie said as she stepped outside to greet the passengers. She was beginning to know some of the regulars by name. She asked one man about his wife and another about his business, then she turned to wait for Bickett with poised calm. She was determined she would not go to him or give him the satisfaction of knowing how anxious she was.
“Looks like you slum guzzled him before he even got his feet on the ground good.” Harry said with a wink at Carrie as he followed the others inside.
“You’d better hurry up if you expect to get anything to eat,” Carrie called to Duncan after a minute had passed. “They don’t usually leave much.” Recalled to his senses and remembering the purpose of his visit, Duncan came hurrying toward the porch only to slow down once again when he got a good look at Carrie.
“Bap didn’t exaggerate,” he said, almost to himself. “You certainly are beautiful.”
“Why, thank you, Mr. Bickett, but as much as I appreciate the compliment, it’s not going to save you any lunch.”
“You know who I am?”
“Bap told me you were coming.”
“I’m here to make a thorough inspection of this station and evaluate the job you’ve been doing,” he said, mounting the steps to join her.
“Don’t you mean rather that you are here because of the men’s complaints that a woman is running this station, not that the station is being badly run?”
“Well, yes, I guess I am, though all complaints have to be considered no matter what they are.”
“I agree with you, but we can talk about it after you’ve eaten.”
Lunch was a silent meal—everyone took eating seriously, and there was no conversation wanted or accepted until the coffee and pie had been passed around.
“Hadn’t you better see about the horses?” Duncan said to Harry when he asked for his second cup of coffee. “You’ve got to be off soon.”
“That’s already taken care of,” Carrie said, not pausing in pouring coffee for all the passengers. “Jake changes the horses while the driver eats. It saves time and gives Harry and the other drivers more time to relax.”
“I heard Bemis was your stockman,” Duncan said. “Sounds unlikely from what I hear about hi
m.”
“Jake does work for me,” Carrie replied, and was pleased to see Duncan’s eyebrow rise in surprise. “I also have a boy who helps him. I have meant to have a new team ready, but Lucas had to go to his Uncle Max’s funeral, and he hasn’t gotten around to breaking the last of the horses.”
“Lucas Barrow?” Duncan asked, showing a surprising amount of interest.
“Yes. He just got back from Denver before the stage pulled in. I expect hell be over to get something to eat before long.”
“Lucas eats here?”
“Yes, but he pays for his meals,” Carrie was quick to add. “I wouldn’t think of letting him eat at the company’s expense.”
“You make him pay?” Duncan looked as if he had swallowed something down the wrong way.
“Of course. I don’t expect the company to feed everyone who happens to be at the station.” The passengers began to drift out, and Harry got up to leave.
“I guess it’s time I was going, Mrs. Simpson. The food was good as usual.”
“I would say it was excellent,” Duncan said. “Is it always like this?”
“Every time you come through, day or night,” one of the passengers said. “I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in Denver. And the place looks brand new. You can’t know how different it is from when Baca Riggins was here.”
“Yes, I can,” insisted Duncan, turning back to Carrie. That’s the only reason I didn’t come out the minute I heard you had arrived. I figured anybody who could get rid of Baca deserved a chance. But at that time I thought you had a husband on the way.”
“That’s why I let you go on expecting him. Would you have let me stay if I hadn’t?”
“No, ma’am, I’d have been out here the next day. I’d have run the place myself if I had to.”
“That’s what I figured. Now let’s go look at the rest of the station. You didn’t come here to talk about my family history.”
“No, but your being a woman is going to make me have to do it sooner or later. Is that girl the one who does the cooking?” he asked, gesturing toward Katie.
“I share the cooking with Katie. I hired her to help me get started, and she decided to stay.”
They moved outside and Duncan was struck again by the neatness of the grounds and how good the station looked with the new paint and the tubs of flowers placed all around.
“You can always tell a woman’s touch,” he remarked. “There’s not another manager on the whole line who thought to get his station painted recently, and none has ever set out flowers.”
“Surely they have wives.”
“Not like you, Mrs. Simpson. You’re beautiful, you’re dressed like something straight out of San Francisco, and you’re obviously a lady. There’s nobody else like you in Colorado, except maybe in Denver.” Frank admiration was in his gaze and Carrie hardly knew whether to be pleased or scold him for staring so rudely. Lucas did it for her.
“You can put your eyes back in your head, Duncan,” Lucas said, coming up behind them before Carrie could see him. “I’ve already got my eye on this girl, and if you try to steal her away from me, I’ll shoot you dead right here.”
“You knew she was here by herself?” Duncan asked Lucas, surprising Carrie because it was obvious Duncan felt Lucas’s answer was important. “And you approved of it?”
“It’s not my place to approve or disapprove,” Lucas said, giving Duncan a meaningful glare. “I have nothing to do with running the stations or choosing the managers.”
“I know that,” Duncan said, recovering quickly. I just didn’t realize you were helping out here.”
“I’m not,” Lucas said. “I’m breaking horses.”
“Mr. Barrow has been a great help to me, especially in the beginning, but the station operates without his assistance now. In fact,” Carrie said, eyeing Lucas sternly, “I’m still waiting for that new team he promised.”
“You’d better go check out the barn, make your decision, and get out of here before she puts you to work,” Lucas said, looking at Carrie with embarrassing warmth. “The woman is a demon for work, and she thinks everybody else likes it as much as she does.”
If it was possible, Duncan was even more impressed with the barn than the station. The dust had been whisked from the windows and rafters, the stall leavings neatly composted out back, and the floor swept clean. Jake and Found had worked on the tack room until it was spotless. Everything in the room was neat and orderly, and every harness, newly cleaned and glowing in rich blacks and browns, hung on its own wooden peg.
“You couldn’t have done all this in the last day?”
“Mrs. Simpson doesn’t like for anybody to have time on their hands,” Jake told him. “If she comes out here and I’m not busy, she finds something for me to do. I generally prefer to find my own work.”
“Well,” Duncan said, coming out of the barn and looking around once more, “I must say I’ve never seen anything like it. I only have one question. How would you handle an outlaw?”
“Have you ever seen this lady shoot?” Lucas asked. “She can take the fire off the end of your cigar.”
Jake could see Duncan didn’t believe him. “That’s how she got me to work here.”
“I heard about that, but I didn’t know whether to believe it or not.”
“Would you believe she got me to whitewash the station for her?” Sam Butler unexpectedly came around the corner of the barn.
“Now that I won’t believe,” Duncan said, staring at the notorious gunman.
“I came in here several days ago, wounded and with a hungry posse on my heels,” Sam said, more to Lucas than to Duncan. “She fixed up my leg, sent the posse back to Tyler’s Mountain with its tail between its legs, and made me rest up until my leg was fit to ride. A little whitewashing seemed small payment for all that.”
“That ain’t all she done,” swore Jake, “but you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Hell, I saw it myself, and I still don’t believe it.”
Lucas stared at Carrie in stunned surprise, shock at the risk she had taken battling with pride that she could stand up to an outlaw, as well as a bloodthirsty posse it seemed. He had to marry her and take her off to Denver. Either she was going to get herself killed, or she was going to turn the whole territory on its ear.
“It really wasn’t as dangerous as it sounds,” Carrie said, silently pleading with Lucas to believe her. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
“I certainly hope so,” Lucas said before he turned back to Duncan. “What do you think?”
“What do you think?” Duncan asked, turning the question back on Lucas.
“If you want my opinion about her work,” Lucas said after a moment’s hesitation, “I think there isn’t a better manager on the line.”
“There certainly isn’t one with a place that looks like this. The passengers have been after me to make this the overnight stop. With your cooking being what it is, I’d be hard-pressed to find a reason to put it anywhere else.”
“Does that mean I still have the job?” Carrie asked, unable to wait any longer. This was what she’d been working toward from the first day she arrived. She had even shunted Lucas and her love for him aside in her efforts to make sure that nothing would go wrong today. Now success was within her grasp, and she couldn’t wait another second to know if she had succeeded.
“For as long as you want it and can keep things going like they are,” Duncan said. “I’d be a fool to give it to anyone else.”
It took all of Carrie’s self-control not to give a shout of triumph. “Are you going to make it an overnight station?”
“I can’t answer that yet. That’s a decision for the company office, but I’m going to recommend it.”
It would have been easy for a less perceptive man then Lucas to see that Carrie hardly knew how to contain her happiness. It also wouldn’t have taken one with much insight to see that he didn’t share it. Certainly he was proud of her achievement and he was glad she had prove
d her ability to the extent that she had won a renewal of the contract, but the station had always stood between them, a bar to her becoming his wife, and he didn’t see that her resounding success was going to make things any easier or increase the chances of a decision in his favor.
So far he had been unable to make Carrie see that she was using the station as an excuse—maybe he had only just seen it himself—and that she didn’t need it anymore. She was still fighting doggedly against the possibility of being treated the way her family had treated her. He wasn’t sure she could see that she could give up the station, marry him and move to Denver, and still maintain her independence. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t know how he was going to explain it to her, but he couldn’t imagine anyone imposing on Carrie ever again.
And if Jake was to be believed, she could handle outlaws and posses as well. Lucas tried to remain optimistic, but he had a dark presentiment that things were not going very well for him just now. He could also see that this was not the moment to press his case. Carrie was too excited over her victory to be able to pay attention to anything else right now. She was positively dancing in place, just waiting for Duncan to leave so she could share her victory with Katie and Jake.
He felt left out, and he resented it. Recognition of her success required that it be achieved independently of him—it followed that her success should be celebrated just as independently—and it angered him that he was not a part of her achievement. He felt almost like the enemy, and it was a feeling he disliked.
She would have to choose between him and this station sooner or later, and he decided it might as well be now.
Chapter 22
Half an hour later Duncan had mounted the horse he had brought tied to the back of the stagecoach and ridden back to Fort Malone. Lucas walked up behind Carrie and put his arms around her. She turned into his embrace with a happy smile. “Do you think you could give me a few minutes now?” he asked. “I’m feeling terribly jealous.”
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