“I’m sorry,” Carrie said, immediately remembering that Lucas had lost his uncle and that she had not taken the time either to sympathize with him or to share in his feeling of loss. It’s just that I’ve worked so hard for this and now that I’ve finally got the contract, I can hardly believe it. It’s like losing your sense of direction all of a sudden and having nothing to struggle against.”
“Listen to me for a few minutes and see if I can’t give you something to think about.”
Carrie tried to clear her mind of her own concerns. She wanted to listen to Lucas, she really cared about his loss, but it was hard to keep her feelings of happiness from bubbling over. She had proved she could run the station, and Duncan had acknowledged it with the most concrete admission possible, an extended contract.
“Uncle Max only lived a few days after I reached Denver, but we talked more in that time then we ever had in our lives. I told him about you, told him I had asked you to marry me but that you couldn’t make up your mind to give up your freedom yet. He said he wished I had brought you to see him.”
“I would have liked that,” Carrie said. “It would have been nice to meet at least one member of your family.”
“I suppose I have some relatives back in Texas, but Uncle Max was the only one that counted. I told him quite a bit about you. He said you must be crazy not to jump on me like a hen on a June bug. I told him you weren’t at all partial to June bugs, but he seemed to think you might learn if you tried.”
“Lucas, what kind of nonsense did you tell that poor man?” Carrie demanded, her attention finally caught. “You had no right to worry him with the things we say to each other.”
“He wasn’t worried. He just wanted to tell me he made a big mistake one time, and he didn’t want me to make the same one.”
Carrie could tell from the look in Lucas’s eye that what he was going to say was very important to him, that it would be very important to both of them, and suddenly she was nervous.
“He asked me to do just two things for him, and both of them surprised me. There is a woman back in Nebraska he almost married, and I guess he wished many times afterward that he had. Anyway, she’s not doing too well now, and he wants me to look after her.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll have to go see her.”
“That’s a long way,” Carrie said, thinking that it would mean he would be gone almost as long as when his uncle died. She had missed him terribly. She didn’t want him to be away from her that long again. “What was the other thing your uncle did that surprised you?”
“He told me to get married, have a family, and put down roots.” Lucas felt Carrie stiffen in his arms, but he didn’t stop. “He told me that nothing else a man did in his life mattered a whole hell of a lot, nothing else lasted unless it was in the minds and hearts of a man’s own flesh and blood, his sons and daughters. It was just the opposite of what he had done with his own life, and he didn’t want me to make the same mistake.”
Carrie hardly knew what to think. She was standing in the ring of Lucas’s arms, vibrantly aware of his body, of the delicious excitement of merely being near him, but she had just won the right to operate what could become the most important stage station in Colorado, and she couldn’t bring herself to give it up. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get married—she did and Lucas’s holding her in his arms made it hard for her to think of anything else—but she felt her contract could be the beginning of a new and exciting kind of life, and she was being asked to give it up without having had a chance to experience its benefits.
“You know what I asked you to think about while I was gone?”
“What?” Carrie said, trying to get her thoughts back on their conversation. “I can’t remember. So much has happened.”
“You know you remember” Lucas said, making her look him straight in the eye. I asked you to marry me, and you were heartless enough to say you had to think about it.” He had decided he wasn’t going to let her off anymore. She had to give him an answer now.
“Well, I did have to think about it. It wasn’t a decision to be made lightly. There are so many things that we don’t agree on.”
“I know. You keep saying that, but you still haven’t answered my question. Will you marry me?” He knew she loved him, she had admitted it. If he could just get her to agree to marry him, they would be able to work everything else out.
“I want to marry you, but I’m not sure I should.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Lucas demanded.
“I love you,” Carrie said, wondering how to explain her indecision, “much more than I ever thought possible. I’ve been terribly busy since you left and I’ve had lots of things to worry me, but never for one minute did I forget you, how wonderful it felt to be in your arms, or how much I wanted to be there again. There were some nights I ached for you so I couldn’t sleep, and I would get up and pace the room. I even came over to the station one night and scrubbed the stove again just to have something to do. It nearly drove me crazy?”
“Then why are you still unsure?”
“You know there are still so many things we can’t agree on.”
“We can work them out.”
“I don’t know. You’ve been different since you got back from Denver. I could tell it almost the minute you got off your horse. I think your uncle’s words had a much greater effect on you than you know.”
“But I told you weeks ago that I wanted a family and a home.”
“You had some doubt in your mind then, I don’t know how much, but there was still a question, some room to negotiate. I don’t think you have any uncertainty now, and I don’t think there’s any room for compromise. I think you know in your own mind you will never be happy without the kind of home you had when you were a boy.”
“Carrie, there are bound to be many things we don’t see eye to eye on. We don’t have to work them all out right now.” He could feel her slipping away, and he didn’t know what to do to bring her back. She was hiding behind walls of her own making, and he had to find some way to convince her to tear them down.
“Where are we going to live?”
“In Denver.”
“But I’ve just been given a new contract to run this station. I can’t leave.”
“You can give it to someone else.”
“But I’ve worked hard for this contract. I don’t want to give it to anyone else. Why can’t we live here?”
“Because the company office is in Denver, and I can’t do my job from here.” This wasn’t the way Lucas wanted to tell her about his job.
Carrie stared at him in stunned surprise. “Do you mean to tell me that you’re more than just an investigator sent out here to spy on some outlaws?”
“You might say I was second in command to my uncle,” Lucas said, realizing he had made a mistake in keeping this information from Carrie for so long. “In fact, you might even say that he owned the company”
Carrie went rigid in his arms. He tried to tighten his hold on her, but she impatiently pushed his arms away.
“You own the Overland Stage Company? You don’t merely work for it or have some stock in it?”
“I own it, all of it. Uncle Max founded the company, and I’m his only heir.”
“Does Duncan Bickett know who you are?”
“Yes.” Lucas could see what was coming next and he didn’t like it, but there was nothing he could do about it. She was going to be mad as hell, and he didn’t blame her. He should have told her before he left, but it was too late to know that now.
“So when he was asking you what you thought about this station, he was really asking you whether he should give me the station or not?”
“No, he was not,” Lucas said as emphatically as he could. “Duncan might want my opinion because I was around here more than he was and knew more about how well you operated the station, but hiring the managers is his job and he knows I don’t interfere. Neither did my uncle.”
/> “But he would be reluctant to go against your wishes if he knew what they were.” There was no way out of this one, and Lucas knew it.
“Look, Carrie, I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. Duncan doesn’t have to try to make me happy. He knows he’s too valuable to the company for me to ignore him, and he knows we think too much of his opinion to go against it without some damned good reason.”
“But he still wouldn’t want to disagree with you unless he had to?”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Lucas admitted, unable to get out of it any longer, “but if you think he gave you the contract because of me, you’re mistaken. You can go into Fort Malone right now and ask him.”
“With you riding along with me, standing at my side while I asked him?” Carrie said, her feelings of betrayal making her furious. “I wouldn’t waste my time on such a fool’s errand.”
“Naturally I would stay here.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference. He would know why I was asking.” She was so thoroughly furious and hurt and bitter and confused she could hardly speak. Everything she had worked for, all the things she had tried to do to improve the station and make the customers happy, everything was meaningless next to Lucas’s yea or nay. She hadn’t proved anything at all. She was right back where she was in Virginia, dependent on the approval of some man.
“Why didn’t you tell me you owned the company from the first?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had never been married?”
“I’ve already” answered that.”
“Well, now I’ll answer you. No one was supposed to know who I was or why I was here. I came to look around, and I couldn’t do that if everyone knew who I was. They would have been watching my every move.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There was no reason to tell you at first, and then there never seemed to be a good time. Why didn’t you tell me you had never been married until just before we made love?”
Carrie had no answer for that.
“My being president probably wouldn’t have made any difference if I hadn’t happened to be here when Duncan arrived. And I didn’t tell him I’d asked you to marry me. I just told him to keep his hands off?’
“You might as well. It was the same thing.”
“Look, Carrie, I know how important it was for you to win this contract, but I promise you Duncan didn’t give it to you because of me. Look at this place. Do you see anything that reminds you of the dump you found when you stepped off that stage? And there’s no question that the food and the service are better. You did that and you know it. I had nothing to do with it. In fact, if you had listened to me, you’d be in Denver right now as my wife. You don’t owe any of this to me.”
“But I’m a woman.”
“Yes, and I think Duncan has seen that it can be an asset to the company. As long as he feels you can run the station and protect it, everything you do of a feminine nature is a plus. It will be even more so if this becomes an overnight station.” He almost said when. That would have told her that it was his decision, and he would never have gotten her to believe him after that. “Also, if this becomes an overnight station, there will be more people here on a full-time basis and your ability to run the station will be more important than your ability to protect it.” Lucas could see that Carrie was wavering, but she wasn’t convinced.
“But you’re still asking me to give up this station and go to Denver with you?”
“Yes. I can’t run the company from here even if I wanted to, and since I intend to move into railroads, I have to be where the railroads are.”
“So I’ll become just a housewife, just like any other woman.”
“Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush. I want you to be my wife and the mother of my children. I want you to be my companion, my friend, my comfort, and my solace. I don’t want you to become my vice president, and I don’t want you starting another company on your own. I know you need to feel you can do something without depending on a man, but I thought you had proved that to yourself.”
“I don’t know that I have, and I don’t know that I want to give up what I’ve got just yet.”
“One of us will have to give up our job for the other. Logic and economics say it should be you.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions just because you don’t like the answer you’re going to get,” Lucas said, his temper getting worse. “You’ll never earn much of a living managing this station, and it certainly wouldn’t be enough to raise a family. And my being your wrangler won’t make much difference either.”
“But as the wife of the company president, I could have a big house, servants, and the best of everything for my children.”
“Yes, you could. You would also have a lot more freedom to do what you want as an individual. If you stay here, you’ll be tied to these buildings, this very spot, because you will have to be at the beck and call of the passengers every time they come through. This station will have to be the most important thing in the world to you, no matter what else is happening in your life, no matter how much you want or need to be somewhere else. That wouldn’t be true if you married me.”
“But I would be dependent on you.”
“Carrie, don’t you understand that marriage is a partnership, that I can’t do it alone, even if I am the one to go out and earn the money?”
“I know, but why do I have to give up my position?” Carrie knew she was being irrational, but she couldn’t help it. It seemed that circumstances were hemming her in again just as tightly as they had in Virginia.
“Why is a job automatically so important, so valuable because a man is doing it? Don’t you think it takes ability and dedication to be a good wife and mother?”
“You have the gall to ask me that?” Carrie snapped, all the remembered wrongs and slights springing to her mind. “I who worked day after long day for my brother and never got a word of appreciation? Don’t you know that any female can be a mother.”
“No they can’t, any more than anybody can be a good station manager or a good cook or a good wrangler, any more than any man can be a good father. It takes talent and practice. It also takes dedication to see that job through to the end. You can have children because you’re a female, but you will be a good mother because you’ll work at it.”
“I know all that,” Carrie said impatiently, still feeling that circumstances were against her, “even if I’m not acting like it. I also know that you want a home and that you want me in that home all the time. I know you want children and that you want me to raise those children for you while you go out and earn millions so we can be rich.”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
“What if I don’t want to be rich? What if I don’t mind staying here for the rest of my life and being at the beck and call of every out-of-patience passenger that comes through here?”
“I want more for you than that.”
“But suppose I don’t? Have you ever considered that?”
“No. I never thought anyone would dislike being rich.”
“I don’t dislike having money, but I would dislike having a husband who was always away trying to make more money. I would rather have him at home, as would his children. Do you remember telling me how much you liked your home when you were a little boy?”
Lucas nodded.
“Well, you were remembering what it was like to be at home with your mother and father. The house you were in, the clothes you wore, and the food you ate weren’t important. What really mattered was who was in that house with you. I don’t want to take away your company and I would never want to deny you your right to build it into anything you wanted, but I can’t live as the second, or third most important thing in your life. I don’t necessarily want to work with you, but I don’t want to be left out of what you are doing and thinking. I don’t want to be a wife who sees that the children are fed, who keeps your bed warm and satisfies your need
s, but who is shunted aside when it comes to the important things. Are you willing to give up your company and take a job that will demand less of your time?”
“I don’t know,” Lucas said, suddenly feeling like a balloon someone had punctured. “But that’s not what I’m asking you to do.”
“Yes, it is. Yours may be the more important job and it may make us richer, but it’s just the same. If I can be a mother without running this station, maybe you can be a father without being a company president.”
Lucas realized that they were at an impasse. He had never thought of giving up his company, it had been a part of him ever since he could remember, and he doubted if he could turn his back on it, even for Carrie. But the thought of losing her frightened him to death.
“I do love you, Lucas, more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life, but I’ve got to be at peace with myself as well,” Carrie said finally. “I can’t marry you if it means I’ll be wanting something else all my life and wondering if I would have been happier if I’d done things differently. That would make us both miserable. And you need time to decide whether the home and family you want are going to fit into the same life with your company.”
“How long do you need? The gold will be going through in a few days, and I have to go to Denver after that.” It sounded as if he was pushing her, not thinking her time wasn’t important.
“And if I haven’t decided by then?” It sounded like a challenge.
“I’ll come back, and I’ll keep coming back until you agree to marry me. I know we have a lot of things to work out, but we will work them out because we love each other and we each want the other to be happy. As long as you love me, it will be all right.”
“I love you with all my heart,” Carrie said.
Carrie couldn’t remember when she had spent a more miserable afternoon and evening. The news of Duncan’s inspection must have traveled through the air. Two stages had come through, and everyone knew she had won a renewal and that they were considering making her station an overnight stop. It seemed as if everyone who had ever ridden the stage was anxious to offer their best wishes and predict that she would soon be running the most famous stage station in Colorado.
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