Colorado Bride Read Online Free Page B

announced as Carrie came back into the dining room. I’m thinking that leaves us something over five hours to get this place looking decent.” She had already found a big pot, filled it with water, and put it on to boil.
    “I told you I could do this myself,” Carrie said, slightly irritated that Katie had started without her permission. She had thrust herself into this job and it was her responsibility to see that it was done.
    “Ye can’t be doing it all yourself and ye know it,” Katie stated, never pausing as she scraped several pots and threw their cold, congealed contents out the back door. “Besides, I’m so starved for female company I probably won’t leave your side more than a minute before Brian comes for me. And I can’t stand about doing nothing while you work yourself to death. Me mother brought me up to hard work, but she also brought me up to share. It makes the work go that much faster for a little company, some lighthearted gossip, and a wee bit of laughter.”
    “It certainly does,” agreed Carrie, her momentary pique gone. She started to stack the plates on the table. “And from the looks of this place, it’s going to have to go mighty fast if we’re to have dinner ready by six-thirty. You start washing the dishes and I’ll see if I can remove enough grease from this table for us to sit down and have a bite to eat. I didn’t have any lunch, and I’m hungry too.”
    But it was nearly two hours later before they could sit down to eat. They washed every dish in the station, scrubbed every surface until it shone, and scraped the stove clean of all the baked-on food that hadn’t already turned to charcoal. They still had to clean out the cabinets and the storage closet, make an inventory so Carrie would know what staples she needed to order, scrub down the walls and floors, replace the curtains, and clean the windows, but the pots were soaking in hot soapy water and she had found enough food to be able to plan a good, nourishing dinner.
    “How long do you intend to wait?” Carrie asked once the edge was off their hunger.
    “What for?”
    “For your fiancé. You said it had already been a week. Suppose something has happened to him and he can’t come?”
    “Happen I’ll find myself a job then. I’m young, strong, and I can work.”
    “Don’t you want to go back home?”
    “I lack the money. Brian paid me passage, but I wouldn’t go back if I could. I cooked and cleaned for a passel of men long enough. I made up me mind the next man I done for would be me husband, or I’d do for no one.” It sounded so much like Carrie’s own situation she experienced a strong surge of sympathy.
    “Do you have any family?”
    “Do I ever. Eight years it is I’ve cooked and cleaned for me father and six brothers since me mother died. Still things weren’t too bad until the oldest brought home a wife. Hadn’t but one look passed between the two of us, and I knew we could never live under the same roof without making everybody’s life a misery. I’m thinking we’d have killed each other before long. Anyway when Brian Kelly wrote his ma asking her to pick him out a wife and she asked me, I jumped at the chance, lb be sure when he was home, Brian used to be swayed by temptation too often to suit me, but I always say any ship in a storm is better than getting bashed to death on the rocks.”
    Carrie thought of her own decision to take on the management of the station and felt she had come to much the same conclusion.
    “After a time of being tossed about on that wee bit of a ship, I was sorry I hadn’t settled on somebody closer to home, but ever since I got to these hills, I’ve felt right at home,”
    “These are the Rocky Mountains,” Carrie informed her.
    “To be sure they are a little big, but I’m game to tackle anything as long as it carries no gun.”
    The conversation stopped abruptly at the sound of footsteps on the porch. Carrie’s first thought was that Baca Riggins had come