The Independent Bride
Read The Independent Bride Online
Authors: Leigh Greenwood
ALONE AT LAST
“Let’s stop here for a few minutes,” Bryce said, indicating a grove of cottonwood and peach leaf willow.
“What would people think if they found us alone so far from the fort?” Abby’s tone was sarcastic.
He put his hands around her waist and lifted her from the saddle before he let himself answer. “I don’t know what they might think about you, but they would know the only reason I would be out here would be to rescue a stubborn, hardheaded female from the folly of her own actions.”
Abby looked angry, but the fact that she could be angry at being called to book for such a crazy stunt only increased his frustration.
“Did you think I was just trying to scare you when I told you how dangerous it could be out here, or did you think I was trying to make you think I was a big, brave soldier who would take care of the little, helpless woman?”
Abby backed away from him. “I never thought that I thought—”
“That’s the problem. You never thought!”
Other books by Leigh Greenwood:
SWEET TEMPTATION
WICKED WYOMING NIGHTS
WYOMING WILDFIRE
The
Night Riders
series:
TEXAS HOMECOMING
TEXAS BRIDE
BORN TO LOVE
The Cowboys
series:
JAKE
WARD
BUCK
CHET
SEAN
PETE
DREW
LUKE
MATT
The
Seven Brides
series:
ROSE
FERN
IRIS
LAUREL
DAISY
VIOLET
LILY
The
Independent
Bride
LEIGH GREENWOOD
Copyright © 2004, 2011 Leigh Greenwood
Contents
Colorado Territory, 1868
Abby Pierce stared in disbelief at the building that was supposed to house her father’s store. It didn’t look like the stores she was used to in St. Louis. It was a squat, broad-fronted building of adobe and rough-hewn logs that didn’t have all the knots shaved off. It did have glass windows, but each appeared to be covered with enough dirt to support a small plant. A pair of sturdy iron hinges held the door in place, and a boardwalk kept customers’ feet out of the mud, but neither did anything to improve the looks of the building.
“Surely they’ve directed us to the wrong place,” Moriah said. Abby’s sister looked even more dazed than Abby felt. “It’s hardly better than a dog kennel.”
“I suspect dogs have to do with a good deal less in the Territories than in St. Louis,” Abby said. “The sign would hardly say Pierce’s Supplies if it wasn’t Father’s store.”
“But surely—”
“The Colorado Territory isn’t like St. Louis, Moriah. The trip out here should have convinced you of that.”
The stage journey had been long and harrowing. Abby had dreamed of going west ever since her father left them with his sister in St. Louis fourteen years earlier. Mile by weary mile, her bright expectations had been jolted out of her by roads rutted from winter rain and snow, and frozen out of her by the bitter winds that howled across the plains and worked their way inside the stagecoach. Mud that splashed up from the flat, empty prairie had spattered her from head to foot. Later it dried, turned to dust, and infiltrated every pore in her body. Denver had sparked a brief resurgence of her hopes for a few comforts. The wagon trip to Fort Lookout had bludgeoned them into extinction.
Discovering that her father had worked in a place like this to send money to his two daughters so they could continue to live in comfort made her feel like a selfish woman. If she’d had any notion, she’d have come out to help him years ago. From the time she was a little girl, she’d always wanted to be with him wherever he went. Following him west wouldn’t have been what her mother would have wanted, but if she’d gone, at least Abby wouldn’t now be suspected of embezzlement.
“We can’t stay here,” Moriah said. “I’ll see about making arrangements to return to St. Louis.”
“You can go back if you wish. I’ll stay,” Abby said.
“You can’t even be sure of your safety. I’ve seen nothing but men since we arrived, half of whom wouldn’t be allowed on the streets in St. Louis.”
Abby looked around. What she saw made her feel small and insignificant. To the west, a range of mountains rose like a wall, their peaks towering thousands of feet above the plain. They looked so immense, dwarfed the distance so completely, she almost felt she could reach out and touch them. To the north and south lay a narrow band of hills and canyons created by streams that tumbled out of the mountains, their waters still icy from mountain snow. To the east lay the bleak plain that stretched all the way back to Missouri.
In the middle of this wilderness sat Fort Lookout Whether she liked it or not, this unfamiliar, hostile land would be her new home, her father’s store her means of support. She didn’t know anything about running a store, but she would learn. She had always worked in a bank, but there wasn’t a bank at the fort. Even if there had been, no one would have hired her.
Not after St. Louis.
As for the men… well, it didn’t matter what they looked like. After Albert, she’d never trust a man again.
“I’m going inside,” Abby said. “You stay here. There may be mice.”
“I’m sure there will be,” Moriah said. “Rats and snakes, too. Just because people move into their territory, you can’t expect all God’s creatures to leave.”
Abby took her sister’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Moriah had an almost phobic fear of mice. “You really shouldn’t have come.”
“Don’t be silly. I don’t like mice, but they’re probably more suited to inhabit this earth than you or I. It’ll be up to me to make peace with them.”
“But you don’t like me West, either. You hate everything about it.”
“What kind of sister would I be if I let you stay here and do all the work while I went back East and lived in comfort? Now let’s not talk of it again. It’s time we had a look at Father’s store.”
Hand in hand, they entered the building.
Abby felt like she was entering a cave. Two kerosene lamps suspended from the ceiling did little to relieve the darkness. She was used to brightly lighted stores with well-swept floors, neatly stacked shelves, candies and valuables under pilfer-proof glass. She was also used to clerks in vests and rolled-up sleeves hurrying to wait on her.
Her father’s store looked more like a warehouse, with barrels of pork, vinegar, and flour hard by bags of beans, boxes of soap, candles, and salt. Abby wasn’t the least bit encouraged by the large quantity of merchandise she saw on the shelves or stacked on tables or in piles. She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to buy in such a depressing atmosphere. Any merchant in St. Louis who dared open such a store would have gone out of business in less then a week.
“It’s not very appealing,” Moriah said.
Abby had expected someone to come out of the back to wait on them, but no one appeared. A survey of the stock told her that however unattractive the layout of the store and the disposition of its goods, it contained just about everything a person would need to survive. Guns, ammunition, cloth, kettles, axes, sugar, tobacco, coffee, molasses, and alcohol were only a few of the items her father had sold. There were even luxury items such as butter crackers, cotton hose in six shades, Berlin gloves, silk handkerchiefs, and many kinds of canned goods, including table fruit, oysters, honey, and olives. Clearly not all aspects of life at the fort had been reduced to essentials.