Winter's Touch Read Free Page A

He’d brought Frank Johansen and Beau Rivers with him to help. Like him, they had lost everything in the war.
    At least Carson still had some family, he thought, looking down at Bess and Megan, thinking of Aunt Gussie.
    Frank and Beau were there now, at the ranch, waiting for him. He was going to pick up where his father left off. He was going to build his father’s dream, a new home for the Dulaneys.
    He wished Aunt Gussie had come with them. What the hell did he know about raising girls? Not a damn thing, he feared. Gussie, his father’s sister, had not been able to bring herself to leave her lifelong friend Lucille, who was dying in Atlanta, but had promised to join them later.
    So here they were, Carson and Bess and Megan. It didn’t matter if he didn’t know how to raise girls. He loved them both, would do anything for them, so he guessed he’d be learning.
    The problem with Bess, he knew, was that she hadn’t wanted to come. It was evident in the quarrelsome tone in her voice. Plus, he figured she was still in a tiff because he had limited her and Megan to one single trunk each for their belongings. Carson touched a finger to her chin until she looked up at him. “You promised to give it a chance, Bess.”
    She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her shoulders heaved on a dramatic sigh. “You’re right. I promised. I’m sorry. I’m just tired, I think.”
    “I’m thirsty,” Megan whined.
    There was another one who was tired, Carson thought with sympathy. Traveling by stage, particularly for two young girls, was an exhausting experience.
    “I think what we all need it a good meal, and something to drink,” he added, touching the tip of his finger to Megan’s tiny nose. “And a good night’s sleep in a hotel.”
    “On a real bed?” Bess’s eyes lit. “Not a cot?”
    “On a real bed. Not a cot.” Pueblo was a thriving community. Finding a decent hotel would be no problem.
    The clerk at the stage depot pointed out three hotels down the street, any one of which, he assured, would serve their needs. Hoping the man was right, Carson arranged with him to have their luggage sent over to the nearest one. After taking the girls there and checking in, he escorted them to the restaurant three doors down for the promised meal. By the time they finished eating both girls were barely able to keep their eyes open.
    Truth to tell, he was ready for a good night’s sleep himself. He’d learned during the war to sleep whenever and wherever the opportunity arose. Even afterward, when the nightmares started, he’d at least slept some. But on this trip, knowing the safety and comfort of the girls was his sole responsibility, his sleep at the various stage stops had been in fits and starts, and very, very brief. He didn’t like the girls sleeping on cots in the same room with a bunch of strange men. He didn’t much care for sleeping in a roomful of strange men himself, for that matter.
    Tonight would be different. A bath, a private room, a real bed and a change of clothes would improve the girls’ moods better than anything else.
    Not that he would be much more at ease about their safety, but at least they would be more comfortable than they’d been since they’d left the train in Kansas and had taken the stage the rest of the way.
    If the talk he’d heard before he’d headed east to get the girls could be credited, there would soon be a railroad in Colorado. Someone up in Denver had supposedly formed the Denver Pacific Railway, with plans to lay track more than a hundred miles between Denver and Cheyenne, where it would connect with the Union Pacific. From there, a person could go anywhere in the world.
    Of course, Carson thought wryly, even a railroad clear to Denver wouldn’t negate what lay ahead of them between Pueblo and the ranch. He dearly hoped the girls enjoyed their a night or two in a hotel.
    “How long will it take us to get to the ranch from here?” Bess asked.
    It was uncanny the way his baby