Read Online The Bride's House by Sandra Dallas - Free Book Online Page B

then she offered me a job. Oh, I was lucky, all right.”
    Will turned to look at her. “I thought Mrs.Travers was some sort of relative or a family friend.”
    “I never met her in my life before I came here. Don’t you remember? I told you I ran off. I didn’t know until I bought my ticket that I was going to Georgetown.”
    “I’d supposed you’d meant your folks had let you go adventuring. I’ve known plenty of fellows who did that, but never a girl. And to do it on your own! I’d say you have your share of pluck.”
    Nealie didn’t know what “pluck” meant—nor “adventuring,” for that matter—but she liked the sound of the word. “I do,” she said.
    They watched as the passengers scurried around the platform, a few hailing hacks or climbing aboard the omnibus, but most of them picking up their bags and boxes and walking down the main street. When only a few remained, Will took Nealie’s arm and asked where she wanted to go next.
    “Up in the trees,” Nealie said. “I’ve never gone in the mountains, because there’s always been snow on the ground. But now it’s mostly gone. Let’s go up high and see if we can get above the smelter smoke.” Because Georgetown was in a valley, the smoke from the smelters hung over the town on days when the wind was still, giving the mountain town a brooding, industrial feeling. Will glanced at Nealie’s boots and long skirt, and the girl added, “I’m a good walker.”
    So they followed a street to the edge of Georgetown and took a path that led them up the mountainside. The trail was littered with pine needles and covered with snow in spots, and they had to climb over rocks that had tumbled onto the path during the winter. But none of that deterred Nealie. “I never saw mountains before I came here. At home, we had hills, and there were bluffs by the Mississippi River. The Mississippi, it’s as lazy as a fish worm. But here, the rivers aren’t so big—they’re not rivers but creeks, I’d call them—but they rush by you like a runaway wagon. I’d hate to get in their way. If you’d fall into Clear Creek, you’d get carried a hundred miles.”
    “Do you like it here, then?”
    “Better than anyplace I’ve ever been.” Nealie thought that over. “I guess I haven’t been about much, but I bet Colorado beats anywhere you can name. The air doesn’t hold you down, and up here on the mountain, above the smoke, you can see all the way to tomorrow.”
    “And back to yesterday, too,” Will said, taking the girl’s hand and helping her over a fallen log.
    “I don’t care so much about yesterday.”
    Now that they were almost to the top of the mountain, they encountered old snowdrifts that were crusted over and covered with the footprints of wild animals. “Mountain sheep,” Will guessed, then pointed at a different set of footprints. “That might be a cougar.”
    Nealie glanced over her shoulder to ask what a cougar was, and as she did, she stepped on a rock that was slick with mud and tumbled onto the ground.
    “Are you hurt?” Will asked, helping Nealie to sit on a rocky outcropping.
    “No, not even a little, but my coat is done for,” she said, swiping her hand down the garment, which was covered with mud.
    “Let it dry, and it will brush off.” Will sat down beside the girl, and the two looked out beyond the mountains. They had climbed farther than Nealie had thought and could see all the way down the valley, dotted with mines that were marked by yellow tailings spills, and smelter stacks sending curlicues of smoke that the wind scattered.
    “I hope never to live in another place but this.” Nealie raised her face to the sky, because the air was clear and warm. “We’re close enough to touch the sun,” she said.
    “Maybe you’ll live in that bride’s house someday.” Will plucked a wildflower that had pushed its way through the snow and put the stem through the buttonhole of Nealie’s coat. “When the snow’s gone for