Rocky Mountain Dreams. Danica Favorite

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      “There you are, Annabelle. And looking just as pretty.” Her father’s flattery did nothing to erase the scowl on her face.

      “You’ll feel much better once you get some soup in you. Since Joseph is going to need help finding his father’s cabin, you could go with him. It’s near Greenhorn Gulch. You know where that is.”

      “Of course, Father.”

      She sat down and ate the soup placed in front of her, her face expressionless and her gaze completely on the bowl.

      Joseph should learn to accept Annabelle being distant, but she was like a burr under his saddle. He wasn’t going to be satisfied until he fixed it and fixed it good. His sister Mary would tell him it was his failing. Having to get to the bottom of things and solve the problem. They’d always thought he’d become a lawman for that very reason. But the pay wasn’t enough to support the family and run the farm.

      So instead, he was here, chasing down his deadbeat father’s estate, and trying not to be attracted to the lovely woman sitting before him. He’d admit it, even in the dress she looked none too happy about wearing, Annabelle Lassiter was still a beautiful woman. And when she forgot herself for a moment, she brought so much light into the room.

      But those were thoughts he needed to do his best to temper. Though Margaret’s defection had hurt, she’d been right. Joseph could barely provide for the family he had. He needed to focus his attentions on caring for his siblings, not courting a lady.

      After lunch, Annabelle took him and Nugget to the livery. They saddled up her family’s horses, then rode out of town toward a place her father had called Greenhorn Gulch.

      Rocks jutted out around them, and stumps showed where trees once stood. The sure-footed paint Joseph rode had no trouble keeping up with Annabelle’s blue roan. The mare was perfectly suited to Annabelle, who seemed completely out of place in this desolate land stripped of what had probably once been a beautiful forest.

      “What happened to all the trees?”

      “Cut down to make support beams for the mines and places for the miners to live.” Her voice had a coldness to it.

      “You don’t approve?”

      She led her horse across a shallow creek. “It’s not my place to approve, but I think it’s a fool’s errand. People are willing to risk everything to get rich, and most of the folk who come out here never do. They abandon their families, leaving behind perfectly good lives in the vain hope that they’ll strike silver. When they get here, they’re willing to lie, cheat, steal and do anything else to gain an advantage that doesn’t exist.”

      She could have been talking about his pa. He’d come out here with the goal of finding silver to provide what the farm could not. But the little girl sitting in front of him on the saddle was proof of how his pa had discarded his principles.

      But he refused to accept Annabelle’s evaluation that it happened to everyone.

      “Some people get rich.”

      Annabelle looked over her shoulder at him. “Don’t even entertain that line of thinking. Before you know it, you’ll be living in the filth, blinded by the tiny flecks you think mean something but turn out to be nothing.”

      “My papa found a treasure.” Nugget, seated in front of him on the ample saddle, piped up. “He was going to build me and my mama a bigger house than anyone else in Leadville.”

      The glance Annabelle gave him was enough to melt the rocks around them. “So you are one of them.”

      She turned her gaze to Nugget, and he could tell it immediately softened. “You should just take her back to wherever you came from. Now, before you wind up losing whatever else you have left.”

      Annabelle probably saw a lot of hardship in her line of work. It was natural that she’d want to be protective, especially of Nugget. But she didn’t understand. He had nothing to go back to. Only a family to send for, and he already knew there wasn’t a place here for them. His only hope was finding something of enough value in his pa’s possessions that he could use it to move the family west.

      “All I want is what my pa found. Nothing more. Just enough to get home to my family and make sure they’re taken care of.”

      “That’s what they all say.” Annabelle clicked her tongue and set her horse to a faster pace. The rocky path had widened until a large mining operation came into view. He’d spent some time working in a similar place when he’d first arrived in Leadville, bringing the ore to the smelter. Tents and ramshackle cabins dotted the area, but Annabelle made no motion to slow her pace.

      He glanced behind him, noting that from this elevation above town, the view was so majestic, it was easy to forget the abysmal conditions of the mining camp they’d passed through. On the hardest days, it was this picture of being above the clouds covering the valley below that had kept him sane.

      Once they passed through the camp, Annabelle followed the creek back into more rocky terrain. Joseph had to give her credit for her adept handling of the horse. His sisters probably wouldn’t have been able to do the same. They came around a rise and into a smaller clearing.

      “Hey! This is where my papa lives,” Nugget cried out as she tried to scramble down from the saddle.

      Joseph held her tight. “Wait. I want to be sure it’s safe.”

      Annabelle slowed her pace, then pointed to an outcropping of rocks. “Based on the map, that’s where the cabin is.”

      “How did you get to know the area?”

      She shrugged, and said in a dull voice, “My father’s ministry is helping the people in the mining camps. Many of them don’t venture into town because they’re so afraid that if they leave, they’ll miss out on the big strike. So we go to them.”

      “How often do you come out?”

      “I haven’t in a while.” The familiar look of sadness crossed her face. “Not since everyone got sick.”

      They dismounted, and she led them to the other side of the rocks, Nugget skipping on ahead into the cabin.

      “She’s still here!” The little girl ran out of the cabin, carrying a worn rag doll. “I forgot her last time we came to visit Papa, and I’ve been missing her terribly.”

      Nugget hugged the doll as Joseph stared at the place his pa had been calling home for the past five years. Sandwiched between outcroppings of rocks, the cabin was little more than a one-room shack built mostly of rocks, twigs and mud.

      “I guess we found it,” Annabelle said, looking resigned.

      “Thank you. I would have never found it otherwise.” Even though Nugget had recognized the area, it was clear she wouldn’t have found it, either. When she’d tried to get off the horse, she was looking in the opposite direction.

      He walked into the dark building, grateful when Annabelle handed him the lantern. She obviously knew what she was doing. Looking at this place, Joseph could see why she sounded so disillusioned.

      As he held up the lamp to illuminate the room, СКАЧАТЬ