Come Spring Read Online Free Page B

winter?”
    “Because I sent her the money and told her to decide when she wanted to leave Boston.”
    “Well, I hope to Christ for your sake you don’t let her make too many more decisions, then,” Ted said.
    Buck ignored the old man’s comment and stood up. “I guess we better be turnin’ in.”
    “I’ll sleep on the floor,” Ted volunteered. “You don’t need to wake me when you go, just stir up the fire. I ‘spect I’ll be up soon enough after you leave.”
    “Yeah, you will.” Buck stood in the middle of the room and stared down at Ted, who hadn’t moved yet. “You sure you’ll be all right looking after things here?”
    “Don’t you worry about a thing. The Mouse and I will do all right. You jest hurry on back, though, and do your sparkin’ here. My achin’ joints tell me there’s a storm a comin’. I can’t guarantee how long I’ll be able to keep things runnin’ aright if you’re gone too long.”
    Buck didn’t want to think about the consequences of getting snowed out of the valley, so he turned away from the sight of Ted, who had reached down to scratch his poor excuse for a dog behind the ears. He wondered what it would be like to have a woman around the place again. Three years ago there had been two women underfoot and he’d been more than happy to let them take care of the chores. Then Sissy, his youngest sister, had died of typhoid and Patsy—who’d been crazy ever since her common-law husband died—got so bad he couldn’t trust what she would do next. He’d had to take her down the mountain and trust her care to an old Scotswoman Ted knew who lived outside Cheyenne.
    Now that he’d asked Alice Soams to marry him, there would be a woman in his life again.
    And things were bound to be different.
    A NNIKA Storm touched the frosted glass of the windowpane beside her seat on the Union Pacific train bound for Cheyenne and parts west. She traced an ever-widening circle with her index finger until she created a peephole large enough to see through, but all it revealed was a vast stretch of snow-covered land.
    She took one look outside and sighed with boredom. The bleak landscape had not changed for the last five hundred miles. She glanced down at the journal lying open in her lap and fingered the well-worn pages. Today’s entry would read much like the past few days. Still traveling westward. Open plains and snow all around.
    Before she could open her slant-lidded, hand-carved writing box, take out pen and ink, and add the entry (no little feat with the ceaseless rocking motion of the train) Annika felt a sudden jolt and the train ground to a halt. The other passengers around her began to stir, shaken from the lethargy brought on by the earlier, hypnotic motion of the train.
    She set her journal beside her on the plush, tufted upholstery of her first-class seat, put her hands on her waist at the small of her back, then arched and stretched. She had no idea when she left Boston that the journey ahead of her would be so long and tedious. As the train halted with a dramatic hiss of steam and screech of brakes, Annika braced herself by putting her hand against the seat in front of her, then reached down for the perky hat that she had set atop the valise that contained her overnight necessities: comb and brush, a nightgown, buttonhook, a fresh shirtwaist, a book, and the tin that held her precious button collection. The hat itself was of her own creation, a low-crowned man’s felt hat with a narrow brim to which she had added a satin hatband of pale blue on navy. The fabric was the same as that of the shirtwaist she wore with the heavy chocolate wool skirt topped by a fitted, single breasted, three-quarter-length jacket. Her “mountain dress,” as she called the ensemble, had served her well during the long trip, but now she was thoroughly tired of wearing it. She could hardly wait to reach Cheyenne and the comforts of her brother Kase’s home where she could unpack her various