Bridget by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books

Chapter

5

Marshal Sam Flynn showed up the next day, stood with his head back and his thumbs hooked into his gunbelt, squinting as he admired the new roof on the McQuarry cabin. “Yes, sir,” he called to Trace, who was straddling the ridgepole. “That’s a fine job of work. Jake Vigil sees that, he’ll be after you to turn a hand to that sawmill he’s trying to get built.”

Bridget had mentioned a sawmill, but Trace had seen no sign of one during his brief visit to Primrose Creek the day he’d bought the groceries. “He got a planer?” Trace called back. He had plenty of rough timber. What he needed was lumber, cut to measured lengths and planed smooth, if he was going to get Bridget’s place in any kind of shape; besides the roof, she needed bedrooms added on, and a barn. A real corral.

“Steam-operated,” Sam answered, sounding as proud as if the machine were his own. “Has one coming, anyhow. I reckon it’s someplace between here and San Francisco. Jake’s got a good bit of lumber laid by, though. Had it planed over in Virginia City. He might be willing to make a trade for some labor.”

Trace reached for his shirt, discarded earlier when the sun was high, stuck the handle of the hammer through his belt, and made for the edge of the roof. From there, it was an easy jump to the ground. “I’m obliged, Sam,” he said, and thrust out a hand.

The marshal shook it. His horse, an overfed sorrel with ears like a mule’s, snuffled behind him.

Trace grinned. “This a social call, or did my wasted youth finally catch up to me?”

Sam chortled. “If you got a wasted youth, it’s bound to turn up on your doorstep one of these days.” He swept off his sweat-stained hat and thrust the splayed fingers of his left hand through thinning hair. “Fact is, though, I came out here to bring a letter for Mizz McQuarry. Come all the way from England, and from the looks of the envelope, it’s been one hell of a trip.”

Trace frowned as he accepted the thin scrap of translucent vellum. Bridget had been recovering from the snakebite for a full week, and although he knew she’d enjoyed being waited on and fussed over for the first few days, she did not have the temperament to be an invalid. In fact, she was as cantankerous as a mother bear missing a cub. Trace cherished a slight hope that the letter might cheer her, but at the same time, he knew it must have come from one or both of her estranged cousins, whom she viewed as virtual deserters.

He slapped the letter thoughtfully against his palm. “Water your horse, Sam, and sit a spell.” He indicated the upended rain barrel he’d taken off the broken-down Conestoga while scrounging for tools. By then, the wagon had somehow gotten itself overturned on a steep hillside, and it wasn’t good for much of anything now besides firewood.

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