Free Colorado Bride by Leigh Greenwood

know how to harness a team, yes I do. If you mean have I ever done it for a stage before, no, but it can’t be too different. Anyway, I’ve got time to figure it out.”
    I’ll show that Lucas Barrow I can do without his help, she said to herself as she hurried to the barn. I may not be able to break a wild mustang, but I can harness a team. She could hardly wait to see his face when she had the horses ready before the stage arrived. The thought that he might be sleeping at his cabin and not see her caused her spirits to plunge momentarily, but almost immediately she realized he would be around somewhere. Men like him never let any opportunity pass to display their supposed superiority to women. What was so difficult about harnessing a team? All you had to do was harness each horse before you brought it out of its stall. Children regularly harnessed horses to wagons, plows, and even carriages. Surely she could manage a stagecoach.
    But Carrie was in for a shock. There was only one horse in the barn, and one look told her it was an animal of scope and breeding, obviously chosen by someone familiar with horses who could afford to pay for what he wanted. It had to be Lucas’s horse, but how could a wrangler afford such an animal? Carrie admitted she had no idea what kind of horses one could find running wild, but she knew enough to know this horse had Morgan blood and he had never been wild.
    Wondering about Lucas’s horse isn’t going to get the team hitched, Carrie scolded herself, and she headed toward the doors at the back of the barn. She was nonplussed to discover that the horses were all held in a corral and there were many more than four. Which four should she choose and how was she going to get a bridle on them? One look at the wild-eyed mustang eyeing her with open distrust told her they weren’t going to stand still while she walked up and invited them to put their heads into a collar.
    Unknown to Carrie, Lucas had preferred to be close at hand rather than sleep at his cabin; he had spent the night in the barn, and at this very minute he was looking down at her from the loft. He had intended to hitch up the team himself, but when he heard someone enter the barn, he had remained where he was, preferring to see who it was. When he recognized Carrie, he waited to see what she would do. Those horses couldn’t be caught without a lasso, and he doubted Carrie knew how to use a rope. He watched as Carrie went up to the corral and stood for a time studying the horses, lb his surprise, she entered the corral without a halter. As he expected, none of the horses would allow her to come close, but Carrie continued to move among them, and it took Lucas only a minute to realize she was making the horses move about so she could pick out the ones she intended to use in the team. Intrigued, he sat down on the hay, waiting to see what she would do next.
    After a few minutes Carrie left the corral and disappeared around the side of the barn. In a moment, she reappeared dragging a bale of hay. She stood it on end near the opening of the corral and went for another. Soon she had a line of bales on one side leading from the corral to the barn. The light of understanding gleamed in Lucas’s eye as he figured out what she was doing. In a little while, she had set up a second row of bales and she had a chute from the corral to the barn. Carrie went inside, filled four troughs with oats, then returned to the corral. She took down the top bar and pulled back the second bar until she had a small opening. Then moving carefully among the horses, she cut out one of her choice and herded it toward the chute. When it was directly opposite the opening to the chute, Carrie threw up her arms and yelled at the same time. The nervous horse darted through the opening and into the barn.
    “Well, I’ll be damned,” Lucas thought to himself, a reluctant smile of admiration transforming his face. “That woman may be a tenderfoot, but she’s got a