Eternity Read online

  “My—” Breaking off, he cleared his throat. “My wife.”

  “Mmmmm,” she said. “What’s her name?”

  He was staring at Carrie so intently that for a moment he couldn’t seem to think. “Whose name?”

  “Your wife. What is the name of your wife?”

  Reaching inside his coat, he withdrew the letter, then with obvious reluctance, he drew his eyes from Carrie’s and looked down at the letter. “Carrie. She’s named Miss Carrie Montgomery.”

  “You don’t seem to know much about her,” Carrie said teasingly.

  “Oh, but I do.” There was a heaviness in Josh’s voice that almost made Carrie giggle. “She can plow ten acres of farmland in a single day. She can raise hogs, slaughter them, and cook them, and she can doctor mules, chickens, and children. She can shear sheep, weave the cloth, and make clothes, and, in a pinch, she can build her own house.”

  “My goodness,” Carrie said. “What a competent woman she sounds. Is she pretty?”

  “I rather think not.” As he said this he looked Carrie up and down, and there was such hunger in his dark eyes that Carrie felt a little river of sweat run down the back of her neck.

  “Then you haven’t met her?”

  “Not yet.” As he answered, he took a step closer to her.

  At that moment Choo-choo decided to chase a rabbit that was running across the mountain grass, and when Carrie lost hold of his leash, he went flying across the countryside. Instantly she was on her feet and running after the dog that had become so precious to her. He was the only live thing that she had been able to bring from home with her.

  But Josh was running before she was. Taking off after the dog as though its recapture meant his life, he ran across the field after the animal.

  For several minutes the two of them were both running after the dog, Carrie in her hoop skirt, which gave her legs great freedom, and Josh in his black suit. It was Josh who caught the little dog before it went scurrying down a rabbit hole, and in gratitude, Choo-choo bit Josh’s hand.

  “Bad dog!” Carrie said, even as she scooped Choo-choo into her arms and turned to Josh. “Thank you so very much for saving him. He could have been hurt.”

  Holding his bleeding hand extended in front of him, Josh smiled. “There are rattlers around here. You’d better hold onto that leash.”

  She nodded, put the dog to the ground, hooked the loop of the leash over her arm then took out her handkerchief. “Let me see your hand.”

  After a token protest, Josh held out his hand to her, and she took it in both of hers.

  Carrie wasn’t prepared for the shock that went through her as her flesh touched his. They were standing under the shade of an old cottonwood tree, the high mountain air was fragrant, and it was silent and empty around them. For all they were aware of it, the rest of the world might not have existed.

  Trying not to tremble, but not succeeding, Carrie dabbed at the blood on Josh’s hand. “I…I don’t think the wound is too deep.”

  Josh was looking at Carrie’s hair. “He doesn’t have enough teeth to go very deep.”

  She looked up at him and smiled, and for a moment she was sure that he was going to kiss her. With every morsel of her being, she tried to send thoughts to him that would make him take her into his arms and kiss her until she couldn’t think any more.

  Abruptly, Josh stepped away. “I have to go. I have to see what’s happened to my…to my…”

  “Wife,” Carrie supplied.

  He nodded in agreement, but he didn’t say the word. “I have to go.” At that he turned on his heel and started back toward the stage depot.

  “I’m Carrie Montgomery,” she said.

  Josh stopped in his tracks, his back to her.

  “I’m Carrie Montgomery,” she repeated a bit louder.

  When Josh started to turn, she smiled in anticipation of his happy surprise.

  When he looked at her, his face was an unreadable mask. “What do you mean?” he asked softly.

  “I am Carrie Montgomery. I am the woman you’re waiting for. I am—” Her voice and eyes lowered. “I am your wife,” she whispered. She felt rather than heard him take a few steps toward her, and when he was so close that she could almost feel his breath on her face, she looked up at him. He was not smiling. In fact, had he been one of her brothers, she would have thought that the expression he wore was rage.

  “You’ve never pulled a plow in your life,” he said.

  Carrie smiled at that. “True.”

  With shaking hands, Josh pulled the letter from inside his coat. “She wrote to me about what she could do. She said that she’d run a farm since she was little more than a child.”

  “Perhaps I embellished the truth a bit,” Carrie answered modestly.

  Josh took a step closer to her. “You lied. You bloody well lied to me!”

  “I think that’s a curse word. I’d rather you didn’t—”

  He took another step toward her, but Carrie was already in that space so she had to back up. “I wrote that I wanted a woman who knew about farming, not some…some socialite carrying a long-haired rat she calls a dog.”

  As though he heard himself mentioned, Choo-choo began to bark at Josh. “Now see here,” Carrie began.

  But Josh didn’t allow her to speak. “Was this your idea of a joke?” Putting his hand to his forehead as though he were in great agony, Josh stepped away from her. “What in the world am I going to do now? I was suspicious when I received that proxy marriage paper, but I thought it was because the woman was mud-ugly. I was prepared for that.” Turning back to Carrie, he looked her up and down with great contempt. “But you! I wasn’t prepared for you.”

  Shushing Choo-choo, Carrie looked down at herself, wondering if she’d suddenly turned into a frog, for she’d certainly never before had a complaint about how she looked. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “What isn’t wrong with you?” he said. “Have you ever milked a cow? Do you know how to chop the head off a chicken and pluck it? Can you cook? Who made your dress? A French modiste?”

  Carrie’s dressmaker at home was French, but that was of no consequence. “I can’t see that any of those things matter. If you’d just let me explain, I can clear up everything.”

  At that Josh went to the tree, leaned back against it, and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m listening.”

  After taking a deep, calming breath, she told her story. She started by telling him how she and her friends had organized the mail-order bride office, hoping that it would show him that she was good at a great many things. He didn’t speak, nor could she read his thoughts, but she continued by telling him how she had seen the photo he’d sent and known from the first moment that she loved him. “I felt that you and your children needed me. I could see it in your eyes.”

  He didn’t so much as move a muscle.

  She told him in great detail of her indecision, of how she had given the matter great consideration. (She didn’t want him thinking that she was a featherbrain who did things without thinking them through first.) Then she told about all the complicated arrangements she’d made in order to marry him, and when she told of leaving her family and friends and home to come to him, there were tears in her eyes.

  “Is that all?” Josh asked, his jaw rigid.

  “I guess so,” Carrie answered. “You can see that I didn’t do this to be mean. I felt that you needed me. I felt that—”

  “You felt,” he said, moving away from the tree toward her. “You decided. You and you alone decided the fate of everyone around you. You gave no consideration to anyone else. You put your friends and your family through hell all because of some romantic notion you had that a man you never met—” He glared at her. “Needed you.” He said the word with a great deal of derision.

  Stepping toward her, he leaned over her so that she bent backward. “For your information, you spoiled, overindulged, little rich girl, what I need is a wife who can run a farm. If I needed some emp