“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
ty-headed, worthless bit of fluff like you, I could pick her up anywhere in the world. I could have had a half-dozen women like you right here in Eternity. I don’t need a feisty bed partner. I need a woman who can work!” With that last declaration, he turned away and angrily started walking back to the stage depot.
Blinking in bewilderment, Carrie stood where she was. No one had ever talked to her as this man had just done—and no one was going to. Pulling her bodice down as though to emphasize her resolve, she went after him. Since he was walking very quickly, he wasn’t easy to catch, but she managed. She stepped in front of him.
“I don’t know how you decided that you know all about me, but you don’t. I—”
“Appearances,” he said. “I have judged you on appearances. Isn’t that how you judged me? You took one look at my photograph and decided to alter the course of my life. You never so much as considered that I might not want my life altered.”
“I didn’t decide to alter your life. I decided—”
“Yes?” he asked, his eyes blazing. “What did you decide if not to change my life? And the life of my kids.” He gave a snort of laughter. “I told them that I would bring someone home tonight who could cook dinner for them, and I swore that they’d never have to eat my cooking again.” Roughly grabbing her hands, Josh looked at them as though her hands were his enemy. Carrie’s hands were creamed and soft, the nails trimmed and filed. “I have a feeling that I’ve cooked more meals than you have.” Tossing her hands down in disgust, he started walking again.
Determinedly, Carrie moved in front of him again. “But you liked me. I know that you did. I didn’t tell you who I was immediately because I wanted to see if you liked me or not.”
At that Josh’s face changed from anger to almost amusement. “Is that what you thought, that when you met me I’d be so bowled over with your beauty that I wouldn’t notice that your only use is to sit in some rich man’s parlor and play minuets on the spinet? Did you think that I would be so blinded by your beauty and my raging desire to get you into bed at night that I’d not be able to hear the hungry cries of my two children?”
“No,” Carrie said softly, but he had hit nearer to the truth than she liked to think. “I didn’t think that. I thought—”
The rage came back to his face. “You didn’t think at all. It never seems to have occurred to you that I could have taken a wife here. Did you think that no woman would want to marry me? Do you think I’m too ugly to attract a woman?”
“Why no, I think you’re—”
He didn’t allow her to finish her sentence. “Yes, of course you do. A lot of women do. I can get a woman if I want her, but I have neither the time nor the inclination for courting, and all women want courting, no matter how ugly they are. I sent to that lunatic company of yours so I could get a helpmate, not a girl with a head filled with romance, so I could feed my children and myself.” With what was close to being a sneer, he gave her one more look up and down. “Now, Miss Montgomery,” he said, tugging on the brim of his hat, “I bid you good day, and good-bye. I hope in the future that you think before you act.”
He walked away from her, leaving her standing there, her little dog at her feet.
Carrie wasn’t sure what she was to do now because what had just happened was not something that she had considered. Trying to give herself time to think, she wondered when the next stage ran. She dreaded going back to Warbrooke, but she guessed she’d have to. Looking up, she glared at the back of Josh as he walked toward the depot.
“Mrs. Greene,” she said softly to his back, then called out louder, “My name happens to be Greene. Mrs. Joshua Greene.” By the time she said the last, she was fairly shouting.
Stopping where he was, Josh turned and looked at her.
Carrie crossed her arms over her bosom and glared at him defiantly.
With anger in his every step, he started back toward her. There was so much anger on his face and emanating from his body that Carrie stepped away from him.
“If you touch me, I’ll—”
“Half an hour ago you were practically begging me to touch you. If I’d started undressing you, you wouldn’t have protested.”
“That’s a lie!” Carrie said, but her face turned red.
“You should know about lying if anyone does.” Reaching out, he clamped his hand on her upper arm and began pulling her along behind him as he started toward the stage station.
“Release me this instant. I demand—”
Halting, he put his nose almost to hers. “As you reminded me, you did such a thorough job of hornswoggling me that I find I am now married to you. You are going home with me until next week when the stage runs through here again and I can send you back to your father where you belong.”
“You can’t—”
“I can and I’m going to,” he said, dragging her along behind him as he walked. When he reached the depot, he stopped. “Where are your bags?”
Carrie stopped trying to push his hand off her arm and looked about her. While they had been under the tree, her baggage wagon had arrived, and, when she looked at it, she saw that the driver’s seat was empty so the man must be inside the depot. “There,” Carrie said, nodding toward the wagon. “I can take care of myself. I can—” She broke off at the look on Josh’s face, for he looked as though he had just seen a swamp monster. He was horrified, shocked, immobile with disbelief. Following the direction of his eyes, she saw nothing unusual, only her baggage wagon.
But what Josh saw was a mountain of trunks, all of them tied down with heavy rope onto a big wagon drawn by a four-horse team. He doubted if the sum total of all the belongings of the people of Eternity was enough to fill that many trunks. “Heaven help me,” he whispered, then looked back at her. “What in the world have you done to me?”