&nbs
p; The woman, nearly old enough to be Josh’s mother, blushed and giggled at his gallantry.
Behind them, Carrie smiled. If she’d had any doubts left about what she’d done having been right, they would have left her when she saw Josh’s chivalric courtesy. Now it was up to her when she told Josh that the two of them belonged together—and she wanted to do that in privacy.
She watched as Josh looked into the empty stage; then he went to the driver and questioned him, where he was told that there were no other passengers on board.
Sitting down on a dusty bench on the porch of the stage station, Choo-choo at her feet, Carrie watched Josh as he removed her letter from his coat pocket and reread it. She looked at the way his hands moved. They were expressive hands, and she remembered his touching her.
When the stage driver called for the continuing passengers to reboard, one by one, they did. When the coach was loaded and the driver seated on top, Josh turned to Carrie and looked at her in question. Carrie was well aware that he hadn’t forgotten her presence for even a split second. He had been as aware of her as she was of him.
“May I help you onto the stage?” he asked softly, and just his eyes on her made Carrie’s heart beat faster.
She managed to shake her head no, but couldn’t seem to speak.
The driver yelled to the horses, and in a cloud of dust, the coach pulled away. After the depot manager went inside the building, Carrie and Josh were left alone outside.
Standing in the sun, his back to Carrie, Josh watched the departing stage coach. When it was out of sight, he slowly turned back to her, moving so he was standing in the shade, but still a few feet from her. “Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.
“My husband,” she said, then smiled a bit at his crestfallen face. “And you? Are you waiting for someone?”
“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.