For a moment Josh thought he’d made a wrong turn and was in another town, Denver perhaps, but he recognized too many things for it to be anywhere else.
When they reached the mercantile store, where the post office was, Josh stopped. Tem dismounted, then Josh got down and helped Dallas to the ground. All three of them were speechless as they looked about at the activity in the usually dead little town.
“What is going on in this town? The last time I was here, this place was dead,” Josh said to the storekeeper as soon as they were inside.
Before anyone could give Josh an answer—and they had plenty to say to the husband of the town heroine when he had
n’t so much as been to visit her—Dallas gave a squeal.
Turning, Josh saw Carrie standing in the doorway. He couldn’t believe it, but she was prettier than he remembered, and he wanted to run to her, to take her in his arms. But after the first moment when she’d seemed to look at him with love, she gave him a look as though he were something that she’d found growing on her face cream.
The next moment she had her arms open to the children, who ran to her as though it had been only yesterday that they’d seen her last. They didn’t seem to feel the least bit of shyness or doubt that Carrie still loved them. Josh watched his son unabashedly kissing Carrie’s firm, pink cheek and hugging her with no reserve. Dallas had, quite simply, wrapped her legs about Carrie’s waist and was seated on top of her wide skirt and didn’t look as though she ever meant to leave her perch.
The children and Carrie started talking at once, Choo-choo running and barking around them like an annoying gnat, and Josh felt some hurt that the children were telling her things that they hadn’t told him. They told her what they had thought about and done while she was gone. Tem told Carrie that he had been searching for the Wild Girl—something that Josh hadn’t known.
“And Papa has missed you every day. He wrote you a letter,” Dallas said.
“Oh? Did he?” Carrie said, looking over Tem’s head to Josh. “I have received nothing from him.”
“We came here today to mail it,” Tem said.
Carrie looked down and smiled at him. She didn’t know it was possible to miss people as much as she had missed these children. Every hour of every day she had wondered what they were doing, and every time she missed them, she thought about shooting Joshua Greene. Or maybe stabbing him. Or keelhauling him. Or spending three weeks in bed with him.
When she looked back at Josh, her mouth was set in a firm line.
He walked toward her. “I’d like to talk to you,” Josh said softly.
“Really? Do you want to talk to me as much as you did the day you left me at the depot?”
“Carrie, please,” he said.
But Carrie wasn’t going to give in to him. With Dallas still on her hip, she swept past him and went to the store clerk. “Anything for me?”
The clerk was looking from Josh to Carrie and back again as he handed Carrie a letter and one to Josh. Taking her letter, she started to move away.
Josh took Dallas and set her to the floor. “Out,” was all he said to the children, and they left the store.
Carrie started to follow them, but Josh blocked her way.
“I said I want to talk to you.”
“We don’t always get what we want in this life, do you? I wanted to live with you and your children. Heaven only knows why I should choose a mule-head like you when you won’t listen to a word I say, but I did and I lived to regret it. Now, would you please move out of my way?”
“No. Carrie, I have something to say and you’re going to listen to me.”
When he wouldn’t move, she decided to pretend he wasn’t there, so she opened her letter and began to read it. “There’s nothing you can say,” she said. “You discarded me once, and I won’t be—” She broke off as she realized what her letter said. She looked up at Josh in horror, then the next moment, everything became black. As she fainted, Josh caught her in his arms.
Chapter Thirteen
When Carrie awoke, she was stretched out on a sofa in a pretty little parlor that she had never seen before. She started to sit up.
“Ssh, be still and drink this,” Josh said, his hand behind her head, a glass of brandy to her lips. He was sitting on a chair facing her.
Carrie took a drink, then at Josh’s urging, lay back down. “What happened?” she whispered. “And where am I?” Looking at him, she narrowed her eyes. “And what are you doing here?”
Josh smiled at her. “I’m very glad to see that you’re feeling better.”
“I was until I saw you,” she said, but there wasn’t much conviction in her voice. More than anything in the world she wanted to feel his arms around her. She had started her dress shop and she’d done well at it, but the truth was she hated it. What she really wanted was to be home with Josh and the kids.