Eternity

by Jude Deveraux

  Sighing and smiling, pleased with herself and anticipating Josh’s forthcoming apology, she went back to the house.

  Chapter Six

  When Josh and the children rode up the path toward the house, all of them on the same horse, they halted and stared in disbelief. At first Josh thought he’d made a wrong turn, so he reined the horse away and started back down the path. But there was that big clump of aspens that he knew was at the corner of the woods and there was the old fence post so he knew he was in the right area. Turning the horse, he started back toward the house and halted in front of it.

  Moonlight shone down on the little building, but the wreck of a house he’d left this morning was gone. In its place was a house with a porch on the front of it. This house was whitewashed instead of being covered with dingy gray boards, and roses grew in front of it; there was sparkling clean glass in the windows.

  “Did the Good Fairy come?” Dallas asked, rubbing her eyes, thinking she was asleep and dreaming.

  “Something of that nature,” Josh said through clenched teeth. “A good fairy with lots of money. Her father’s money.”

  Josh urged the horse forward, helped the children down, and opened the front door of the house—a door that now moved easily on oiled hinges.

  Inside the house, light reflected from several candles and lanterns set about the room, and against one wall set a new cookstove, enameled in bright blue and looking very cheerful. The walls, no longer bare but covered in pretty, rose-printed wallpaper, gleamed. There were rugs on the floors, furniture in the room, the table laid with a cloth and pretty porcelain dishes.

  “It’s a fairy castle,” Dallas said and Josh winced. The child was too young to remember a time when she’d lived in anything but a hovel, and she didn’t remember anything but poorly cooked food and bare floors and an unhappy father. She didn’t remember a time when it was her father rather than an outsider who gave her what she needed.

  When Josh looked at his son, he saw that Tem, too, was impressed by his new surroundings, and Josh felt angry because he had not been the one to give his children simple, basic things such as good food and a pretty house. Instead, some rich, empty-headed do-gooder from the East Coast had come into their lives and decided to bestow her charity on the poor little family in the mountains. It must have given her great satisfaction to act the Good Fairy, as Dallas called her, Josh thought. When Carrie left, she could tell herself that she had done well, that for a whole week she had given happiness to the dreary little family. She would be able to leave with her conscience clean and free of guilt knowing that she had done so much for the poor dears. But it was going to be Josh who’d have to hold the children when they cried.

  Looking at the closed bedroom door, his mouth set, he went to it and turned the handle. But when he opened the door, he almost forgot his anger, because Little Miss Charity was sitting up to her neck in a bathtub full of suds. Her face was pink from the hot water, her hair was loosely piled on top of her head in a jumble of fat curls, and her breasts were just breaking the surface of the water. Josh stood gaping in dumbfounded stupefaction.

  “Good evening,” Carrie said, smiling, brushing a lock of damp hair off her brow. That look of desire was on his face again, and it felt so very good to have wiped that smug, patronizing look off his face. “Did all of you have a good day?” she asked as if they were in a drawing room, but as she spoke, she noted Josh’s torn and dirty work clothes and thought that they suited him much less well than his suit had. Some men look good in canvas pants and cotton shirt, but Josh looked out of place, as though he were pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

  As Josh struggled to get himself under control, he realized that his life was very different from what it used to be. No longer did women often greet him in their bathtubs, and no longer was he free to do what he wished with them. Now he was a sensible, serious, responsible person—a father—and he had to think of serious matters. And serious matters did not include what he most wanted to do in the world right now, which was to close the door to the bedroom and climb in the tub with this delicious, delectable, luscious young woman.

  He straightened. “I’d like to speak to you,” he said as sternly as he could manage, but then a curl fell over her eye, and she tried to brush it away with a soapy hand. She was going to get soap in her eye, he thought, and someone ought to help her.

  Dallas pushed in front of her father and stood for a moment staring in wonder at the bedroom. There was wallpaper on the walls in this room too and a new brass bed and fluffy covers on the feather mattress. “It’s beautiful,” Dallas said.

  Carrie smiled. “I’m so glad you like it, but I don’t think your father does.”

  Dallas looked up at her father in disbelief. “But it’s beautiful.” The child sounded as though she were going to cry. “Can we keep it?”

  Picking up his daughter, Josh hugged her. “Of course we can keep it. There isn’t any way to return wallpaper.” He looked over Dallas’s shoulder to frown at Carrie, but she just smiled at him.

  Carrie looked at Dallas, in her father’s arms, and at Tem, peering from behind his father and said, “If you children would excuse us, I think your father would like to talk to me in private.”

  Josh did have some things he wanted to say to Carrie, actually rather a great many things, but he wasn’t going to be alone with her while she was sitting in a bathtub. From what little he knew of her, he wouldn’t put it past her to stand up in the tub and ask him to hand her a towel. If she were to stand up, he knew he’d be lost. “What I have to say can wait,” Josh said as gruffly as he could manage and put Dallas down.

  Moving to the tub, Dallas picked up a handful of suds, looking at them in question.

  “They are foaming bath salts,” Carrie said, “and they’re from—”

  “Let me guess,” Josh said sarcastically. “France. One of your dear brothers brought them back to you.”

  “As a matter of fact he did, along with six new dresses,” she said sweetly. She was not going to defend her brothers to this man.

  “How charming for you to have been born wealthy. The rest of us slaves of the world have to work for our bread and…” He looked about the room. “We have to work for the rugs and the wallpaper and the dresses.”

  Carrie smiled at him. “Then it seems that it’s the duty of the rich people to share their wealth, doesn’t it?”

  “Perhaps, but charity doesn’t sit well with all of us.”

  Carrie refused to allow him to make her angry. She wanted to remind him that they were now married and that what was hers was his, too, and that she had purchased these items for her own family. As for his pride, which seemed to be hurt, she had not bought a house in town, even though there was a rather nice one for sale, but had merely decorated his house.

  Carrie bit down on her feelings of injustice and, instead, offered to share her tub with Dallas. The little girl looked at her father for permission, then hurriedly undressed herself, and her father lifted her into the tub. As the child settled into the tub, Carrie was very pleased to see Josh frowning fiercely before he turned away and left the room.

  Once he was out of the bedroom, Josh felt that he could breathe again, but that didn’t last for long, for now the parlor was so very, very different from the way it had been. The whole room seemed to reek of Carrie. Everywhere he looked he could see her touch, and when he glanced at Tem and saw that the boy was looking into the big pot that set bubbling on the stove, he knew that his son felt it too. Tem jumped guiltily when his father glanced at him, as though he knew he shouldn’t be enjoying what Carrie had done for them.

  Turning away, Josh went to the fireplace. Since the fire was no longer sending clouds of smoke billowing into the room, he was sure that Carrie had had the chimney cleaned. In spite of himself, Josh took a seat in one of the two rocking chairs set in front of the fire, leaned back against the pretty cushions tied to the back and seat of the chair, and enjoyed the sights and sounds around him. When
his father was seated, tentatively, Tem sat on the chair across from him.

  Leaning back, Josh closed his eyes, and for a moment he could imagine that life was how he had imagined it would be. He could hear his wife and daughter splashing in the bedroom, and the sound of their laughter seemed to fill the room—and him—with warmth. He could smell food cooking and hear the stew simmering, and he could hear the fire crackling. When he opened his eyes and looked at his son, who was so comfortable in the chair, Josh knew that all of it was almost exactly as he’d hoped it would be. This was how he’d imagined his life would be when he’d sent for a bride who knew how to cook and clean and run a farm. He had wanted the best for his children and had been willing to sacrifice his own happiness for that of his children.

  But Josh was too well aware that all of this was an illusion, that it wasn’t real, and that it wasn’t going to last. Looking at Tem, Josh saw that he was about to fall asleep in the chair. It was going to be Josh who had to hold the children and dry their tears after Carrie got bored with her life as a farm wife and left them. And Josh was going to have to try to explain to the children about adults and about selfishness, and he was sure that he was going to be as good at it the next time he had to do it as he had been when the children’s mother had left them.

  Looking up when the bedroom door opened, he saw Carrie had dressed Dallas in a white cotton nightgown that Josh was sure was fresh from the shelves of the mercantile store, and Josh felt a fresh surge of anger. It had been a long time since he had been able to buy his children gifts.

  But Josh forgot his anger as he looked at Carrie, for her hair was wet and hanging in a tangle down her back, flowing over a gown of dark pink silk covered by a red cashmere robe. When he looked at her, Josh had to swallow, and his hands gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles were white. More than anything in life he wanted to slip that robe off her shoulders and kiss her clean, white neck.

  “And now,” Carrie said, holding up two tortoise-shell combs, “the men may comb our hair.” She looked from Josh to his son, then back to Josh, and she smiled at the expression on his face.

  Tem protested. “I can’t do that. That’s girl’s work.”

  Immediately, Josh told his son to be quiet. “There’s no reason why you can’t comb your sister’s hair.”

  Smiling, Dallas went to stand between her brother’s knees, and, in spite of his protest, Tem began to gently untangle Dallas’s wet hair.

  Carrie stood in the doorway, smiling confidently at Josh, the comb held out to him in invitation.

  “I don’t think—” Josh began, but then Tem stopped combing and looked at his father in question. His expression said that if his father couldn’t comb a girl’s hair, then he wouldn’t either. With a groan that sounded a bit like a trapped animal, Josh held out his hand for the comb.

  Smiling even broader, Carrie went to Josh, handed him the comb, then sat on the floor between his knees. From the first instant he touched her—being careful to touch only her hair and not her skin—Carrie knew two things. One was that the very air between them was charged and, two, that he had combed other women’s wet hair. From the deft, experienced way he gently pulled the comb through her hair, she was afraid that he may have done it several times in the past.

  Turning her head a bit to look at Tem, she saw that he was watching his father and learning. But then Josh’s hand touched Carrie’s forehead, and she forgot all about anyone else. Leaning her head back toward her husband, her eyes closed as she felt his touch through her hair and throughout her body.

  Josh pulled her hair back from her face and in doing so, his fingertips touched her cheek. At the contact, both of them stopped moving, his fingers pausing as Carrie moved her head just a bit so that one fingertip touched the corner of her mouth. Without moving, sitting utterly still, her body seemed to vibrate with feeling. Turning until his finger was on her lips, she kissed his finger.

  Josh moved his hand so that his two fingers covered her mouth, then his fingers began tracing the outline of her lips. When Carrie parted her lips, he ran his fingertips on the inside of her lip, just touching her teeth.

  “Josh,” Carrie said in the slightest whisper, then very gently, one by one, she bit his fingertips. He moved his hand over her mouth, and she kissed/bit his palm, then slowly moved to his wrist.

  Bending down to her face until his lips were on her ear, his soft, warm breath on her ear was the most exciting thing Carrie had ever felt in her life.

  “Golly,” Dallas said, her eyes wide as she stared at the adults.

  With a jolt, both Carrie and Josh became aware of their surroundings. Josh started to jump away from Carrie, but she wouldn’t allow him to—not that it required much strength to hold him to her, but she leaned against his knee, and Josh rapidly started combing again.

  Carrie looked at Tem and Dallas staring at them in big-eyed wonder and tried to put on a good-mother face. “Sometimes husbands and wives—” Carrie began.

  “Shut up,” Josh said sharply. “Is there anything to eat tonight? There, I think your hair’s done.” He looked at Tem. “What about your sister’s?”

  Tem was still staring, blinking at the two of them. He knew he had just seen some important adult-thing, but he didn’t know what it meant.

  “Have you finished combing your sister’s hair?” Josh asked in a loud, piercing voice, snapping Tem out of his trance.

  “Oh. Yeah,” Tem answered, looking from Carrie to his father then back again.

  “Good, then we can eat.” With businesslike efficiency, Josh gave Carrie’s hair one more stroke, then handed her the comb. “Could we eat now?”

  “Of course,” Carrie said sweetly, then, as though she’d done it all her life, she began to serve dinner to her family. Just as she had the night before, Carrie was the one who had to sustain the conversation throughout dinner. But tonight it was easier because the children asked her questions, and instead of hiding their interest in what she told them about her brothers’ travels, they allowed their eagerness to show.

  After dinner, when she bid the children good night, after Dallas had kissed her father, she didn’t hesitate as she flung her arms around Carrie and kissed her too. Tem stood to one side, his hands in the pockets of his dirty work pants and looked as though he didn’t know what to do.

  “Go on,” Josh said gruffly, motioning his head toward Carrie, giving his son permission to kiss her.

  Shyly, Tem bent to Carrie and quickly kissed her cheek. He was a bit red in the face when he did it, but he gave a self-conscious smile as though he were proud of himself, then hurried up the ladder to his bed.

  When the children were out of the room, Josh didn’t say a word, but left the table to stand by the fireplace and stare at the flames. Silently, Carrie cleared the table, putting the dirty dishes in the sink. She had no idea what to do to clean them, and she certainly had no desire to learn. She liked beauty, and dirty dishes had nothing to do with beauty.

  Carrie turned to Josh. “Would you like to go outside?” she asked.

  “Why?” Josh asked suspiciously. His arms were folded across his chest, as though he were determined that none of himself was going to escape.

  “So you can shout at me, of course. I got the distinct impression that that was your number one desire when you came home today. You haven’t forgotten already, have you? Or maybe you’ve changed your mind. Or maybe you want to yell at me in the house so our children can hear.”

  “My children.”

  “So, you do want them to hear?”

  At that, Josh grabbed Carrie’s upper arm and pulled her out of the house into the cool, starlit night.

  She walked toward the privacy of the trees, but he didn’t follow her, so she turned back to him and sighed. “All right, I’m ready.”

  “What you did was wrong,” he began. “You’ve made a laughingstock of me in front of the entire town.”

  “Actually, I rather think the townspeople think you’re the luckiest man o
n earth, but then they don’t have the deep knowledge of my character that you believe you do.”

  “Character has nothing to do with this. You may as well have told everyone that I can’t take care of my own family.”

  “You love your children as much as any person I’ve ever seen. You just don’t seem to have any money. Personally, I’d rather have love than money.”

  Josh didn’t know whether to wring her neck or shout at her. No matter what he said to her, she didn’t seem to hear him, didn’t listen, didn’t understand. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “A man likes to think he can support his own family, that his wife—I mean, his—”

  “Yes, go on. What am I to you if not your wife?”

  He didn’t answer her, but stood there in silence.

  Carrie sighed. “All right, King Joshua, I have fulfilled task number one, not by the rules, according to you, so what is task number two? I hope there are only three tasks involved.”

  At that inanity, Josh looked confused.

  Carrie explained. “In all the fairy tales the princess is set three tasks. This morning you gave me a list that one human could never have completed, but I managed to do it—with the help of Rumpelstiltskin, of course. Rumpelstiltskin being the entire town of Eternity. So now, sire, what is task number two?”

  As understanding began to dawn on Josh, he grimaced. “It’s as I thought: You think that all of this is a source for humor, something that you can tell your rich friends when you return home to Maine.”

  “And you think that everything in life is a reason for gloom. What is it that I have to do to prove myself to you?” She stopped. “No, wait a minute. You know something that I never did understand in the tale of Rumpelstiltskin? I couldn’t understand why the young woman wanted the king. The king said that if she didn’t spin the straw into gold, he’d cut her head off. How was I to believe that she lived happily ever after if she had to marry a creep like that?”