Wonder and Wild Desire

by Jeanne Stephens

  Carrie drove away, her hands on the steering wheel shaking. Back at the Community Building, she welcomed the constant stream of customers at the bakery booth. Business was so good, in fact, that Julia stayed on through the afternoon to help her, introducing Carrie to dozens of people. They all treated her with warmth, talking and joking as if they had known her for years. Carrie thought that, under other circumstances, she might come to love living there.

  "You're a hit," Julia told her as they were having coffee during one of the afternoon lulls in business.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Everybody likes you. You come across as a friendly, ordinary sort of woman who doesn't put herself in a class above common folk."

  Carrie laughed. "Why should I, Julia? My back-ground is about as ordinary and common as they come."

  Julia nodded. "I don't know where Josh found you, but it was the best thing that ever happened to him. After all his problems with Helen—" She seemed abruptly to realize what she was saying and turned to pour herself more coffee. "When am I going to get to meet Mike?"

  "I'll bring him down to your shop one day soon," Carrie replied, but her mind was still on what Julia had started to say. Josh and Helen had had problems—that much had slipped out before Julia caught herself. All at once, Carrie recalled something Josh had said to her in Boise: I assure you I have few illusions about marriage. She had wondered at the time what he meant, and Julia had inadvertently thrown a little light on that enigmatic statement. What sort of problems had he had with Helen? Carrie wondered. But she couldn't ask Julia, who probably wouldn't tell her, anyway. Nor Ethel. No, if she wished to know more on that subject, she would have to get it from Josh. And that wasn't likely to happen either, since, when he talked to her at all, it was more often than not to criticize her.

  That evening was one of the rare occasions since their marriage when Josh was home for dinner. They ate with Ethel in the dining room while Betty fed Mike in the kitchen. Josh passed the entire meal in silence except when Ethel directed a question to him. Ethel would have had to be extremely dense not to realize that Josh was angry with his wife about something. As soon as she could, she excused herself to go to her apartment.

  When Ethel was gone, Josh let his gaze rest unwaveringly on Carrie, the craggy angles of his face appearing harder than ever. Knowing that he had only waited until they were alone to attack her again about her visit to Kevin's office, Carrie excused herself and left the table, going up the stairs to her bedroom. Betty would be bringing Mike up any minute, and since Josh knew that, surely he wouldn't follow her.

  She was wrong. She had only been in the room long enough to undress and put on a robe, preparatory to running a bath for herself, when Josh came in.

  "Did you think I could be put off so easily?"

  "I don't want to hear any more of your silly accusations," Carrie said as decisively as she could manage. But she found that her knees felt weak and sat down on the side of the bed. "Betty will be bringing Mike up before long."

  "Not until I tell her to," Josh announced as he walked across the room and took a stand with his back to one of the large windows. "I asked her to keep Mike downstairs."

  Carrie stared at him across the length of the room, feeling as a butterfly must feel when he is caught in a net. "Say what you came to say, then."

  "I want you to stay away from Kevin Hamilton. You are not to see him alone again." The eyes that looked at her were colder and angrier than she had ever seen them. "I will not tolerate even a hint of gossip about my wife and another man."

  "You have no right to ask that of me," she got out jerkily, making a helpless gesture. "I—I will go insane here if I can't even have friends. Most of the time I see only Mike and your mother. You certainly seem to have other things to do and places to be."

  "I was not aware," he said coldly, "that you had any desire for my company."

  "I—I don't—" Carrie supposed, from his point of view, he might have reason to be suspicious of her friendship with another man, but she was at the end of her emotional rope. "I'm glad to have more time with Mike, but the constant company of a ten-month-old baby isn't enough, Josh. And I refuse to allow you to tell me who my friends can be."

  He regarded her for a long, silent moment, standing with his long, muscular legs spread, hands behind his back. "Since you bring it up, I've been meaning to speak to you about Mike. I've hired a nurse for him. She's had years of experience as a pediatric nurse and a governess. She'll be here next week."

  Carrie gasped. "I know what you are trying to do! You want to make Mike emotionally dependent on somebody else!"

  "There is not a grain of truth in that," he stated bluntly. "I have to be out of town several times a year and I will want you to go with me."

  Feeling as if the world were crashing in on her, Carrie buried her face in her hands. "In heaven's name, why?"

  "You are my wife, Carrie," he went on in the same cool, level voice. "I want you to act as hostess when I entertain business associates in other places."

  She lifted her head to glare at him furiously. "Is that really why you married me, Josh, to get a hostess for your business meetings? Wouldn't Jessica Thorpe have been better suited to that role?"

  With a savage oath, he bowed his head for a moment. Then he strode violently across the room and, sitting down beside her, pulled her against him and silenced her indignant mouth with his own.

  Carrie wrenched her mouth free. "Is that your answer to all arguments?" she said breathlessly.

  He pushed her back on the bed, the weight of his body pressing her down. "Let's stop talking," he growled. Then he was kissing her again, very thoroughly and quite brutally, dark anger driving him.

  She did not even try to fight him; she knew it was useless. Against the demand of his lips and hands she was defenseless. Her arms went slowly about his shoulders, her fingers moving over the strong muscles at the back of his neck and stroking the silky smoothness of his hair. Somewhere inside her a small wanton voice was urging her to slip her hands inside his shirt, to feel the hard muscles of his chest and back under her hands.

  He lifted his head to stare down at her, and although the angles of his face were still set in a scowl, she sensed that his anger was draining away and being replaced by the dark burning power that she saw in the depths of his eyes. Slowly his body moved off her and he was standing beside the bed, tossing aside his jacket and tie, unbuttoning his shirt, unbuckling his belt. All the while, the passionate gold-flecked eyes never left her face, as if he had undertaken to commit every line of it to memory.

  Bewildered, Carrie could not summon the strength to move, or even to want to. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then it was too late, for the hard length of his naked body stretched itself beside her. When he bent to her again, his kiss, his touch, had become infinitely patient and gentle. His lips just brushed hers, then moved on to savor the curve of her cheek, the wing of her brow, her half-closed eyes.

  Such new and unexpected tenderness was her final undoing. She did not even protest when his hand loosed her belt and spread her robe, then moved rhythmically over the silken curves of her body.

  His mouth parted her lips with confident possession as he guided her expertly toward a sensual arousal that she had never known existed before. She felt no shame at all that her rounded breasts were straining against his hard chest seeking a new fulfillment. Her senses swam as, for long moments, his mouth and hands explored the secrets of her body, and she sensed that he was holding himself back with a great effort.

  Then he made a thick, groaning sound deep in his throat, and with an urgency he could no longer deny he pressed her back against the bed. Having lost all rational thought, Carrie yielded her body to his with total abandonment. There was momentary pain, but it was quickly forgotten in the rioting pleasure of her senses.

  Chapter Six

  Afterward, as the waves of passion subsided, Carrie was enfolded by an intense confusion that penetrated her sated lethargy
like a cold, sharp knife. As the first sobering awareness of what she had allowed to happen swept over her, she was filled with contempt—for Josh and for herself. He was too clever for her, too experienced in the art of seduction. And she was weaker than she had imagined.

  What was there in the cruel, ruthless man who lay beside her that could make her conscious of every nerve and sensation in her body, that could make her throb with her own sexuality? For the first time she knew the sensual depths to which her body could plunge, and the knowledge frightened her. She did not love Josh—she did not even like him—and yet he had this strong, primitive power over her.

  Unable to keep the bitter regret within her, she was aware of the hot tears pricking at her closed eyelids.

  Pressing the back of her hand over her eyes, she felt the tears begin to trickle out from beneath her lashes. Beside her, Josh stirred and she heard his abrupt voice.

  "Carrie, what's wrong?"

  "Everything," she murmured, her throat thick with the pain of self-loathing.

  "Don't be a fool!" His voice was hardening. "Everything is right for the first time since our marriage."

  Unable to speak, Carrie moved her head from side to side. Was he really that shallow? Could he go back and forth from his wife to Jessica—and who knew how many others?—without the slightest compunction? Did he really think sex would make their twisted relationship all right?

  "Carrie." She could hear his impatience. "Don't make a tragic production of this. Stop acting like a child. At least have the consideration to tell me why you have suddenly dissolved into tears."

  She opened her eyes and turned her head to stare through the watery mist into his angry face. "You can't rest until you've taken everything away from me, can you? First I had to marry you and bring Mike here. I am not even allowed to choose my own friends. You are bringing in a nurse to complete the job of weaning away Mike's affection and dependence on me. Now you have violated my body—"

  "Violated!" There was furious scorn in the word. "Come on, Carrie! You were as eager for what happened as I was. You can't be self-deceiving enough to believe otherwise, nor can I understand why you would want to believe it. I was considerate enough to marry you before taking you to bed."

  "Oh, yes!" she declared scathingly. "You are so considerate that you are stealing everything I hold dear, and you expect me to like it when you—when you take unfair advantage of a situation. It was rape, Josh."

  Icy contempt glazed his eyes, but she was too emotionally drained to feel more than a depressing indifference.

  "Why must you lie to yourself?" he inquired witheringly. "Marriage should not be a battleground."

  "I do not know what marriage should be," she retorted. "I have never had a real one." Gathering the remnants of her pride, she turned abruptly away from him, drawing up her knees to her chest and hugging herself against the chill that came from deep inside her.

  With a jerking movement, Josh sat up and away from her. Uttering a string of oaths, he snatched up his shirt and shrugged into it with intolerant haste. Then, picking up the remainder of his clothes, he left her to go to his own suite.

  When he was gone, Carrie moved shakily from the bed. Gazing down at her tender, pale nakedness, she felt a resurgence of her earlier bewilderment, as if she had somehow found herself in another woman's body. Her lips parted in disbelief as she recalled the last hour in Josh's arms. Now, however, instead of her body feeling aglow with heat, it was trembling with a chill. She could guess where Josh would be going as soon as he had dressed, and the episode just past seemed degradingly sordid. In spite of what she had said to Josh, she knew that she was not without blame in what had happened, and she felt sick with shame.

  But life had to go on. She decided to put off her bath and moved hastily to dress and go down to the kitchen. She did not want to be alone. She would bring Mike up and let him play for as long as he wanted in his bath. If Josh went ahead with his plan to bring a nurse into the house, Carrie would probably have few opportunities in the future to spend long, uninterrupted hours with the baby.

  She did not really have any hope that her objections would change Josh's mind, and she was right not to hope. On the day before Thanksgiving, the nurse arrived. Mike was napping and Carrie was having a cup of tea with Ethel in her apartment when Josh appeared with a small, birdlike woman in tow. Her thin, graying brown hair was cut extremely short with bangs across her forehead, and she wore a sensible brown gabardine suit and even more sensible brown oxfords.

  "Mother, Carrie, I want you to meet Emily Hastings. Miss Hastings has come to take charge of Mike."

  Miss Hastings greeted them amiably enough but refused to accept tea. Carrie had the feeling that the nurse thought it would be out of place to take tea with the mistresses of the house.

  After a few moments of conversation, in which Carrie took no part, Josh took Miss Hastings upstairs to the bedroom that had been prepared for her with a connecting door to the one that had been turned into Mike's nursery.

  Carrie had objected to Josh that there was plenty of room in her suite for Mike and his things, but her husband remained adamant that the baby should have a room of his own. "Let him have a little breathing space, Carrie," Josh had said to her. "Don't smother him as Mother did Danny."

  Highly insulted by the comparison, Carrie had barely spoken to him in the past two days. He had, in his usual imperious manner, gone ahead with preparations for the nurse. Somewhat to Carrie's disappointment, Mike had not fretted over being moved away from her. In fact, he had taken great delight in exploring his new quarters and had even ventured to take a few steps unaided across the nursery floor.

  Mike was allowed to share the lavish Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room with the rest of the family. Seeming to sense the importance of the occasion, the baby laughed and babbled between hearty bites of the delicious food, while the nurse hovered anxiously nearby in case he should drop anything on the carpet. The final insult to Carrie came when Josh offered Mike more mashed potatoes and the little boy looked up, eyes brimming with good spirits, and announced, "Daddy!"

  This was too much to swallow, and Carrie soon excused herself to go into one of the sitting rooms where a log fire blazed. She was still sitting and staring broodingly into the fire when Ethel joined her.

  "Josh has gone out for a walk."

  Carrie uttered an uninterested sound, and Ethel sat down on the couch near her. After a moment of silence, the older woman said, "Carrie, I'm not trying to intrude into your personal life, but is there anything I can do to help settle this thing between you and Josh?"

  Carrie looked over at her with a blank expression. "What thing?"

  "My dear, I'm not blind. Something is wrong between the two of you. What has Josh done to anger you?"

  Carrie had a momentarily strong impulse to open her mouth and let everything spill out. Your son is a selfish, unfeeling monster who is determined to have his way, no matter how many other people are hurt. He has forced, tormented, and bullied me to the limit of my endurance, and if it weren't for Mike I'd have left here long ago. Only the imagined picture of Ethel's kind, sweet face paling with shock stopped her.

  "I don't think Mike needs a nurse," she said finally.

  Ethel nodded sadly. "I thought that might be it. Carrie, the way you have loved and cared for that baby is heartwarming. I know it must have been extremely trying for you, losing your sister and then suddenly finding yourself with the complete care of a baby on your hands. Clearly, the father was no help to you."

  "I don't want to discuss it," Carrie said quietly.

  "Of course you don't," Ethel commiserated, her voice warm with compassion. "Nor do I want you to. I'm merely trying to help you see Josh's point of view. He realizes, as I do, how hard it has been on you, raising Mike—not that you didn't want to. Now that you are Josh's wife, let him lift some of that burden from you."

  Carrie pushed the heavy weight of her hair off her forehead in a weary gesture. "Mother, I never thoug
ht of caring for Mike as a burden."

  "I'm saying this very badly," Ethel apologized. "It's just that I know, from personal experience, that sometimes a mother can become too emotionally dependent on a child. So much so that, with all the love and good intentions in the world, she can create a situation that isn't good for the child."

  "Are you saying I've done that with Mike?"

  "No." Ethel's blue eyes were sympathetic as they surveyed her. "But I think Josh fears that might happen. You see, he disapproved of the way I coddled Danny. He tried several times to talk to me about it, but I wouldn't listen. I didn't want to believe that I was harming my son, but I was forced to realize what I had been doing when Danny began to rebel. I—I think sometimes that he was still rebelling when he insisted that Josh send him to South Africa, and perhaps even when he drove that sports car so recklessly that he lost his life."

  Carrie's pity went out to the older woman, the sadness in Ethel's blue eyes now wringing her heart. "I don't believe that for a moment," she said earnestly. "People have to be responsible for their own actions. Whatever Danny did, he did it, not you."

  Ethel sighed. "I know. I do, really. I'm only trying to explain Josh's feelings to you. Mike is very important to him. I confess that I am sometimes amazed at this new paternal side of him, and yet I think I can understand it. When he lost Helen—well, it was bad enough to lose his wife, but to lose his child, too—"

  "His child?" Carrie gazed with incredulity at her mother-in-law.

  "I see my suspicion is correct. He hasn't told you about the baby, has he? Well, it's no more than I expected. Josh doesn't talk easily about such things. But in this case I think he is wrong to keep it all inside. You see, Helen was pregnant when she died in that hotel fire."

  Carrie shook her head slowly. "No, I didn't know. Josh has never said a word to me about Helen or—the way she died."