Katie breathed a heavy sigh of resignation. "All right, all right. Do me a favor and don't climb back up on your soapbox. Anyway, you don't know what it's like to have a bossy brother. Then again, you did have Josh. Obviously he isn't as overbearing as Alex."
"Give Alex a break. Being left in charge of your kid sister when you're not much more than a kid yourself isn't a fair test. I don't know anything about your brother - except the fact that he got you through school. Considering the things you say you did, that was an accomplishment in itself. Josh never had to deal with anything like that. He appointed himself as my big brother . . . when we were still toddlers, I think. The worst of it is, now he thinks he has some kind of claim staked on me. The way I figure it, he's more in love with the idea of having a woman worship him than he is with me. Sure, he says he wants a woman who doesn't work out of the home, but he thinks she should spend all her time doing housework and raising children. I didn't get a degree in animal husbandry so I could sit in the house knitting booties."
They paused in front of the dairy door and Katie stared down at Carmen in surprise. "That's a strange thing to come from your lips. I thought having children was your greatest dream."
"It is, but it isn't my only dream. I haven't given up on that horse ranch dream yet. The trouble is; Josh doesn't care what I want. That's obvious by the way he acts about the goats. Do you know he actually gave me an ultimatum? Either the goats or him."
Katie jerked on the dairy door and the crack of frozen boards echoed in the pregnant silence. She stared at Carmen. "Imagine that," she finally said dryly. "I wondered what you two weren't talking about. If it's that important to him, why don't you just sell the goats? I'm the one who talked you into this goat dairy business."
"It isn't about the goats." Carmen threw her hands in the air. "Oh, never mind."
Why did she waste the breath discussing this matter with Katie? Much as she liked Katie, they were miles apart in their opinions and dreams. She ducked under Katie's arm and entered the dairy.
Katie followed her into the dairy and closed the door against the wind. "If you're so displeased with Josh, why don't you shop around some?"