The Invitation (38 page)

“Listen to me,” Cole said, leaning forward so his mouth was almost on her ear. “I want you to help me get us out of this mess. I'll keep telling Ford that you have money and I'm after it. I'll tell him it's the only reason I care about you.”

“Is it?” she asked.

“Is it what?”

She knew he understood what she was asking, so she didn't bother to answer him. Obviously he didn't want to tell her what she wanted to know.

Cole didn't want to say anything to make her think about love. Women in love did stupid things. True, they were blindly loyal to a man no matter what a piece of horse manure he was, but they often jeopardized their own lives in the process. “I want the five grand you promised me and that's it. After I get that I may never want to see the state of Texas again.” He couldn't lie well enough to say that he never wanted to see her again, but that's what he meant to hint at. If she thought he didn't care about her, she'd be more obedient when the time came.

“What am I to do?” she asked dully.

He wouldn't let himself feel anything at her tone. “I'll make Ford realize that he can't get any of the gold without me and that I can't get it without you. I'll tell him that you lied when you said you didn't like my touching you.” There was some pride in his voice when he said this. “I'll say that I've been sweet-talking you so you'll trust me and tell me how to get at the money. Only a husband can get the money, and that's why I married you. You have to sign some papers.”

When she didn't say anything he leaned forward to look at her. “Are you asleep?”

“No. So this means that you're going to be, well, courting me? Lots of hand kissing, that sort of thing? You're going to try to coax me into signing papers, is that right?”

He hadn't thought that far ahead, but that was probably the right idea. “Yes. Do you have anything against that?”

“Why don't you just hold a gun to my head and threaten to kill me if I don't sign?”

No flies on this little lady. “Maybe your father worried that you were an idiot when it came to men, so he stipulated in his will that you had to sign the papers in front of witnesses.”

“You could hold my sister and not release her until after I sign the papers.”

He smiled into the darkness. She certainly kept a man on his toes. “Your sister is on her way back to England, remember? You know, you could drive a man to drink.” He took a breath. “I don't think Ford has a clever mind like yours. I'll just tell him that I, your husband, have to persuade you to sign the money over to me. We have to be there
together
so that Ford's men can't tie me to a pole and beat me half to death. Does that answer your questions?”

“Does it answer your outlaw friend's questions?”

At that Cole almost laughed out loud. Instead, he buried his face in her neck. “Do you think you can pretend you like me?”

“Haven't I already proven that I'm a great actress?” she said, making Cole move away from her neck. He wasn't sure, but he thought she had just said something terrible to him.

“Put your head back and get some sleep. Give that devious little mind of yours a rest. We'll probably stop for a few hours before daylight, but try to sleep before then.”

She snuggled back against him, but she didn't go to sleep. Instead, she felt his strong chest against her back, one arm encircling her, the other pressed against her side so that the palm of his hand was against her ribs. His chin was near her forehead, and she could feel his breath in the cool night air. Rubbing against her small thighs were his larger ones, hard from years in a saddle, muscular from commanding wayward horses to his will.

Dorie knew she should be terrified at what was happening. She knew she should be worried and frightened, shaking even. But the truth was, part of her didn't care what happened tomorrow. All she could think of was
now.
The last few days had been the best of her life. All her life she had lived by logic. She had planned everything down to the finest detail. She had studied her father as if he were a textbook for a course she had to pass, and she'd taught herself how to deal with him. She learned his schedule, his philosophy of life—“get all that you can”—and his habits. Using her brain, she had adapted to him.

She had found Cole Hunter through logic. She had chosen him based on things she'd heard and read, and especially based on her need for a man to do a particular job.

But Dorie had learned that while her father acted in a predictable manner, other people didn't. Cole Hunter hadn't done anything the way she'd thought he would. When she'd presented him with her marriage proposal he became angry, but Dorie had expected that: she
always
made men angry. What she hadn't expected was his growing softness toward her.

And she was coming to like that softness. She liked the way he sometimes looked at her. Oddly enough, what seemed to please him the most was what had made her father the most angry: her impertinent remarks. Her father had hated it when Dorie said or did anything clever, something he hadn't thought of himself. Her father needed to believe that all women were stupid—then he felt justified in every petty, despicable thing he did to either of his daughters.

Closing her eyes, she leaned her full weight back against Cole, and he seemed to close around her, protecting her, keeping her safe from all harm.

L
et me have her.”

Dorie came awake slowly, aware that the horse had stopped and Cole was pushing her into an upright position. Standing to her left, his arms eagerly upraised, was one of the dreadful men who rode with the outlaw who was trying to kill her husband. Since she wasn't fully awake, Dorie hadn't had time to remember the story she'd told the men; she had temporarily forgotten that she'd said she hated Cole Hunter. She reacted instinctively to the sight of the awful man holding up his arms for her: she turned and wrapped her arms around Cole's neck and held on tight.

Winotka Ford was not brilliant, but he was smart enough to know a problem when he saw one. He didn't like being played for a fool. Leaning on his saddle horn, he glared at Cole in the moonlight. “What's goin' on?” he said in a low, threatening voice.

Cole tried to act as though nothing unusual had happened. “I've had hours to talk to her.” When Ford still glared at him, Cole shrugged. “Maybe
you
have trouble attracting women, but give me three hours alone with a woman and I can talk her into
anything.”
With that, he dismounted and reached up with his good arm to help Dorie down.

It was a full minute before Ford and his men understood what Cole had said. What else could they do but agree with him? Which man was going to step forward and admit that he was unable to talk a woman into anything? The men had demanded and threatened, blackmailed and given orders, but none of them had ever tried words of endearment. They had never used words that would make a woman voluntarily put her arms around their necks and relax her body against theirs.

Cole wished he could carry Dorie away from these gaping, suspicious men, but with one arm useless, he couldn't. And he missed the power his gun on his hip gave him; he missed the strength it gave him in protecting her. The only weapons he could rely on now were his size, his reputation, and his ability to freeze men with a look.

Only a couple of hours remained before dawn, and Ford had decreed that the horses needed a rest, so they were to bed down for a while. Trying to establish some independence, Cole put his saddle as far away from the others as he dared. He didn't want them to think he'd be so stupid as to try to escape while the others slept. Of course he would have tried if he hadn't had Dorie with him, but he would not do anything that might endanger her life.

One of the men made a campfire, put a coffee pot over the fire, and fried some bacon. When Dorie came back from a few minutes' privacy among the trees, he handed her a steaming cup of coffee so vile she coughed and spat it out.

“Drink it. It'll warm you,” he said softly, his big body shielding her from the view of the others squatting around the campfire. So far Ford and his men hadn't had much time to think about what had happened, but maybe now they would. Ford had planned to kill Cole Hunter, a notorious gunslinger, knowing that he would never be prosecuted. All Ford had to do was say it was a fair fight, produce a few witnesses, and he'd be free. Cole's past would keep people from thinking it was anything but a fight, fair or otherwise. But instead of murdering a man, Ford now had to deal with two hostages. Never mind that Cole was the first one to kidnap her; he was her husband. If anything happened to her, it would be Ford who got into trouble. So all he had to say about it was that she'd better be worth the trouble he was putting himself to.

“Drink that coffee and eat this,” Cole said, holding out a piece of tough bacon.

Dutifully, Dorie tried to chew the bacon and drink the coffee. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry, it was just that the food tasted like old shoe leather and water out of a rusty can. However, it was hot and Cole wanted her to eat, so eat she did.

Cole looked at her, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, standing in the moonlight wearing a nightgown that had once been pristine but was now ragged and filthy, and he had an attack of guilty conscience. He had gotten her into this. If she'd never met him she'd be safe now, not in danger of dying at any moment. Looking at her, he made a vow that even if he died trying, he was going to get her out of this.

Ford set a man on guard, partly to keep an eye on Cole and partly to watch for bounty hunters who might want the rewards on the outlaws' heads. The rest of the men stretched out on blankets and were asleep in seconds.

Cole motioned to Dorie to take the bed he'd made for her, giving her all the comfort he could provide in the outdoors. But Dorie refused to lie down on the relative comfort of the blankets while he tried to sleep on the bare ground a few inches away. “I won't take the only bed,” she whispered to him. The man on guard was unabashedly watching the two of them, and something about the way his eyes glittered even in the darkness made Dorie's skin crawl.

“You need to get some sleep,” Cole said, exasperated.

“You'll freeze without a blanket. The fire is ten feet away.”

“I'm used to sleeping outdoors,” he snapped back at her.

“Then that's all the more reason why you should have the blankets and the saddle for your pillow. I'm used to a feather bed and clean white sheets. Now you should have the better place to sleep.”

He was beginning to realize that she was so stubborn that they might be there all night arguing and he wanted to get as much sleep as possible. Heaven only knew what the next few days had in store for them.

“All right, then,” he said, meaning to settle the matter, “we'll just have to sleep together.” Knowing she'd refuse and he'd end up sleeping on the ground, he stretched out on the blanket, then held up his good arm in invitation to her. He thought she'd give him a long list of reasons why they couldn't sleep together, but she didn't so much as hesitate. Quickly, and with what seemed to be great willingness, she moved into his arms, expertly fitting her body to his, her head on his arm, and slid one firm thigh between his.

“Oh, Lord,” Cole whispered in silent prayer. Never in his life had a female body felt so good to him. Every woman he'd ever had had been either illicit or illegal. If the woman he was in bed with wasn't a prostitute, then she was someone's sister or wife, or in some way belonged to another man. But this one belonged to him. Maybe not forever and maybe not for the right reasons, but at least she did belong to him for the moment. Perhaps it was ridiculous, since it was so unreal and so temporary, but the thought that he had a right to hold her made her feel better to him.

He'd thought she was tiny, but she wasn't. She was exactly the right size, fitting into the curves of his body as though the two of them had been made for each other. She snuggled against his chest, making Cole's heart beat wildly.

Either she was as innocent as a newborn child or she was the most wanton little trollop on the earth, he thought. Whatever she was, Cole knew that had anyone at that moment tried to make him release her, he would have killed the person.

As for Dorie, she had never in her life felt anything as good as being near Cole. It wasn't only that she was a virgin, it was also that she had missed out on a lifetime of sensory pleasure that a person should receive. There had been no childhood hugs for Dorie. Her mother had been alive to cuddle and caress her elder daughter, but she had died at Dorie's birth. Her father had decided that even the most ordinary display of affection constituted “spoiling,” so he'd forbidden even the most cursory of caresses to be given to his children. Rowena's sweet nature had invited forbidden caresses from everyone, but little Dorie, with her quiet ways and her cool eyes that were the image of her father's, made people think twice before they risked punishment to touch her. As a result, Dorie had gone through life without the caresses that other children received as a matter of course. People said that little Miss Dorie was self-sufficient and needed no one else, when the truth was the opposite. She'd wanted to climb onto a person's lap, as she saw Rowena do, but she hadn't known instinctively how to tease and make an adult want to hold her; she'd never even figured out how to ask.

Cole Hunter was the only person besides Rowena who'd dared to risk coming near that seemingly cool exterior. And Cole was seeing what Rowena had known forever, that Dorie's coolness was only a defense to hide from the world what she needed so much.

When Cole held her, he seemed to unleash something buried deep inside Dorie: the need to feel a heart beating against her own, her breath mingling with another human being's, her skin against his skin.

When Cole pulled her into his arms she knew it was for warmth and protection, but there was something about his big body against hers that felt so very good, so very right. She wanted to slide inside him, to somehow get closer to him than she already was.

Her heart began to beat harder, as though it were beating more powerfully, more deeply within her chest. She could not only hear his heart against her cheek, she could also feel it. She wanted to be closer to him, but the fabric of his shirt was separating them. To her mind the fabric was as thick and impenetrable as leather.

She was aware of the shock in his voice when he said, “What are you doing?” but it didn't stop her from unfastening his shirt and putting her cheek against his skin. When she told him that the buttons hurt her cheek it was the truth. Even the weave of the cotton was hurting her skin, hurting her heart.

As Dorie pulled his shirt away and nestled her face against his bare chest, Cole rolled his eyes skyward and said a few oaths under his breath.

Smiling, happier than she'd ever been in her life, Dorie moved her cheek against his chest, and when her lips touched his skin, without thought, she kissed him.

“Stop it!” he commanded, grabbing her shoulders and holding her away from him. His voice was fierce as he conveyed his anger without resorting to shouting.

Dorie blinked at him, for a moment not at all aware of what she had done or why she had done such a forbidden thing as to kiss this man's bare chest.

“I…I apologize, Mr. Hunter,” she said when it dawned on her what she had done and why he was angry. Obviously he did not want her touching him more than was necessary. She stiffened in his arms, in less than a second changing from soft and pilable to unbendable. “I have no idea what came over me. Mr. Hunter, I—”

“Leave it!” he snapped because she'd started to close his shirt and button it up.

“But I—”

He shoved her head back down before she could say another word.

But Dorie wouldn't remain still. She was probably tired, but at the same time she'd never felt so full of energy in her life. Part of her brain was saying she should be a lady, but another part of her asked why a ladylike manner should matter when she was likely to be dead within twenty-four hours. When that awful man Ford found out there was no gold at her house she didn't think he'd laugh and say, “That was a good joke on me,” and let them go. He'd probably shoot both of them in the head and never think twice about it. When she was dead, would they carve on her tombstone, “She was a lady to the very end.”

“Is it wonderful?” she asked Cole.

“Is what wonderful?” he growled, trying to sound as though she were keeping him from sleep.

If Dorie hadn't had her ear pressed against his chest so that she could feel and hear that his heart was pounding much too hard for him to sleep, she would have been thwarted in her talk. But she knew he was no closer to sleep than she was.

“Lovemaking,” she whispered. “Is it very nice?”

When he said nothing, she continued. “Rowena will tell me nothing about it. I mean, I know about the…process, but I don't know exactly how it
feels.
Rowena says a husband has to teach his wife everything she needs to know, but I never thought I'd get one. A husband, I mean.” She hesitated, then continued quickly. “Now, it's not that I think you really are my husband. I know you're not. It's just that the way things are now I may never get another one, and so I thought I'd ask you.”

She waited for a while, and he took so long to answer that she thought he wasn't going to.

“Yes, it's nice,” he said at last. “But I think it could be better.”

That made her start to pull back her head to look at him, but he immediately pushed her head back down. He didn't seem to want a square inch of her to move away from him. “You shouldn't ask me about lovemaking. I only know about fornication. What experience I've had has been quick and over as soon as possible before someone comes after you with a shotgun or somebody else wants the bed.”

“But surely…”

“Maybe there have been a few good times, but I've always wondered what it would be like to be with a woman who was mine and mine alone.” He lowered his voice. “With a woman who had never belonged to another man. A woman who was never going to belong to anyone except me.”

“I have never…had another man,” she said softly.

“I know. And that's why you deserve better than an aging gunslinger.”

“Oh,” she said. “Do you mean you're too old to—”

She wasn't sure whether she'd said the exactly wrong thing or exactly the right thing, but he put his hand on the back of her head and tipped her head up to kiss her. It was a kiss such as she'd dreamed of. In those days of sitting silently by her father, she had imagined what it would be like to be as beautiful as Rowena and have some handsome man come to her and kiss her with tenderness and passion.