A Perfect Arrangement Part 10

Meanwhile, she planned to disobey Mr. Hunter so much that he'd probably end up kissing her feet-or anywhere he wanted to kiss, she thought.

Since all eyes were on her, Dorie walked away from Ford's men and no one tried to hold her back. After three choruses of the bird song, she went into a little tune she'd heard the grocer's wife singing.

Within minutes, she knew she was losing her audience, but so far, Cole had done nothing but stand in one spot and glower at her. He wasn't any nearer to getting a gun or horses or anything else. And it seemed that the men in the saloon were once again more interested in their cards than in yet another half-robed woman singing. When men killed other men on a daily basis, it took a lot to hold their interest.

Dorie didn't think about what she was doing; she just did it. Her one objective was to get the men to focus their attention on her and away from Cole. One minute she was standing at the back of the saloon singing and the next she had climbed up on a stool, stepped onto the bar, and begun to walk down the long, scarred mahogany expanse, now singing much louder. Looking out over the audience she could see that Cole had finally come to his senses and was searching for a gun.

Meanwhile Dorie had begun to enjoy herself. Maybe it was just that she'd been confined to too small a s.p.a.ce for too long. Maybe it was years of sitting unnoticed while her older sister got the attention of every man.

Or maybe it was just nice to have men look at her. She didn't know what it was, but she began to have fun.

First she began to repeat her song about the bird, but this time she sang it as though the little bird tweeting away in its tree had a different meaning than originally intended. And then she saw Cole reach toward a table for a few of the coins from a pile and one of the players was about to see him. To keep the man's interest on her, Dorie lifted her skirt to reveal her ankle.

The response of the men was so wholehearted that she pulled her skirt a little higher. What a fuss, she thought, over something as ordinary as an ankle.

Someone began playing a piano, and in spite of the fact that a few keys had been shot away, the sound it made was rather festive. Dorie became more interested in what she was beginning to think of as a dance. She moved to the far end of the bar, but she did not just walk; she strutted, her hips swaying, as she'd seen Rowena do many times. When Dorie got to the far end, she looked at the men in the saloon over her left shoulder.

Then, slowly, she slipped that shoulder strap down a little farther on her arm.

When Cole left the saloon she was so afraid Ford would see that he had gone that she began to unfasten the front of her dress one hook at a time, moving very slowly, so slowly that the men began to bang their beer mugs on the dirty old tables.

She wasn't really worried until she got down to the last hook and eye and still there was no sign of Cole. He wouldn't leave her to the mercy of these barbarians, would he? He wasn't so disgusted with her that he never wanted to see her again, was he? He would come back for her, wouldn't he?

Slowly the dress slipped off her hips into a puddle on the bar and immediately one of the women grabbed it; Dorie a.s.sumed she was Ellie, the owner of the gown. That left Dorie with no dress, just her underwear.

Petticoats came next, and still there was no sign of Cole. Corset cover came off and was grabbed instantly by the woman standing at her feet, as though she were some odd lady's maid.

"Could I have something to drink?" Dorie mumbled to the man behind the bar, but he paid no attention to her words. His eyes, like those of all the men in the saloon, were on what was coming off next. What had she been hoping for anyway? b.u.t.termilk?

She was fumbling with the front latches of the corset when Cole, atop a big chestnut horse, three men behind him, stormed through the saloon doors. Never in her life had she been so glad to see anyone.

There was general chaos within seconds, caused by the entry of four men on horseback into the saloon-it was Dorie's opinion that the animals could only improve the smell of the place-and also caused by the disappointment of the men at the interruption of Dorie's performance.

Dorie didn't have to guess at Cole's mood. After riding up to the bar, amid a fistfight with several guns going off, he didn't look into her face, but grabbed her about the waist, slung her face down across his horse, and rode out of the saloon.

Chapter Eleven.

"I should have left you there," Cole was saying. They were in bed together, or rather in a berth on a train together, headed toward Latham.

He had been lecturing her for three days now. Dorie wondered if it was a record. But he had stopped complaining about her long enough to make love to her at every possible opportunity since they'd escaped Winotka Ford and his men. Only once had Dorie offered the opinion that she had helped. According to Cole, this was not so. If she'd done what he'd told her, he would have rescued them even sooner.

Dorie just said, "Yes, dear," and snuggled up to him for more kisses.

After he had taken a gun and some money from the gamblers in the saloon, he had run outside, found the men who wanted to kill Ford, and brought them back to the saloon with him. Cole had figured they could all fight it out amongst themselves.

Of course he told Dorie that the big part of the problem was her performing that lewd, indecent dance of hers. While taking off her clothes!

He never so much as gave Dorie a chance to defend herself, but after a while she realized how very jealous he was, and she didn't want to defend herself. Many times in her life she had inspired anger in men but never jealousy, and she found she rather liked it. She also realized that Cole was worried because he thought maybe she liked undulating and taking her clothes off in front of all those men. She wanted to defend herself, tell him that she had done it for him, that she hated the way the men looked at her, but he never gave her a chance. And later, when she did have a chance, she thought perhaps a little mystery was better than knowing everything.

The first time she'd gotten him to stop telling her what an awful thing she'd done by showing him how she would have finished her performance in the saloon. By then he had bought her a dress that was half again too big for her and that covered every inch of her, as well as a hat as big around as a barrel so even her face was hidden from the view of others. Without ceasing his tirade on how she'd disobeyed him and put herself in jeopardy, he checked them into a hotel as man and wife.

Once inside, Dorie began to peel off her clothes, layer by layer. Cole sat down on a chair and didn't say a word after the first three b.u.t.tons of her dress came unfastened.

So now they were on their way to Latham, snuggled together in the train berth.

"Dorie, did you enjoy performing for those men?" he asked.

She didn't answer, but kissed him instead. She never planned to tell him the truth.

"All right," he said, but she could see that her silence annoyed him.

"Don't tell me. Instead, tell me about this town of yours. Is it anything like that place of Ford's?"

Dorie didn't like his patronizing tone, which implied that Latham ran itself, which was not the case. "It's not easy managing an entire town,"

she said. "I already told you that Mr. Wexler won't pay his rent."

"Why not?" he asked, yawning.

"Because all the women in town love him. No, no, don't look at me like that. Mr. Wexler is an ugly little man, but he manufactures a tonic that all the women in town love. Personally, I don't like it. It makes me very sleepy, but the men give it to their wives because they say it makes the women say yes, which I have learned is something that a man loves to hear a woman say. Anyway, Mr. Wexler won't pay his rent, and whenever I try to evict him, the entire town wants to tie me to a stake and set me on fire. I really don't know what to do. And why are you laughing?"

Still laughing, Cole began to nuzzle her neck. "You know, I used to think that good people were different from bad people, but I've learned that they just put different labels on their bottles." He kissed her a few times. "Apollodoria, my love, when I first met you I thought you needed no one. I thought you were sufficient unto yourself. But with every pa.s.sing minute, I find there's a great need for me in your life."

"Ha!" she said. "I saved you in that dirty little town. If it hadn't been for me..."

"Mmmm?"

She didn't say another word.

end.