A Perfect Arrangement Part 3

"The world is going to know soon enough. You can't keep it a secret forever," he said to her, his voice full of coaxing softness, the voice of a lover. He looked back up at Rowena and gave her his own sweet smile, the one that had made more than a few women's hearts flutter. "Your sister and I are engaged to be married."

Dorie sat up straighter on the sofa. "No, please, you don't have to do this."

Rowena looked from one to the other, at Cole's I-dare-you expression and at Dorie's face, now red with embarra.s.sment. Rowena's lovely laugh filled the room. "Dorie darling, I'd been told he was a hero, but I had no idea how much of one. He is as chivalrous as a knight of old. He rescued you, and now he feels responsible for you."

She turned back to Cole. "But, really, Mr. Hunter, your concern for my sister need go no further. Just because you saved her life doesn't mean you have to be responsible for her forever. Now Dorie is my responsibility, just as she was our father's."

Maybe there was some chivalry in him because the hair on the back of his neck stood up at Rowena's words. She made Miss Latham sound like a broken-down old pet, beloved but useless. The truth was that Miss Latham was far from useless. She was as smart as a college girl. There wasn't a woman in a thousand who could have understood what he meant during that bank holdup when he used the word "roll." She had not only understood but had kept her head and figured out a way to distract the man, then moved as quickly as a darter fish. Now here was her sister speaking as though Miss Latham were something useless that needed to be gotten rid of as fast as possible.

"Please don't do-" Dorie began, but stopped when Cole came to his feet and in an instant was across the room to stand beside her.

He put his uninjured hand on her shoulder. "The truth is, Mrs.

Westlake, your sister and I are in love, and we plan to get married. She's marrying me and no one else."

Dorie looked up at him with pleading eyes. "No, you can't do this. I was wrong to ask you." She turned to her sister. "Rowena, he's lying. Has any man ever fallen madly in love with me?"

She turned back to look up at Cole. "You don't have to do this. I shouldn't have said what I did. It was something I should have known couldn't have worked. Rowena, let me tell you what I did. I-"

Cole didn't know how to shut her up, but he had to make her stop talking. He couldn't bear to see her humiliate herself in front of her beautiful sister, whose expression said that she didn't believe for one minute that Cole had fallen for her plain little sister. Something about that look bothered Cole.

"I asked Mr. Hunter to-" Dorie began, her voice heavy, like a child admitting a lie, knowing that punishment was going to follow.

Without thought of what he was doing, Cole slipped his good arm under Miss Latham's shoulders and pulled her up to him. She was a tiny thing, small and fragile, weighing nothing. His objective was to stop her words, and short of putting his hand over her mouth, he didn't know how else to do that, so he kissed her. It wasn't a kiss of pa.s.sion, not even a kiss he wanted; it was a kiss of expediency: hard, closed-mouthed, without affection.

Within seconds he broke from the kiss and turned to Rowena in defiance. "There, now, does that look like-"

Suddenly his face filled with wonder, and he broke off and turned to look down at the woman pressed to his side. She was still pulled against him, her feet off the floor, her body as limp as a doll's, and she was looking up at him, her huge eyes filled with surprise.

For a moment time didn't exist for Cole. He had no idea what had happened, but the kiss he had shared with this woman-if he could call that hard thing a kiss-was different from any other kiss he'd experienced. He had kissed hundreds of women in his life. In fact, he rather liked kissing and had never turned down an opportunity when offered to him, whether it was in a saloon or behind the church. But this kiss had been different.

As though Rowena weren't there, as though he and this woman he held were the only two people in the world, he turned back to her and kissed her for real.

He pulled her close to him and instantly found that she wasn't as scrawny as he'd thought, but nicely rounded, and he liked her small size.

She was so tiny he thought he could wrap himself around her; she could dissolve inside him.

He kissed her gently at first, just tasting of her, of her freshness, of the purity of her. There was no doubt in his mind that he was the first man who had ever touched her, ever held her, ever put his lips on hers. Some part of his brain remembered that when he first met her she had been hostile and p.r.i.c.kly, but he couldn't reconcile that woman with the soft one in his arms. She opened up to him in a way that no woman ever had before. And in her kiss was something he couldn't identify, something that he had never tasted before. If he didn't know better, he'd think it was love. But that wasn't possible. There was nothing between them.

There was pain in his arm in its sling, but he didn't feel it when he wrapped both arms around her, then used his good left hand to turn her head so he could taste her lips more deeply. He sucked on her bottom lip, gently drawing it into his own mouth, and he was sure he'd never tasted anything sweeter.

It was some minutes before he heard Rowena's voice. Judging by her tone, she had been trying to get his attention for some time.

Reluctantly, with difficulty, he turned to look at Rowena, seeing her in a haze, as though she were far away. He still held Dorie firmly in his arms, not willing to release her soft, pliant body. Besides, she was so limp she would have fallen if he'd released her.

"My goodness gracious," Rowena said, her voice full of astonishment.

"I thought I was going to have to throw a bucket of cold water on you two." She was trying to make a joke, but it fell flat because she was facing two very confused people.

"Yes, well, I..." Cole began, stammering like a schoolboy. The body in his arms began to have some substance, and he knew he should release her, but he didn't want to. It was some minutes before he realized that Miss Latham had her hands on his shoulders and was pus.h.i.+ng against him rather hard.

"Mr. Hunter," she was saying, "please release me."

When Cole's brain began to function again, all he could feel was embarra.s.sment. "Yes, of course," he said, then dropped Miss Latham as though she were forbidden, causing her to fall back against the sofa with a thud. But he didn't reach down to help her. In fact he would have done most anything to keep from touching her again.

"I see that you two are in love," Rowena said. "I had no idea that was the case. Dorie, how could you keep such a thing from me? Why didn't you tell me? You let me believe that Mr. Hunter had no reason to save you from the robbers except that he was a man of great conscience, a man who cared about others, a man who-"

"A fool," Cole said, beginning to recover himself. Running his hand over his eyes, he surrept.i.tiously looked at Miss Latham and saw that she was as stunned as he was. If nothing like this had happened to a man of his experience, he was sure nothing like this had happened to her.

"You know what I think you two should do?" Rowena said in the voice of one who had never faced an obstacle in her life. "I think you should get married right now. This minute."

Dorie was beginning to recover herself. "Rowena, that's ridiculous. Mr.

Hunter-"

"Yes," Cole heard himself saying. "That would be fine."

Rowena took this statement in stride, not seeing the least problem with anything. "We shall go to the church this minute and-"

" No!" Dorie half shouted, and they both turned to look at her as she stood up, her fists at her sides.

"Dorie, your ankle!"

"Rowena, there is nothing wrong with my ankle except a bruise. One does not have to remain in bed for a bruise." She turned to Cole. "I apologize, Mr. Hunter, for my sister. She loves to manage other people's lives, and with her children and husband not here, she has only me and now you." She straightened her back and looked at him. "I know that you and I talked about... about certain things, but that was days ago. Now things are different."

"What is different?" he asked dryly.

Of course there was nothing different. In fact, everything was too real, and much too much the same. Rowena had come to Texas to get her boring little sister married, and she meant to do what needed to be done.

Whether she married Dorie to a middle-aged bald man or to a gunslinger didn't seem to make much difference to her.

"Rowena," Dorie said softly, "could you leave us for a while? Mr.

Hunter and I need to talk."

Rowena laughed in what Cole thought was a vulgar way. "I'm not sure I should leave you two lovebirds alone. At least not until after the wedding."

Cole was much too old to put up with a woman acting as though he were still in knee britches and needed a chaperon. He gave her the look that had made a few men decide not to draw on him.

"I... ah, I think I'll wait just outside," Rowena said, and skedaddled out the door.

Dorie spoke the minute her sister was out of the room. "Mr. Hunter, when you and I spoke several days ago, I made a fool of myself. When I was alone in Latham and I received a letter from my sister saying she was going to travel to America and then all the way to Texas to 'sort me out,'

as she said, I'm afraid I panicked. When Rowena gets something in her head, she sees nothing else. She said she was sure that after Father died I'd stay in that house with my books and never get out to meet anyone, much less marry someone. Rowena also thinks that whatever makes her happy is what makes everyone happy. She loves being married, so she thinks I would, too."

"Marriage is the only acceptable way to get those six kids you want."

"Yes, well, at my age-nearly thirty-I'm a little old to start a family."

"So your sister was right and you do plan to bury yourself." As he was talking, he continued to look at her. It was hard to reconcile what he saw with what he had felt. She looked wooden, but she hadn't felt that way.

Maybe he was getting senile. Maybe he should visit Nina more often. But right now, Nina's knowledge, her boredom, the way she talked at the wrong time-all that seemed dirty when compared to the freshness of Miss Latham.

"It isn't your business or my sister's what I do with my life!" Dorie snapped.

Cole knew she was right. He also knew he should walk out the door and never look back. But when had he ever done what he should do? He shouldn't have left home at twelve years old. He shouldn't have strapped on his first gun. If he hadn't tried to save this scrawny woman from the bank robbers he wouldn't be here now, wouldn't have kissed her, wouldn't have felt this way.

Also, there was something about this woman that intrigued him.

Maybe he'd spent too much of his life around women of the wrong sort.

Maybe ail "good" women were like her, if you got to know them, but he doubted it.

Maybe his problem was that she offered him a challenge, and a challenge was something he'd never been able to turn down. All anyone had to say to him was "Cole, you'll never be able to do that," and the hair on the back of his neck would stand up, and he would know that he had to do whatever his challenger had said he couldn't accomplish.

Miss Latham seemed to be reading his mind. She seemed to understand that he was beginning to think this was something he wanted to do. She took a deep breath, and when she released it, she gave him a look of great softness, a look that made Cole realize she was prettier than he'd first thought. "This is very kind of you, but now I must ask you to be reasonable. In light of what just happened, you must see that you and I cannot even pretend to be engaged. It is not possible."

Sometimes this woman made him feel downright dumb. He had no idea what she was talking about. All he knew was that he very much wanted to kiss her again. Had what happened between them been a fluke? Something that happened only once? "What is not possible?

Why?"

"Our attraction to each other has changed everything. I had no idea there would be any magnetism between us. Men who are almost criminals are not men I find attractive. I can a.s.sure you that what I...

we... felt was as much of a shock to me as it was to you. Considering this attraction, we could not possibly consider spending any time together for any reason. The probable results are too dreadful to contemplate."

Cole looked with longing toward the gla.s.s of whiskey on the table, but it was empty. At the moment he desperately needed a drink. What in the world was the woman talking about? "What results?"

She looked at him with great patience. "Mr. Hunter, I have admitted that all of this was a mistake. My mistake. I have told you that I panicked at the news of my sister's impending visit, and I tried to implement what I see now was a very naive scheme. I am sorry I ever started this, and I would like to end it."

"What results?" he repeated, still trying to figure out what she was talking about. He usually understood women; for that matter he usually understood the English language.

She gave a sigh as though she had to explain the simplest thing in the world. "When we... ah, kissed, there was a great deal of attraction between us. I had not thought there would be. I felt no such attraction between us the day I went to see you at your boardinghouse. It is all right to have a fake marriage with a man to whom one feels no attraction, but it is impossible with a man one wants to... to..."

When she saw that there was still no hint of understanding on his handsome face, she continued. "Children, Mr. Hunter," she snapped.

"Children." She grimaced. "Perhaps a man like you doesn't understand that... that marital rights, so to speak, are not to be exercised for pleasure. What a man and woman do with each other creates children.

Based on the feelings we had during our one and only kiss, I think that if we spent any prolonged time together, we would... we would, well, end up in bed together, and I'm afraid of creating a child with you. I cannot imagine a worse father than you-that is, if you stayed around, which I doubt. Either way, I don't want to raise a child alone, nor do I want my child to have a father who knows little more than how to c.o.c.k a gun."

For a moment all Cole could do was blink at her. "Is there any whiskey here?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely, then watched as she handed him the bottle.

Unlike her sister, she didn't graciously pour it into a gla.s.s. She just handed him the bottle with a schoolteacher look on her face that said, See what I mean?

It wasn't easy, but Cole put the bottle down, then he followed it, sitting heavily on the chair and looking up at her. There was certainly nothing coy about her. She wasn't telling him that she hated him and didn't want to go to bed with him. She was telling him that she'd like nothing more than to jump into bed with him, but if they did that, they might make a child, and he would be a d.a.m.ned poor father. To his knowledge, no one had ever even considered his possibilities as a father. His worth as a fast gun had been considered, yes, and as a peacemaker, and at times as a lover, true, but not as the father to some kid who didn't exist.

Maybe he was getting old. This wasn't the way women used to act. He remembered women who couldn't think past the first b.u.t.tons he loosened on their blouses. In the past if he'd kissed a woman and a current of lightning had run through them like the one that had run through him with this woman, neither of them would have thought past the next two hours. Uncontrollable. Without thought. Pa.s.sion. Old- fas.h.i.+oned pa.s.sion.

But not with plain little Miss Latham. With her there was no lack of control. She stepped back from pa.s.sion and said she wanted it, but there were consequences she didn't want. She was, of course, quite sensible.

The only other sensible women he had ever met had had no hunger, no fire in their veins. But she did. He had just felt it. Yet she was able to control it.

"Mr. Hunter, are you all right?"

No, he wanted to say. He wasn't all right. He had been all right before he met this woman, but now he was beginning to doubt everything in his life. He had to rea.s.sure himself that his life wasn't a waste. He was rootless. He had no home. He'd never had a home. Not that he'd ever wanted one, but if he had wanted one, he would have stayed in one place.

And if he ever made a kid with a woman, he didn't think he'd be a worse father than the next man. In fact, he liked to think he had a few things to teach a child. And not just things about a gun. He'd learned a bit in his life, and maybe he'd like to pa.s.s those things on.

Suddenly it became important to him to make this woman realize that he was more than just a gunslinger. And a hero. If someone else had called him a hero, he would have been flattered, but Miss Latham had made "hero" sound like a mindless person who had no thought of the future consequences of his actions.

"How am I to support myself until my arm heals?"

She looked startled. "I have no idea. Would you like some money? I mean, it is my fault that you... Well, actually, it isn't entirely my fault, but I do feel somewhat responsible for your injury. I can give you a bank draft."

"I don't want charity. I want a job."

She gave the tiniest smile-about all she seemed capable of, he thought. "The very next time I want someone murdered I will be sure to hire you."

He had to admit that the woman got under his skin in a way that no one else ever had. "I do not murder people," he snapped.

"Certainly not with your arm as it is now." Her mouth tightened into a prim little line. "Mr. Hunter, I talked to you about your future days ago, before this happened, and at that time your future did not concern you. I even tried to warn you that something like this might happen."

Why did he feel as though he were being talked to by his mother? She used to say, "I told you this was going to happen. But, no, you wouldn't listen to me. You had to have your own way. You never listen to anyone."

Cole ran his hand over his eyes. If he murdered anyone, it would be this woman. Besides wanting to kill her, he wanted to prove to her that he was worth something. "Miss Latham, you offered me a job, and I accept that offer."

It was her turn to sit down. "No," she whispered, "this is a mistake."

He sensed that he was regaining some power. "Miss Latham, tell me, what do you do with your time?"

"I beg your pardon."

"Your time. What do you do with your time when you are at home in Latham? I can't see you as a sewing circle lady. I can't see you putting on garden parties and teas. What do you do in that town your father left you?"

It was her turn to look surprised. "I can see that you, too, have been doing some research."

Heaven help him but at a compliment from this scrawny little thing, he felt warmth flow through him. He had to get himself back under control as he waited for her answer.

"I am a landlord," she said, then paused, and he could see emotions play across her face. So she wasn't a perfect poker player after all. "My father left the town of Latham to me because Rowena had her rich husband." She paused. "My father did not think there was any possibility that I would find a husband, rich or not, so he left me a means of support. Anyway, Latham is a small town that wouldn't exist except for the railroad, but the few shops and houses there all belong to me."

"You are a rent collector?" He knew it was petty of him, but he wanted to make what she did sound trivial, just as she had made what he did sound worthless.

"And a roof fixer and a listener-to-reasons-why-the-rent-is-late, and just about everything else in that town. If I may give you some advice, Mr. Hunter, if anyone ever offers to give you a town, don't take it."

He laughed. "I'll remember that. No one's ever given me that advice before." For a moment he looked at her, sitting there with her hands folded in her lap. "It seems to me that you need a man for more reasons than just to get your sister off your back."

"Of course," she said, giving him that look that said he wasn't very smart. "I know that. I very much want a husband. I wish I had a man to take over the management of Latham. My father was a man who allowed no laxity in people. He was..." She seemed to search for the right word.

"A tyrant?"