A Perfect Arrangement Part 7

"Liar!" Dorie screamed at him, then spit for emphasis.

Cole hated to admit it, but that gesture shocked him. Where'd she learn to do such a vulgar thing?

Ford began to laugh-an ugly sound because it wasn't something he did very often. His laughter sounded like the wheel of a wagon that had been rusted by the weather for a couple of years and now was trying to roll without being greased.

"Who am I supposed to believe, you or this little lady?"

"Don't believe him. He does nothing but lie!" Dorie yelled. "He lied to my sister and to me. He lies to everyone. He got shot, and he couldn't earn any money killing people anymore, so he sweet-talked me into marrying him, then forced my sister to give him all the gold she had. He was taking me back to Latham to get the rest of it. I think he means to kill me and burn my daddy's house down. I think-"

"Shut up!" Cole shouted at her, effectively making her instantly stop talking. He turned to Ford. "She's trying to save my life. There is no gold; she has no gold anywhere. She's as poor as a squatter. Your beef is with me, not her. Dorie, walk down to the far end of the train and stay out of this."

"Ha!" she said. "I'd rather die than do one more thing you tell me to do. You can't imagine the horrible things he's made me do. Disgusting things that no lady should have to live through." She ran to Ford, put her hands on his stirrup straps and looked up at him with pleading eyes. "I'm not poor. If I were poor I wouldn't be traveling in a private train car, would I? I'm not trying to save his life. I hate him. He's taken so much from me, and I want it back. Get him to tell me where he's hidden the gold. Then you can kill him. I care nothing about him. Nothing."

Cole could see that Ford was beginning to listen to her. "Gold" was the only word someone like Ford heard, and maybe he also heard the hint of something dirty and sinister in what Dorie was suggesting Cole had done to her.

As for Cole, he had difficulty controlling his anger at her words. Had she deceived him from the beginning? Was she something different from what she seemed? How did she know about "disgusting things," things no lady should have to endure? Where had she learned of such things?

"Watkins!" Ford snapped. "Give Hunter and the little... lady"-he sneered the word-"your horse. We'll go back to camp and figure this out."

For a moment Cole thought about shooting as many of them as he could. But he knew he'd end up dead, and then who would look out for Dorie? She'd just told these lying sc.u.m that she was rich, and she'd made them look at her as something s.e.xual. These men would all want to know what Cole had done to her that was dirty; they'd want the details and want to repeat the experience. "She's lying," he said, but he could see that his words made no difference. What words could he say that could compete with the words "gold" and "s.e.x"?

"We'll figure that out later," Ford said. "Now get on the horse."

"Let her get dressed," Cole said, playing for time. Maybe a bolt of lightning would strike Ford and his men. Maybe the cavalry would ride up and save them. Maybe those yellow-livered pa.s.sengers watching them would step forward and help. And maybe Winotka Ford was going to repent within the next two seconds. Sure.

"I don't want to ride with him," Dorie said, shrinking back toward the rear of Ford's horse, her arms folded protectively over her chest as though trying to ward off Cole's blows.

"She can ride with me," one of the men said, leering at her.

"No, give her to Hunter, she likes him so much," Ford said, his eyes easy to read even in the moonlight. He was going to enjoy seeing Dorie sitting so close to a man she hated. Misery in anyone gave him great pleasure. When he was the cause of that misery, his pleasure was combined with power and he was doubly pleased.

"Get down here before I shoot parts of you off," Ford said to Cole.

"And no changing clothes. We go now."

Cole had never before been in such a bind. But then, he'd never before been responsible for another human being. In all his life he'd had only himself to take care of and look after. If he'd been killed, his death wouldn't have meant anything to anyone; no one would have noticed that he was missing from the earth. But now things were different. If he was killed tonight, something dreadful would happen to another human being, a person he had come to care about. He knew they had not married for the right reasons, but he had sworn to stay with her, to look after her until death did them part.

Of course death wasn't too far away, because within a few minutes he was going to wring her neck.

Fifteen minutes later he was mounted on a horse, Dorie ensconced in front of him, her big nightgown flapping about his legs, her feet encased in thin bedroom slippers. She was leaning back against him, his arms around her, holding the reins. For ten minutes, while they were riding, he had been telling her what he thought of her stupidity.

"You should have stayed where you were. If you'd done what I told you-"

"You would probably be dead now," she said, yawning and leaning back against him.

In spite of himself-she did have a talent for bringing out the very worst in him-he said, "You'd better not get too close to me or I might do disgusting things to you."

"Such as what?" she asked, sounding rather like a scientist who intended to take notes on the behavior patterns of another civilization.

" I have no idea. You were the one telling the world that I couldn't keep my hands off of you. d.a.m.n you, Dorie! You've gotten us into a real mess.

You and I both know there's no gold. Why didn't you let me fight it out with him?"

"Because I didn't want you to die," she said simply.

For a moment he was mollified. Part of him was, of course, glad that he wasn't dead, but he wished with all his heart that she were somewhere safe instead of at the mercy of a conscienceless outlaw.

"Why did you have to tell Ford-and everyone else within earshot-all that about how I... how I..."

"How you couldn't keep your hands off me?"

His pride didn't want to ask for her answer, but right now every feeling he'd ever had was bruised and confused. "Yes," he whispered.

"My father never let me do anything I wanted to do. Rowena said he could be very contrary, but I think he was just plain mean. If I wanted to read a book, he made me go out in the carriage with him. If I said it was a beautiful day and I was looking forward to going out, you can be sure we'd stay in, probably in one room. I thought that maybe your outlaw was as mean as my father. If I'd said I wanted to stay with you, he would have done everything in his power to keep us apart, so I did what I learned to do with my father: I told him I wanted to do the opposite-get away from you." She snuggled a bit against his chest. "It looks as though it worked."

All his life Cole had thought women were the weaker s.e.x. They needed protection. But this woman was making him rethink what he'd believed to be true. Impulsively he bent his head and kissed her neck a couple of times.

"Stop it!" she screamed. "Keep your slimy hands off me! I hate you!

Don't touch me!"

Ahead of them they could hear Winotka Ford chuckling. He'd probably laughed more tonight than he had in the last ten years together.

"You don't have to overdo it," Cole said, hurt in spite of himself.

"Yes, I must or he won't get any enjoyment out of this."

Maybe it was that unfamiliar protective instinct she'd aroused in him, but he didn't like to think that she had ever known anyone who was even remotely like Winotka Ford. He would have preferred to think she'd had a father who indulged her with pretty dresses and lollipops on Sunday afternoons. But he was beginning to realize that her affluent childhood was as lonely as his poor one had been.

He shook himself, telling himself to stop being so melodramatic. Right now his major concern was to get both of them out of the jam Dorie had got them into. Had he been alone, he would have tried to shoot his way out of this mess, never mind that his shooting arm was in a sling. But now he had to take care of Dorie.

It wasn't pleasant to remember, but he tried to think back to what she had told Ford. It seemed that he, Cole, was supposed to have fifty grand that only he knew the whereabouts of. So that meant Ford could do anything to Cole short of killing him to find out where Cole had stashed the gold. Also, he seemed to remember that Dorie had said there was more gold in her house in Latham.

"Do you have any gold hidden in your father's house?"

"None," she said sleepily. "Why?"

He tightened his arm around her in a warning gesture.

"Oh, that," she said, remembering what she had told that dreadful, dirty man. "I wanted him to have a reason not to kill me, so I told him I knew where there was money hidden. But there is no hidden money. My father put everything in trust in a bank in Philadelphia. I am given the smallest amount possible every month."

"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 pa.s.s, 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.

Chapter Eight.

"Let me have her."

Dorie came awake slowly, aware that the horse had stopped and Cole was pus.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+elding 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.