A Perfect Arrangement Part 8

"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 prost.i.tute, 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 const.i.tuted "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 s.h.i.+rt 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 s.h.i.+rt and putting her cheek against his skin. When she told him that the b.u.t.tons hurt her cheek it was the truth. Even the weave of the cotton was hurting her skin, hurting her heart.

As Dorie pulled his s.h.i.+rt 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 pliable to unbendable. "I have no idea what came over me. Mr. Hunter, I-"

"Leave it!" he snapped because she'd started to close his s.h.i.+rt and b.u.t.ton 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 pa.s.sion.

He turned her head to one side and deepened the kiss, and when his hand slipped down her side to cup her breast, Dorie didn't even think of pulling away from him. To look at her as she had been a few weeks ago, a man would have guessed she'd take a riding crop to any man who dared touch her, but when Cole touched her, her body seemed to open to his.

She moved so her hips were pressed against his, sliding her leg higher between his, and when she moved her thigh, she felt his groan against her lips.

When he pulled away from her, Dorie tried to pull him back, but he pushed her head back down so her lips were far away from his.

"Mr. Hunter, may I call you Cole?"

"No," he said sharply. "It's better this way. Listen to me, Dorie, and listen to me hard. I'm not what you seem to believe I am. I'm not your d.a.m.ned hero. I'm what you said I was the first time you met me: an aging gunslinger. I don't know how I happened to live this long-an accident of nature, I guess. You were right; most of us are dead by the time we reach our thirties. Right now I'm living on borrowed time. I shouldn't be alive now, and I'm sure I haven't much time left."

"But-"

"No!" he said sharply. "I can see it and feel it." As he said the words he couldn't help but run his hand down her back, feeling the curve of her body. He couldn't resist cupping her round b.u.t.tocks and pressing her closer to him. Nor could he help the groan that escaped him. He would die before he told her that she was the most desirable female he'd ever seen, that he'd rather have a night with her than with any other woman, even a woman twice as beautiful as that sister of hers.

"We have to stay together until I can get you out of this, but after that, you go back to your world and I to mine. We aren't the same kind of people. We come from two different places."

"Maybe we are the same kind of people but we were simply born in different places. Maybe you'd have been different if you'd been my father's son."

"Probably hanged for murder for killing the b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said under his breath.

Dorie smiled. She knew he disliked her father because her father had been unkind to her.

Smiling contentedly, she snuggled against him. "I like you," she said.

"I like you very much. You're a good man."

She had no idea that her words startled him. Several women had told him they loved him, but never had a woman told him that she liked him or that he was a good person. And yet somehow, when Dorie said the words, he almost believed them.

He held her close to him, feeling her warmth and the purity of her. It was odd, but when she was near he felt like a good person. All the gunfights in his life seemed to have happened to someone else. And when Dorie looked up at him he felt as if he could do anything.

"I'll get you out of this, sweetheart," he whispered.

She didn't answer because she was asleep. She trusted him so much that she had fallen asleep in his arms. Cole knew that he'd die before he allowed anything or anyone to harm her.

Chapter Nine.

"I'm not going," Dorie said, standing beside the horse she and Cole were riding, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes straight ahead. "I won't do it and that's that. You can shoot me or not, but I will not do it!"

Cole decided that every good thought he'd ever had about Dorie, about women in general, was the devil's work. Only the devil could have made him have good thoughts about a creature as stubborn, not to mention stupid, as this one.

When Ford got over his shock-few men and no women had ever told him no-he pulled his gun out of his holster. That was when Cole came off his horse and put his body between Dorie and the bullet that might come her way.

I must be calm, he told himself. I must reason with her, try to persuade her. Women like sweet words. "d.a.m.n you!" were the first words out of his mouth, words said with his teeth clenched together.

"Don't you realize the seriousness of this? You could be killed. You could-"

"I won't tell him where the gold is even if he kills me," Dorie said, not even looking at Cole. Her mouth was set in a line so rigid it could have been used for a buckboard seat.

"Dorie," he began, then said, "What the h.e.l.l," put his arm around her waist, and started to forcibly put her on the horse.

She was little, true, but she was fierce, and he had the use of only one arm. When he tried to pick her up, she fought him by flailing her arms and legs, then by making her body rigid, then by pus.h.i.+ng at him with both her arms and her legs.

Within seconds they were in what seemed to be an equal contest of muscle against stubbornness.

It was the rusty old laugh of Ford that made Cole drop her in order to try to get a better grip on her.

"Let her go," Ford said.

Immediately Cole set Dorie on the ground and put his body between hers and Ford's. "You're not going to hurt her," he said, his eyes glittering.

Ford snorted. "Hunter, I think maybe you two lied about not likin'

each other."

At those words, Cole felt a chill run up his spine. If Ford found out they had lied about this, he'd figure out they'd lied about other things, too. He'd soon realize that there was no reason to keep them alive.

Right now he thought he could cheerfully strangle Dorie. For days he'd been thinking that for the first time in his life he'd met a woman who had some sense. But then this morning she'd shown that she was the... well, the most female of females. That was the worst thing he could think to call her. She hadn't a brain in her head.

This morning, after a mere two hours of sleep, they'd been told to mount their horses. They'd ridden hard for three hours until they came to a ridge overlooking a little town that seemed to consist mostly of opportunities for sin. There had once been a reason for the town, but that had died out so long ago that no one remembered, or cared, why the village was there. But in the dying embers of the town's life, after the people who wanted to earn a living had left, the gamblers and murderers had moved in. Now it was nothing but a place for men-or women-to lose their money or their lives. It was, of course, Winotka Ford's home base, the only place on earth where he felt safe.

They lingered atop the ridge overlooking the few broken-down buildings long enough to make sure that there was no sheriff's posse there, no soldiers, no one who might give them trouble.

It was while she and Cole, still mounted on their horse, were looking down into the town that Dorie spoke. "Are we going down there?"

"Yes," Cole said, trying to think how he could get out of the place. He had no money for bribes; he couldn't shoot his way out. Once they got in, how were they going to get out?

"I can't go into town wearing a nightgown," Dorie said, sounding as if she might cry.

"No one will notice," he said in dismissal, wondering if there were any people he knew in town. If there were, he hoped he hadn't killed any of their relatives.

"You don't understand," Dorie said. "I can't do this."

Why was she bothering him about things that didn't matter? "Dorie, you have been traveling across the state of Texas for two days wearing nothing but a nightgown. What difference will a few more hours make?

We'll get you something to wear when we ride into town." He had no idea what he was going to use for money to buy her a dress, but he couldn't say that to her.

"No," she said, her voice sounding desperate. "No one has seen me until now. If I go into town there will be women there."

He gave her a look that told her he thought she was crazy. "You have been wearing your nightgown in front of men. Isn't that worse than being seen by women?"

Why were men so stupid? she wondered. How in the world did their mothers teach them to tie their shoes when they had no brains? She gave him a look of great patience. "Men like to see women in nightgowns.

Even in my limited experience I know that." Her tone asked why he didn't know that. "Women laugh at other women riding into town wearing nothing but a dirty nightgown."

Cole's jaw dropped in astonishment. "Four dangerous men are ready to kill you and you're worried about women laughing at you?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "It's a matter of dignity."

"This is a matter of life and death." He ran his hand over his face. Had any man ever understood a woman? "Take a look at that place down there," he said, looking over her shoulder at the town below them. Only about eight buildings were still standing. A couple of them were burned- out sh.e.l.ls, and one looked as though the roof had been blown off. Signs hung at precarious angles; boardwalks had long sections missing. Even while they watched, three men started shooting at each other and within seconds one of them was dead. The rest of the people milling about didn't so much as pause in what they were doing at this very usual sight of bloodshed. A man who looked to be the undertaker dragged the dead man out of the street.

"We're about to ride into that and you're concerned about being seen in a nightgown?" He grinned at the back of her head. "Afraid they won't let you into the local ladies' society if you're seen improperly attired?"

Obviously, Cole was not understanding her at all. With one lithe motion, she slipped off the horse and told him she was not going to enter the town wearing only her nightgown. Nothing he said persuaded her to reconsider.

"Dorie," he said with exaggerated patience, "you're wearing more clothes now than any other woman in town. You're not indecently exposed."

She wasn't going to answer him because even to her she wasn't making sense. But she did know that she could not ride into that odd little town wearing about fifteen yards of nearly white cotton.

"Dorie, you-" Cole began.

"Go get her a dress," Ford said, looking at one of his men and motioning with his gun toward the town.

At that, Cole exchanged a look with Ford that was age-old. It said that no man had or ever would understand a woman and there was no use trying.

Dorie, glad to be off the horse, went to the only bit of shade in the area, under a pion tree, and sat down, smoothing the folds of her nightgown about her in a way that would befit the lady she knew she was.