A Perfect Arrangement Part 6

"Yes. And she lives across a continent and an ocean." She paused.

"And she has a husband and two children."

"Which means that you're alone." She didn't answer, and he didn't expect her to. The train was moving, and it was loud, but it was a noise that seemed to envelop the two of them. Cole thought the scene was almost intimate, with the two of them in bed together but not touching each other. He had never spent an entire night in bed with a woman before; he had always made it a rule to finish his business with her then get out. He'd found that after s.e.x with a woman a man's senses were dulled and he was easy prey for any culprit who wanted to prove himself by killing Cole Hunter. This was a new experience for him, being with a woman for something other than s.e.x. He turned over, bent his arm, and put his head on his hand. "Are you sleepy? I mean, if you are, I'll..."

She rolled over to look at him. Even in the little bit of moonlight coming in through the curtains, her eyes were bright and alive. "I'm not sleepy at all. Do you want to talk?"

This was ridiculous of course. He was a man of action, not words. Oh, he could talk all right, when it was necessary. He often used words to settle a dispute rather than resorting to guns, though he wasn't one for idle conversation. But right now he was too keyed up to sleep. Maybe it was the fact that a woman who was forbidden to him was lying next to him. Maybe it was that he had done an incredible thing today-he'd gotten married. Or maybe it was that he was beginning to like this woman. Heaven only knew why. She wasn't anything like his idea of what a woman should be, but so far he didn't feel like jumping into bed with her as fast as possible, then leaving immediately afterward.

"What's your name? I know your sister calls you Dorie, but today in church the preacher called you something else."

"Apollodoria. It's Greek, or at least that's what my father said. He also said it was a ridiculous name, but it was my mother's dying wish so he gave me the name."

He leaned back on the bed, one arm behind his head. "Apollodoria. I like that. I'm glad your father agreed to it."

"Our cook said my mother swore she'd haunt him if he didn't name me what she wished. My father wasn't superst.i.tious, but he was never a man to take chances."

Cole laughed. She had a way of making even awful things sound funny.

"Tell me about this town you own. The one that made you advise me against taking a town for a gift."

"Latham is tiny. Only a couple of hundred people, but considering the way the population is increasing, I think people are doing something with their Sunday afternoons besides resting."

Again Cole laughed and waited for her to continue.

What in the world could inspire a person more than approval? Dorie thought. All those years with her father she had kept quiet. He had hated what he called her impertinent comments. He'd just wanted her to be there, and until the last year of his life he'd never expected her to do anything, just sit near him where he could see her. In order to escape the incredible boredom of her life, she had become an observer of people, watching them, trying to figure them out, filling in blanks with her own imagination.

Every day she had gone with her father in his carriage and had sat perfectly still while he talked to his tenants and said no to whatever they asked from him. She had kept what she observed to herself.

But now here was a man who was laughing with delight at her observations.

"Latham is a peaceful town. Very few problems, actually. I'm sure you'll find it a dull place. We have a Fourth of July picnic. Everyone belongs to the church. Last year the most interesting thing that happened was that Mrs. Sheren's hat blew off just as everyone was leaving church. The hat flew across the river, hit Mr. Lester's bull in the head, and stuck on the bull's left horn. The funny part was that Mr.

Lester had brought that bull all the way from Montana and had bragged that it was the meanest, fiercest animal in Texas. Maybe it was, but it sure didn't look mean wearing a pretty straw bonnet trimmed with cherries and wisteria leaves."

Cole didn't say a word, just kept smiling into the darkness and enjoying being entertained. She could spin a good yarn. She told about the shops and the boardinghouse and the pa.s.sengers from the train.

But as he listened he realized that none of her stories included her.

They were all told from the point of view of an observer. It was as though she had been sitting behind a window, watching life happen. She never complained, never even hinted that her life had been one of isolation, spent with a father who had no love or approval to give his younger daughter, but Cole heard what she didn't say.

Whatever he had been about to say was startled from him as the engineer applied the brakes and the train began a lurching stop. Had they not been in the bed, they might have fallen. Too bad, he thought. If they had fallen, she might have landed in his arms. For all her annoying qualities, she brought out the protector in him.

For several moments there was a squeal of brakes and the pull of the train as it came to a reluctant halt. At one mighty jerk, Cole instinctively put out his uninjured hand and grabbed Dorie's shoulder to keep her from rolling off the bed. When one of the carpetbags between them went sliding and threatened to hit her in the head, Cole tossed it to the floor.

When the train finally halted, he found himself hovering over her as though to protect her from arrows and bullets. "You mind if I kiss you good night?" he heard himself asking. If he'd been thirty-eight a few days ago, he was now about twelve years old and sparking a girl under an apple tree.

"I... I guess that would be all right," she whispered back.

"Sure," he said, telling himself he was ridiculous for being this excited.

He'd kissed lots of women. Of course none of them had been his wife, he reminded himself.

With an expert kick, he shoved the remaining carpetbag toward the foot of the bed, where it dropped onto the floor. Then, when there was no barrier between them, slowly he bent over her to press his lips on hers.

He had lied extravagantly when he told her that the kiss they had previously experienced was nothing unusual. That kiss had haunted him ever since it had happened. In truth, he had thought of little else.

The second his lips touched hers, he knew the first kiss had been no fluke. The strength, the depth of feeling, flooded him. It was as though he'd never kissed another woman, never felt what it meant to touch a female.

Drawing back from her, he looked down into her eyes, saw they were full of wonder. For a moment he didn't know what she was thinking, whether she had liked his soft, gentle kiss or not, but then she put her hand up and touched his hair at the temple. Never in his life had a touch inflamed him as much as this one did.

"Ah, Dorie," he said, then pulled her on top of him as he rolled back to his side of the bed. He cursed his inability to hold her with both his arms, but he hugged her as close as possible with his one arm. And Dorie didn't need too much holding as she rolled on top of him, turning her face as she began to kiss him more deeply. She's very smart, he thought. She learns quickly.

Just as he was about to show her what his tongue could do, a shot came through the window, loudly shattering the gla.s.s, and hit the bed on Dorie's side. Had it come a minute earlier it would have entered Dorie's heart.

Chapter Six.

"Hunter! You in there?"

At the first explosion, Cole had wrapped his arm around Dorie and rolled off the bed, protecting her body with his as they hit the floor. As he fell, he had grabbed his gun from the side table. Now, holding her to him, he whispered, "Are you all right?"

She nodded and he was glad to see there was no hysteria in her eyes and, better yet, no questions. She looked at him as though awaiting his orders and planning to obey him. In that moment he thought maybe he loved her. What man wouldn't love a woman who could take orders?

"Stay down and I'll find out who it is," he said.

She did as he told her, making herself very small as she stayed near the wall of the train.

Cautiously, Cole went toward the window on the far side of the train and peeped out. There was a full moon, and he could easily see four riders. The one in the front, sitting astride a big bay, his silhouette showing his exaggerated nonchalance, as though he hadn't a care in the world, was a man not easily mistaken or forgotten.

Dropping to the floor in a sitting position, Cole leaned back against the wall and cursed rather colorfully under his breath.

"I've never heard most of those words before," Dorie said softly, startling Cole so much that he aimed his gun at her and had it c.o.c.ked before he realized what he was doing.

Dorie had snaked her way to him under the bed and when she looked at him only her face could be seen peeking out from under the bedspread that hung down to the floor. At the sound of the hammer of Cole's gun being drawn back, she disappeared under the bed again. When she knew she was safe from being shot, she again peeped out at him. "Who is it?"

she whispered.

"Winotka Ford." Cole drew his head back against the wall of the train.

"I'd heard he was dead. Otherwise I never would have gotten on a train like this." Anger, anger at himself, was flooding him. "How could I have been so stupid!" He looked back at her. "That was his younger brother I killed in the bank holdup. I should have known Ford would come looking for me, but as I said, Id heard he was dead. Maybe I heard that half of Texas wished he were dead."

Shots shattered the silence of the night. "Come on out here, Hunter, and meet your Maker. I'm gonna watch you die."

"What are we going to do?" Dorie asked, looking up at Cole as though she knew he could solve any problem in the world.

She's giving me the hero look again, Cole thought. At least I'll die knowing someone thought I was something more than a two-bit gunslinger.

" We are going to do nothing," he said. " You are going to stay in here while I go out and fight Ford."

"Hunter!" came the shout from outside.

"All right," Cole shouted out the window. "Keep your s.h.i.+rt on. I gotta get dressed. A man has a right to die with his boots on." As he stood up, he looked at Dorie "Help me get dressed."

She came out from under the bed in a quick, agile movement, then gathered up his clothes and began helping him put them on over his long underwear. "I hope I'm not being nosy, but how do you plan to draw a gun if you can't even b.u.t.ton your s.h.i.+rt?"

"I'll draw with my left hand."

"Ah, yes. Ambidextrous."

Cole didn't bother to try to figure out what that meant. "Give me my s.h.i.+rt."

Dorie turned away from him, then swiftly grabbed her hairbrush and, turning abruptly, threw it at him. Cole made a grab for the brush with his left hand but missed, and it noisily went clattering to the floor.

"Are you as good with a gun with your left hand as you are at catching things?"

"Shut up and help me with my boots," he ordered, then when she was helping him into them, he began to talk to her in a quiet, calm voice. "I don't know if he knows about you or not. I doubt if he cares. His problem is with me, not you."

She was on her knees in front of him, pulling his boot on, and suddenly a great sadness engulfed him. He had seemed so close to having what he'd never thought a man like him could have. He'd never thought of having a wife and maybe a few kids, but now he realized that maybe that was the reason he'd agreed to marry this little woman who was so clean and fresh. He was smart enough to know that never again would he have a chance at someone like her. Never again in his life would a virginal woman come to him and offer him a life different from the one he had always known.

But now that chance was gone. He had no doubt that these were his last minutes alive. Winotka Ford, with a Cheyenne mother and an American father, was a vicious b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He'd never loved his brother, whom Cole had killed, but then, he'd never needed an excuse to call someone out in the middle of the night and kill him. Revenge was as good an excuse as any. Ford wasn't interested in a fair fight. He wouldn't face a man in the middle of a street and see who was the fastest draw.

Ford liked to stop stagecoaches and kill everyone on board just for the sport of it.

Now the best Cole could hope for was to protect Dorie. Bending toward her, he put his hand under her chin and looked into her eyes.

"The minute I go out that door, I want you to go through the opposite door and mingle with the other pa.s.sengers. Do you understand me? No matter what you hear outside, stay on the train, and don't let Ford know you have any connection with me."

Suddenly Cole felt sick to his stomach. If Ford killed him, what would keep that killer from boarding the train and plundering it? Even if Ford didn't know that Dorie had any connection with him, he would see that she was young and vulnerable. And pretty, he thought, with her hair hanging down her back in a thick braid, with the soft ruffle of her nightgown about her neck and the way she was looking up at him. He was seeing what he would lose.

Quickly, with great fervor, he kissed her, and when he drew away from her, he was almost dizzy from the kiss. "I'll see you later, all right?" he said, pretending that he'd be back, but then he said, "Tell your sister to take care of you and that I said you deserve more of a man than Mr.

Pepper."

He wanted her to smile at him, but she didn't. Her eyes were huge, and he knew that if he stayed another minute he'd drown in them, and in that minute he was sure he was going to die. What had kept him alive all these years was the fact that he didn't care whether he lived or died. But right now he did care. He cared very much.

"Hunter, you got ten seconds and then I'm comin' in."

"Take care of yourself, Apollodoria," Cole whispered, then straightened up and went to the back door of the train car.

"You took long enough," Ford said when Cole emerged onto the platform at the back of the train.

Cole stood still, waiting for the man to make the first move. Cole's only chance for survival was to drop to the floor of the platform at the first movement from any of the four men and start shooting. That way maybe he could get three of them before he was killed. At least that would be three fewer to possibly hurt Dorie. He'd take Ford first, and then maybe his men would scatter, or maybe the cowards on the train, who had to be watching from every window, would help.

Chapter Seven.

One moment Cole's heart was in his throat, for he knew that he was seeing his last minutes of life, and the next he didn't know what had happened. Dorie rushed out of the train, her small body nearly hidden in a flurry of ruffles and the voluminous skirt of her nightgown. She had loosened her hair and allowed it to spring out from her head-and spring was just what it did. He had thought her hair was straight and could see now why she kept it pulled back so severely. Taming her hair was akin to taming a wild horse just off the plains. It billowed about her head like a honey-colored cloud. And d.a.m.n it, he thought, she looked just like an angel. Never in his life had he felt so protective of another human as he felt of this one.

The moment he saw her he knew that something was horribly wrong.

Had one of Ford's men already boarded the train? Had someone touched her? He started to take a step toward her, started to bark out an order, but she didn't give him a chance to say a word before she launched into a screech of agony.

"You can't kill him until he gives me back the gold he stole from my sister and me. He's the only one who knows where it is."

"Dorie!" Cole said sharply and tried to reach for her while not taking his eyes off the four men sitting astride their horses and watching him.

Dorie shrank away from Cole, with exaggerated horror, as though she might instantly die from some vile disease if he touched her.

In spite of himself, Cole frowned at her movement and the horror on her face.

"Don't you come near me! I'd rather die than be touched by you." She looked up at the man on the big bay. "Oh, Mr. Ford, you can't imagine how horrible he is. He uses me!"

Dorie had the attention of Cole and the four outlaws as well as that of the cowardly pa.s.sengers who were looking out the windows, watching while staying behind the protection of the steel train.

As Dorie started down the platform, Cole made a lunge for the back of her nightgown, but she eluded him.

"Mr. Ford, you look like a man who would help a lady," she said.

Winotka Ford had cheekbones you could cut beef with, a five-inch- long scar ran down one of them, his hair hung to his shoulders and hadn't been washed since the last time he crossed a river, and his eyes were so cold he frightened rattlers. He didn't look as though he could or would help anyone.

"This man, this horrible man, killed your brother so he could kidnap me. He knew I was rich, richer than anything he had ever dreamed of. He knew my father had millions in gold bars hidden in his house. He knew this and used this information against me. I thought he was my friend; I thought he was a good person after he rescued me from the holdup. I... I married him."

Ford looked up at Cole, still standing on the platform, still ready to draw. If Cole moved to try to get Dorie away from the men, he'd lose his vantage point, and with his right hand useless, he wouldn't be able to hold her out of the way of flying bullets. He was a prisoner of place.

"You marry yourself some rich girl, Hunter?" Ford asked, his voice snide and insinuating. He liked to toy with people before he killed them.

Dorie did the answering. "He married me, then forced my sister to give him fifty thousand dollars in gold, which he hid. I don't know where. I don't know anything anymore. He can't keep his hands off of me long enough for me to think."

"Dorie!" Cole said, and to his horror there was hurt in his voice. He hadn't touched her, had treated her with nothing but respect. How could he go to his grave with these last words between them? Had his few kisses disgusted her this much?

Dorie ignored him. "Make him tell me where he hid the gold, and then you can kill him. Or maybe I will pull the trigger. I'd like to see him dead after the way he's treated me."

In an instant Cole saw what she was doing and he was disgusted with himself for not having seen it earlier. He had been so blinded by her words about marrying him, that he had completely missed what she was saying about the gold. He looked up at Ford. "There is no gold," he said calmly. "I have no gold hidden anywhere."