The Invitation

by Jude Deveraux

  Dorie had to shake her head to clear it. “Charming lies. That’s what I think,” she said.

  “And what do you think is the truth?”

  “You think I am a pest and a nuisance. I am, however, a rich pest, and you need money.”

  Cole didn’t know when he had ever felt more insulted. She was saying that he had married her for money and money alone, which of course wasn’t true. He had married her because…Damn it! He wasn’t exactly sure why he had married her, but it wasn’t only for money. A man who married for money was…was…What was that word? A gigolo, that’s what. He didn’t mind being called a killer, but he wasn’t going to be thought of as a man who took advantage of women.

  Abruptly he stood up. “Let’s get something straight right now. I married you because you needed protection, and you’re paying me for that protection. I’m a bodyguard of sorts for you. When my arm is healed and your sister is out of the country, we’ll shake hands and part company and that’ll be the end of it. Agreed?”

  “Of course,” she said calmly, her eyes clear, showing no emotion at all.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.”

  At that her eyes widened just enough that he knew what she was thinking.

  Not knowing exactly why he was so angry, he grabbed two carpetbags from where they were set against one wall and plopped them down in the center of the bed, creating a wall between the two sides. Maybe his anger was caused by the fact that all his life he’d had to fight women off and now suddenly this mousy little thing was acting as though he’d turned into a satyr, something vile and repulsive. She disliked him so much that she was reluctant even to give him her hand across the dinner table.

  “There,” he said nastily, nodding toward the divided bed. “Does that suit your sense of propriety? I don’t know why you persist in thinking I’m a deflowerer of reluctant virgins, but I can assure you that I’m not.”

  “I didn’t mean—” she began, but he cut her off.

  “Just go to bed. I won’t bother you, so you can stop looking so worried.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” she said quietly, then moved behind the pretty little screen that stood in the corner beside the bed and began to undress. Rowena had talked to Dorie alone after Cole announced that he and Dorie were getting married. Rowena had said a lot of nonsense about not being frightened and had told Dorie to do her best to make Mr. Hunter feel as though he were the smart one. “This is important to a man,” Rowena had said. “It is necessary to a man.” Dorie had no idea what her sister was talking about.

  “Damnation!” she heard Cole say, then the little tinkling sound of a button hitting what sounded like the porcelain washbasin.

  Peeping around the screen, she saw Cole frowning in concentration as he tried to undress himself, his incapacitated arm making the task very difficult. A hero, she thought, a man who wouldn’t ask for help.

  Wearing an enormous white nightgown that covered her from neck to toes, she walked around the screen and went to him. Immediately she saw that he meant to tell her he could certainly undress himself, but here at last Dorie felt competent. For the last year of his life her father had been an invalid, and she had been the only one he would allow to take care of him. She was used to dressing and undressing a full-grown man.

  “Here, let me,” she said in an efficient voice, and within a few moments she had divested Cole of his clothing down to his long cotton underwear. She was unaware that he was smiling down at her in amusement and some disbelief.

  She was also unaware of the way he was looking at her thick hair tucked into an innocent braid. During the day she kept her hair pulled tightly and astonishingly neatly against her head, not a strand out of place. But now it looked soft and there were little curls about her face. And oddly enough, her prim nightgown was almost provocative. He was used to seeing women in black or red lace, not pure, clean, virginal white. Seeing her completely hidden the way she was made him wonder what was under her clothes far more than see-through silk did.

  When he was in his underwear, she pulled back the covers of the bed and half pushed him down onto the bed. Then, as though she’d done it a thousand times—which she had—she tucked the covers around him, gave him a quick, perfunctory kiss on the forehead, turned away, blew out the lamp by the bed, and started toward the door.

  She had her hand on the doorknob when she realized where she was and what she had just done. With astonishment on her face, she turned back to look at him. Cole had his good arm folded behind his head and was grinning broadly at her.

  Spontaneously they burst into laughter.

  “Don’t I get a bedtime story?” Cole asked, making Dorie turn red.

  “My father—” she began to explain, but then she laughed and said, “What kind of bedtime story do you want? One about bank robbers and showdowns at noon?”

  “Would my friends be in it?”

  That made her laugh more. “If it’s about criminals, it would have to be about your friends, wouldn’t it?”

  He gave a half frown, half smile. “You make it sound as though if I were sent to prison it would be a family reunion.”

  “I suspect the closest you’d ever get to church would be the cemetery,” she said. She meant to make a joke, but it fell flat as there was too much truth in what she’d said. Neither she nor Cole wanted to think how near he lived to death.

  A lamp was burning by her side of the bed, and now that she had come to her senses and realized she wasn’t in her father’s house and this man wasn’t her invalided father, she went to her side of the bed. Refusing to even glance at the heavy bags he had placed down the middle of the bed, she pulled back the cover, blew out the lamp, and slipped into bed, her back to him. It was a while before she spoke. “Were your parents nice?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “What about yours? Did you like that tyrant of a father of yours?”

  “I never thought about it. I guess I did. He was the only parent I ever knew.”

  “So now the only family you have is your sister?”

  “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 sex 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 sex. 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 wi
sh 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 superstitious, 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 passengers 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 glass, 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 cocked 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, I’d 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.”

&
nbsp; “Hunter!” came the shout from outside.

  “All right,” Cole shouted out the window. “Keep your shirt 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 button your shirt?”

  “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 shirt.”

  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 bastard. 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.