“I don’t dislike them, dear. They’re quite nice, but bright colors are much more cheerful. Don’t you agree, Mr. Benton?”
“Mr. Benton has already made his opinion known to me,” Drew said.
Cole did smile this time.
“If he said you ought to wear brighter colors, I hope you listened to him.”
“The saleswoman in Taylorsville showed her several very attractive dresses,” Cole said, “but she didn’t like any of them.”
“Why, dear? If they were pretty …”
Drew looked annoyed at the direction the conversation had taken. “I’m not fond of pink.”
“It would be perfect with your coloring,” Myrtle said, instantly animated. “Why don’t we go look for a dress tomorrow?”
“There aren’t any good shops in the next town. We’ll have to wait until we reach St. Louis.”
“You don’t have to wait that long,” Cole said.
“Why?” Drew asked.
He knew she wasn’t going to like what he’d done, but this was the perfect opening. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
He hurried to the baggage car. It took less than a minute to find the box. He returned to the car with the box tucked under his arm.
Drew looked curious at first, then slightly confused, before realization hit her. Then she looked furious.
Cole considered undignified retreat, but decided to plunge ahead. He resumed his seat, then handed the box to Myrtle. “I hoped she might change her mind, so I bought this.”
Myrtle opened the box. “It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed.
“You bought that dress after I told you I’d never wear it?” Drew said, her eyes hard and glittering.
Time to confess to everything. Might as well be hanged for several crimes as one. “I bought three dresses. I thought you’d look beautiful in them.”
“I’ve already warned you twice about lying.”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s not.”
An idea occurred to him. “Have you got the guts to make a test?”
She looked even more angry. “I’ve got the guts to do anything, but I’m not going to let you decide what clothes I wear.”
“You already know my opinion.”
“And you know how highly I value it.”
Her being snide just made him all the more determined. “But you can’t ignore Myrtle’s opinion. Or the opinion of everyone in this car. Even Zeke and Hawk.”
“They’re not here.”
“I’ll get them.”
“What for?”
“I want you to put this dress on and let everybody decide whether it makes you look beautiful.”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Myrtle said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Drew said. She looked uncomfortable, cornered.
Cole got to his feet. “Listen up, everybody!” Conversations stopped, and heads turned in his direction. “Drew is going to try on a dress. She wants us to help her decide if she ought to wear it when she performs tomorrow.”
“Sure,” some said. Others nodded their heads.
“Okay,” Cole said to Drew. “Time to step up to the line.”
Drew gave him a look meant to freeze his soul. “You will pay for this.”
Chapter Eleven
Drew decided it ought to be legal to shoot men, especially men like Cole Benton. He had backed her into a comer in front of her friends, challenged her courage, and made it impossible for her to refuse to put on this dress. She didn’t want to wear anything chosen for her by a man, especially not Cole Benton. Besides, she hated pink. She would have preferred to try on one of the other dresses, but Cole had closed even that small avenue of resistance.
She had to go back into the car and subject herself to the judgment of whomever happened to be there. That irritated her, too. All her life she’d made her own decisions. But Cole had made a habit of making decisions for her. She had put up with it so far; that would come to an end right now. She didn’t know what she’d do to get even, but she swore it would be something really wicked.
She left the small compartment and almost ran into one of the cowboys in the narrow passageway. The surprised, wide-eyed look he gave her, answered any question she might have had.
“Is there a party somewhere on this train?” he asked.
She wondered if he hoped she might ask him to go along. “No. I’m just trying on a dress to see if it would be suitable for my act.”
“That would be suitable for just about anything,” the cowboy said, his eyes glued to the dress’s low-cut neck.
“Put your eyes back in your head,” she snapped. “This is purely a business decision.”
“Maybe,” he said with a roguish grin, “but it sure is going to give a lot of people pleasure.”
Drew was tempted to take the dress off immediately, but she refused to let Cole know that discovering she could be an object of lust upset her. She was used to being treated with the respect due to a woman, but without all the nonsense that went along with being a woman in search of a husband, a companion for the evening, a dance partner, or just someone to flirt with. She’d made it clear to everyone she’d met for at least ten years that she had no time for that kind of foolishness.
Now Cole was responsible for changing all that. Another thing he had to answer for. His sins were piling up faster than she could think of punishments.
Be honest. You haven’t been thinking of punishments for at least a week.
There was no point in denying it. She’d been thinking how much she enjoyed his company, how attractive he was, how charming when he decided to smile, how pleasant it was to have someone so attentive to her.
But he’d gone too far this time. She strode toward the car.
“Okay, here it is,” she announced when she stepped into the car. “Be careful what you say,” she said, frowning at everyone in sight. “It won’t take me but a minute to get my guns.”
“Nobody’s going to say anything bad, dear,” Myrtle said.
“They’re not saying anything at all.”
“It’s because they’re in shock,” Cole said.
“What do you mean?” She turned on him, suspicion making her edgy. She had endured more than enough already. She wasn’t going to tolerate anything more.
“You look beautiful,” Myrtle said. “I imagine they’re having trouble finding the words to tell you.”
“Is that what you meant?” she asked Cole.
“Yes.”
“Ί don’t believe you.”
“Look around you.”
Drew turned in a slow circle until she’d looked at the face of every person in the car.
“Do you think I ought to wear this dress, or one like it, in the show tomorrow night?” she asked no one in particular.
Heads nodded. Several people mumbled words of agreement
“You look damned pretty,” someone said. “Never would have suspected it.”
Several people echoed his opinion.
“Nice shoulders,” someone said.
She spun around to identify the voice, but people only smiled at her.
“Great bosom, too.”
She didn’t respond. She knew they were teasing, maybe even baiting her in return for the rough treatment she’d given them since she joined the show. Though it was nice to be thought attractive—if she could trust them to be telling the truth—she didn’t welcome their comments, especially not when they caused Cole Benton to grin so broadly he looked simpleminded.
“I hope you’re satisfied,” Drew said to Cole.
“I won’t be satisfied until you wear that dress for your performance. Come on, fellas,” he said to the men in the car. “Don’t you think Drew ought to wear this dress tomorrow night?”
Clapping hands, stomping feet, and a few sharp whistles made their feelings unmistakable. Drew had never elicited such a reaction from a male audience before. She’d have expected it would make her furious.
It made her blush.
And that made her furious.
“If the men in the audience are going to act like this, I most certainly will not wear this dress.”
“Why not?” Cole asked. “Are you afraid of being treated like a woman?”
“What do you mean by that?”
Cole had never been mean or cruel before, yet today he’d been bullying her from the moment she sat down. She must have offended him in some way, but she couldn’t think how. She’d continued to accept his suggestions for her act. She’d continued to let him catch her. She’d even listened to him when he said she ought to smile and wave at the audience, talk to them once in a while.
That had been difficult for her. Despite her bravura, she was uneasy around people who weren’t part of her family. She could handle any job on the ranch, even recalcitrant cowhands, but she lacked confidence in herself as a woman. She’d gotten around her lack of confidence by divorcing herself from traditional female roles, but Cole wouldn’t allow her that out anymore.
He’d tricked her into putting on this stupid dress, and now everybody was telling her she was pretty. It was hard to disbelieve a whole carload of people, but it wasn’t easy to believe them, either. It was frightening to consider letting down her barriers. She’d accepted that she was a tomboy. She preferred men’s activities to those of women. She had never found a man outside her family she could like or trust, so giving up the idea of a husband and family hadn’t been a problem. She’d never wanted one in the first place.
But she liked Cole even though she was sure he’d lied about being a useless drifter.
“Are you afraid to have men say you’re pretty?” Cole asked.
Yes. Petrified. “Why should I be afraid of that?”
“There’s got to be some reason you insist on dressing in the least attractive manner possible.”
“I dress as I do because it’s comfortable. Who can relax in a dress like this? I’ll tear it or spill gun oil on it. Hell, I can’t even sit down without wrinkling it.”
“It’s cotton,” Myrtle said. “You can wash and iron it.”
She didn’t want to know that. She wanted to go back to her brown clothes and forget about being pretty and having men whistle at her and stare at her bosom. If a man did that while she was wearing her boots and hat, she could draw her gun and threaten to shoot his ears off. But a woman in a pink dress couldn’t do anything except blush and pretend to be too modest to admit she wanted him to do exactly what he was doing.
“I couldn’t wear something like this all the time,” Drew said. “I’d be a nervous wreck.”
“Why, dear?” Myrtle asked.
“Because…” It was impossible to say she didn’t want to be told she was pretty because she might start to believe it. If she let herself believe that, there wouldn’t be any way to stop herself believing in or wanting all kinds of other things. The prospect frightened her. Her life was simple now, and that was the way she liked it. “Because I don’t want to,” she finished lamely. “I don’t like dresses. Never have.”
“You don’t have to wear them all the time,” Cole said. “Just for the show.”
Drew looked at Myrtle, but she got no help.
“You look lovely,” Myrtle said. “You just wait until tomorrow and see if you don’t get more applause than ever.”
“If I don’t, I’ll never put this dress on again,” she told Cole.
He grinned the insolent grin that said he knew he’d won. Again. “You’ll be a sensation. If not, I promise to buy you any boring brown outfit you like.”
“Where does a drifter get enough money to buy clothes for women?”
She thought for a split second he looked startled, but his ready grin appeared.
“I’m not drifting now. I have a job.”
“You’d have to have two jobs to pay for all those clothes.”
“Unlike you, I have nothing against gambling. I had a bit of luck on a riverboat before I got here.”
“I thought gamblers kept going back for more until they lost everything.”
“Some do, but I like drifting even better.”
He was lying. She didn’t know why she was so certain, but she was. She just couldn’t imagine what he could be doing that he wanted to keep secret. She came back to the idea that he might be here to protect Earl’s receipt box. There had been a number of robberies recently in towns where they had played. Earl might have gotten nervous.
She got the feeling Cole was a man who could take care of himself in just about any situation. If Earl did want someone to keep an eye on his cash box, pretending to be a drifter would be a good disguise for a private detective.
But as far as she could tell, Cole hadn’t paid any attention to Earl or his receipt box. Maybe Earl had secretly hired Cole to turn her into a star. Earl had advertised her appearance in the show from the very beginning, more than she thought justified by her popularity. Earl always said a big name star could attract more people than an overall fine show. Drew wasn’t sure about that, but Earl had enough experience to know what he was doing.
Drew made up her mind to find out what Cole was really doing in the show.
“Just as long as you don’t drift until after New Orleans,” she said. “Though if my act goes as well as you think, Earl may want you to come back again next year. Would you consider it?”
The look in his eyes mystified her. It wasn’t shock, confusion, or the panic of a footloose man who sees the prospect of a lifetime of responsibility closing in on him. It was fear. That surprised her. She had assumed Cole wouldn’t be afraid of anything.
“That’s asking a lot,” he said.
He had himself under control now; the charm turned on full blast.
“I might decide to stay in New Orleans. I’ve heard some mighty tempting stories about the women down there.”
“I imagine they’re looking for something better than a drifter with shallow pockets.”
Her retort shocked her. If that wasn’t the response of a jealous woman, she didn’t know anything about women. And while she thought women were often remarkably silly creatures, especially when it came to men, she did know her own sex.
“I understand gambling is right popular in New Orleans. Maybe my pockets won’t stay so shallow.”
She was disgusted at herself for starting this conversation and at Cole for confessing he depended on gambling for his income, at least some of the time.
“I suppose there are women who don’t mind hitching their fortunes to the wind, but I can’t say I think much of the idea. Now I’m going to get out of this dress.”
“Why?” Myrtle asked. “You look so charming in it.”
“It’s sweet of you to say that, Myrtle, but—”
“You don’t have to believe us,” Cole said. “Look around. The men still can’t take their eyes off you.”
“I don’t like being stared at.”
“Even in admiration?”
“No.”
She didn’t think she’d mind being admired if she could believe it was genuine, but she was quite resigned to being plain. She really didn’t mind it Jake and Isabelle had been adamant that their children wouldn’t grow up thinking looks rather than hard work would bring them success. Drew had received more than her share of praise for her accomplishments. She liked work, and she enjoyed its rewards.
She certainly didn’t want men mooning over her just because she had a pretty face. Isabelle always said a pretty face wasn’t much good unless it was backed up by good character and a strong back. Besides, men in the mooning frame of mind were practically useless. They couldn’t think of anything except dancing and flowers and saying silly things about moonlight, eyes, and hair. Confront them with a steer, and they were liable to get run over before they could gather their wits about them.
Still, a little admiration—just once in a while—wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“I promised I’d wear this dress for the show,” she said to Cole, “and I�
��ll keep my promise. But the rest of the time, I wear my own clothes.”
“Fair enough,” Cole said.
“Maybe we can talk Earl into turning her into a mistress of ceremonies,” Myrtle said. “Then she’d have to wear a dress for the whole show.”
“I’ve got an even better idea,” Cole said. “When we arrive at a new town, she can march down the main street giving demonstrations to work up interest in our show.”
“I’m sure the local authorities would love to have me shooting at signs, tree limbs, even birds,” Drew said. “The women and children would probably run screaming from the streets, though I have no doubt the men would love it.”
“Okay, it wasn’t such a good idea. I’ll think of something else.”
“I’m sure you will. In the meantime, I’m going to change. By the way, I’ll pay for these dresses.”
“You don’t have to. They’re my gift to you.”
“I don’t take gifts from men. Either I pay for them, or you take them back to the store.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I guess you’re stuck with three dresses. I’ll return this one to you as soon as I can take it off. I’m sure you’ll find someone who’ll wear them.”
For once, she had the upper hand, and Cole knew it. He flashed the grin that was rapidly destroying her self-control.
“Okay, you can pay for them.”
Drew left the car, but she couldn’t banish the image of Cole’s sexy grin. What did she mean thinking he had a sexy grin? No such thought had ever crossed her mind before. He wasn’t beautiful the way Matt and Will were beautiful. He wasn’t sultry like Luke or Chet. He didn’t tower over her with bulging muscles like Sean. Most important of all, he didn’t have the bedrock integrity and sense of responsibility Jake had. There shouldn’t be anything about Cole Benton to make her look twice.
She reached the compartment, locked the door behind her, and started to unbutton the offending pink dress.
Maybe Isabelle was right. There were all kinds of men in the world, some of whom appealed to women for no accountable reason. Obviously Cole Benton was one of those men, but never in a thousand years would she have thought she’d be one of those women. She was too sensible, too aware of the failings of men, too certain of what she wanted to do with her life. Now she kept thinking of Cole as somehow showing up at her ranch and staying… forever.
Drew (The Cowboys) Page 14