Pete grinned. “Never do any hard thinking before you go to bed. It’ll give you nightmares.”
“I almost never have nightmares.”
“I do.”
About Indian massacres. She remembered. “I won’t be very long.”
“Take your time. I’m going out. I need to talk to some of the other ranchers about the best way to get our cows to market.”
She felt pleased that he talked with her about the ranch. She’d never felt she was capable of being responsible for anything. Even the clothes she wore, the food she ate, had been chosen for her. She wasn’t quite ready for the new vision of herself Pete was creating, but she meant to be soon. Until Pete showed up, no one had ever felt she was capable of anything more complicated than cleaning a room or helping cook dinner. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do it, but she was determined to prove herself worthy of Pete’s faith in her.
She felt a little disappointed he was leaving, but she really hadn’t expected him to spend his whole evening talking to her. Uncle Carl always said no woman had enough to say to interest a man for more than ten minutes. Pete was showing signs of being pretty smart, maybe as smart as Uncle Carl. She was lucky he’d spent as much time with her as he had. “When will you be back?”
She shouldn’t have asked. Men hated it when women wanted to know what they were doing.
“It depends on how long it takes to get the information I need. Don’t wait up for me.”
She would.
“Now that I’ll be out of the room, you can take a long bath. The clerk said we’re the only people here tonight, so there ought to be plenty of hot water. Cover yourself with powder. Pamper and cosset yourself all you want. We’ll be going back to the ranch tomorrow, and it’ll be a long time before you get to spend the night in a hotel again.”
Pete was surprised at himself for returning to the hotel so quickly, but he was honest enough to admit it had little to do with the fact that he’d gotten more than enough information about the condition of the range, along the shipping routes, from the first man he talked to. The whole time the man was talking about the lack of rain, the stupidity of ranchers in dumping new herds on range that was already overburdened, the advantages and problems associated with various routes to a railhead, Pete kept thinking of Anne.
In a bathtub.
When the man invited him to join several others in a convivial gathering of ranchers and local business leaders, he’d declined the invitation, saying he wanted to be up early in the morning, that he needed to get his business finished so he could reach home before dark. And all the time he kept thinking about Anne.
In a bathtub.
The man had laughed and made a bawdy comment about newlyweds. Of course Pete didn’t tell him his situation wasn’t anything like what the rancher supposed.
Even before he reached their room, Pete heard the sounds of someone singing softly. The singing stopped abruptly when he opened the door. “It’s just me,” he called out.
She didn’t answer.
“Are you in the bathtub?”
“Yes.” The answer came after a moment of hesitation.
“How long have you been in?”
Another hesitation. “I’ll get out.”
“Stay as long as you like. I’m in no rush.”
Quiet. He couldn’t even hear sounds of the water as she moved about in the tub.
“What were you singing when I came in?”
“Just a song.”
“It was pretty. Why don’t you finish it?”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“It won’t bother me. I like it. You’ve got a pretty voice.”
Pearl, his best friend’s wife, was the only singer he’d ever really paid attention to. She had been the star attraction of her own saloon when Sean met her. She had a big, robust voice, one that could float the high notes and hammer out the low notes, all with a power and energy that made it impossible to sit still.
Anne’s voice was light and sweet, the sound almost feathery. It had none of Pearl’s assertiveness, none of her bold confidence. It almost apologized for itself. Yet it was that lack of self-assurance that made it so compelling. It practically begged you not to pass it by in favor of bigger, brassier, more colorful sounds.
Pete could have ignored big, brassy, and colorful. He’d heard it all too often. It was the plaintive quality that tugged at him in a way nothing else had before.
She started to sing again, softly, tentatively. He crossed the room and stood just outside the bathroom door. He leaned against the wall and let the moist, aromatic heat tease his sense of smell as it wafted its way into the bedroom. Sound and smell. Together they began to weave a spell around him in which there were no stolen saddlebags, no accusations of being an imposter, no murdered husband who stood between them, a spell in which the attraction between them grew stronger and stronger until it became like a physical pull.
Anne’s voice cut off abruptly in a squeak. He found himself inside the bathroom, staring at her in the bathtub. She looked like some black-haired sprite buried in a mound of bubbles.
“What do you want?” She looked and sounded fearful.
“I thought you might like me to wash your back.” He had no idea where the words came from. Clearly that thought hadn’t occurred to Anne, either. She looked at him wide-eyed, surprised, shocked, and he thought… hoped … just a little bit intrigued.
“I never heard of a man washing a woman’s back,” she said. “My father never did anything like that.”
“Jake does it all the time,” he said. “At least that’s what my friend says. He says Isabelle would be upset if he didn’t.”
Her look implied she couldn’t believe him, that such a thing was too far from her experience to accept, but that a small part of her was strongly attracted to the idea.
“We’re married,” Pete said. “It wouldn’t be improper. If you don’t like it, I’ll stop.”
He couldn’t imagine why he was doing this. He’d never washed a woman’s back before. Well, not a nice woman’s back. He had no intention of letting any kind of feeling warmer than friendship develop between them. She was married to someone else. He was crazy to be standing in the bathroom, staring at her. He was insane even to think about washing her back, much less offer to do it.
What did he think he was going to do—wash her back, get himself completely stirred up, then go quietly to bed with her lying only inches from him? That bullet must have addled his brain. He would back out of there as fast as he could. Forget how adorable she looked, her big black eyes wide with shock, wonder, and… he was certain of it now … expectation.
“Okay.”
Too late! One word, and he was lost.
Chapter Nine
Anne couldn’t believe she’d given Pete permission to wash her back. Who’d ever heard of such a thing? Dolores had never mentioned it. She was certain her father hadn’t done it. She wondered if all men outside her circle of acquaintance did things like this, or if Pete was the only one. It seemed terribly daring, even immodest.
You’re married, you foolish girl. This man is your husband. There can’t be any impropriety in a husband washing his wife’s back. He just told you Jake did it for Isabelle all the time. For all you know, they‘re the most respectable married couple in the whole world.
But Anne realized that up until this moment she had never felt as if Pete was her husband. Everyone treated them as husband and wife. They slept in the same bedroom, in the same bed. As soon as the lawyer sent it, they would have a piece of paper saying they were married. Yet, she’d continued to feel that they were just friends, like when they were children, only this time Pete had taken the role of leader.
Thinking of Pete as her husband rather than her friend changed everything. She wanted him to find her attractive. She liked his talking to her as an adult, sharing information about the ranch, but she wanted a different kind of sharing, too. She wanted to be close to him, and being close me
ant touching.
Pete stepped into the bathroom and started rolling up his sleeves. “Where is the soap?”
She felt around in the water until she found it. “Here,” she said, holding up the dripping bar to him.
“Would you rather I use a brush or my hands?” he asked.
A brush sounded too rough, his hands too intimate. “Your hands.”
She couldn’t believe what she was doing, what she was saying. How could she let a man—even though that man was her husband—wash her back?
She wasn’t sure when it happened—she’d been totally unaware of it at the time—but her feelings toward Pete had changed. Maybe it came from his letting her buy practically anything she wanted. Maybe it was when he paraded her through the town. No, it must have been when he told her she was beautiful, that he was proud to be her husband. No woman could keep from falling in love with a man who said something like that.
That phrase exploded on her consciousness. Falling in love! Wasn’t she already in love with Pete? She thought she’d been in love with him for years. She’d never thought of any other man as being her husband. Never wanted any other man. She had felt repulsed by Belser and Cyrus. She’d thought about Pete and dreamed about him for years. Yet what she felt now was different.
She jumped when his hands touched her skin.
“Is my hand cold?”
“A little.”
He swirled it around in the water behind her back. “It’ll be warm in a minute.”
She leaned forward, scooted down a little more to make certain her breasts stayed hidden under the bubbles. She couldn’t be certain his hand was cold. Or hot. The electric shock that blazed though her at his touch seemed to sear her nerves. Yet her body shuddered. Anticipation of his second touch made it hard to breathe.
“This is supposed to relax you”—she flinched when he touched her again—“not tie you in knots.”
“It’s the first time a man has touched me,” Anne said. “I can’t help it.”
“Then we’ll talk,” Pete said. “That will help take your mind off it.”
Anne didn’t think she had enough presence of mind to answer a direct question, much less carry on a conversation. Pete’s hand was moving back and forth over her right shoulder. Every nerve seemed to have suddenly moved to that part of her body.
“What makes all these bubbles?” Pete asked.
“Bath soap,” Anne managed to reply. “The lady at The Emporium said the army wives bought it all the time.”
“It smells good.”
“It’s lavender. She said it was an English herb.”
“I wonder if the whole country smells like this?”
“She didn’t say.” She couldn’t imagine a whole country smelling this good. Pete shifted his attention to the other shoulder. Nearly all her nerve endings followed him, but a few remained, giving the freshly scrubbed shoulder a tingling sensation.
“I don’t suppose it does. I’ve met a lot of Englishmen. I think they’d have mentioned something like this.”
“Where could you meet so many Englishmen in Illinois?” She could have sworn she heard him curse under his breath.
“They were headed out to the goldfields. They would load up on supplies before they left.”
“You must have met a lot of interesting people.” His hand had slipped off her shoulder down to her arm. She held it up so he could get to it more easily.
“What else did you buy this afternoon?”
“I bought some powder that smells like this soap.”
“I guess I’ll feel like I’m sleeping in a bed of lavender tonight.”
The possible implications of that statement caused Anne to flush and her skin to burn.
“Lean forward so I can get to your back,” Pete said.
Anne leaned so far forward, her nose nearly touched the bubbles.
“Don’t disappear,” Pete said. “I’d have to crawl in and fish you out.”
Anne hadn’t thought she could flush any warmer, but she was wrong. She was certain the water would be hotter when she got out of the bathtub than when she got in.
“There’s not enough room,” she said.
“A tight fit would make it all that much more fun.”
Anne decided people did things in Illinois they simply knew nothing about in Wyoming Territory. She very much wanted to ask Pete if he’d ever gotten in a bathtub with a female, but she hadn’t the courage. She didn’t know what she’d do if he said yes … or if he asked to get in the bathtub with her.
Yes, she did. She’d faint. Drown. And that would be the end of that.
“Don’t panic. I’m not going to jump in with you. I’d ruin my new clothes.”
The old Peter would never have considered such a thing. She doubted the new Pete would be deterred by much of anything, certainly not a few wet clothes. The more changes she discovered in him, the more she marveled that one man could have changed so much. Uncle Carl had always said that keeping him on the ranch would have made a man out of him. Apparently Illinois was able to do just as well.
“You must have bought something besides soap and powder,” Pete said.
It was hard to think with Pete’s hand moving over her back in slow circles. It did nothing to reduce her temperature or ease the tension in her muscles. Or clear the mush out of her brain. She couldn’t remember half the things she’d bought. “I bought some body oil. The woman said it would make my skin soft and smooth.”
“It’s already soft and smooth. It feels like silk.”
Anne had never seen or felt silk until that morning when the lady brought out a dress made of a deep-green material that moved and shimmered like a shaft of emerald light. The material felt so soft, so smooth. Anne thought it was wonderful that Pete would compare her skin to that magical material.
“I’ll rub some on your back after you get out of the bathtub,” Pete said.
Anne was certain she didn’t have the strength to get out of the tub. “I don’t know …”
“You can’t reach your back. All of you ought to be soft and silky.”
Anne didn’t trust her sensory perceptions anymore—nothing in her body was working like it should—but she was certain Pete’s voice had changed in quality. He spoke more slowly, deliberately, at a lower pitch, with more breath in the sound. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said he was just as strongly affected by the situation as she. But that couldn’t be. Pete knew all about two people in the same bathtub. She couldn’t even imagine such a thing.
Much to her surprise she found she could. In fact, she was imagining it at that very moment.
“A little bit more, and we’ll be done,” Pete said.
He was washing low down on her back, so low she felt his fingertips on her hips. She thought she felt his breath on her shoulders. She hoped not. If she did, she might faint for sure.
“There, all done.” He stood up and dried his hands on the towel. “Do you need me to help you out of the tub?”
“No! I can do that myself.”
That would expose all of her body to his view. She was certain she couldn’t stand that. It didn’t matter that he was her husband, that they had slept in the same bed together. What really mattered was that she’d just become fully aware of the physical nature of his presence, and it had shocked her nearly witless. She would need time to recover, to get used to the idea that a husband had the right to put his hands all over his wife’s body.
To get used to the idea that she wanted him to touch her.
At the moment, she was inclined to think the second thought was the more shocking of the two.
Pete practically staggered back into the bedroom. He couldn’t say just why he’d volunteered to wash Anne’s back—his mind was acting too peculiarly for him to know just what was going on with it—but he did know it was a crazy thing to have done. And what on earth had prompted him to tease her about crawling into the bathtub with her? He was losing control of a situation that required the mos
t careful management if he was to get out of it with a whole skin.
He sank down on the bed but got up almost immediately. The vision that sprang into his mind was guaranteed to keep his mind and body in turmoil.
He reminded himself that Anne was legally married to another man. He might be able to get away with pretending to be Peter Warren, but he wasn’t Peter, and taking advantage of Anne would be the same as raping her.
No, that wasn’t true. He would never force himself on a woman who didn’t want him. It would be just his luck that any day now Anne would decide they had had enough time to become reacquainted and she wanted him to make love to her. What excuse could he offer then? More important, could he resist? He was safe during the day. He could keep his distance, involve himself in work. Other people were around.
But during the night! He didn’t want to think about it.
He walked over to the window, raised the blind, and looked out. The view from the window was of the Big Horn Mountains in the distance, their silhouette outlined by the moonlight that poured down on the hills from clear, star-filled skies. He could hear occasional sounds from the street in front of the hotel, see parts of buildings outlined by the shadowy light coming from inside the various saloons that would remain open all night. Behind the hotel, the waters of Clear Creek tumbled over the rocky streambed on their way from the Big Horn Mountains to the Powder River and on north to the Missouri River.
But nothing outside the hotel could make Pete forget that Anne was in the bathroom, in the bathtub, naked, and that he’d offered to rub oil on her back.
Just the thought of it made his body swell. He cursed. Tight pants were meant to make a cowboy’s work of riding and wrangling easier. They weren’t meant to accommodate an aroused condition. Or disguise it. If he didn’t think of something quick, he’d have to duck out the door before Anne emerged from the bathroom. Seeing him in this condition might give her heart failure.
He wondered again at her reluctance to share her body with the man she thought was her husband. He could understand her initial shyness. Regardless of how much she thought she loved Peter Warren, seeing him as a man rather than the boy she remembered had to have been a shock. She would have needed some time to readjust her thinking. Maybe a few hours. Maybe even a few days. But any girl who had grown into womanhood ought to be glad the boy she remembered had grown into manhood, especially if that boy was her husband.
Pete (The Cowboys) Page 12