The Invitation Read online

  Chapter Three

  Damn it to hell and back!” Cole swore under his breath, or at least he thought he swore quietly. In fact, his cussing was so loud and so lusty that his landlady opened the door and came into his room. She was a widow who had inherited the house on the death of her husband, and even though she had had many offers, she wanted nothing to do with another husband. She’d told Cole that she was happy having men to talk to but not having them kicking her in bed at night.

  “What is wrong now?” she asked in that tone of a woman who had been married for a long time and had decided that there was little difference between children and men.

  “Nothing I need any help with,” he spat out, his back to her. He was completely embarrassed that he couldn’t seem to button his shirt, much less his trousers, with his right arm in a cast and a sling. And on top of the awkwardness of using his left hand, it hurt like a son of a gun.

  Immediately his landlady understood what his problem was, came around him, and began to fasten his clothing as though he were her son. Of course she had to stand on tiptoe to reach the top buttons, mainly because in an effort to keep his pride intact, Cole had lifted his chin and straightened his back as stiff as the barrel of a rifle.

  Mrs. Harrison smiled indulgently up at him and thanked the Lord she had not remarried. “You remember that little girl who came to see you several days back? The one you rescued at the bank?”

  “I’d hardly call her a girl.”

  “At my age I can call anyone a girl.”

  He doubted if Mrs. Harrison was forty-five, but she liked to pretend she was older: it gave her an excuse to offer to the many men who asked her—and her money—to marry them.

  She gave him a motherly push to get him seated in a chair and then began to put his socks and boots on. Cole hated what she was doing, and he knew he could do it himself, but at the same time he rather liked this attention. Maybe he was getting old. He knew where this thought had come from, so when he spoke, his voice was sharp. “What about her?”

  “Her sister came to town.”

  “Rowena?” he asked, startled and showing far too much curiosity.

  “I guess that’s her name. You know the whole family?”

  “I don’t know anything about them. And I don’t care, either. They aren’t my concern.”

  To his great annoyance, his gossipy landlady didn’t say another word. Finally, Cole had to say something. “I hear she’s a looker.”

  Mrs. Harrison tried to keep her mouth from twitching into a smile, letting Cole know that she knew he wanted to know everything. She didn’t quite succeed, but they both pretended she was talking because she wanted to and he was listening to be polite.

  “She is the most beautiful woman in the world. She has to be. You should see her. She got off the train today—from her own car, mind you!—and every man within a hundred feet stopped dead in his tracks. She is a stunner. And as nice as can be. When four men fought over who was going to carry her bags, you’d have thought that no man had ever offered to carry anything for her before, she was that gracious. Acted surprised, even. Of course a woman that beautiful didn’t start out as an ugly duckling. It took her years to get that pretty, so you know she’s had boys fighting to carry things for her all her life.”

  Cole wasn’t sure why, but this overlong tribute to Rowena’s beauty annoyed him. “Yes, yes, I’m sure she’s beautiful, but how is Miss Latham? She wasn’t hurt in the fracas, was she?”

  “You mean did all those cowboys carryin’ the bags trample her? They almost did, but the sheriff—”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “He came runnin’ out to welcome this beautiful woman. You know, this is an awful thought, but if she had an inclination toward dishonesty, she could make a fortune. She could come into one end of a town, everybody’d rush to see her, and her partners could rob the other end of town blind and get away scot-free.”

  “Would you spare me your criminal plans? I wasn’t asking about a herd of stupid cowboys who think any woman who’s clean is beautiful, I was asking about Miss Latham and the bank robbery. You do remember that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting so snippy about,” she said, straightening up after pulling his second boot on. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Unless you’re sweet on that little Miss Latham.”

  “I’m not sweet on any woman. I was interested, that’s all.” But he knew that wasn’t all. Damn it, he couldn’t help it; he felt sorry for the little thing. What would it be like to be near a beauty like her sister? And what was that sister doing here in Abilene? Couldn’t she leave her plain-faced little sister alone instead of following her around the country and showing everyone the great difference between the two of them?

  “Are you all right?” his landlady asked.

  “Of course I’m all right,” he snapped, then fumbled with his watch as he tried to put it in his pocket and nearly dropped it. He fought a wave of pain when he caught it with the fingers of his injured right hand.

  “You should get back into bed.”

  “And you should mind your own business.”

  She stiffened her back. She was used to men wanting to hear all the gossip in town, then pretending they had no interest in it, but Cole’s bad temper was more than she cared to deal with. “Suit yourself,” she said, her nose in the air.

  Chapter Four

  Even as Cole raised his hand to knock on the door of the room the hotel euphemistically called the Presidential Suite, he felt as though he should run away. This was none of his business; he had nothing to do with the sharp-tongued Miss Latham and her pushy sister. It had been four hours since his landlady had told him of the arrival of the beautiful older sister of the plain Miss Latham, and during that time Cole had heard of little else from the townspeople. He’d heard how the elder sister was so sweet and kind, so unaware of her incredible beauty.

  Yeah, Cole thought, like a buck is unaware of a hunter. Like one gunfighter is unaware of another gunfighter entering town.

  When one had beauty, one was aware of it. As well he knew. Miss Latham had said he’d been called the handsomest man in Texas, a title which, according to her, he no longer deserved. At the time some newspaper writer, a girl not much better looking than Miss Latham, had called him that, he’d hated the title. But he hadn’t been surprised by it. No one blessed with beauty is unaware of it. All your life heads turn, people do double takes on you. When Cole was a boy, girls and women had wanted to touch his black curly hair, and after he grew up, women had wanted to touch his body. Never in his life had he had trouble getting any woman he wanted.

  Until this week, that is. First Miss Latham tells him he’s…What was it she said? Hard-jawed? Squint-eyed?

  Anyway, he told himself, that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had offered him cash for a job—an incredibly stupid job, but it was work. And now, with a busted arm and canceled contracts, he needed work. He had no intention of pretending to be married to her, but it did look as though she needed protection from a sister so greedy that she wasn’t satisfied until she had the attention of every man, woman, and child in Abilene.

  In the two days Mrs. Rowena Whatever-her-name-was had been in town, she seemed to have had some contact with everyone. Cole couldn’t go into a store, a saloon, or even the cathouse without hearing about her. Nina had said she heard that Cole knew the younger sister. “You know,” she’d said, “that washed-out little lady with the brown hair. Can you imagine the same woman giving birth to two daughters that different? No wonder she stopped after the second one.” And Nina had wanted to know if Cole could find out how Rowena made her hair so glossy and soft-looking. “If that woman wanted to take up the profession, she could make millions,” Nina said. “You ought to suggest it to her.”

  After a few hours of this Cole had had enough of the talented Mrs. Rowena. He seemed to be the only person in town who hadn’t fallen for her. Maybe that was because he was the