The Invitation Read online

  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 passengers. 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 damn 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 passengers 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.”

  “Liar!” Dorie screamed at him, then spit for emphasis.

  Cole hated to admit it, but that gesture shocked him. Where’d she learn to do such a vulgar thing?

  Ford began to laugh—an ugly sound because it wasn’t something he did very often. His laughter sounded like the wheel of a wagon that had been rusted by the weather for a couple of years and now was trying to roll without being greased.

  “Who am I supposed to believe, you or this little lady?”

  “Don’t believe him. He does nothing but lie!” Dorie yelled. “He lied to my sister and to me. He lies to everyone. He got shot, and he couldn’t earn any money killing people anymore, so he sweet-talked me into marrying him, then forced my sister to give him all the gold she had. He was taking me back to Latham to get the rest of it. I think he means to kill me and burn my daddy’s house down. I think—”

  “Shut up!” Cole shouted at her, effectively making her instantly stop talking. He turned to Ford. “She’s trying to save my life. There is no gold; she has no gold anywhere. She’s as poor as a squatter. Your beef is with me, not her. Dorie, walk down to the far end of the train and stay out of this.”

  “Ha!” she said. “I’d rather die than do more thing you tell me to do. You can’t imagine the horrible things he’s made me do. Disgusting things that no lady should have to live through.” She ran to Ford, put her hands on his stirrup straps and looked up at him with pleading eyes. “I’m not poor. If I were poor I wouldn’t be traveling in a private train car, would I? I’m not trying to save his life. I hate him. He’s taken so much from me, and I want it back. Get him to tell me where he’s hidden the gold. Then you can kill him. I care nothing about him. Nothing.”

  Cole could see that Ford was beginning to listen to her. “Gold” was the only