The Invitation Read online

  “Really, Mr. Hunter, it’s much too hot for a cape,” Dorie said, sliding away from him while looking innocently over her shoulder.

  When the men around them began to chuckle, Cole was sure that if he hadn’t wanted to kill them before, he did now.

  “Could someone help me mount?” Dorie asked in her best southern belle tone, fluttering her eyelashes. “I think this velvet is just toooo heavy.” She didn’t say the words, “too heavy for little ol’ me,” but they were there.

  Amazingly, considering he had the use of only one arm, Cole managed to swoop her off the ground and slam her into the saddle so hard her teeth jarred. Dorie didn’t so much as lose her smile.

  Nor did she lose her smile during the thirty minutes it took to ride down to the town, during which time Cole lectured her nonstop. He talked to her “for her own good” about the way she was displaying herself, making a public spectacle of herself. He even said the sun was going to ruin her complexion. He talked to her about the way men were going to think of her. When he said, “What would your father say?” Dorie began to laugh. Never in her life had she inspired jealousy in anyone, and she had to admit that it felt rather nice to have a man like Cole Hunter jealous because other men were looking at her.

  “What will the men in town think when they see me?” she asked softly, leaning back against him.

  “That you are a woman of the streets,” he answered quickly.

  “If you saw me, what would you think?” she asked before he could continue assassinating her morals.

  Cole started to tell her that he’d think she was for sale, but he couldn’t. No matter what Dorie was wearing, there was still a look-but-don’t-touch attitude haloing her.

  “I would think you were beautiful. I would think you were an angel come to life,” he said softly as he kissed her bare shoulder.

  That was more than enough for her. “I love you,” she whispered, meaning the words with all her soul.

  Cole paused in kissing her shoulder, but he didn’t answer. He couldn’t allow himself to say what he felt. A woman as clean and as good as Dorie deserved more in life than an aging gunslinger. She deserved the best there was. And right now he wished he were a man who deserved her.

  Cole’s mind was taken away from Dorie when Ford rode past them and said, “You know, Hunter, you two are so damned entertainin’ I’m gonna hate killin’ you if I find you’ve played me for a fool. I don’t like card cheats and I don’t like liars.”

  As he rode away, Dorie said, “But I’ll bet he likes lizards, because his mother must have been one.”

  Cole didn’t answer her.

  Chapter Ten

  Dorie,” Cole said, his lips near her ear, trying his best to ignore the fact that the upper half of her body was nearly bare. “I want you to listen to me and listen well. You understand me?”

  She nodded, knowing that he was planning to tell her something awful.

  “I found out what they plan to do with us.”

  She knew it must be serious or he wouldn’t have waited until they were nearly at the town before saying anything to her.

  “We’re not going to stay in town. It seems that a man who hates Ford”—he stopped to make a sound that said, Is there any other kind?—“an old enemy of his is in town, and Ford doesn’t want to see him. I thought we’d have a chance if we were surrounded by other people, but that’s not to be. Ford plans to get supplies and some beer and head out into the hills. I think he means to make us tell him where the gold is or we don’t leave the hills alive.”

  His arm tightened around her waist. “I’m going to try to get Ford to take me into the saloon with him, and while I’m there I’ll create a diversion and try to get a gun. When I have the gun I’ll come back to the street and steal a horse and ride out south. I want you to stay on the horse, and when you hear the distraction, I want you to ride north. If I don’t come out of the saloon or if you hear shots, you’re to ride north as hard and as fast as you can. Don’t even look back. Understand?”

  “Where do we meet?”

  He took a breath. “We don’t.” When she tried to look back at him he wouldn’t let her. “Dorie, we’ve done what we set out to do. I was able to keep your sister from forcing you to marry Mr. Pepper, but you can see that there can be nothing else between us. I have too many enemies.”

  Dorie knew that he was worried about her, and he was choosing to give up everything in life so she could be safe. The town was close now, and she had only a few minutes to make the most important decision of her life. “Do you love me?” she asked.

  “That has nothing to do with—”

  “Do you love me?” she demanded.

  “Yes,” he said, “but what I feel means nothing. It will mean less than nothing if you’re dead.”

  She turned in the saddle to look at him. “If you could, would you like to live in Latham with me? Help me manage the town?”

  Smiling, he kissed her nose. “I’d like nothing better than to have my own bed, my own house, my own…” He looked at her hair, at her lips, at her eyes, knowing he was probably seeing her for the last time. If he didn’t get killed within the next hour, he’d ride away one direction and send her off in another. It would be difficult but he would never allow himself to visit her in her peaceful little town. She deserved better than to be hooked for life to an “aging gunslinger.”

  “Dorie,” he said, and put his hand on the back of her neck to turn her face to kiss him. A good-bye kiss.

  But she turned away and wouldn’t kiss him.

  In spite of his good intentions, anger ran through Cole. Maybe she wouldn’t kiss him because she was seeing him as he truly was: the one who had gotten them into this mess. Maybe the mention of her precious town had made her realize what he was and who she was.

  When they entered the town, Cole’s jaw was set into a hard line. He would do what he could to get her out unharmed and that would be all that was between them.

  Dorie refused to kiss Cole because she felt as though it would be saying good-bye. And she was not going to say good-bye after she’d spent a lifetime trying to find a man like him. She loved him and she meant to keep him. Alive.

  Of course she had no idea how to go about preventing him from getting shot on her account, but she hoped she’d think of something.

  The first thing that went wrong with Cole’s hastily concocted plan was that Ford said they both had to go into the saloon with him. She knew Cole wanted one of Ford’s men to stay outside and guard her, but Ford didn’t want the group to be separated. In this he was wise, but Dorie doubted the wisdom of stopping for a bottle or two of whiskey while trying to hold a man like Cole Hunter prisoner.

  Racing through her head was the fact that Cole planned to create a diversion. What did that mean to a man with his background? Perhaps he’d start a fight, and in the ensuing tussle Dorie was supposed to run out the door, jump on a horse, and be long gone by the time the men realized she was missing. Was that what he thought of her as a person? She’d told him she loved him. Did he think she loved him only when things were going well and that when they got bad she’d run away?

  For a moment after they entered the saloon, Dorie was too sun-dazzled to see much, but as her eyes cleared, she saw even less. There seemed to be a lot of smoke, and judging by the smell, at least as much beer had been spilled as had been drunk. There were men everywhere, but they weren’t men who looked as though they attended church on Sundays. They held their cards or their drinks while looking about the room as though every person was an enemy.

  There were some women too, slouched about the room, their eyes dead. Dorie had heard of such “bad” women and had always thought they were dangerous and fatally alluring. She thought such women must know a great deal about the secrets of men, but the women in this saloon just looked dirty and tired. She had a feeling that what they’d like best in all the world was a tub full of hot water, a bar of scented soap, and a good night’s sleep.

  All in all,