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
only person who understood her. Beauty was an odd thing. An ugly person and a beautiful one could perform the same bad deed, yet the ugly one would be judged much more harshly than the pretty one. He’d seen that happen time and again. He’d watched members of the same gang, caught in the same holdup, get sentences based on their looks. When he’d heard that ol’ No-nose Wilson had finally been caught, he knew he had no chance of leniency. Wilson was hanged twenty-four hours after he was caught. But the good-looking Billy Whittier had three times conned pretty girls into helping him escape the wheels of justice.
So now this Rowena was charming, and conning, the entire town. And meanwhile she was plowing her meek little sister under. Well, perhaps “meek” wasn’t the correct word to describe Miss Latham, but compared to the attention-hungry Rowena she was spineless.
Of course none of this explained why he was here at the door of Miss Latham’s hotel room now. He wasn’t really thinking of taking her job offer. What kind of job was it for a man to pretend anything? He had always prided himself on his honesty. So how could he even think of taking on a job that required nothing but lies? No guns, no diplomacy, just one lie on top of the other.
As he raised his hand to knock, he had a vision of what he’d see: little Miss Latham waiting hand and foot on her gorgeous, lazy, spoiled sister.
He was not prepared for the dream that opened the door. He had expected sophistication, a woman swathed in silk and lace, a face painted into perfection. Instead, his first sight of Rowena caught him off guard. Her face—her beautiful, exquisite face—was shiny clean, and all ten or so bushels of her auburn hair were pulled back into a fat braid that was draped over one shoulder. Huge eyes the color of a pond in the moonlight—not green, not gray—looked up at him with disarming innocence.
“Hello,” she said in a soft voice that betrayed nothing except graciousness and gentle curiosity. A second later her face somehow became more radiant. “You are Mr. Hunter, the man who saved Dorie’s life. Oh, you must come in. This is an honor. Please sit here. Dorie, do look who is here.”
As yet, Cole hadn’t said a word. He was ushered into the room and given the most comfortable chair. A table with an ashtray appeared next to him, then a glass of whiskey and a cigar, everything seeming to come from nowhere. Within minutes he felt as though this were his home and he had lived here in comfort always.
“How is your arm?” Rowena asked, leaning over him in solicitude. “The doctor says it will be a long while before you have full use of that arm again. It still amazes me that a man who had as much to lose as you did would risk his life to save someone he hardly knew. Never will I be able to thank you enough.”
Cole found himself smiling into those startling eyes of hers and nearly drowning in them. When he spoke he sounded like a green boy. “It was nothing, really. Any man would have done it.” He sipped the whiskey, knowing it was the best he’d ever tasted. Had she brought it from England with her? And the cigar was mild and flavorful. He had never been more comfortable in his life.
“Any man?” Rowena said, smiling. “You are as modest as you are talented and brave. Isn’t he wonderful, Dorie?”
Rowena stepped back to allow Cole to see her sister, and he realized he had been so blinded by Rowena’s beauty and gracious hospitality, not to mention her flattery, that he had not even seen Miss Latham. If he’d thought her drab before, now, next to her sister’s radiance, she was difficult to see. But then, a peacock in full show would have been drab next to Rowena.
Miss Latham was half reclining on a couch, a bandaged foot extended in front of her, and the look on her face made Cole come to his senses. Miss Latham was smirking. She had an I-told-you-so expression on her face that brought him up short, made him look back at the way he had been swept off his feet by the lovely Rowena.
Cole opened his mouth to defend himself. Not that he had been accused, but the silent communication that had passed between him and Miss Latham was loud and clear.
Immediately Cole put the whiskey and the cigar down and sat up straight in his chair. “I came to see how Miss Latham was after her fright at the bank,” he said. “I hope she is well.” Even as he spoke, he was annoyed with himself for talking to Rowena. What was wrong with him? He’d seen beautiful women before, but then, there was something different about this woman. She seemed unaware of the effect she had on people. She looked as fresh as morning sunlight, as innocent as dew on grass, as sweet as—
“Rowena, I do believe you have another man in love with you,” he heard Miss Latham say.
“How ridiculous you are, Dorie,” Rowena said. “Mr. Hunter came to see you. Look, he can hardly take his eyes off you.”
Some sense of reality was coming back to Cole, and as he looked from one woman to another, he saw that what Miss Latham had said was true: Rowena did love her sister very much. And it occurred to him that Rowena had no idea that her beloved sister was anything less than divinely beautiful. In fact, maybe Rowena saw everyone that way.
For just a second he exchanged a look with Miss Latham that asked that question, and he was rewarded with one of her rare tiny smiles. It was ridiculous, of course, but that little smile made him feel good. It made him feel part of something that no one else was. Rowena might be the one with the looks, but her colorless little sister was the one with the brains.
“Mrs…. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“It’s Westlake, but please call me Rowena. I’ve heard so much about you that I feel I know you.”
“Oh?” he asked archly. “Miss Latham has told you about me?” It made him feel good to have caught the younger sister in something. She was too self-assured for his taste, so it was nice to find out that she had been affected by him as much as he had by her.
“Why no,” Rowena said in innocence. “Dorie hasn’t said a word about you, or about what happened at the bank. I’ve heard everything from all the people in town.”
At that Miss Latham gave him a little raised-eyebrow look that told him she knew what he was thinking.
Damnation, but that woman annoyed him! “Rowena, why are you here?” he asked, sounding like a controlling father. He had not meant to ask that. He had no connection with Miss Latham, nor any interest in her. He had toyed with the idea of taking her job offer, but he could now see that it wouldn’t work, mainly because little Miss Latham made him think of nothing but murdering her.
Rowena laughed, and it was a very sweet sound—as he would have guessed it would be. “I’ve come to help my sister make up her mind,” she said with disarming honesty. She had the ability to make a man feel that she trusted him and him alone. “Dorie can never make up her mind.” She smiled at him in such a way that he could feel his socks melting. “You see, Mr. Hunter—”
“Cole,” he said.
“How kind of you,” she said, as though he had bestowed a great gift upon her. She continued. “There’s a wonderful man in Latham—that’s where we grew up and where Dorie still lives—who has been in love with my little sister for years, and I’m going to do my best to persuade her to see the light and marry him.”