The Invitation (Montgomery/Taggert 19)

Also, there was something about this woman that intrigued him. Maybe he’d spent too much of his life around women of the wrong sort. Maybe all “good” women were like her, if you got to know them, but he doubted it.

Maybe his problem was that she offered him a challenge, and a challenge was something he’d never been able to turn down. All anyone had to say to him was “Cole, you’ll never be able to do that,” and the hair on the back of his neck would stand up, and he would know that he had to do whatever his challenger had said he couldn’t accomplish.

Miss Latham seemed to be reading his mind. She seemed to understand that he was beginning to think this was something he wanted to do. She took a deep breath, and when she released it, she gave him a look of great softness, a look that made Cole realize she was prettier than he’d first thought. “This is very kind of you, but now I must ask you to be reasonable. In light of what just happened, you must see that you and I cannot even pretend to be engaged. It is not possible.”

Sometimes this woman made him feel downright dumb. He had no idea what she was talking about. All he knew was that he very much wanted to kiss her again. Had what happened between them been a fluke? Something that happened only once? “What is not possible? Why?”

“Our attraction to each other has changed everything. I had no idea there would be any magnetism between us. Men who are almost criminals are not men I find attractive. I can assure you that what I…we…felt was as much of a shock to me as it was to you. Considering this attraction, we could not possibly consider spending any time together for any reason. The probable results are too dreadful to contemplate.”

Cole looked with longing toward the glass of whiskey on the table, but it was empty. At the moment he desperately needed a drink. What in the world was the woman talking about? “What results?”

She looked at him with great patience. “Mr. Hunter, I have admitted that all of this was a mistake. My mistake. I have told you that I panicked at the news of my sister’s impending visit, and I tried to implement what I see now was a very naive scheme. I am sorry I ever started this, and I would like to end it.”

“What results?” he repeated, still trying to figure out what she was talking about. He usually understood women; for that matter he usually understood the English language.

She gave a sigh as though she had to explain the simplest thing in the world. “When we…ah, kissed, there was a great deal of attraction between us. I had not thought there would be. I felt no such attraction between us the day I went to see you at your boardinghouse. It is all right to have a fake marriage with a man to whom one feels no attraction, but it is impossible with a man one wants to…to…”

When she saw that there was still no hint of understanding on his handsome face, she continued. “Children, Mr. Hunter,” she snapped. “Children.” She grimaced. “Perhaps a man like you doesn’t understand that…that marital rights, so to speak, are not to be exercised for pleasure. What a man and woman do with each other creates children. Based on the feelings we had during our one and only kiss, I think that if we spent any prolonged time together, we would…we would, well, end up in bed together, and I’m afraid of creating a child with you. I cannot imagine a worse father than you—that is, if you stayed around, which I doubt. Either way, I don’t want to raise a child alone, nor do I want my child to have a father who knows little more than how to cock a gun.”

For a moment all Cole could do was blink at her. “Is there any whiskey here?” he asked hoarsely, then watched as she handed him the bottle. Unlike her sister, she didn’t graciously pour it into a glass. She just handed him the bottle with a schoolteacher look on her face that said, See what I mean?

It wasn’t easy, but Cole put the bottle down, then he followed it, sitting heavily on the chair and looking up at her. There was certainly nothing coy about her. She wasn’t telling him that she hated him and didn’t want to go to bed with him. She was telling him that she’d like nothing more than to jump into bed with him, but if they did that, they might make a child, and he would be a damned poor father. To his knowledge, no one had ever even considered his possibilities as a father. His worth as a fast gun had been considered, yes, and as a peacemaker, and at times as a lover, true, but not as the father to some kid who didn’t exist.

Maybe he was getting old. This wasn’t the way women used to act. He remembered women who couldn’t think past the first buttons he loosened on their blouses. In the past if h

e’d kissed a woman and a current of lightning had run through them like the one that had run through him with this woman, neither of them would have thought past the next two hours. Uncontrollable. Without thought. Passion. Old-fashioned passion.

But not with plain little Miss Latham. With her there was no lack of control. She stepped back from passion and said she wanted it, but there were consequences she didn’t want. She was, of course, quite sensible. The only other sensible women he had ever met had had no hunger, no fire in their veins. But she did. He had just felt it. Yet she was able to control it.

“Mr. Hunter, are you all right?”

No, he wanted to say. He wasn’t all right. He had been all right before he met this woman, but now he was beginning to doubt everything in his life. He had to reassure himself that his life wasn’t a waste. He was rootless. He had no home. He’d never had a home. Not that he’d ever wanted one, but if he had wanted one, he would have stayed in one place. And if he ever made a kid with a woman, he didn’t think he’d be a worse father than the next man. In fact, he liked to think he had a few things to teach a child. And not just things about a gun. He’d learned a bit in his life, and maybe he’d like to pass those things on.

Suddenly it became important to him to make this woman realize that he was more than just a gunslinger. And a hero. If someone else had called him a hero, he would have been flattered, but Miss Latham had made “hero” sound like a mindless person who had no thought of the future consequences of his actions.

“How am I to support myself until my arm heals?”

She looked startled. “I have no idea. Would you like some money? I mean, it is my fault that you…Well, actually, it isn’t entirely my fault, but I do feel somewhat responsible for your injury. I can give you a bank draft.”

“I don’t want charity. I want a job.”

She gave the tiniest smile—about all she seemed capable of, he thought. “The very next time I want someone murdered I will be sure to hire you.”

He had to admit that the woman got under his skin in a way that no one else ever had. “I do not murder people,” he snapped.

“Certainly not with your arm as it is now.” Her mouth tightened into a prim little line. “Mr. Hunter, I talked to you about your future days ago, before this happened, and at that time your future did not concern you. I even tried to warn you that something like this might happen.”

Why did he feel as though he were being talked to by his mother? She used to say, “I told you this was going to happen. But, no, you wouldn’t listen to me. You had to have your own way. You never listen to anyone.”

Cole ran his hand over his eyes. If he murdered anyone, it would be this woman. Besides wanting to kill her, he wanted to prove to her that he was worth something. “Miss Latham, you offered me a job, and I accept that offer.”

It was her turn to sit down. “No,” she whispered, “this is a mistake.”

He sensed that he was regaining some power. “Miss Latham, tell me, what do you do with your time?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Your time. What do you do with your time when you are at home in Latham? I can’t see you as a sewing circle lady. I can’t see you putting on garden parties and teas. What do you do in that town your father left you?”