The Invitation (Montgomery/Taggert 19)

As for Mr. Hunter, she couldn’t figure him out at all. He had made sense to her when she first went to him and told him the truth. Like all the other men, he seemed to hate her honesty. Dorie knew that Rowena would have lied to him and flattered him and he would have been eating out of her hand. But Dorie had told him the truth and he’d made it clear that he couldn’t stand her.

Unfortunately this hurt Dorie, because much to her disbelief, she rather liked him. She had no idea why she liked him, but she did. Maybe it was that heroic aspect of him. The truth was that when he saved her from the bank robbers, she had felt, well, rather like the heroine in the type of novel her father refused to allow in the house.

But Mr. Hunter had not felt the same way she did. When she went to his room to apologize for whatever it was

that she had said to make him so angry the first time, she had succeeded only in making him furious.

But then he had shown up at her hotel room and told her she was to marry him. Maybe he thought Rowena was part of marriage to Dorie. That was the only thing that made sense to her. He had disliked her rather heartily when she alone was involved, but he wanted to marry her after he saw Rowena.

Oh, well, what did it matter anyway? The arrangement was only temporary; in six months he’d be gone. He’d have his five thousand dollars, and Dorie would be back where she’d started. She wasn’t fool enough to believe any of his talk about wanting to learn a trade; she knew all he wanted was the money—and maybe a chance at Rowena, but then, all men seemed to want that. It was a perfect arrangement.

Now, sitting across the tiny table from him, the big bed looming behind them, a wedding ring—courtesy of Rowena—weighing down her finger, Dorie pushed her food about on her plate. It was a moment before she was aware that Mr. Hunter was saying something.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, looking up at him.

“I said that if you want to get yourself a husband—a real one, that is—you ought to try to be more, well, charming.”

Dorie could only blink at him. Charming. It was a word she had heard connected with Rowena’s name and with witches’ spells but not much else.

Ever since that cold little farce that was called a wedding, Cole had been asking himself what in the world he had done. He’d never thought of himself as a romantic, but that quick, boring ceremony, with the preacher anxious to get back to his dinner, was not his idea of a wedding. Wasn’t a woman supposed to want flowers and a pretty dress? Weren’t women supposed to be sentimental about weddings and such? Wasn’t the man supposed to act as though that sort of stuff didn’t matter to him, but secretly he rather liked the smell of flowers and the sight of a bride dripping lace?

Since the wedding she hadn’t said a word, had just let that bossy sister of hers manage everything. After a few hours around Rowena, Cole was beginning to realize that under that coaxing, honey-coated exterior of hers was a core of steel. She had complimented Cole so much that, had he believed her, he would have thought he was the smartest, bravest, best-looking man on the planet. But while she was flattering him, she was making sure her little sister got married. She told Dorie where the wedding was going to be, where Dorie was going to spend her honeymoon, and when the couple would return to Latham. Rowena arranged the wedding supper and ordered Dorie’s clothes packed and readied for the trip. It was at the end of the ceremony when Rowena said, “You may kiss him now, Dorie,” that Cole had put his foot down.

“She’s my wife now,” he said quietly but in a voice he’d used to tell men that he believed they were cheating at cards. One good thing about Rowena was that she seemed to know when to back down. Graciously she stopped giving orders and stepped aside, smiling happily, pleased that she had arranged everything.

So now he was alone with a stranger who was and was not his wife, and he had a sudden urge to get to know her better. Was she as hard as she’d seemed the first time he met her, or was she as soft as she sometimes seemed? Was she calculating or innocent? Did she mean to wound with that tongue of hers or did she just not know any better?

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to be charming,” she said, not looking up from her food. “I leave the charm to my sister.”

After today he knew that in order to wade through Rowena’s “charm” one needed very tall boots. As Cole looked at the top of his wife’s head, he realized that he’d never really seen her smile. Did she smile? What would she look like if she did smile?

He sat up straight in his chair, like a schoolteacher. “Attention, Miss Latham—er, Mrs. Hunter,” he corrected himself and found that he rather liked the sound of that name. “We are now going to have a lesson in charm.”

She looked up at him in surprise.

“Now, answer me this: If you find yourself alone with a man and you want to engage that man in conversation, what do you say?”

The look on her face told him she was taking this very seriously. “What does he do?”

“He doesn’t do anything. In most of the world it is up to the woman to be the social one. The man is to be the strong silent type, and the woman is to try to draw him out.”

“Oh,” Dorie said. This was something she’d never heard before, but it explained some things she’d never been able to understand. “I mean, what does the man do for a living? To support himself. Perhaps there is conversation in that.”

“Good point. The man is a farmer.”

“Well, then, I would ask him how his crops are doing.”

“Mmmm,” Cole said. “That might be all right for a man who’s old enough to be your father, but what about a young, good-looking man, someone with broad shoulders?”

A little sparkle of humor came into Dorie’s eyes. “Just exactly how broad are this man’s shoulders?”

Cole didn’t smile. Holding out his hands, he said, “Oh, about this wide. No, this wide.”

Dorie’s eyes sparkled more. “Mr. Hunter, no man has shoulders that broad.”

For a moment Cole looked defensive as he looked from his outstretched hands to his own shoulders and saw that he had his hands apart exactly the width of his own shoulders. When he opened his mouth to point out that his shoulders were indeed that broad, he looked at her eyes and saw that she had been teasing him. Well, well, he thought, I’ll get her back for that.

“On second thought, this man you’re sitting next to is a renowned peacemaker.”