“What’s your name? I know your sister calls you Dorie, but today in church the preacher called you something else.”
“Apollodoria. It’s Greek, or at least that’s what my father said. He also said it was a ridiculous name, but it was my mother’s dying wi
sh so he gave me the name.”
He leaned back on the bed, one arm behind his head. “Apollodoria. I like that. I’m glad your father agreed to it.”
“Our cook said my mother swore she’d haunt him if he didn’t name me what she wished. My father wasn’t superstitious, but he was never a man to take chances.”
Cole laughed. She had a way of making even awful things sound funny. “Tell me about this town you own. The one that made you advise me against taking a town for a gift.”
“Latham is tiny. Only a couple of hundred people, but considering the way the population is increasing, I think people are doing something with their Sunday afternoons besides resting.”
Again Cole laughed and waited for her to continue.
What in the world could inspire a person more than approval? Dorie thought. All those years with her father she had kept quiet. He had hated what he called her impertinent comments. He’d just wanted her to be there, and until the last year of his life he’d never expected her to do anything, just sit near him where he could see her. In order to escape the incredible boredom of her life, she had become an observer of people, watching them, trying to figure them out, filling in blanks with her own imagination.
Every day she had gone with her father in his carriage and had sat perfectly still while he talked to his tenants and said no to whatever they asked from him. She had kept what she observed to herself.
But now here was a man who was laughing with delight at her observations.
“Latham is a peaceful town. Very few problems, actually. I’m sure you’ll find it a dull place. We have a Fourth of July picnic. Everyone belongs to the church. Last year the most interesting thing that happened was that Mrs. Sheren’s hat blew off just as everyone was leaving church. The hat flew across the river, hit Mr. Lester’s bull in the head, and stuck on the bull’s left horn. The funny part was that Mr. Lester had brought that bull all the way from Montana and had bragged that it was the meanest, fiercest animal in Texas. Maybe it was, but it sure didn’t look mean wearing a pretty straw bonnet trimmed with cherries and wisteria leaves.”
Cole didn’t say a word, just kept smiling into the darkness and enjoying being entertained. She could spin a good yarn. She told about the shops and the boardinghouse and the passengers from the train.
But as he listened he realized that none of her stories included her. They were all told from the point of view of an observer. It was as though she had been sitting behind a window, watching life happen. She never complained, never even hinted that her life had been one of isolation, spent with a father who had no love or approval to give his younger daughter, but Cole heard what she didn’t say.
Whatever he had been about to say was startled from him as the engineer applied the brakes and the train began a lurching stop. Had they not been in the bed, they might have fallen. Too bad, he thought. If they had fallen, she might have landed in his arms. For all her annoying qualities, she brought out the protector in him.
For several moments there was a squeal of brakes and the pull of the train as it came to a reluctant halt. At one mighty jerk, Cole instinctively put out his uninjured hand and grabbed Dorie’s shoulder to keep her from rolling off the bed. When one of the carpetbags between them went sliding and threatened to hit her in the head, Cole tossed it to the floor.
When the train finally halted, he found himself hovering over her as though to protect her from arrows and bullets. “You mind if I kiss you good night?” he heard himself asking. If he’d been thirty-eight a few days ago, he was now about twelve years old and sparking a girl under an apple tree.
“I…I guess that would be all right,” she whispered back.
“Sure,” he said, telling himself he was ridiculous for being this excited. He’d kissed lots of women. Of course none of them had been his wife, he reminded himself.
With an expert kick, he shoved the remaining carpetbag toward the foot of the bed, where it dropped onto the floor. Then, when there was no barrier between them, slowly he bent over her to press his lips on hers. He had lied extravagantly when he told her that the kiss they had previously experienced was nothing unusual. That kiss had haunted him ever since it had happened. In truth, he had thought of little else.
The second his lips touched hers, he knew the first kiss had been no fluke. The strength, the depth of feeling, flooded him. It was as though he’d never kissed another woman, never felt what it meant to touch a female.
Drawing back from her, he looked down into her eyes, saw they were full of wonder. For a moment he didn’t know what she was thinking, whether she had liked his soft, gentle kiss or not, but then she put her hand up and touched his hair at the temple. Never in his life had a touch inflamed him as much as this one did.
“Ah, Dorie,” he said, then pulled her on top of him as he rolled back to his side of the bed. He cursed his inability to hold her with both his arms, but he hugged her as close as possible with his one arm. And Dorie didn’t need too much holding as she rolled on top of him, turning her face as she began to kiss him more deeply. She’s very smart, he thought. She learns quickly.
Just as he was about to show her what his tongue could do, a shot came through the window, loudly shattering the glass, and hit the bed on Dorie’s side. Had it come a minute earlier it would have entered Dorie’s heart.
Chapter Six
Hunter! You in there?”
At the first explosion, Cole had wrapped his arm around Dorie and rolled off the bed, protecting her body with his as they hit the floor. As he fell, he had grabbed his gun from the side table. Now, holding her to him, he whispered, “Are you all right?”
She nodded and he was glad to see there was no hysteria in her eyes and, better yet, no questions. She looked at him as though awaiting his orders and planning to obey him. In that moment he thought maybe he loved her. What man wouldn’t love a woman who could take orders?
“Stay down and I’ll find out who it is,” he said.
She did as he told her, making herself very small as she stayed near the wall of the train.