The Invitation (Montgomery/Taggert 19)

“We’ll figure that out later,” Ford said. “Now get on the horse.”

“Let her get dressed,” Cole said, playing for time. Maybe a bolt of lightning would strike Ford and his men. Maybe the cavalry would ride up and save them. Maybe those yellow-livered passengers watching them would step forward and help. And maybe Winotka Ford was going to repent within the next two seconds. Sure.

“I don’t want to ride with him,” Dorie said, shrinking back toward the rear of Ford’s horse, her arms folded protectively over her chest as though trying to ward off Cole’s blows.

“She can ride with me,” one of the men said, leering at her.

“No, give her to Hunter, she likes him so much,” Ford said, his eyes easy to read even in the moonlight. He was going to enjoy seeing Dorie sitting so close to a man she hated. Misery in anyone gave him great pleasure. When he was the cause of that misery, his pleasure was combined with power and he was doubly pleased.

“Get down here before I shoot parts of you off,” Ford said to Cole. “And no changing clothes. We go now.”

Cole had never before been in such a bind. But then, he’d never before been responsible for another human being. In all his life he’d had only himself to take care of and look after. If he’d been killed, his death wouldn’t have meant anything to anyone; no one would have noticed that he was missing from the earth. But now things were different. If he was killed tonight, something dreadful would happen to another human being, a person he had come to care about. He knew they had not married for the right reasons, but he had sworn to stay with her, to look after her until death did them part.

Of course death wasn’t too far away, because within a few minutes he was going to wring her neck.

Fifteen minutes later he was mounted on a horse, Dorie ensconced in front of him, her big nightgown flapping about his legs, her feet encased in thin bedroom slippers. She was leaning back against him, his arms around her, holding the reins. For ten minutes, while they were riding, he had been telling her what he thought of her stupidity.

“You should have stayed where you were. If you’d done what I told you—”

“You would probably be dead now,” she said, yawning and leaning back against him.

In spite of himself—she did have a talent for bringing out the very worst in him—he said, “You’d better not get too close to me or I might do disgusting things to you.”

“Such as what?” she asked, sounding rather like a scientist who intended to take notes on the behavior patterns of another civilization.

“I have no idea. You were the one telling the world that I couldn’t keep my hands off of you. Damn you, Dorie! You’ve gotten us into a real mess. You and I both know there’s no gold. Why didn’t you let me fight it out with him?”

“Because I didn’t want you to die,” she said simply.

For a moment he was mollified. Part of him was, of course, glad that he wasn’t dead, but he wished with all his heart that she were somewhere safe instead of at the mercy of a conscienceless outlaw.

“Why did you have to tell Ford—and everyone else within earshot—all that about how I…how I…”

“How you couldn’t keep your hands off me?”

His pride didn’t want to ask for her answer, but right now every feeling he’d ever had was bruised and confused. “Yes,” he whispered.

“My father never let me do anything I wanted to do. Rowena said he could be very contrary, but I think he was just plain mean. If I wanted to read a book, he made me go out in the carriage with him. If I said it was a beautiful day and I was looking forward to going out, you can be sure we’d stay in, probably in one room. I thought that maybe your outlaw was as mean as my father. If I’d said I wanted to stay with you, he would have done everything in his power to keep us apart, so I did what I learned to do with my father: I told him I wanted to do the opposite—get away from you.” She snuggled a bit against his chest. “It looks as though it worked.”

All his life Cole had thought women were the weaker sex. They needed protection. But this woman was making him rethink what he’d believed to be true. Impulsively he bent his head and kissed her neck a couple of times.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Keep your slimy hands off me! I hate you! Don’t touch me!”

Ahead of them they could hear Winotka Ford chuckling. He’d probably laughed more tonight than he had in the last ten years together.

“You don’t have to overdo it,” Cole said, hurt in spite of himself.

“Yes, I must or he won’t get any enjoyment out of this.”

Maybe it was that unfamiliar protective instinct she’d aroused in him, but he didn’t like to think that she had ever known anyone who was even remotely like Winotka Ford. He would have preferred to think she’d had a father who indulged her with pretty dresses and lollipops on Sunday afternoons. But he was beginning to realize that her affluent childhood was as lonely as his poor one had been.

He shook himself, telling himself to stop being so melodramatic. Right now his major concern was to get both of them out of the jam Dorie had got them into. Had he been alone, he would have tried to shoot his way out of this mess, never mind that his shooting arm was in a sling. But now he had to take care of Dorie.

It wasn’t pleasant to remember, but he tried to think back to what she had told Ford. It seemed that he, Cole, was supposed to have fifty grand that only he knew the where-abouts of. So that meant Ford could do anything to Cole short of killing him to find out where Cole had stashed the gold. Also, he seemed to remember that Dorie had said there was more gold in her house in Latham.

“Do you have any gold hidden in your father’s house?”

“None,” she said sleepily. “Why?”