Winotka Ford was not brilliant, but he was smart enough to know a problem when he saw one. He didn’t like being played for a fool. Leaning on his saddle horn, he glared at Cole in the moonlight. “What’s goin’ on?” he said in a low, threatening voice.
Cole tried to act as though nothing unusual had happened. “I’ve had hours to talk to her.” When Ford still glared at him, Cole shrugged. “Maybe you have trouble attracting women, but give me three hours alone with a woman and I can talk her into anything.” With that, he dismounted and reached up with his good arm to help Dorie down.
It was a full minute before Ford and his men understood what Cole had said. What else could they do but agree with him? Which man was going to step forward and admit that he was unable to talk a woman into anything? The men had demanded and threatened, blackmailed and given orders, but none of them had ever tried words of endearment. They had never used words that would make a woman voluntarily put her arms around their necks and relax her body against theirs.
Cole wished he could carry Dorie away from these gaping, suspicious men, but with one arm useless, he couldn’t. And he missed the power his gun on his hip gave him; he missed the strength it gave him in protecting her. The only weapons he could rely on now were his size, his reputation, and his ability to freeze men with a look.
Only a couple of hours remained before dawn, and Ford had decreed that the horses needed a rest, so they were to bed down for a while. Trying to establish some independence, Cole put his saddle as far away from the others as he dared. He didn’t want them to think he’d be so stupid as to try to escape while the others slept. Of course he would have tried if he hadn’t had Dorie with him, but he would not do anything that might endanger her life.
One of the men made a campfire, put a coffee pot over the fire, and fried some bacon. When Dorie came back from a few minutes’ privacy among the trees, he handed her a steaming cup of coffee so vile she coughed and spat it out.
“Drink it. It’ll warm you,” he said softly, his big body shielding her from the view of the others squatting around the campfire. So far Ford and his men hadn’t had much time to think about what had happened, but maybe now they would. Ford had planned to kill Cole Hunter, a notorious gunslinger, knowing that he would never be prosecuted. All Ford had to do was say it was a fair fight, produce a few witnesses, and he’d be free. Cole’s past would keep people from thinking it was anything but a fight, fair or otherwise. But instead of murdering a man, Ford now had to deal with two hostages. Never mind that Cole was the first one to kidnap her; he was her husband. If anything happened to her, it would be Ford who got into trouble. So all he had to say about it was that she’d better be worth the trouble he was putting himself to.
“Drink that coffee and eat this,” Cole said, holding out a piece of tough bacon.
Dutifully, Dorie tried to chew the bacon and drink the coffee. It wasn’t that she wasn’t hungry, it was just that the food tasted like old shoe leather and water out of a rusty can. However, it was hot and Cole wanted her to eat, so eat she did.
Cole looked at her, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, standing in the moonlight wearing a nightgown that had once been pristine but was now ragged and filthy, and he had an attack of guilty conscience. He had gotten her into this. If she’d never met him she’d be safe now, not in danger of dying at any moment. Looking at her, he made a vow that even if he died trying, he was going to get her out of this.
Ford set a man on guard, partly to keep an eye on Cole and partly to watch for bounty hunters who might want the rewards on the outlaws’ heads. The rest of the men stretched out on blankets and were asleep in seconds.
Cole motioned to Dorie to take the bed he’d made for her, giving her all the comfort he could provide in the outdoors. But Dorie refused to lie down on the relative comfort of the blankets while he tried to sleep on the bare ground a few inches away. “I won’t take the only bed,” she whispered to him. The man on guard was unabashedly watching the two of them, and something about the way his eyes glittered even in the darkness made Dorie’s skin crawl.
“You need to get some sleep,” Cole said, exasperated.
“You’ll freeze without a blanket. The fire is ten feet away.”
“I’m used to sleeping outdoors,” he snapped back at her.
“Then that’s all the more reason why you should have the blankets and the saddle for your pillow. I’m used to a feather bed and clean white sheets. Now you should have the better place to sleep.”
He was beginning to realize that she was so stubborn that they might be there all night arguing and he wanted to get as much sleep as possible. Heaven only knew what the next few days had in store for them.
“All right, then,” he said, meaning to settle the matter, “we’ll just have
to sleep together.” Knowing she’d refuse and he’d end up sleeping on the ground, he stretched out on the blanket, then held up his good arm in invitation to her. He thought she’d give him a long list of reasons why they couldn’t sleep together, but she didn’t so much as hesitate. Quickly, and with what seemed to be great willingness, she moved into his arms, expertly fitting her body to his, her head on his arm, and slid one firm thigh between his.
“Oh, Lord,” Cole whispered in silent prayer. Never in his life had a female body felt so good to him. Every woman he’d ever had had been either illicit or illegal. If the woman he was in bed with wasn’t a prostitute, then she was someone’s sister or wife, or in some way belonged to another man. But this one belonged to him. Maybe not forever and maybe not for the right reasons, but at least she did belong to him for the moment. Perhaps it was ridiculous, since it was so unreal and so temporary, but the thought that he had a right to hold her made her feel better to him.
He’d thought she was tiny, but she wasn’t. She was exactly the right size, fitting into the curves of his body as though the two of them had been made for each other. She snuggled against his chest, making Cole’s heart beat wildly.
Either she was as innocent as a newborn child or she was the most wanton little trollop on the earth, he thought. Whatever she was, Cole knew that had anyone at that moment tried to make him release her, he would have killed the person.
As for Dorie, she had never in her life felt anything as good as being near Cole. It wasn’t only that she was a virgin, it was also that she had missed out on a lifetime of sensory pleasure that a person should receive. There had been no childhood hugs for Dorie. Her mother had been alive to cuddle and caress her elder daughter, but she had died at Dorie’s birth. Her father had decided that even the most ordinary display of affection constituted “spoiling,” so he’d forbidden even the most cursory of caresses to be given to his children. Rowena’s sweet nature had invited forbidden caresses from everyone, but little Dorie, with her quiet ways and her cool eyes that were the image of her father’s, made people think twice before they risked punishment to touch her. As a result, Dorie had gone through life without the caresses that other children received as a matter of course. People said that little Miss Dorie was self-sufficient and needed no one else, when the truth was the opposite. She’d wanted to climb onto a person’s lap, as she saw Rowena do, but she hadn’t known instinctively how to tease and make an adult want to hold her; she’d never even figured out how to ask.
Cole Hunter was the only person besides Rowena who’d dared to risk coming near that seemingly cool exterior. And Cole was seeing what Rowena had known forever, that Dorie’s coolness was only a defense to hide from the world what she needed so much.
When Cole held her, he seemed to unleash something buried deep inside Dorie: the need to feel a heart beating against her own, her breath mingling with another human being’s, her skin against his skin.
When Cole pulled her into his arms she knew it was for warmth and protection, but there was something about his big body against hers that felt so very good, so very right. She wanted to slide inside him, to somehow get closer to him than she already was.
Her heart began to beat harder, as though it were beating more powerfully, more deeply within her chest. She could not only hear his heart against her cheek, she could also feel it. She wanted to be closer to him, but the fabric of his shirt was separating them. To her mind the fabric was as thick and impenetrable as leather.
She was aware of the shock in his voice when he said, “What are you doing?” but it didn’t stop her from unfastening his shirt and putting her cheek against his skin. When she told him that the buttons hurt her cheek it was the truth. Even the weave of the cotton was hurting her skin, hurting her heart.
As Dorie pulled his shirt away and nestled her face against his bare chest, Cole rolled his eyes skyward and said a few oaths under his breath.
Smiling, happier than she’d ever been in her life, Dorie moved her cheek against his chest, and when her lips touched his skin, without thought, she kissed him.