Pete (The Cowboys) (14 page)

He was a man.

Pete felt the pressure inside him ease, then go away entirely. It felt good to let go. Now he could be proud that he’d defended Anne.

He walked over to a bench in front of The Emporium and eased himself down. His hat annoyed him. It didn’t fit right. He was tired of wearing another man’s clothes even if they did fit nearly as well as his own. And he was tired of looking like a dude. He was going to buy himself some proper clothes, and he wasn’t going to let the fact that he didn’t have any money of his own stop him. Peter owed him something for saving his wife from her uncle, and for saving his ranch from Belser. A few clothes didn’t seem like a high price to pay.

“We’re ready for you, Mr. Warren.”

Pete turned to find the owner standing in the doorway of the emporium.

“Your wife has picked out all the things she wants.”

“Then add them all up.”

“We have.”

When he walked back inside that building, Anne didn’t look any different. She looked at him with the same almost childlike innocence, her big black eyes open wide, questioning, worrying, fearful. They seemed to say “You’re my only shield. Without you I feel lost.” He realized that her Indian ancestry made it all the more important for him to protect her. He had managed to overcome his prejudice, but others clearly hadn’t.

“I’m afraid it’s rather a lot,” she said.

“How much?”

“More than two hundred dollars,” Judy said, her tone giving the impression that it was a mortal sin that a woman like Anne should be allowed to squander such a large sum of money on herself.

“That’s nothing compared to some of the bills Pearl used to run up.”

“Who’s Pearl?” Anne asked. “You never mentioned her.”

“Sean’s wife,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket for his wallet. “I’ll tell you about her later. How much exactly?”

“The total is $233.68.”

Pete paid and waited for his change. “Wrap everything up and send it over to the hotel by tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll need a wagon to get all this over there,” Judy said.

“Then get a wagon,” Pete said as he turned and headed out of the store.

“Where are we going now?” Anne asked, hurrying after him.

“You’re going back to the hotel to take a nap to make up for the sleep you lost getting up so early this morning. I’m going shopping.”

Pete was late. Anne had probably been expecting him back hours ago. He swallowed the last of his whiskey and considered ordering another. No, better not. He had to keep his wits about him. If anybody found out who he really was, he’d be in jail five minutes later. He doubted he’d be able to make anyone believe he was only pretending to be Peter Warren until he could find his own money. Certainly not after spending so much of Uncle Carl’s cash.

And if anyone found Peter’s body—and that was always a possibility—he’d probably be hanged for murder.

He took his time walking back to the hotel. He was glad he’d had his new clothes sent back to the room. It would have been very awkward to carry such a large package through the streets. He entered the hotel at 7:08
P.M.
He would be late for dinner. He hoped the dining room hadn’t closed. He hoped Anne hadn’t waited for him.

But she had.

She rose from the chair by the window when he entered the room. The vision that met his gaze caused him to stop in his tracks.

“You had me worried,” she said in her soft voice. “I was afraid something might have happened to you.”

His tongue lay like a dead thing in his mouth. He couldn’t speak. She had always been pretty, but in his absence, she’d turned into a vision. She was beautiful. She was wearing the deep-red gown. He remembered her showing it to him, but he didn’t remember seeing her wear it. Surely he couldn’t have forgotten something like that.

“What have you done to yourself?” he managed to ask.

“You don’t like it?” She was instantly fearful, crushed.

“No. It’s very nice. In fact, it’s more than very nice. It’s stunning. But what happened? How did you change?”

He had the distinct feeling that a suave, clever man who understood women and knew how to flatter them would have stated that very differently.

“I met a woman here at the hotel who knew my mother. When I told her I’d bought all these new clothes and didn’t know what to do with them, she offered to help me.”

“Your hair. What have you done to it?”

“Do you like it?”

Didn’t the woman have a mirror? Couldn’t she tell she was beautiful? He walked across the room, took her by the shoulders, turned her around, and marched her toward the mirror that covered about two feet of one wardrobe door.

Always before she’d worn her long, heavy tresses in a loosely confined mantle down her back. Now they had been braided and coiled atop her head like a crown. A series of silver-tipped ivory combs he didn’t remember held them in place. She looked regal, queenlike.

“Look at yourself,” he ordered. “You don’t have to ask my opinion to know you’re beautiful. You came here looking like a pretty woman. You’ve turned yourself into a beautiful one.”

Anne smiled broadly. “I hoped you’d be pleased. Mrs. Dean said you would be.”

Pete wasn’t very good at describing women’s clothes. His primary concern over the past decade had been how to take them off as quickly as possible. Anne’s dress was the kind a man admires as much as he respects the lady wearing it. It had a full skirt and ruffles at the bottom. But it was the top that made it unique and made Anne look special. It hugged her waist, outlining its slimness as well as the shapeliness of her hips. It opened at the front to show a white blouse and enough of the top of her breasts to get him aroused.

It was completed by a little jacket—something like he’d seen one of the bullfighters wear when he was in Mexico several years before. It had long sleeves and a high collar and was lavishly decorated with black braid.

“Any man would be pleased to be seen with you. He’d be the envy of every man he met.”

Anne turned pink with pleasure. “If it’s going to cause people to stare, maybe I should change back into my old dress.”

He’d have had to be ten times as insensitive as he was not to know that changing back into her old dress would crush Anne’s spirits. “Stay just as you are. I’m the one who ought to change.”

“You look very handsome,” Anne said. Then she blushed a little more. “You always do.”

Pete wasn’t used to thinking of himself as handsome. Growing up with Matt, Chet, Luke, and Will—especially Will—that had been impossible. The notion that any woman could consider him handsome made him wonder if she was trying to wheedle something out of him.

“Come off it,” he said, trying to convince himself he didn’t care if nobody thought he was handsome. “I don’t scare the cows when I ride by, but that’s about the best you can say. Sean always said—”

He stopped in mid-sentence. When was he going to stop talking about people Peter Warren couldn’t possibly have known? “Never mind what Sean said.”

“If he said you weren’t handsome, he was wrong,” Anne said. “Dolores commented on it the day you arrived. She said I was fortunate to have got myself a man who was tall, handsome, and sensible.”

“I think it’s about time we stop complimenting each other. We’ll have such big heads, we won’t be able to get through the dining room door.”

“We’d better hurry,” Anne said, suddenly agitated. “They stop letting people in after seven-thirty.” She grabbed her purse—a beaded, sacklike thing that dangled elegantly from her wrist—and a black lace shawl Pete was positive he hadn’t seen before.

“You should have gone without me,” Pete said as he draped the shawl over her shoulders.

Anne turned to face him, her expression one of surprise. “Why would I do that?”

Pete realized that the clothes had proved she had a woman’s body, but her mind and emotions were still those of the same innocent Anne.

“Because my being rude enough to stay late drinking in a saloon is no reason for you to go hungry.”

“I wouldn’t think of eating without you,” she said as he held the door for her to leave the room.

“Why not?” he asked, as he locked the door.

“You’re my husband.”

He kept forgetting that. He had to remember.

They descended the steps into the lobby. “Hold that door,” he said to the waiter who was removing the stops that held the dining room doors open.

“You made it just in time,” the young man said. He might have been talking to Pete, but his eyes were glued to Anne.

“I hope you saved some food,” Pete said. “I’m hungry enough to eat a horse.” He hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Anne hadn’t either. She was probably as hungry as he was, though she hadn’t had three whiskeys.

The waiter seated them at a table in the center of the room. It would have taken just a few minutes to clear one of the tables in a more secluded spot, but Pete decided the waiter wanted to position Anne where he could look at her. Pete could understand, but he wasn’t sure he liked that. She wasn’t his wife, but as long as he kept up this pretense, she was his responsibility.

He was amused to see that most of the menu was in French. He was certain there hadn’t been a real Frenchman in Big Bend since the heaver gave out in the Big Horns fifty years earlier.

“I can’t read anything,” Anne said.

“What do you want to know?” He almost told her that he’d spent so many years in mining camps, eating wherever he could, that he’d gotten to the point that he could read almost anything in French, German, or Spanish, as long as it had to do with food. For once he managed to think before he spoke. Maybe he would survive after all.

They ordered their meal. He even ordered a glass of wine for Anne to be brought to the table immediately. He ordered a whiskey for himself. It amused him to watch Anne’s tentative sips, the face she made when she got the first sharp taste of the dry red wine.

“It’s bitter,” she exclaimed. “Why would anybody pay money to drink something like this?”

He laughed. “It’s like coffee, an acquired taste.”

She took another sip and wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather taste your whiskey.”

“You wouldn’t like it.”

“I might.”

“It’s not suitable for a lady to drink whiskey. People will think… well, it’s just not suitable.”

Anne blushed. She looked more charming than ever. Her cheeks glowed with heightened color. She looked excited, young, and extremely lovely.

The food arrived. A smile of quiet pleasure wreathed Anne’s face.

“What are you grinning about?” Pete asked.

“This will be the first meal I’ve eaten in a very long time that I didn’t have to help cook.”

“I thought Dolores did all the cooking.”

“When Uncle Carl brought me to stay with him, he said I would have to help Dolores to earn my keep. I didn’t mind. After Papa died, Mama and I needed somewhere to stay. But Mama was too ill to work. I couldn’t expect Uncle Carl to keep us for nothing.”

Clearly Uncle Carl wasn’t made of the same stuff as Jake and Isabelle. They’d adopted Pete and ten other orphans just because they had no place to go. They had to work, but neither Jake nor Isabelle made them think they worked for their keep. They worked for the family, for themselves. Clearly nobody had ever made Anne feel like that.

“When did your mother die?”

“When I was nine.”

“Do you have any other family?”

“Not that I know about.”

So she’d been an orphan, just like him. He supposed that didn’t feel any different, no matter whether you were Indian, French, Spanish, or a mixture. He was about to ask her about her father when a very well-dressed old woman approached the table.

“Well, my child, I’m glad to see you got down before the dining room closed. I thought for a while you might have to go to bed hungry.”

“I’d never let that happen,” Pete said. “If they wouldn’t open up again, I’d have taken her someplace else. There must be other restaurants in town.”

“Several, but this is the nicest. You’ll have to introduce me to your companion,” the woman said to Anne. “I had thought you would be dining with Peter.”

“But I am,” Anne said. “This is Peter.”

The woman looked startled. She looked at Pete, then at Anne, and back at Pete. “What trick are you trying to pull, Anne dear? I knew Peter as well as anybody. This man can’t possibly be he.”

Chapter Eight

Pete wondered how many more bullets he would have to dodge. Calling Belser a liar, when it was obvious he was enraged over not getting the ranch, was easy compared to facing an elegantly dressed woman who appeared to have nothing to gain from his exposure.

“Of course he’s Peter,” Anne replied immediately. “I know he’s changed. I was rather shocked myself at first, but he was only a boy when he left.”

“He may have been a boy,” the woman stated, “but boys develop definite characters by the time they’re fourteen. I knew Peter. He was a weak-willed, nervous fellow, never able to stand up for himself. I was in The Emporium a short time after you. From what I understand, this man more than stood up for you.”