Pete (The Cowboys) (16 page)

His head disappeared and Anne heard him pour water into a basin. She ought to be undressing, preparing for bed, but she couldn’t move. No one had ever thought she was smart. No one asked her opinion. No one listened if she managed to get up the courage to offer it. She’d been ignored all her life, taken for granted, always present, always ready to be of use when wanted.

And always, at the back of everything else, was the knowledge that she was part Indian, that she was inferior.

“I wouldn’t let them talk you into anything just yet,” Pete said, still invisible in the bathroom. “We may decide to live in town during the winter, but you’ll want to spend most of your time on the ranch. It’s too far to drive in more than a couple of times a year, and you don’t want them coming out” He stuck his head out again. “Can you imagine being locked up in the same house with Mrs. Dean? She’d probably expect you to give up your bedroom.”

His head disappeared again, and Anne sank into a chair. She’d never considered the possibility of entertaining Mrs. Dean as an equal. The thought terrified her. The idea of having to entertain the owner of The Emporium was equally intimidating. She didn’t believe anybody would want to ask her opinion or solicit her to form committees, but she definitely would refuse if asked. She couldn’t do any such thing. Fortunately, living on the ranch would make it a practical impossibility.

But no sooner had she reached that comforting conclusion than she became aware of a very different feeling. She didn’t want people to keep thinking of her as that little Indian girl, as a young woman with no opinions worth notice. She liked having people stare at her in admiration, even envy. She liked being noticed, her comfort considered, her wishes consulted. Nobody had considered her before except Peter—Pete.

She used to have to protect him. Now he was protecting her. She liked that, too.

“You haven’t even started to undress.”

Pete had come out of the bathroom. He had changed from his fancy clothes—that was what he called them—into the clothes he’d bought that afternoon. He looked more like a cowboy than a rancher, but she decided she liked him better that way. He looked younger, more like the boy she remembered.

His pants fitted his slim hips and powerful thighs more tightly. The shirt and vest fitted snugly across his chest. Now that they weren’t partially hidden by his loose coat, she could see just how broad his shoulders were when compared to his waist, how powerful his arms were. She couldn’t imagine what he’d done to develop such a powerful body, but she liked the results. He might say she was the most beautiful woman in town—she didn’t believe him, but it was nice of him to say it—but there wasn’t any question she had the most handsome husband of any woman in Big Bend. She imagined the women in The Emporium were just as upset about that as they were about her having the money to buy clothes they considered too good for a breed.

Pete was looking at her with concern. “Are you feeling all right?”

She practically jumped to her feet. “I’m fine.”

“You looked a little funny. Your stomach isn’t acting queer, is it?”

“My stomach is fine,” she said, grabbing a few things before heading to the bathroom. “I was just thinking.”

Pete grinned. “Never do any hard thinking before you go to bed. It’ll give you nightmares.”

“I almost never have nightmares.”

“I do.”

About Indian massacres. She remembered. “I won’t be very long.”

“Take your time. I’m going out. I need to talk to some of the other ranchers about the best way to get our cows to market.”

She felt pleased that he talked with her about the ranch. She’d never felt she was capable of being responsible for anything. Even the clothes she wore, the food she ate, had been chosen for her. She wasn’t quite ready for the new vision of herself Pete was creating, but she meant to be soon. Until Pete showed up, no one had ever felt she was capable of anything more complicated than cleaning a room or helping cook dinner. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do it, but she was determined to prove herself worthy of Pete’s faith in her.

She felt a little disappointed he was leaving, but she really hadn’t expected him to spend his whole evening talking to her. Uncle Carl always said no woman had enough to say to interest a man for more than ten minutes. Pete was showing signs of being pretty smart, maybe as smart as Uncle Carl. She was lucky he’d spent as much time with her as he had. “When will you be back?”

She shouldn’t have asked. Men hated it when women wanted to know what they were doing.

“It depends on how long it takes to get the information I need. Don’t wait up for me.”

She would.

“Now that I’ll be out of the room, you can take a long bath. The clerk said we’re the only people here tonight, so there ought to be plenty of hot water. Cover yourself with powder. Pamper and cosset yourself all you want. We’ll be going back to the ranch tomorrow, and it’ll be a long time before you get to spend the night in a hotel again.”

Pete was surprised at himself for returning to the hotel so quickly, but he was honest enough to admit it had little to do with the fact that he’d gotten more than enough information about the condition of the range, along the shipping routes, from the first man he talked to. The whole time the man was talking about the lack of rain, the stupidity of ranchers in dumping new herds on range that was already overburdened, the advantages and problems associated with various routes to a railhead, Pete kept thinking of Anne.

In a bathtub.

When the man invited him to join several others in a convivial gathering of ranchers and local business leaders, he’d declined the invitation, saying he wanted to be up early in the morning, that he needed to get his business finished so he could reach home before dark. And all the time he kept thinking about Anne.

In a bathtub.

The man had laughed and made a bawdy comment about newlyweds. Of course Pete didn’t tell him his situation wasn’t anything like what the rancher supposed.

Even before he reached their room, Pete heard the sounds of someone singing softly. The singing stopped abruptly when he opened the door. “It’s just me,” he called out.

She didn’t answer.

“Are you in the bathtub?”

“Yes.” The answer came after a moment of hesitation.

“How long have you been in?”

Another hesitation. “I’ll get out.”

“Stay as long as you like. I’m in no rush.”

Quiet. He couldn’t even hear sounds of the water as she moved about in the tub.

“What were you singing when I came in?”

“Just a song.”

“It was pretty. Why don’t you finish it?”

“I don’t want to bother you.”

“It won’t bother me. I like it. You’ve got a pretty voice.”

Pearl, his best friend’s wife, was the only singer he’d ever really paid attention to. She had been the star attraction of her own saloon when Sean met her. She had a big, robust voice, one that could float the high notes and hammer out the low notes, all with a power and energy that made it impossible to sit still.

Anne’s voice was light and sweet, the sound almost feathery. It had none of Pearl’s assertiveness, none of her bold confidence. It almost apologized for itself. Yet it was that lack of self-assurance that made it so compelling. It practically begged you not to pass it by in favor of bigger, brassier, more colorful sounds.

Pete could have ignored big, brassy, and colorful. He’d heard it all too often. It was the plaintive quality that tugged at him in a way nothing else had before.

She started to sing again, softly, tentatively. He crossed the room and stood just outside the bathroom door. He leaned against the wall and let the moist, aromatic heat tease his sense of smell as it wafted its way into the bedroom. Sound and smell. Together they began to weave a spell around him in which there were no stolen saddlebags, no accusations of being an imposter, no murdered husband who stood between them, a spell in which the attraction between them grew stronger and stronger until it became like a physical pull.

Anne’s voice cut off abruptly in a squeak. He found himself inside the bathroom, staring at her in the bathtub. She looked like some black-haired sprite buried in a mound of bubbles.

“What do you want?” She looked and sounded fearful.

“I thought you might like me to wash your back.” He had no idea where the words came from. Clearly that thought hadn’t occurred to Anne, either. She looked at him wide-eyed, surprised, shocked, and he thought… hoped … just a little bit intrigued.

“I never heard of a man washing a woman’s back,” she said. “My father never did anything like that.”

“Jake does it all the time,” he said. “At least that’s what my friend says. He says Isabelle would be upset if he didn’t.”

Her look implied she couldn’t believe him, that such a thing was too far from her experience to accept, but that a small part of her was strongly attracted to the idea.

“We’re married,” Pete said. “It wouldn’t be improper. If you don’t like it, I’ll stop.”

He couldn’t imagine why he was doing this. He’d never washed a woman’s back before. Well, not a
nice
woman’s back. He had no intention of letting any kind of feeling warmer than friendship develop between them. She was married to someone else. He was crazy to be standing in the bathroom, staring at her. He was insane even to think about washing her back, much less offer to do it.

What did he think he was going to do—wash her back, get himself completely stirred up, then go quietly to bed
with her lying only inches from him?
That bullet must have addled his brain. He would back out of there as fast as he could. Forget how adorable she looked, her big black eyes wide with shock, wonder, and… he was certain of it now … expectation.

“Okay.”

Too late! One word, and he was lost.

Chapter Nine

Anne couldn’t believe she’d given Pete permission to wash her back. Who’d ever heard of such a thing? Dolores had never mentioned it. She was certain her father hadn’t done it. She wondered if all men outside her circle of acquaintance did things like this, or if Pete was the only one. It seemed terribly daring, even immodest.

You’re married, you foolish girl. This man is your husband. There can’t be any impropriety in a husband washing his wife’s back. He just told you Jake did it for Isabelle all the time. For all you know, they‘re the most respectable married couple in the whole world.

But Anne realized that up until this moment she had never felt as if Pete was her husband. Everyone treated them as husband and wife. They slept in the same bedroom, in the same bed. As soon as the lawyer sent it, they would have a piece of paper saying they were married. Yet, she’d continued to feel that they were just friends, like when they were children, only this time Pete had taken the role of leader.

Thinking of Pete as her husband rather than her friend changed everything. She wanted him to find her attractive. She liked his talking to her as an adult, sharing information about the ranch, but she wanted a different kind of sharing, too. She wanted to be close to him, and being close meant touching.

Pete stepped into the bathroom and started rolling up his sleeves. “Where is the soap?”

She felt around in the water until she found it. “Here,” she said, holding up the dripping bar to him.

“Would you rather I use a brush or my hands?” he asked.

A brush sounded too rough, his hands too intimate. “Your hands.”

She couldn’t believe what she was doing, what she was saying. How could she let a man—even though that man was her husband—wash her back?

She wasn’t sure when it happened—she’d been totally unaware of it at the time—but her feelings toward Pete had changed. Maybe it came from his letting her buy practically anything she wanted. Maybe it was when he paraded her through the town. No, it must have been when he told her she was beautiful, that he was proud to be her husband. No woman could keep from falling in love with a man who said something like that.

That phrase exploded on her consciousness. Falling in love! Wasn’t she already in love with Pete? She thought she’d been in love with him for years. She’d never thought of any other man as being her husband. Never wanted any other man. She had felt repulsed by Belser and Cyrus. She’d thought about Pete and dreamed about him for years. Yet what she felt now was different.

She jumped when his hands touched her skin.

“Is my hand cold?”

“A little.”

He swirled it around in the water behind her back. “It’ll be warm in a minute.”

She leaned forward, scooted down a little more to make certain her breasts stayed hidden under the bubbles. She couldn’t be certain his hand was cold. Or hot. The electric shock that blazed though her at his touch seemed to sear her nerves. Yet her body shuddered. Anticipation of his second touch made it hard to breathe.

“This is supposed to relax you”—she flinched when he touched her again—“not tie you in knots.”

“It’s the first time a man has touched me,” Anne said. “I can’t help it.”

“Then we’ll talk,” Pete said. “That will help take your mind off it.”