Pete (The Cowboys) (6 page)

“You could lock your door,” Eddie said.

“I’m not locking my bedroom door,” Peter said. “Especially in my own house.”

Anne could tell he added that last as an afterthought. She guessed he was having trouble getting used to the idea of owning the ranch. Strange, but after all these months of hoping and planning, waiting anxiously and praying Peter would arrive in time, now that it had actually happened, it didn’t seem real to her, either. Maybe that was why she felt so reluctant to sleep in the same bed. She’d been a fool to think seeing Peter again would be like picking up where they’d left off ten years before, but his letters had seemed so much like the Peter she remembered, that was exactly what she had expected.

But Peter in person was quite different from Peter in a letter. She didn’t feel she knew him at all.

“I guess there’s nothing else to do but go up together,” Peter said, holding out his hand again.

Anne hesitated.

“Go on with him,” Dolores urged. “I know it seems strange to actually have him here after waiting all these months, but you’ll soon get used to it.”

Peter smiled reassuringly. “I promise I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”

“You can’t do that!” Dolores exclaimed.

“I can do anything I want,” Peter said. “It’s my house, my bride, and my wedding night.”

“Come on,” Eddie said to Dolores. “Let’s leave them to figure out things for themselves.”

Dolores looked reluctant to leave, but Eddie pushed her from the room. Anne felt as though her last support had vanished.

Peter picked up the oil lamp, the only light left in the room. “You’re going to have to lead the way,” he said. “I don’t remember where anything is.”

Anne led the way into the hall and up the stairs. Each step seemed to take her irrevocably closer to something she’d thought she wanted but now found frightening.

“Who sleeps in these rooms?” Peter asked.

“I slept in one, Belser one, and Uncle Carl one. The other two are for guests.”

“Did he have many guests?”

“Lots. Belser had to sleep in the bunkhouse all the time.”

“I’ll bet he didn’t like that.”

“No. It made him real mad.”

She paused before the door to Uncle Carl’s room. She couldn’t force herself to open it.

After a moment, Peter stepped past her and opened the door. “Doesn’t seem to be stuck. Opened easy as pie.”

He walked into the room and turned when she didn’t follow. “You know you have to come in, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“Are you afraid of me?”

She shook her head, but she was certain he could see the fear in her eyes.

“You don’t have to be. I know I’m nothing like you remember, but if you give me a chance, you’ll see I’m really not very different.”

Anne felt like a fool for being so hesitant. Here was the man she’d begged to marry her, who had agreed to marry her, she was certain, only because he felt sorry for her and wanted to help her, and
she
was acting as if she had something to be afraid of. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.” She came to a halt three steps inside the room.

“It’s probably that wolf bait you call an uncle coming in here and trying to palm off that half-dead old man on you. That’s enough to cause any female to go off in a dead faint.”

“I never faint.”

“Good.” He looked sincerely relieved. “Ticklish females make me nervous.”

After the way he’d stood up to her uncle and Cyrus, she couldn’t imagine Peter being nervous about anything.

“You are scared of me, aren’t you? At least you’re frightened at the idea of sleeping in the same bed with me.”

She didn’t answer.

“Come on, tell the truth. We’re not going to do well together if we start hiding things from each other.”

“Yes, I am a little afraid.”

“Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. Do you know what’s supposed to happen tonight?”

“Yes … no.” She couldn’t live on a ranch and not know what happened, but everybody acted so secretive when it came to what went on between a married couple, she figured they’d left out something important.

“Well, it’s not going to happen tonight,” he said. “So you can stop looking scared to death and take a deep breath.”

She felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from her heart. She felt almost giddy with relief. But her moment of comfort was brief. Didn’t he like her? Did he find her unattractive? Would he make her leave? “Don’t you want me?” she asked.

He looked a little embarrassed. She couldn’t imagine why. Men weren’t supposed to be nervous about bedding a woman. From all she’d heard, they practically had to be forced to wait a decent interval.

“I like you just fine,” Peter said. “You’re very pretty, but we don’t know each other. Well, hardly anymore, that is. You’ve had a very upsetting day. It wouldn’t be right to rush into something like this right away.” He waited a moment. “Don’t you agree?”

She nodded.

“Okay. Why don’t you show me where Dolores put my clothes. While I get my things organized, you can get ready for bed.”

Anne froze. There was only one bed in the room. He couldn’t mean they were to sleep in the same bed, not after what he’d just said. He was busy opening and closing drawers.

“Seems like everything here is yours,” he said when he turned to her. “You sure have a lot of clothes.”

“Some of them belonged to my mother.”

He held up one brown dress and frowned. “It looks too large.”

“Mama was bigger than I am. Uncle Carl said I’d grow into them, only I didn’t.”

“There’s certainly a lot of them.” He looked at his own clothes and frowned. “We’ll have to see about getting me something else to wear. I don’t think these are suitable for working around the ranch.”

She thought he looked very nice. She liked him dressed up. “Dolores said she put your clothes in the chest of drawers.”

“Probably because she couldn’t find any room in the wardrobe.” He looked at her a moment. “Something wrong?”

She couldn’t keep her gaze from turning to the bed. Feeling herself flush, she brought it back again.

He smiled. “Oh, that’s what’s got you ready to scurry up a tree. It’s a big bed. You’ll hardly know I’m in it.”

She’d have to be dead not to know he was in the same bed with her. She might be seventeen and inexperienced, sheltered and all that, but she was enough of a woman to know Peter Warren was more man than she had seen in her life. What’s more, he was exactly the kind of man guaranteed to turn a woman’s thoughts to things besides sewing and housekeeping. She felt herself flush.

Odd that she’d never thought about this aspect of her relationship with Peter. With other men it was unavoidable, but Peter … well, now it was unavoidable with him as well.

“Surely you don’t think I’m going to attack you after I promised to leave you alone?”

“No. I trust you.” And she did. She didn’t know why, since merely being in the room with him made her nervous, but she did.

“Well, you can’t go on being so afraid you’re practically trembling. You’ll never get a wink of sleep.”

She didn’t expect she would. She couldn’t imagine how she could.

“Here, take your clothes and change in the bathroom.”

She grabbed some clothes from one of the drawers and hurried into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. The room was pitch black. She couldn’t see a thing. A soft knock sounded at the door.

“You’ll need a light.”

Embarrassed, she opened the door and accepted the bedside lamp he handed her.

“You’ve got to stop being scared of me,” Peter said. “I’ll never intentionally do anything to hurt you. And call me Pete. I can’t stand Peter. It makes me think of a preacher I once knew.”

“I’ll try,” Anne said.

He chucked her under the chin. It comforted her, but it also made her a little angry. She wasn’t a baby.
How is he to know that? That’s exactly what you’ve been acting like.
Okay, so she had been foolish, but she still wasn’t a baby. He was older than she was. Lots of women got married a lot younger, and to older men. She knew one woman her age who had two children already.

She poured some water in the basin and washed her face.

She was going to have to start thinking of herself as a woman. Uncle Carl had always treated her like a little girl, requiring her to help Dolores in the kitchen and with the housework but never letting her be responsible for anything.

She unbuttoned her dress and let it drop to the floor. She unlaced her corset and discarded it as well. She stepped out of the shift and reached for her nightgown. She hadn’t paid any attention to what she was getting when she’d reached in her drawer. She’d gotten a faded gown made of sturdy cotton. She’d look like an old woman, but there was nothing she could do about it. She pulled the gown over her head. Clutching her clothes in her arms, ignoring the feel of her naked skin under the rough cotton, she opened the door and reentered the bedroom.

“I was beginning to think you’d escaped out the window,” Peter said. Pete. She had to remember he’d asked her to call him Pete. It fitted him better now. A name like Peter was too stodgy for him.

“I forgot. I’m not used to anybody waiting for me to finish.”

“No problem. After having to wash in a stream or a water hole, a bathroom is going to seem like an extravagant luxury. I may not come out for hours.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Anne hurried to put away her clothes and get into bed. The idea of being caught standing in the middle of the room with nothing on but a nightgown unnerved her, but the thought of sharing the bed with him had her entire body rigid with fright.

She climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, but that didn’t give her any sense of comfort. Every time she moved the slightest bit, every time she took a deep breath, the bed made a sound. And that made her even more conscious of the fact that she was in a bed waiting for her husband. The coolness of the sheets, which was always a comfort after a warm summer day, seemed ice cold and unfriendly tonight. Her body seemed strange and unfamiliar. Sensations didn’t register as they used to. She felt as if she was coming down with a fever, then with the chills.

She was being stupid, letting her nerves get the better of her. She would relax. Peter—Pete—had promised not to touch her. She believed him. She really did.

She wished she had the courage to blow out the big lamp he’d brought from downstairs. He must have gotten it while she was in the bathroom. She would have preferred to wait for him in the dark. At least he wouldn’t be able to see the fear in her face.

The bedroom door burst open, and Belser strode into the room. “Couldn’t wait to get in his bed, could you?” he shouted.

She could tell he’d been drinking. Not enough to be drunk, but enough to be unpleasant.

“He’s my husband,” she managed to say, her voice a harsh whisper. “It’s where I’m supposed to be.”

“I don’t believe he’s your husband. Even a sap-sucker like Peter wouldn’t marry
you.
Not that I think he’s Peter.”

“He wants us to call him Pete. He says Peter reminds him—”

The bathroom door slammed open, and Pete strode into the room. He was naked from the waist up. Anne felt the blood rush to her face.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded of Belser.

“I came to see—”

“I didn’t hear you knock. I didn’t hear Anne invite you in.”

“I never knock. I—”

Pete’s fist shot out, made contact with Belser’s face, and sent him reeling back through the doorway.

“Don’t ever come into my bedroom without knocking and being invited,” Pete said. “Next time I’m liable to shoot first.”

“Son of a bitch!” Belser shouted, holding his hand to a nose that dripped blood. “You’ve broken my nose.”

“Your nose will heal,” Pete said. “A bullet through the chest is a little trickier. Now get out of here. The sight of all that blood is liable to upset Anne.” He closed the door in Belser’s face. “Sorry about that,” he said to Anne. “He won’t do it again.” Then he disappeared into the bathroom once more.

Anne lay in the bed, her mouth agape. Nobody had ever stopped Belser from bursting into rooms. Uncle Carl had given up, but it was clear Pete wasn’t going to put up with it. She feared Belser might get a gun and come back, but after a series of curses that turned Anne’s ears pink, his voice faded away down the hall. A moment later she heard the door to his room slam. The tension left her body and she collapsed into the pillows.

She felt exhausted, utterly wrung out, mentally and physically. She had thought the tension of waiting for Pete, not knowing when—or if—he would arrive, and worrying about what her uncle would do next had been difficult. None of that equaled the few hours since Pete’s arrival. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but this wasn’t it.

Yes, she did. She’d expected to see her old friend of ten years back again. She’d expected to fall into the same brother-sister relationship she’d enjoyed so much. She’d expected to have to encourage him to stand up to Belser. She’d expected to feel that she was important to him, that he needed her.