Pete (The Cowboys) (17 page)

Anne didn’t think she had enough presence of mind to answer a direct question, much less carry on a conversation. Pete’s hand was moving back and forth over her right shoulder. Every nerve seemed to have suddenly moved to that part of her body.

“What makes all these bubbles?” Pete asked.

“Bath soap,” Anne managed to reply. “The lady at The Emporium said the army wives bought it all the time.”

“It smells good.”

“It’s lavender. She said it was an English herb.”

“I wonder if the whole country smells like this?”

“She didn’t say.” She couldn’t imagine a whole country smelling this good. Pete shifted his attention to the other shoulder. Nearly all her nerve endings followed him, but a few remained, giving the freshly scrubbed shoulder a tingling sensation.

“I don’t suppose it does. I’ve met a lot of Englishmen. I think they’d have mentioned something like this.”

“Where could you meet so many Englishmen in Illinois?” She could have sworn she heard him curse under his breath.

“They were headed out to the goldfields. They would load up on supplies before they left.”

“You must have met a lot of interesting people.” His hand had slipped off her shoulder down to her arm. She held it up so he could get to it more easily.

“What else did you buy this afternoon?”

“I bought some powder that smells like this soap.”

“I guess I’ll feel like I’m sleeping in a bed of lavender tonight.”

The possible implications of that statement caused Anne to flush and her skin to burn.

“Lean forward so I can get to your back,” Pete said.

Anne leaned so far forward, her nose nearly touched the bubbles.

“Don’t disappear,” Pete said. “I’d have to crawl in and fish you out.”

Anne hadn’t thought she could flush any warmer, but she was wrong. She was certain the water would be hotter when she got out of the bathtub than when she got in.

“There’s not enough room,” she said.

“A tight fit would make it all that much more fun.”

Anne decided people did things in Illinois they simply knew nothing about in Wyoming Territory. She very much wanted to ask Pete if he’d ever gotten in a bathtub with a female, but she hadn’t the courage. She didn’t know what she’d do if he said yes … or if he asked to get in the bathtub with her.

Yes, she did. She’d faint. Drown. And that would be the end of that.

“Don’t panic. I’m not going to jump in with you. I’d ruin my new clothes.”

The old Peter would never have considered such a thing. She doubted the new Pete would be deterred by much of anything, certainly not a few wet clothes. The more changes she discovered in him, the more she marveled that one man could have changed so much. Uncle Carl had always said that keeping him on the ranch would have made a man out of him. Apparently Illinois was able to do just as well.

“You must have bought something besides soap and powder,” Pete said.

It was hard to think with Pete’s hand moving over her back in slow circles. It did nothing to reduce her temperature or ease the tension in her muscles. Or clear the mush out of her brain. She couldn’t remember half the things she’d bought. “I bought some body oil. The woman said it would make my skin soft and smooth.”

“It’s already soft and smooth. It feels like silk.”

Anne had never seen or felt silk until that morning when the lady brought out a dress made of a deep-green material that moved and shimmered like a shaft of emerald light. The material felt so soft, so smooth. Anne thought it was wonderful that Pete would compare her skin to that magical material.

“I’ll rub some on your back after you get out of the bathtub,” Pete said.

Anne was certain she didn’t have the strength to get out of the tub. “I don’t know …”

“You can’t reach your back. All of you ought to be soft and silky.”

Anne didn’t trust her sensory perceptions anymore—nothing in her body was working like it should—but she was certain Pete’s voice had changed in quality. He spoke more slowly, deliberately, at a lower pitch, with more breath in the sound. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said he was just as strongly affected by the situation as she. But that couldn’t be. Pete knew all about two people in the same bathtub. She couldn’t even imagine such a thing.

Much to her surprise she found she could. In fact, she was imagining it at that very moment.

“A little bit more, and we’ll be done,” Pete said.

He was washing low down on her back, so low she felt his fingertips on her hips. She thought she felt his breath on her shoulders. She hoped not. If she did, she might faint for sure.

“There, all done.” He stood up and dried his hands on the towel. “Do you need me to help you out of the tub?”

“No! I can do that myself.”

That would expose all of her body to his view. She was certain she couldn’t stand that. It didn’t matter that he was her husband, that they had slept in the same bed together. What really mattered was that she’d just become fully aware of the physical nature of his presence, and it had shocked her nearly witless. She would need time to recover, to get used to the idea that a husband had the right to put his hands all over his wife’s body.

To get used to the idea that she wanted him to touch her.

At the moment, she was inclined to think the second thought was the more shocking of the two.

Pete practically staggered back into the bedroom. He couldn’t say just why he’d volunteered to wash Anne’s back—his mind was acting too peculiarly for him to know just what was going on with it—but he did know it was a crazy thing to have done. And what on earth had prompted him to tease her about crawling into the bathtub with her? He was losing control of a situation that required the most careful management if he was to get out of it with a whole skin.

He sank down on the bed but got up almost immediately. The vision that sprang into his mind was guaranteed to keep his mind and body in turmoil.

He reminded himself that Anne was legally married to another man. He might be able to get away with pretending to be Peter Warren, but he
wasn’t
Peter, and taking advantage of Anne would be the same as raping her.

No, that wasn’t true. He would never force himself on a woman who didn’t want him. It would be just his luck that any day now Anne would decide they had had enough time to become reacquainted and she wanted him to make love to her. What excuse could he offer then? More important, could he resist? He was safe during the day. He could keep his distance, involve himself in work. Other people were around.

But during the night! He didn’t want to think about it.

He walked over to the window, raised the blind, and looked out. The view from the window was of the Big Horn Mountains in the distance, their silhouette outlined by the moonlight that poured down on the hills from clear, star-filled skies. He could hear occasional sounds from the street in front of the hotel, see parts of buildings outlined by the shadowy light coming from inside the various saloons that would remain open all night. Behind the hotel, the waters of Clear Creek tumbled over the rocky streambed on their way from the Big Horn Mountains to the Powder River and on north to the Missouri River.

But nothing outside the hotel could make Pete forget that Anne was in the bathroom, in the bathtub, naked, and that he’d offered to rub oil on her back.

Just the thought of it made his body swell. He cursed. Tight pants were meant to make a cowboy’s work of riding and wrangling easier. They weren’t meant to accommodate an aroused condition. Or disguise it. If he didn’t think of something quick, he’d have to duck out the door before Anne emerged from the bathroom. Seeing him in this condition might give her heart failure.

He wondered again at her reluctance to share her body with the man she thought was her husband. He could understand her initial shyness. Regardless of how much she thought she loved Peter Warren, seeing him as a man rather than the boy she remembered had to have been a shock. She would have needed some time to readjust her thinking. Maybe a few hours. Maybe even a few days. But any girl who had grown into womanhood ought to be glad the boy she remembered had grown into manhood, especially if that boy was her husband.

If she loved him, she ought to be eager to consummate their marriage.

Anne had shown no signs of wanting to be intimate with Pete. Though he was thankful for this on one level, it worried him on another. He liked Anne. She was a beautiful woman, and he hoped things would go well for her in the future. But it tarnished his perception of her to think she might have married Peter just to protect herself from her uncle. He could understand that. He couldn’t blame her. But it didn’t sit well with him.

Of course, her desire to keep her distance might be his fault. She had fallen in love with another man. From everything he’d been able to learn, Peter Warren wasn’t a bit like him. Anne might not know he was an imposter, but she must instinctively know she was facing a stranger, even if that stranger was supposed to be the grownup version of the boy she used to know.

Pete pulled the shade down and turned away from the window. There was no point in racking his brain trying to figure out anything about Anne or her motives. He would leave as soon as he found his money. In a few weeks, he probably wouldn’t even remember her.

“I’m ready.”

The sound of her voice acted on his nerves like an electric shock. Pete jerked himself around to see Anne standing in the doorway to the bathroom, her hair piled atop her head, her body lost inside an oversized bathrobe. She held out a jar to him.

Pete felt rooted to the spot.

“It’s all right if you’ve changed your mind.”

“No,” he managed to reply. “I was just thinking. You caught me off guard.” She’d caught him off guard a long time ago. Thinking had just made it worse.

She smiled and his legs threatened to go out from under him. “I never had so many nice things. Thank you for giving them to me.”

“It’s nothing. Every woman ought to have those things.” He didn’t know what she was talking about. He was just blubbering. She came closer, handed him the jar. He managed to collect himself enough to take it.

“Uncle Carl didn’t think so. Neither did my father from what I can remember. They thought a woman ought to be happy with one company dress, a husband, children to look after, and her own kitchen.”

It was a good thing old Uncle Carl wasn’t married to any of the women Pete knew. He’d have had heart failure long ago.

“A woman likes to look nice, to feel pretty, to be pampered.” He was quoting Isabelle and Pearl. He’d never thought much about it himself.

“You always did understand me better than anybody at the Tumbling T. I was very lonely after you went back to Illinois.”

Pete wasn’t about to get caught in a quagmire of memories he didn’t remember. “Well, I’m back now. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

She turned her back to him, pulled the robe high against her throat, then let the neck fall, exposing about a third of her back.

“Is that okay?” she asked.

“A little off the shoulders.” His voice sounded unsteady; his throat felt lined with cotton.

She giggled. “Much more, and it’ll be off me altogether. Of course that wouldn’t be so terrible. You
are
my husband.”

Pete tried, but he couldn’t articulate a response. His vocal chords had shut down altogether.

She turned around. “Did I shock you?”

He could tell she’d probably shocked herself. If he hadn’t offered to wash her back—

“No,” he managed to say. “As you said, I am your husband.” The word caught in his throat before he managed to force it out. “Now turn back around.”

Seeing her bare back was dangerous, but looking into the wide-eyed innocence of her gaze was lethal. He had good intentions and he meant to hold to them, but he was only human.

“My hand will probably be cold again.”

“That’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay for him. Just the sight of her back bare to her hips inflamed his body to the point of pain. “I don’t know how much to put on. You’ll have to tell me when I’ve got enough.”

“I don’t know either.”

Just what he needed, a woman who didn’t know any more than he did. He poured some oil on her back.

She flinched and giggled. “It’s cold.”

He started to rub it in. Body heat must release the fragrance. The longer he rubbed, the more aromatic the oil became.

“It smells nice,” Anne said.

The effect of the lavender oil wasn’t nearly as powerful as the sight of her bare back. The smoothness of her pure-white skin was intoxicating. He had never realized how soft a woman’s skin could be, how beautifully warm and perfect. He rubbed the oil over her shoulders. She was so slim, he could feel each bone. In a few years they would be padded by a small layer of flesh that would round off the corners and edges to a seductive softness.

A tremor shook his body.

He poured some oil into his hand. He could feel each vertebra as his hands moved slowly and steadily over her lower back. “I can count your ribs,” he said, lust thickening his voice. “We’ll have to start feeding you better.”