Pete (The Cowboys) by Leigh Greenwood Read Free Book Online Page A

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