“Is there a bus around here? Or an airport?” How she was going to pay for anything, since she hadn’t a penny on her, couldn’t concern her, but, somehow, the look of consternation on the man’s face didn’t surprise her.
“What is an airport?” he asked, and for some reason she couldn’t define, his query made Kady dizzy again.
“No, don’t touch me,” she said when he made a move toward her. She had to take control of the situation. “Look, I appreciate all your old-world chivalry, and I thank you for your shoulder to cry on, but I must leave you now. I really do want to go home.” And not get involved here, she thought. Nor do I want to find out why you don’t know what an airport is.
With as much dignity as she could muster, she looped her train over her arm and started toward the rocks that she knew held the path that led to the doorway back to Virginia—and back to Gregory.
Chapter 5
HE DIDN’T FOLLOW HER, AND KADY WASN’T SURE WHETHER she was glad or terrified. What if she couldn’t find the opening? What if the cowboy left her alone in these mountains and she could never find her way out?
Right now she wasn’t going to allow herself to give in to her emotions. But the question, Why me? was going through her head. Why had what appeared to be a supernatural thing happened to her? She was a very ordinary person, and all she wanted was what she had: her cooking, marriage to Gregory, and maybe a baby or two.
Since the cowboy she’d saved was obviously the man in the photo, she knew that what had happened was meant to save him from hanging. But now that he was saved, why didn’t she instantly return to Virginia and Gregory?
She climbed the path as it wound higher and higher up the mountain, but she knew within minutes that she had no idea where the petroglyphs were. When she’d come down the mountain she had been dazed and dizzy. Not that she was a whole lot better now, she thought, since she hadn’t eaten in many hours.
“Roast potatoes,” she said out loud to the rocks surrounding her. “Buttered corn and tiny squabs on toast. Rare roast beef; salmon from Scotland. Strawberry tart. Chocolate truffles.”
Mentally preparing a menu only made her feel worse as she trudged up the trail that seemed to branch off in many different directions at once. Her beautiful gown kept snagging on the bushes, but she took her time disentangling the fabric, since she still hoped to wear the dress to her wedding to Gregory. Maybe it would be her act of defiance to wear this dress after the donning of it had forced her to go where she didn’t want to go.
She had no idea how long she walked, but with each step she took, she lost hope. She was never going to find the doorway to go home. She’d starve to death or freeze or be eaten by the unidentified animal she’d just heard cry out. Or maybe those men who were trying to hang the cowboy would return and . . . and . . .
Kady sat down on a rock, feeling utterly and absolutely alone. Maybe this was her punishment for having lived such a wonderful, happy life. Thirty years of nothing much going wrong. No dysfunctional childhood, no one who’d ever tried to thwart her career, the love of a beautiful man who treated her like a princess.
With a burst of energy, she stood and beat her fists against the rocks in anger. “No, no, no, no!” she shouted. “I won’t give it up. I won’t! Do you hear me? I won’t give it up!”
Of course there was no one to answer her or even to hear her, and after a moment she slumped back down on the rock, her head in her hands, and began to cry. Maybe she’d not appreciated her life in Virginia enough and that’s why she’d lost it all.
After a few minutes her energy was spent, and she leaned back against the rocks and closed her eyes. Maybe if she concentrated, she’d wish herself back into her apartment, back into Gregory’s arms. Maybe if—She fell asleep.
Kady awoke slowly, more aware of her stomach than the rest of her body. Did she smell roasting meat? With her eyes still closed, she smiled. Chicken? No, of course not. That was the unmistakable fragrance of rabbit. Rabbit cooked in wine, or baked in a crust, or smothered in twice-whipped potatoes. Carrots. Tiny peas fresh from the pods. Thyme and a lot of pepper.
“Oh!” she said as she nearly fell off the rock, but a large hand kept her from falling. When she opened her eyes, she was at first disoriented, not knowing where she was, but then she looked into the dark blue eyes of the cowboy.
“Hungry?” he asked, holding out his hat. The inside was lined with oak leaves, and on top were the cut up pieces of rabbit.
Kady was so hungry she grabbed a leg and thigh piece and began eating, barely noticing that the meat was cooked incorrectly: too high a heat had been used, so the meat was dry outside and almost raw inside. It was minutes before she could look up from the bone that she’d eaten clean.
With a smile the man offered her another piece and his canteen full of water. “Find what you were looking for?” he asked when she was on her third piece of meat. He was sitting on a rock across from her, lazily leaning back, his long legs sprawled out between them, his boots nearly touching her skirt.
“No,” she said, not wanting to meet his eyes. She didn’t want to accept help from him, didn’t want to be in his debt. Truthfully, she didn’t want to get into trouble with him; he was very appealing.
“You left something behind,” he said as he held up the satin pouch.
Kady didn’t answer him but concentrated on the rabbit.
“You want to explain why you’re carrying a photo of my family and my father’s watch?”
“No,” she said, not looking at him, but she could feel his eyes on her.
“Who are you and where do you live?” he asked softly.
When she finished the third piece of rabbit, she looked up. “Elizabeth Kady Long,” she said. “But people call me Kady.” She was looking about for something to wipe her greasy hands on. The cowboy took a bandanna from his pocket, wet it with the canteen, then bent toward her, took one of her hands, and began to wash it. Kady tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t release her.
“I can do that myself,” she said, but he ignored her. Either she needed some assertiveness training or this man needed a course in believing women were autonomous.
When her hands were clean, he leaned back, so Kady started to get up.
“You might as well stay there since there is no place to go. There’s just mountains on three sides; Legend is that way, and Denver is a two days’ ride past it.”
“Then I’d better start walking,” she said, rising, but his leg blocked her path.
“Get out of my way!” she demanded.
“Not until you give me some answers. Now listen, Miss Long, you saved my life, and I feel that I owe you. It’s my responsibility to take care of you and see that you’re safe.”
“How can I be safe with a man who is about to be hanged? Maybe those men will return and hang both of us.”
“That’s a possibility, and it’s one of the reasons I would very much like to leave this place and get back to town. But I’m not going to leave without you. If you would tell me who takes care of you, I’d gladly take you to them, but I’m not going to ride off and leave you here alone. You can’t even feed yourself.”
At that Kady’s eyes widened. Not able to feed herself was the very last thing she thought she’d ever hear anyone say of her. The accusation was so absurd that it caused her to smile, then give a bit of a laugh.
“That’s better,” the man said. “Now, why don’t you sit back down and tell me what misfortune has left you wandering about the Rockies in a wedding dress.”
Kady was tempted. Very tempted. But she knew better than to turn her troubles over to this man. Some sixth sense made her refuse to tell him anything because she didn’t want her life involved with his. She just wanted to go home and never see this man again.
“You’re the boy in the photo?” she asked, trying to divert his attention. Maybe if she could get some answers from him, she’d find out why she was here.
“Yes,” he said, his jaw stiff, as though he didn
’t want to speak of that.
His attitude made Kady curious. “Is this your mother’s wedding dress?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t at her wedding.”
In spite of her dilemma, Kady laughed, and the man smiled back. “I bet your sister grew into a real beauty.”
The man didn’t say anything for a while, then slowly withdrew the photo from the envelope. “No one will ever know. She was killed when she was seven years old.”
Kady drew in her breath sharply. “I’m sorry. I . . .” She looked down at the dress and remembered how she’d thought that the woman in the photo looked so happy. “Your mother—”
“Dead too,” the man said coldly, then looked up at Kady, his eyes hard, still full of misery after all these years. “This photo was the last one taken. Just days later there was a robbery at a bank in Legend, and as the thieves rode out of town all the good citizens of Legend opened fire.”
As Kady watched, his lips curled into a sneer. “When the smoke cleared, my sister and my best friend were dead. My father and grandfather rode out after the robbers, and two days later they too were dead. My mother died the next year of grief.”
For a moment Kady could only look at him in stunned silence. “I am so sorry,” she managed to whisper. “That’s why you hate guns, isn’t it?” she said, and the man nodded curtly.
Kady knew that this tragedy had something to do with why she was here. But that thought made her even more determined to return to her apartment, to go back through the rock and get out of whatever entanglement there was here. Standing, she walked to the edge of the path, then looked back at him.
“I need to find the petroglyphs,” she said softly. “Do you know where they are?”
“There are lots of Indian carvings in these mountains,” he answered. “You could hunt the rest of your life and not find them all.”
“But I must find them!” she said passionately. “You don’t understand. You understand nothing.”
“I am willing to try to understand if you’ll just tell me what is so important about a bunch of Indian carvings.”
Kady’s hands were in fists at her side. She was not going to start crying again. “I was born in nineteen sixty-six,” she said fiercely.
“But that would make you only seven years old,” he said, puzzled.
“Not eighteen sixty-six. Nineteen sixty-six.”
As she looked at him, several emotions played across his handsome face, a face tanned by the sun and years spent out-of-doors. “I see,” he said at last.
“I see that you don’t believe me,” Kady said, her mouth tight. “Not that I expect you to believe me.” She glared at him. “What are you thinking? That I escaped from an insane asylum? Are you thinking of locking me up so I can’t harm anyone? Are you—”
“You’re not very good at reading thoughts, are you? I was thinking that no matter when you were born, right now you need someone to take care of you. You need food and shelter and something else to wear. I think you should marry me, and I’ll—”
At that Kady began to laugh. “Men are always the same, aren’t they? Their solution for everything is to go to bed with them. A night of fabulous sex will make all the woman’s problems go away.”
The man was frowning, his eyes almost angry. “If sex was all I was after, I could have taken that from you before now. There’s no one here strong enough to stop me.”
That statement wiped the smile off Kady’s face. She turned away from him and took a step down the path. But she hadn’t gone far when his voice stopped her.
“I’ll take you into town,” he said, and she could tell by his tone that she had hurt his feelings. Her mother had told her to never laugh at a man’s proposal of marriage, no matter how ludicrous she found it.
She turned back. He was still sprawled on the rock, his eyes on his father’s watch, winding it, acting as though nothing had happened, but she could tell that she had offended him.
“I apologize,” she said, moving to stand near him. “You have been nothing but kind to me, and I owe you. It’s just that—”
Abruptly, he stood, and the size of him made her stop talking. He towered over her five feet two inches, and, besides, something about a corseted dress made a woman feel ultrafeminine.
“No, Miss Long, it is I who owes you.” He did not look at her while he spoke. “I cannot in good conscience leave you here in the mountains alone, so I will take you into Legend. There I’m sure you can find employment and a place to live, and you can come back here to search for your Indian pictures whenever possible. Is that acceptable to you?”
“Yes,” she said hesitantly. It was perfect, but somehow, his suggestion made her feel as though she’d lost something. A friend, perhaps?
“Would you care to follow me, Miss Long?” he asked coolly, making Kady wince.
She very much wanted to make amends for having been so nasty about his marriage proposal, even if it had been made out of a sense of duty. “Mr. Jordan—” she began but broke off when he looked at her sharply, making her realize that she had not asked him his name. “The name Cole Jordan is written on . . . I mean . . .” She didn’t want him to know that she’d been snooping through his belongings.
The look he was giving her made her face flush, and she felt about two inches high.
“You have the advantage of me as you seem to know a great deal about me, while all I know of you is your name.” His mouth curled into a tiny smile. “And your birth date, of course.”
That smug little smile erased Kady’s guilt. “Since I did save your life, I guess the least you can do is give me a ride into town.” She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “Look, Mr. Jordan, I think we should make things clear between us. Whether you believe that I’m from another time or another town makes no difference. The truth is that I am engaged to marry a man I care for very much, and I’m not going to marry someone else just to get a roof over my head. Where I come from, women take care of themselves, and as it happens, I happen to be a cook, so I can get a job just about anywhere. Any year. So, please, forgive me; I did not mean to offend you, and I would like to keep you as my friend. But nothing more.”
As she made this speech, he’d stood there watching her, his face unreadable, but then he gave a slow smile that made her think she should get as far away from him as possible. She was engaged, but she was also human.
“All right, Miss Long, we’ll be friends,” he said, holding out his hand for her to shake.
In an instant he seemed to change from being overly concerned to being just what she wanted, a friend. In silence, she followed him down the mountain and back to camp, thus giving Kady time to think.
It’s best not to dwell on the horror of this situation and to look at it as an adventure, she told herself. Since she didn’t seem able to return to her home right away, she should do what this man suggested and get a job, a place to live, and as Cole, er, ah, Mr. Jordan said, spend her weekends searching for the petroglyphs that would show her the opening in the rock.
And while she was looking, she’d get involved with no one because without a doubt there was a reason why she had been sent here. It was just that she didn’t care what that reason was and had no intention of getting involved with it.
By the time they reached the camp, she was feeling much better. She was not going to allow this thing to defeat her!
“Perhaps you’d like to get yourself onto the horse,” Cole said politely. “I would not like to interfere with your independence.”
When he turned around, Kady made a little face at his back, then turned to look at the horse. She’d already climbed onto its back when she saved that ungrateful, unappreciative, overbearing, etc., man’s life. However, the first time she’d climbed onto the horse, she’d been wearing many fewer pounds of clothing. Mounting a horse while wearing ten pounds of satin, complete with a train, was for an expert, which Kady was not.
As she heaved herself up repeatedly, then repeatedl
y fell back to the ground, Cole busied himself in destroying evidence of the camp. When he was finished, he leaned against the cottonwood tree, produced a knife, and began to trim his nails.
“All right,” she said, not looking at him. “Maybe I would like some help.”
“I wouldn’t want to interfere. There’s no hurry.”
Turning, she looked at him, her eyes narrowed. “Exactly why were those men trying to hang you?”
She saw him try to hide a smile; then, slowly, as though he had all the time in the world, he resheathed his knife in his belt and moseyed over to her. For moments he stood looking down at her in puzzlement. “I don’t want to presume on our friendship, but am I allowed to touch you?”
Kady glared at him, then raised her arms for him to lift her. He did so, setting her down in the saddle with a teeth-jarring thump. Kady grabbed the pommel to steady herself while he mounted behind her. She was in the awkward sidesaddle position and felt that she might fall off any second. If the voluminous skirt hadn’t been trapping her legs, she would have slung one of them over the horse’s neck.
After he’d mounted behind her, Cole’s arms encircled her as he took the reins, but he kept his arms at a respectful distance. However, his big, strong body was pressed close to hers, and she had an urge to lean back against him. To distract herself, she decided to talk.
“What’s this town of Legend like?”
“Like most any mining town.”
“I’ve never seen a mining town in my life.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot for a moment. You’ve only seen—Exactly what is it that you have seen in . . . What year would it be now in your world?”
“Nineteen ninety-six,” she said tightly. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t laugh at me. A choirboy like you couldn’t survive in my world.”
“Choirboy?” he asked, and she could feel his amusement. “Tell me, has the future invented new crimes besides murder and war?”
“No, people have just refined them. In my time we have illegal drugs and atomic bombs and food critics. We have automobiles that travel at fantastic speeds and crash into each other, and serial killers and air pollution. And we have men who—” She cut off because she didn’t want to think of the things that she heard daily on the news. “Mine is a very fast world.”
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