LEGEND

by Jude Deveraux

  “And you want to go back to it? Except for a few horse thieves, my world’s a pretty boring place.”

  “Right. You just have lynching parties. And smallpox and typhoid fever and cholera. And outdoor plumbing.”

  “You seem to know a lot about us.”

  “I’ve watched a lot of television.”

  “And what is television?”

  As they’d been riding, Kady had leaned back against him and now was feeling rather comfortable. As she looked about her, at the incredible, breathtaking Colorado mountains, she couldn’t seem to remember exactly what television was. She’d never seen the Rockies before, and she’d had no idea they were so beautiful. Maybe she and Gregory could open a restaurant here. Maybe they could persuade his mother to leave Onions and come here.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” he said softly, reading her mind.

  “Beautiful,” she answered. “I grew up in Ohio, went to school in New York, and have worked in Virginia. I’ve never seen this.”

  He didn’t answer, but she could feel that he was pleased that she liked the countryside.

  “Truthfully, why were those men trying to hang you?” The motion of the horse and the strength of the man supporting her were making her feel so safe that she was becoming sleepy.

  “They tried to take some of my cattle, and I protested.”

  “Do you have many cows?”

  He hesitated before answering. “Very few. I told you, the Rockies aren’t the best grazing land.”

  “Then do you work in a mine?”

  “No.”

  One of those silent cowboys, she thought with a sigh, and missed Gregory. He was always willing to talk about his business or listen to Kady’s stories of what had happened in the restaurant.

  “What’s this Grover like?” Cole said, and there was a definite sneer in his voice.

  Kady was sure that wanting a man to be jealous was not psychologically correct, but it did feel good. She’d always been too busy learning to cook to spend much time with men. Before Gregory, she’d had surprisingly few dates.

  “I don’t know anyone named Grover,” she said with exaggerated innocence. “I can’t imagine who you mean.”

  “The one you’re planning to marry.”

  “Oooooh, Gregory. Well, he’s absolutely gorgeous, very black hair, dark eyes, honey-colored skin, and—”

  “Any brains?” Cole asked tightly.

  “A degree from the University of Virginia—in business, which he is very good at. Buys and sells land in California. He’s almost rich, actually, and he’s bought me a three-story town house in Alexandria. Oh!” she said when the horse stepped into a hole and Kady nearly went tumbling. But Cole’s arms caught her—and kept holding her.

  “And what about you?” she asked sweetly. “No wife or fiancée? What about a girlfriend?”

  “None,” he said. “Just me and Manuel, my old cook.”

  “And is he a very good cook?”

  “If you like beans and chili so hot it can blister your tongue. You wouldn’t like to work for me, would you? I could pay you—” He cut himself off. “Naw, you want to be independent, have your own job. Tell me, are all women a hundred years from now like you?”

  It was obvious that he was laughing at her and had no belief that she had ever seen the twentieth century. “Most of them. We have careers and earn as much money as the men. Women can do anything, you know.”

  At that he snorted. “So who takes care of the kids?”

  Kady opened her mouth to answer, but she thought a discussion of day care and nannies might not make the point she wanted to. “Having children is a choice, and the children are taken care of.” Unfortunately, some rather horrible images of child abuse that she’d seen on the six o’clock news flashed before her eyes.

  “But if the women work all day, who—”

  “Is that the town of Legend?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “No, it’s a rock formation.”

  “Isn’t that amazing, that it looks just like—”

  “If you are from another time, not that you are, why are you here? And where did you get the picture of my family and my father’s watch? We thought they were lost.”

  “Who is we?”

  “My grandmother and me. She’s the only relative I have left.” He shifted his arms around her, making them just a bit tighter. “You do have an amazing ability to change the subject. What were you doing with my family’s photo?”

  “I bought an old flour tin, and when I opened it, this dress was in it, and on the bottom of the tin was the packet containing the photo and the watch.”

  When she said no more, he said, “Then what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Kady said quietly, not wanting to think of those horrible minutes when she wavered between two worlds. She still expected to wake up any minute and be back in her apartment. No matter what time it was, she’d call Gregory and tell him she loved him and—.

  “Come on,” Cole said softly, “don’t turn coward on me now. You’re Little Miss Independent, remember? You can do everything all by yourself. Are you afraid to tell me what happened?”

  His tone said he was making fun of her. “I can take care of myself, if that’s what you mean!” she said angrily.

  He was chuckling. “There, that’s better.”

  For a few moments they were silent. “Why did you ask me to marry you?” Kady asked.

  He didn’t answer right away. “To protect you. Because I owe you. I wouldn’t he alive right now if it weren’t for you. You know, I think ol’ Harwood thought you were a ghost, coming out of the mountains in that white dress.”

  “I thought you were unconscious! How did you see anything?”

  “I was saving my strength.”

  Twisting around in the saddle, she glared up at him. “If you were awake, then you could have helped me save you!”

  “Mmmm,” was all he’d say, and Kady could see the smile he was trying to suppress.

  She turned back around. “You could have crushed me when you fell off that horse.”

  Instead of answering, he smoothed a curl back from her face and tucked it behind her ear.

  Somehow, the simple touch of putting her hair behind her ears was more intimate than anything else he had done, and Kady frowned at it. Yes, it was definitely better to get away from this man.

  Chapter 6

  THE TOWN OF LEGEND WAS NOT WHAT SHE’D EXPECTED. Maybe it was her innate cynicism, but she’d expected filth and saloons. As a kid she’d believed the beautiful movie sets that showed pretty little houses with white picket fences, but as an adult she’d realized that the women in those cowboy shows had spent three hours having their hair and makeup done. And the streets were swept daily by the crew.

  But as she rode into town on the horse in front of Cole, she had to change her mind, for Legend looked like something Walt Disney had created. It was clean and neat, and the people were all nicely dressed and bustling about with smiles on their faces.

  They rode down one street that Cole told her was named Eternity Road, then took a left down a well-maintained, wide road named Kendal Avenue. They passed clean, tidy shops, a hotel, a freight depot, livery stable, and a huge ice cream parlor that looked like something from a Judy Garland movie. She saw only one saloon, and it looked like a place you could take the kids on Saturday night. Between the buildings were vacant lots, some of them rather prettily landscaped.

  What further astonished her was that she didn’t see a gun anywhere. Not a single man was carrying a firearm. In fact, for the most part, everyone looked clean and prosperous and absolutely peaceful. Maybe it had been Cole’s story about the deaths of his family, but she’d expected Legend to be a little more, well, dangerous.

  “So much for the Wild West,” she muttered, and remembered hearing that that had been a myth. If so, then Legend was proof of that myth.

  “Where would you like me to drop you?” Cole asked.

  “Anywhere they
need a cook,” she answered. As she and Cole had passed by, all the townspeople had stopped what they were doing and looked at them. Was it the sight of her in the blindingly white dress, or were they shocked at seeing a man and woman so close together in public? she wondered. From the looks of the picture-perfect town, the only sin in this place was staying up past nine P.M.

  “How about the Palace Hotel?” he asked.

  Much to her chagrin, Cole’s words made a feeling of panic run through Kady. She was going to be alone. Alone in a strange town, in even a strange time period, for that matter. She knew nothing, really nothing, so how was she going to cope? For a second she almost threw her arms around Cole’s neck and begged him not to leave her alone.

  Be strong, Kady, she told herself.

  “This will be fine,” she said, taking a deep breath to keep her voice from shaking. He’d stopped before a plain board, two-story hotel, probably the largest building in town. And like the other buildings, it was clean and tidy with lace curtains at the windows.

  After Cole dismounted, he put up his arms to help Kady down, then stood for a while looking down at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind? I could take care of you.”

  For just a second Kady swayed toward him, but she was too self-reliant to give in to her impulses. She’d always taken care of herself, so she couldn’t very well start now, at thirty, depending on some man to take care of her.

  “I’m sure.” She straightened her spine, then held out her hand to him. “Thank you, Mr. Jordan, for all that you have done for me, and I appreciate your concern.”

  Cole took the hand she offered and solemnly clasped it. His face was grim. “I’ve never done anything like this. You are a woman under my care, and I can’t just leave you without any protection. What if you don’t get a job?”

  Kady’s smile was smug. She had every confidence that all she had to do was cook for someone and she’d be hired. “Didn’t you say that this was a mining town? It must be full of single men, and surely some of them will want a cook. Now, please go,” she said, feeling her confidence returning. How could she not find a job?

  “All right,” he said reluctantly, “but I want a favor from you.”

  Warily, she said, “What?”

  “Tomorrow at two o’clock I will meet you in front of the church. It’s that way, near the end of this road, you can’t miss it. I want you to show up there tomorrow and tell me that everything is all right with you so I can rest easy. Agreed?”

  Kady smiled up at him. “All right, it’s a deal. I’ll be there at two on the dot and tell you about my wonderful new job, and maybe I’ll even have found someone who knows where the petroglyphs are.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Cole said with a smile. “There are some old prospectors around here who know the mountains backwards and forwards. Maybe they’ll remember the place.” Still holding her hand, he gave it a squeeze. “Now, you behave yourself, and I wish you all the luck in the world.”

  With a little tug on the brim of his hat, he turned and walked down the cleanly swept boardwalk.

  It would be hard to describe the depth of the emptiness Kady felt when she saw the back of Cole Jordan. She’d known him only a day, but he was the only person she knew in this town. “The only person I know in this century,” she said as she watched him pause near a group of boys. They were playing marbles in the dirt, and Cole interrupted to hand them something he pulled from inside his pocket. Since she knew what his pockets contained, she knew he wasn’t giving them candy. What was he giving them then?

  Money, she thought as the kids looked into their palms, then took off running in the direction of the ice cream parlor that she knew was just around a bend in the road.

  “Choirboy,” she said to herself, then tossed her train over her arm and went inside the hotel. Maybe she should have asked Cole to buy her a new dress, she thought. But no, a clean break from him was better.

  Inside, the hotel was just as she’d imagined, quietly busy, filled with well-dressed men and women walking sedately arm in arm. Through a doorway she could see an area filled with horsehair-covered furniture, a huge Persian rug on the floor. To her left stood a high counter, with pigeonhole mailboxes behind it and a nice-looking young man writing in an enormous ledger.

  Smiling, she went to the clerk. “Could I see the manager? Or the person in charge of hiring people?” she asked politely.

  The man looked down at her white silk gown, then raised one eyebrow. Did he think she’d been stood up at her wedding? Kady wondered, feeling embarrassed. Number one on her agenda was to get a new dress. Maybe she could get an advance on her salary.

  One o’clock, Kady thought, looking up at the clock on the tower on top of the firehouse. One more hour to go before she was to meet Cole and she could see the church from here.

  What was she going to tell him? she wondered. Would she have to go onto her knees to beg him to buy her a meal? At the mere thought of food, her stomach growled. Due to how little she had eaten since coming through the rock, she could pull her corset in another couple of inches.

  Turning from the firehouse, she started walking toward the church but had to stop. Not too fast, she told herself, save your energy. Trying to keep her shoulders back and her pride intact, she walked slowly down the dusty road, doing her best to ignore the townspeople who passed her.

  Kady was sure that by now they knew all about her, how she’d arrogantly told the hotel manager that she was a better cook than anyone he’d ever had at his hotel. Just as arrogantly, he told her he didn’t want any women in his kitchen, inciting the men to who knew what acts. He hadn’t even considered giving Kady a job.

  So much for equal rights, she had told herself as she left the hotel. So the first place she’d tried had turned her down. So what? There was an entire town full of employment opportunities; she’d find something somewhere.

  But as night drew near and Kady still had no place to sleep, she began to give up hope that anyone would give her a job, and her despondency began to grow. When the cold Colorado night began to descend, she remembered with great fondness how Cole’s warm body had held her during the night before.

  By nightfall she’d tried nearly every shop in town. She’d even made her way out to the Tarik Mine and begged a job there. To her great humiliation, when the mine manager told her that a woman who looked like her would cause riots among the men, she had burst into tears. For a moment the he’d looked as though he was going to relent, but he’d glanced at another man who’d shaken his head no, so the manager did not give in. He did, however, say she could ride back to town on one of the wagons full of ore.

  As Kady walked to the wagon with the two men, she saw an open tent set up under the trees, with trestle tables inside, and the tables were covered with food. From the smell of it, everything was fried in the same grease that had been used to lubricate the wagon wheels, but at the moment the smell of any food made Kady’s mouth water.

  She forgot her pride. “Could I have something to eat?” she asked, and she could see by the manager’s eyes that he was going to say yes. But the other man, his lieutenant, his evil wizard, as Kady saw him, firmly took her arm and told her that a mining camp was no place for a lady. Before Kady could think of an appropriately nasty reply, he half lifted her onto a hard board wagon seat and told the driver to go.

  Within minutes she was back in town, and the driver let her out at the depot, where the silver ore would be weighed before being hauled down the mountain. Across from her was the laundry, so Kady went in and asked if they needed any help. She wasn’t in the least surprised when they told her no.

  Across the street, behind the ice cream parlor, was a large park, with big cottonwood trees and grassy lawns. At one end was what looked like a sports field with bleachers set up.

  By the time she reached the sports field, night had fallen, and she was shivering. In the moonlight she could see what looked to be a perfect little schoolhouse, with a bell tower on top of
the building and a little porch on the front. Half staggering, both from hunger and exhaustion, Kady made her way to the building, and when she found the front door unlocked, she offered a prayer of thanks, then went inside. By comparison with the outside, the schoolhouse was a haven of warmth. In the little cloakroom she found a couple of forgotten coats and what smelled like a horse blanket, put them on the floor, lay down on them, rolled them around her, and went to sleep.

  When she awoke the next morning, the sun was up, and it took her moments to remember where she was. When she did, she refused to allow herself to feel any self-pity. Her mother had told her that self-pity was a bottomless well and once a person fell into it, you kept falling forever.

  Since there were no children clamoring to be let in the next morning, Kady assumed it was Saturday, or maybe Sunday. She could barely keep up with the year, much less the day of the week.

  She spent some time searching the schoolhouse for something she could wear. Maybe her dress, so unforgivably white in the brilliant mountain sun, was the reason she could not get a job. Or wasn’t even given a chance to prove that she could do the job, she thought with some bitterness.

  As she was about to leave the schoolhouse, she saw a mirror on the far wall and went to look at herself, then nearly screamed in horror. This was the woman who the mine manager said would cause trouble among the men?

  Her hair, once clean and neatly pinned, was now dirty and as tangled as a cold dish of angel hair pasta. Her face had a black streak across one cheek. “Wonder how long that’s been there?” she said aloud as she rubbed at the dirt.

  As for her dress, it hardly resembled the beautiful creation she’d pulled out of the flour tin. One shoulder was torn at the seam, from when she’d caught it as she beat a hasty retreat from the sawmill. There was a black smudge covering one whole side of the skirt where she’d brushed it against a sooty stove in the newspaper office. A young man, with a pencil behind his ear, had aggressively asked her questions about her reasons for being in town and her relationship with Cole Jordan and where did she live and did she know anything about the recent robberies and why was she asking questions around town and was she one of the members of the gang and who had stood her up at her wedding and did her fiancé find out about her involvement with the robbers and where did they bury the loot and what—?