But whatever she was, she kept herself locked inside a protective shell. It was as though she lived all by herself in the world because she was always making sure that no one paid her way or took care of her. She seemed to think she needed to exist all by herself in the world.
And she didn’t allow Cole to get near her no matter how hard he tried. He knew she must be frightened, after all, she was alone in a strange place, but she refused to ask for help or even to let him see how afraid she was.
And she kept talking about this . . . this man named Gregory. Even when thinking of the name, Cole sneered. Kady didn’t love this man. Maybe Cole wasn’t an expert on love, since he’d only recently discovered it, but he knew enough to know that when Kady said the name, her voice didn’t resonate with the feeling that he, Cole, had for Kady. Actually, she sounded more as though she were talking about a business partner than a man she planned to marry.
Or maybe that was how Cole wanted to see the situation. Now, sitting in the cabin in the early morning half light, he looked at Kady and knew that he’d never be able to hear love in her voice for any man except himself.
She was his. His for all time. Minutes before he was to die, she had been sent to save him. Save him from death, save him from loneliness. Save him from a life that had increasingly held little meaning for him. Since he was nine years old, since that day-in-hell when the bank had been robbed and the townspeople of Legend had opened fire, Cole had wondered why he had been spared. Just him, and no one else. In two days he’d lost his sister, his friend, his father, and his grandfather. The year after that his mother had died. His grandmother had said she couldn’t bear the sight of Legend, so she’d moved to Denver. Cole had begged his grandmother, his only living relative, to be allowed to stay in the mountain town; he couldn’t abide the city. His grandmother Ruth had a soft heart, so she’d allowed her grandson to stay with people she trusted in his beloved Legend.
For all that the people he’d stayed with had been good to him, the emptiness he’d felt at losing his family had never been filled.
Smiling, he looked at Kady, sleeping like the angel she was, half buried under the pile of covers on the hard bed. She was so innocent, as innocent as she seemed to think he was. And as far as he could tell, she believed everything he told her. It was difficult to comprehend, but she had even believed his story about being a eunuch.
His lie had been spur-of-the-moment, the word triggering childhood memories for days after he’d been shot no one knew whether he was going to live or die, Cole had taken advantage of the worry he saw in everyone’s eyes to get answers to all the grown-up secrets he and Tarik had tried to figure out on their own. One of his questions was, What was a eunuch? His grandmother had said it was a man who couldn’t make babies and no women wanted to marry such a man. So now, years later, when Kady mentioned the word in jest, Cole had seized on it to concoct a rather marvelous lie.
And Kady had believed him! She’d believed him and agreed to stay with him. In amazement, Cole had watched her eyes soften, and he could feel her heart melting.
Maybe Cole should feel guilty for telling such a great, whopping lie, but he’d do anything to gain time with Kady. He’d even thought about throwing himself over a cliff, hoping to break a bone or two so she’d stay and nurse him. Maybe if he was wounded and she thought he was helpless, she wouldn’t jump every time he got near her.
So now what was he to do with this time? he wondered. By lies and trickery, more lies than she could possibly know, he had made her agree to spend three days alone with him. He’d also managed to get her married to him. That thought made him smile. Planning the strategy that led to that marriage had taken some work on his part. But it had been worth it! Kady was now his, even if she didn’t yet know it.
All he had to do now was erase from her mind all thoughts of this man she thought she loved and show her that she actually loved Cole and no one else.
He just had to figure out how to do that. Cole had once heard a man say that all you had to do was whisper a few sweet words to a woman, then kiss her on the neck in just the right spot, and she was yours. But Kady had that shell around her that kept him outside, and he didn’t think all the neck kisses in the world were going to make her love him.
Now, looking at her, he wondered what this Gregory had done to get past her shell. Then, abruptly, understanding lit Cole’s face. What if this Gregory hadn’t penetrated Kady’s shell? What if that’s what she liked so much about him? Maybe this Gregory asked nothing of her except that she cook a few meals, maybe smile at his friends, and probably, he also wanted her to leave him alone. Cole didn’t know for sure, but he guessed Kady wouldn’t be the kind of wife who asked too many questions about where a man had been last night.
If all this was true, what did ol’ Gregory want from Kady besides her accommodating nature? If all the man wanted was to not be questioned, why had he asked Kady to marry him? Cole had no idea what the answer was, but he thought he’d do his best in these next few days to find out.
And he’d do whatever he had to do to get close to her. He’d lie all that he needed to. He’d continue telling her that he had no idea where those petroglyphs were; he’d tell her he didn’t even remember the tree where the men were trying to hang him if he needed to. He’d tell her anything that was necessary in order to keep her with him until she told him that she didn’t want to leave.
Quietly, Cole went to the bed and knelt beside it, stroking her hair gently until she began to awaken. He’d stayed outside last night while she was getting ready for bed, even giving her time to fall asleep. When he’d returned, in the darkness, he’d stripped down to his underwear and crawled in beside her. She had snuggled next to him like a warm puppy, and he’d pulled her close to him, a smile on his face.
“I love you, Kady,” he’d whispered just before he fell asleep. “I love you, and I have waited for you forever.”
Kady awoke slowly, smiling from some unremembered dream, and when she saw Cole’s handsome face, with those beautiful lips of his, she smiled even more broadly. He was sitting on the floor beside the bed, and maybe she should have felt nervous at his nearness, but instead, she just felt comfortable. “Good morning,” she whispered, closing her eyes again. She wasn’t sure where she was, but it smelled as good as freshly baked bread. And the blankets were so warm they seemed to be tempting her to stay forever.
Just as she felt herself drifting back into sleep, she heard the man say, “Did you ever ride a spotted pony when you were a kid?”
Turning to look at him, she smiled again; then she spent so much time thinking that he had such lovely long eyelashes, that it was a while before she responded to his earnest-sounding question. “My mother and I didn’t have the time or the money to do such frivolous . . .” she began, then stopped. “Actually, I did ride a spotted pony. When I was five, one of the children who lived near me had a birthday party with a hired pony. All the children rode the pony, and we had our pictures taken on it.”
“You were wearing a red dress,” Cole said softly, playing with the curls of her hair, twisting them about his long fingers.
“Yes,” Kady answered. “How in the world did you guess?”
“I didn’t guess, I knew.” Raising his eyes, he looked at her, and when he spoke, his breath was warm on her cheek. “When I was a boy, up until I was nine, I used to have a dream about a little girl wearing a red dress and riding a black-and-white-spotted pony. She never said anything, but she was always laughing, and I felt that she was my friend.”
“Wh-what happened to her?” Kady asked, now fully awake, her mind full of her own recurring dream.
“Nothing. She disappeared right after the shooting when I was a kid. Or at least it seemed that way to me. I remember being delirious with fever and telling my mother that the little girl had gone away. But now I think the ending of the dream had to do with all the people who died that day.”
When Kady looked very sad, he smiled and kissed her nose. “
That was all a very long time ago. Twenty-four years to be precise, but I still remember that little girl who used to smile at me. You remind me of her, and since you did ride a spotted pony, I’m sure you actually were that little girl.”
Kady had to bite her tongue to keep from telling him about her own lifelong recurring dream. She’d like to tell him that Gregory was the man whom she’d seen in her dreams so many times, but she had an idea Cole would see the lie in her eyes. But at least Gregory was closer to being the man of her dreams than this blond-haired, blue-eyed man was.
Standing, Cole took her hand from under the covers and tugged on it. “Come on, get up, lazybones,” he said. “We have things to do.”
Kady allowed herself a final, luxurious closing of her eyes, then tentatively stuck a toe out from under the blanket. “Tell me if I get close to the floor,” she said.
“Come on and I’ll fry you up some flapjacks.”
“Using lard?” she asked innocently.
“Using bear grease.”
“Oh? And what did you do with the rest of the bear?”
Cole had been looking down at her, quietly and calmly, but in the next second his voice lowered and he growled, “I ate his spirit and became him.” Making his big hands into claws, Cole leaped on Kady and attempted to devour her neck with his teeth.
Kady was squealing with laughter, fighting him, telling him to get off, while his bear-claw hands clutched at her, easily holding her, then releasing her.
“Ah, now, here is a tasty bit of flesh,” he growled, his hand taking firm hold of her breast.
“Cole!” she yelped, pushing at him, but not exactly with any strength. But when he opened his mouth and pointed his head downward, she saw where he was going. Kady was fairly strong from all those years of dealing with twenty-five-pound roasts and copper pots big enough to boil a hogshead of soup. Thrusting her hips upward, she caught him by surprise and sent him rolling until he landed against the wall with a thud.
The look of surprise on his face was worth everything as Kady tossed the blanket over him and made a leap for freedom. But he caught her arm and pulled her back into the bed, where he threw a leg and an arm over her to pin her into place, then lowered his face as though to kiss her.
With another great upward thrust and a twist, Kady wiggled out from under him, falling to the floor at the head of the bed. Another roll and she was on her feet, running to stand in front of the fireplace, where she grabbed a poker and waved it like a sword. “Touch me again, Sir Bear, and I’ll take your hide and use it for a floor mat.”
Sitting up, Cole’s face feigned anguish as he clasped both hands over his heart and fell back onto the bed. “I am killed. You have murdered me. I am no more.”
Kady replaced the poker into the holder by the side of the fireplace. “Oh, well,” she said loudly. “If my bear is dead, I shall have more pancakes for myself.” Cole didn’t move. “Made with butter.” He still didn’t move. “With apples and cinnamon on them.”
Cole opened one eye. “I think my heart has begun to beat again. To survive such a slaying, I must be immortal.” He raised himself onto his elbow and looked at her.
“Immortals don’t eat,” she said.
“Then I am definitely of this earth,” he answered, getting out of bed and heading toward Kady, but she sidestepped him.
“Go out and get firewood so I can cook,” she said as sternly as she could manage, for he had removed his shirt in order to put on woolen underwear. Only after he’d left the cabin could she let out her pent-up breath.
Odd, she thought, remembering the mock battle with Cole. For all that he said he couldn’t make love, it didn’t feel as though he was a man who had been emasculated. Not that she knew what such a man would be like. Instead, it was almost as though Cole needed . . . The thought made her laugh out loud. A teacher, she thought. It was almost as though Cole needed a teacher.
You’re getting fanciful, Kady, she told herself, then put her thoughts into the familiar routine of cooking; then, checking on her biga, seeing that it was bubbling nicely, she started planning what she would do that day. She’d wander about the mountainside and refresh her knowledge of edible wild plants. Then she’d—
“What are you doing?” she asked Cole, who’d come back to the cabin with a load of wood and was now filling a canvas bag with things like matches and a canvas tarpaulin.
“I thought we might go see some Indian ruins a few miles from here,” he said. “It’ll take a day there and a day back.”
“We’re going camping?”
That seemed to strike him as amusing. “Yes, camping. Under the stars, just you and me. Anything special you want to take?”
“A chaperon?”
Cole gave her a one-sided grin that made her turn back toward the fireplace to hide her nervousness.
He’s harmless, she told herself, trying to remember the awful story he’d told her yesterday. And besides, in three days she’d be back to Gregory and true safety.
It seemed that everything was ready for the trip within minutes. Since there were no nylon tents to pack, no propane stoves, no bags of dehydrated trail mix, everything seemed to fit easily into one heavy canvas bag that Cole hefted onto his strong back. To Kady’s amazement, he already had a bow and a quiver of arrows slung across one shoulder.
“Knives,” Kady said as they stepped onto the porch, a small pack on her back, with a basket tied to it.
“You don’t need those rusty things from the cabin,” he said, echoing her own sentiments about the knives. “I have knives with me. Ready?”
As Kady pulled the cabin door shut, for a moment she searched for a way to lock it, then turned and smiled at him. “No lock.”
“No, no locks,” he said in amusement at the very idea of locking the door to a cabin in the mountains.
Cole led them up a winding trail that he said had been made by elk. After an hour, he paused, told her to be still, then pulled his bow from his back, fitted it with an arrow, and prepared to shoot a beautiful deer. After a second’s disbelief, with a great leap, Kady fell against him, sending the arrow soaring into the trees.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Cole demanded. “You made me miss him. We could have eaten for weeks off that one deer.”
A flood of words came from Kady as she told him that in her time there wasn’t much game left because hunters had killed so many animals over the centuries.
Cole listened in silence, then reshouldered his pack and bow. “I don’t think I would like your time very much,” Kady heard him say as he began walking again.
A few hours later he stopped and asked her permission to shoot a rabbit. “You haven’t killed all of them off, have you?”
Kady didn’t like his insinuation that she personally had rid the world of game, but she told him rabbits were all right. Within seconds he had shot two arrows and brought down two rabbits. As he retrieved his arrows, Kady asked him to give her a knife; then she field-dressed the rabbits in the blink of an eye. When Cole insisted that he was going to cook them, Kady headed toward a little stream, saying she’d find them a salad.
Minutes later, she returned with a basket filled with watercress, wild sorrel, prickly lettuce, and a couple of violets. Without oil, the best she could do for a dressing was to chop a few ground cherries on top. When she presented Cole with this lovely salad with its different colors of green, various-sized leaves, topped with the tiny purple violets and red cherries, she was quite proud of herself.
But Cole wouldn’t touch it. He acted as though eating anything but meat would destroy his internal organs. After a few comments about his immature taste buds, Kady happily ate all the salad by herself.
Cole wouldn’t allow her to help him with the cooking. “Don’t you know that a man is supposed to wait on his wife on their honeymoon?” he asked as he handed her a delicious quarter of roast rabbit.
“I’m not used to being waited on at all,” Kady answered. “By anyone.”
“
What about Garvin? Doesn’t he bring you gifts, shower you with every bauble a woman could want?”
“Of course he does,” Kady snapped. “Gregory has bought me a house in Alexandria, plus all the furniture in it. He’s rich and he’s generous.”
“He must have a few vices. How is he at the gaming tables?”
She smiled sweetly. “Gregory does not gamble, drink, or do drugs. He’s a hardworking, clean-living man, and he loves me very much.”
“How could any man not love you? I just want to make sure that my wife is going to be taken care of, that’s all. So, tell me, how did this man make all his money?”
“I’m not your wife. Not really anyway. Gregory makes his money from buying and selling land. And from the restaurant,” she said. “People like my cooking and they pay for it.”
“Is he planning to retire and live off you?” he asked with eyes full of false innocence.
“Certainly not. He’s thinking of running for mayor of Alexandria and eventually becoming governor, then, who knows? Maybe president.” Cole opened his mouth to speak again, but Kady interrupted him. “Why don’t we talk about you? How did you make your fortune? Why is there a mosque in Legend? And are you sure those men were trying to hang you because of some cows? Maybe you said something so awful to those nice men that you deserved to be hanged.”
Cole turned away, but Kady could see his mouth curve into a bit of a smile, and she couldn’t help smiling herself.
“You ready to go?” he asked, standing, kicking dirt over the fire he’d built.
As he helped her on with her small pack, he kissed her cheek. “I am a bit jealous of this Guwain.”
“Oh? I hadn’t noticed.”
His eyes were twinkling as he said, “I never want you to leave me, Kady. Never.”
With a frown, Kady turned away from him. She shouldn’t have agreed to these days, she thought. Maybe her body was safe with him, but her heart wasn’t. There was something so old-fashioned and protective about this man that he appealed to something she’d never known was inside her. He was like a grown-up boy, someone who hadn’t yet been beaten down by the world.
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