But his look was enough for her to know that Cole had seen no one.
With a sigh, Kady turned back toward the road.
Chapter 12
KADY RELUCTANTLY AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF VOICES, SPECIFICALLY, the angry voices of women. For a moment she thought she might still be asleep, because she seemed to be buried in a cocoon of warmth.
“Señora Jordan,” she heard a man’s voice saying. “Señora Jordan, they have come to see you.”
As Kady fought her way out of the cocoon, she realized she was surrounded by an incredibly deep feather mattress, and it was enveloping her as though it meant to swallow her. After tossing two pillows from over her head and noting that they were so light they made no sound when they hit the floor, she did her best to sit up. But that wasn’t easy when every movement made her sink farther into the cloudlike softness.
“I’m on my way,” she called up to whoever was summoning her, then grabbed the side of the heavily carved mahogany headboard and pulled herself up. But even when she was sitting up, what with being barely over five feet tall, she could hardly see over the down comforter, which had to be at least three feet thick. “An entire species of geese must have given their lives for this bed,” she mumbled, then looked around to see who was speaking.
An old man stood there, his face lined with years and weather, and he was watching Kady with eyes twinkling with amusement.
“Yes?” she said. “What is it?” Between the two sentences, she’d had to use her fist to beat the comforter down, as the thing was rising like bread in a hot oven.
The old man chuckled as he watched her fight the demon feathers. “The ladies of the town have come to tell you all about the boy.”
“The—?” The effort of speech had made Kady slide down into the mattress, so she had to right herself, then try to regain her dignity. Truthfully, she didn’t remember much about last night. Cole had promised her a bath and bed, and she vaguely remembered warm water, then falling into this soft mattress. “The boy?” she asked.
“Cole Jordan,” the man said. “You are Señora Jordan?”
“Yes, I guess I am,” she said, smiling at the way this man called Cole “the boy.” “And I take it that you are Manuel?” Kady gave the growing comforter a couple of hard licks with her fists, then looked around her at the bedroom. This was not the house of a poor man. This one room was as big as her whole apartment, and the heavy mahogany furniture must have cost a bundle. The walls were covered with pale blue damask that, unless Kady missed her guess, was silk, and over the dresser was a framed mirror that looked like something from the Paris Opera House.
Just as Kady opened her mouth to try to reply to Manuel, the open door behind him filled with chattering women who all pushed and shoved to be the first into the room.
They were talking, but for a moment Kady couldn’t hear them, for she was looking at their clothes. Having come from a time period when women seemed to wear nothing but black and their only embellishment was a small, tasteful necklace and earrings, these women were dazzling. They had fringe on their dresses, sparkling trims, rhinestone buttons, hats with feathers curling around their faces. There were plaids and prints and solids of the most outrageous colors. Blinking, Kady could do nothing but stare at all five of them.
“And we thought you should know what kind of man you have married,” one of the women was concluding.
Kady knew she’d missed the entire lecture and was sorry for it, for she would have liked to hear what kind of man Cole Jordan was. “I seem to be a bit disoriented,” she said. “Maybe you could start again and tell me everything in detail.”
The women, all of them young and attractive, a couple of them beautiful, smiled at Kady, then lifted their long, heavy skirts and pretty much climbed into bed with her. This had the effect of lifting her somewhat higher, but the feathers seemed to absorb the extra bodies, and soon the mattress and coverlet were creeping over the brightly colored skirts.
“Perhaps we should introduce ourselves. I’m Martha,” the prettiest one said, then held out a kidskin-clad hand for Kady to shake by the fingertips.
Kady tried not to think about the oddity of receiving guests while still in bed, but these young women seemed to think nothing of it. The other women introduced themselves as Mable, Margaret, Myrtle, and Mavis. Kady was lost by the third M.
“We think it is our Christian duty to tell you about the man you have married,” Martha said, making Kady smile. Were they going to tell her that Cole Jordan was a liar and a manipulator? She already knew that. She also knew how charming he could be and how sweet and—
“You are never going to believe what he made the whole town do to you,” M-Three said and got Kady’s attention.
It took nearly an hour to get the entire story straight, what with all five Ms talking at once, then Manuel interrupting to bring coffee and some divine sopapillas dripping honey. Kady sat in bed, eating and listening, and becoming more angry and disgusted by the moment.
It seemed that Legend, Colorado, wasn’t actually a mining town; it was a town that belonged to one man, and that man was Cole Jordan. He owned every mine, every house, every shop, every inch of land in the town. And every person in the town worked for Cole, or, according to the Ms, was his “bounden slave.”
“Everyone does just what he says. We have to or he sends us away.”
“My father has operated Reeve’s Mercantile for ten years, but he doesn’t own a penny of it,” M-Two said. “Cole owns everything. All of it. So you can see why we had to do what we did to you.”
What they had done, based on Cole’s orders, was to refuse to give Kady a job or even a meal on those two horrible days when she’d been searching for both. Thinking back, she remembered that Cole had given something to some boys playing by the side of the road. It seems that he’d paid them nickels to run all over town and tell everyone that anyone who fed Kady or helped her in any way was going to be thrown out of town.
“And he did this while he was arranging his—your—wedding. He had the whole church decorated and made all the choir show up to sing for his wedding. Betty’s mother was ill that day, but she knew better than to cross Cole, since every bite her family eats depends on him.”
“He trapped you into marrying him, that’s what he did,” M-One said, her handkerchief to her eyes. “And we hate to see someone of our own sex so mistreated by a man like Cole Jordan.”
“Do you know what the man you have married is really like?” Martha said, the only one of the Ms Kady could fit with a proper name.
“I don’t think I know nearly enough,” Kady answered. “Perhaps you should tell me more. Maybe you can tell me why someone was trying to hang him.”
“Oh, that,” M-Four said. “Half the country wants to murder Cole. He won’t sell anything to anybody. Once he decides something belongs to him, he keeps it, no matter what he has to do, and that includes keeping money. Why, even with the thirty million he now has—Are you all right?” she asked when Kady nearly choked on a mouthful of sopapilla.
“Thirty million what?” Kady asked when she had recovered.
“Dollars, of course. Most of it in gold and silver. Haven’t you been listening? He owns three very lucrative silver mines, plus every business in town, so of course people are always trying to take that money away from him. They get so frustrated when he won’t sell anything to them that they just decide to kill him instead.”
“I can understand their reasoning,” Kady said. “So why doesn’t he hire bodyguards, men with guns who can protect him?” At that statement all the women drew back as though she’d said something shocking. “Did I say something wrong?”
In the next second Kady realized they had drawn back merely to fill their lungs with oxygen so they could let loose a string of descriptive phrases.
“Protect Cole Jordan?!” they gasped, then proceeded to tell Kady what she’d already seen. Cole carried so many knives on his person, concealed in every piece of clothing he wore, that once w
hen he walked past some boys playing with magnets, the magnets had flown out of the boys’ hands and stuck to Cole.
“Have you seen the whip he carries down his back?” M-Two asked. “He may have nothing to do with guns, but he makes up for it in other weapons.”
“And to think I thought he was a choirboy,” Kady muttered, which made the women laugh. But the way they laughed made her look at them speculatively. Why had they come to tell her this? If it was true that whatever they owned was actually owned by Cole, why risk his wrath?
She looked each of them straight in the eye. “How many of you tried to marry him?”
M-Three didn’t hesitate. “Why all of us, of course. What young woman wouldn’t try to win a handsome man worth thirty million dollars?”
The five of them sat there on the bed and looked at Kady as though they expected her to answer this question, but she could think of no reply.
Martha smiled prettily. “I can see that we’ve startled you. Two years ago the five of us were pursuing Cole with such vigor that we hated each other. And Cole—the skunk!—was playing us one against the other. He’d tell each of us what the other had done to try to win him so we’d try to outdo the other. We were dressing for Cole, cooking for him, studying ways to entertain him. Our lives were hell!”
“Martha!” M-Three said, shocked at the language, but the others nodded solemnly.
“It was my mother,” M-Four said, “who tricked the five of us into getting together—because, you see, by then we were sworn enemies—and letting us see what fools we were making of ourselves over one dreadful man. Cole had no intention of marrying any of us.”
“Yes, he was much too happy to marry one of us, because that would stop all of us from courting him. You can never change a happy man.”
“I . . . I guess not,” Kady said, never having thought of this before.
M-Two leaned forward, very serious. “What did you do to make him go to such effort to marry you?”
Kady wasn’t really sure. “He asked me to marry him, but I told him no. I said I was going to marry another man.”
“Ahhhhh,” the women said in unison and looked at Kady as though she were a brilliant strategist.
“No, you don’t understand. I don’t want to marry him. Didn’t anyway, and I do love another man.” Or maybe two other men, she thought, but didn’t say so.
“If it’s someone here in town, Cole will discharge him and send him away.”
“No, the man I love lives in Virginia.” And in my dreams.
At this the women looked at each other, then back at Kady, as though to say, Then what are you doing in Colorado?
“Look,” Kady said, “I can solve all of this. Do you know someone who knows where there are rocks with carvings on them? Something like this,” she said, then used a bit of bread to draw an elk in the honey on her plate.
When the women said nothing, she looked up at them and saw they hadn’t even looked at her plate. “What’s wrong?” she said in a small voice.
Martha looked at the others before she spoke. “You might as well know, Mrs. Jordan—”
“Kady, please.”
“Kady . . .” Martha took a deep breath. “Cole left early this morning, and he’s to be gone for days—heaven only knows where, as he can be quite mysterious at times—and he left word that you are not to leave town.”
Kady could feel her heart start to pound. “I don’t want to leave town; I just want to go for a walk, that’s all. I saw these rocks yesterday and thought it would be a nice place for a picnic. We could all go.”
M-Three shook her head. “Cole has said no. You’re not to leave the ranch. He’s set guards all around the perimeter of the ranch so you can’t leave.”
“And he’s taken all the horses, too.”
“You can have anyone from town come to see you, but you can’t even go into Legend.”
“He’s afraid you’ll steal a horse and ride down the mountain to Denver.”
Kady could not comprehend what she was hearing. “Are you trying to tell me that I am a prisoner?”
“Exactly.”
“Couldn’t be more of a prisoner if you were behind bars.”
Kady sat there blinking for several moments. “Wait a minute, this is still America, isn’t it? I’m not a criminal, and he doesn’t have the right to hold me prisoner. I’m a free person, and I—”
“Are you a suffragette?” M-Three asked.
“I’m a human being, with all the rights and privileges that encompasses.”
“Maybe in Virginia but not here in Legend. Here you’re a subject, just like the rest of us.”
“Oh?” Kady said, one eyebrow raised. “We shall see about that. I think Cole Jordan has been dealing with women who don’t know the tricks I do. Will you five help me?”
The women looked from one to the other, then back at Kady. “No,” Martha said. “We’re very sorry, but we have too much to lose. Our fathers would kill us if they lost their jobs.”
“But we’re sisters,” Kady said, and even to herself that sounded stupid. She didn’t know these women, so why should they risk anything for her?
“Then I shall do it myself,” she said with all the strength she could muster. “I’ll get out of here, you’ll see.”
The five women just sat on the end of the bed and looked at her in pity. Their faces said that Kady would soon find out what they already knew.
Two days, Kady thought, her fists clenched at her side. Two days of doing absolutely nothing. Another day like this and she was sure she would go mad.
After the five Ms left yesterday morning, Kady was so full of righteous indignation that she had been determined to find the petroglyphs and get out of this time period forever. All she wanted in the world was to get back to Virginia and Gregory.
But after a day and a half of trying to escape, she had failed as badly as when she’d tried to get a job in Legend. She certainly had to give it to Cole that when he gave an order, it was obeyed.
After the Ms had left, she’d found a note Cole had left for her on the dresser saying he was very sorry but he’d had to leave and he’d see her again in about ten days. There was no mention of her incarceration during that time period, nor had he even had the courtesy to explain where he’d gone and why.
For the entire first day, Kady had tried to escape, but, truthfully, where was she going? Anyone she asked looked blank when she mentioned the rock carvings, so even if she had managed to steal a horse and ride, she had no idea where to go.
She had become so frustrated that last night she’d even written a letter to Cole’s grandmother, begging her to come to Legend and help her escape.
So now, the afternoon of the second day, Kady sat at the desk in what had to be Cole’s office and asked, Why me? Why had she been chosen for this outrageous time mix-up? First of all, she wasn’t heroine material. She was just a simple girl from Ohio who wanted to cook. There was no great tragedy in her life, or in Cole’s for that matter, that needed to be righted. So why was she here?
Somewhere around one o’clock that day, she’d given up fighting. She had talked, begged, pleaded with every person she saw on the ranch to help her, but they looked at her as though she were crazy. How could she be complaining when she was the mistress of so much? And Kady had to admit that Cole was the owner of a great deal. His house stood on the most beautiful piece of land she had ever seen, and the house itself was breathtaking. There had to be twenty rooms, and each of them was furnished luxuriously in a cozy, comfortable style. It was the house Kady had always dreamed of and had never known how to achieve.
Her favorite room, the kitchen, was a dream, with a huge wood-fired iron stove, giant oak worktable, four ovens built into brick walls, and a pantry big enough to hold a 7-Eleven store. Unfortunately, the cooking utensils consisted of four stupendously greasy cast-iron pieces and a few wooden spoons.
“If things were different,” Kady muttered now as she sat in the library-office, doodling on a
piece of paper with a fat pencil. Thinking back, she remembered the yeast starter she’d made at the cabin and how she’d thought of making pickles and jams.
“Kady is such a helpful child.” The words echoed in her head, the words she’d heard Jane’s mother say a thousand times. When Kady was a child her mother had had to work two jobs. When Jane’s parents had offered to look after her daughter, she’d accepted the favor without hesitation. She never knew that Jane’s family treated Kady as little more than an unpaid servant.
What was it Cole had said? “You don’t have to be the best little girl in the world. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to do anything to make sure people love you. I love you just as you are.”
“Just as you are,” she said aloud. To be accepted as you are, isn’t that a sort of freedom? And in her heart, she knew that Cole had been telling the truth. She could sit here in his beautiful house for the next eight days, or eighty years, for that matter, and do absolutely nothing if she wanted and he’d be perfectly pleased.
She wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she knew that with Cole she didn’t have to earn his love. She didn’t have to clean the bathrooms as she’d done for Jane’s mother, didn’t have to cook economically as Mrs. Norman demanded. She didn’t even have to keep her mouth shut and not complain as she’d had to do with her mother.
“I can do anything I want,” she said, lifting her eyes and staring straight ahead at the bookshelves filled with leather bound volumes in front of her. Abruptly, she pushed the chair back and stood. “Maybe I can’t leave this place, but I can bring anything that 1873 Colorado has to offer here to me.” As she stood in front of the window to stare out at the view of mountains and valleys, she whispered, “So what do I want to do more than anything else in the world?”
As she looked out the window, she thought of her favorite movie, Babette’s Feast. The heroine was a great chef who, for some political reasons, had to hide in a remote village with two poor sisters. When Babette inherited some money, enough to allow her to quit her job, instead of being “sensible,” she’d spent every penny of it on the ingredients to prepare a feast such as no one had ever eaten before.
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