“Then who was it made for, if not Cole’s mother?”
Ruth gave Kady a raised eyebrow look.
“Oh, no, you can’t believe that it was made for me. I know it fit me, but how could anyone know that I was . . . I mean who could guess that—”
“Me,” Ruth said simply. “I could have the dress made and put into a tin box.”
Several times Kady opened her mouth to speak, but each time she closed it. Finally, she fell back against the chair. “This really doesn’t make sense. I think this is one of those chicken-or-the-egg things. I found the dress before I met you.”
“Yes, but by your own admission, now is almost a hundred years before you find the dress. What’s to keep me from having the dress made and putting it in a box?”
“Does that mean that all this is going to happen again? That I’m going to find the box later and return to Legend and put on a feast and—” Kady cut herself off, as the memories were too fresh and too painful.
For a moment she tried to clear her head and think about what was going on. “What is it you want from me?” she asked Ruth cautiously. “What is it that you’re leading up to?”
“I wish you could bring Cole back to life. I wish you could stop all the killings of my family and even—” She gulped. “I even wish Legend could have lived. But I don’t see how that can be achieved. Kady,” she said, smiling, “I am grateful to you for giving my grandson what you did. I wish I could have seen him as a man, but I know that, had he lived, he would have looked and acted just as you described.”
Kady was waiting for the other shoe to drop because she could tell that Ruth Jordan was building up to something. “What do you want of me?” she asked again.
“When you get back to your own time, I want you to see if I have any descendants. I want you to meet them.”
Kady smiled. “And what do I tell them? That I knew their great-great-grandmother back in 1897? Or that I had a great adventure with their great-grand . . . cousin, or whatever, as an adult, but in reality he died when he was only nine years old? And that everything happened over a hundred years ago?”
Ruth laughed. “Does sound a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it?”
“And what about Gregory?” Kady asked. “No offense, but you Jordans have a knack for ignoring the man I love. The man I am going to marry. Somehow I don’t think he’s going to understand any of this.”
“You’re going to tell him about this?” Ruth asked incredulously.
“Tell him that I’ve spent the last days before my wedding with another man? Hardly.”
“All right, I understand. I’m not going to ask for a promise from you. You’ve done more than enough for my family, for all of us, dead and alive. But promise me that if the opportunity comes up, you will visit my descendants. If I am so lucky as to have any, that is.”
“All right, I promise,” Kady said, then yawned. The sky was beginning to show pink, and right now all she wanted was to go to bed. She’d told Ruth about the petroglyphs, and Ruth had said that everyone in Legend knew where they were. Yet another of Cole’s little jokes on her.
“Are you ready to go home, my dear?”
“Yes,” Kady answered honestly. She’d had enough of time travel and witchcraft. Now all she wanted was to sleep for a few hours, then go see Gregory. From now on she just wanted her life to be normal. Normal and boring.
“Joseph!” Ruth said sharply, and instantly the man was beside her, helping her from the chair. To Kady’s eyes, Ruth had looked much younger when she’d first seen her. Right now she didn’t look as though she had much longer on earth.
They rode in the carriage past the Hanging Tree, and as the sun came up, Kady could dimly see the outlines of the deserted town. And everywhere she looked she seemed able to hear voices calling, “Hello, Kady,” and “Thanks, Kady,” and “Great grub, Kady.”
When Ruth distracted her with questions, Kady was grateful. As they rode, Ruth wrote in a little notebook facts about Kady’s twentieth-century life: where she was born, mother’s name, father’s, her address in Alexandria. Laughing, Kady supplied her social security number as well. “I wish I knew my passport number, too,” she said.
Ruth didn’t so much as smile. “What was the date when you came to Cole?” she asked, and when Kady told her, Ruth said, “I will give you six weeks from then. If you haven’t contacted my son’s descendants by that time, it will be clear that you’re not going to.”
“Fair enough,” Kady answered as the carriage halted at the base of the rocks she had come to know rather well in the last weeks.
“Are you sure the way will be open?” Ruth asked, sounding as though she hoped that Kady would have to stay in the nineteenth century forever.
“I think it’s like Dorothy’s ruby slippers and I’ve always had the power to go home.” At the puzzled look on Ruth’s face, Kady smiled, then on impulse, grabbed the older woman and hugged her frail body.
“Thank you, Kady,” Ruth whispered. “Thank you for what you did for my grandson.” Pulling away, she looked at Kady, and just like her grandson, she smoothed a dark curl behind Kady’s ear. “Thank you for what you’ve done for me. I am going to do what I can to repair the hurt I caused my younger son. And maybe, if I can, I’ll be able to do something about Legend.” Her voice lowered. “If I have time.”
Kady didn’t like to think what she meant by that. When Kady returned to Virginia, Ruth Jordan would have been dead for many years.
As Kady started to get out of the carriage, Ruth told Joseph to go with her, but Kady said that no, she wanted to go alone. She could tell by Ruth’s eyes that she understood that Kady wanted to say good-bye to Cole, for every inch of the path up the mountain reminded her of her time with Cole.
After one more press of her hand, Kady turned and ran toward the path up the mountain, hurrying up it as fast as she could go. Her time in the past was over, and it was better to put it behind her. Now she should look to the future, to the future and to Gregory—the man she loved.
When she reached the petroglyphs, she was not surprised to see what was now almost a familiar sight: the opening in the rock through which she could see her apartment with the flour tin on the floor, her dirty chef’s smock tossed across the couch. Refusing to allow herself a backward glance, she leaped through the opening, and instantly, the hole behind her closed.
For a moment Kady stood alone in her apartment and looked about it. It had been more than two weeks since she’d been here, and she had no idea how much time had passed in the twentieth-century world. Feeling disoriented, she picked up the remote control to the TV, and after a moment of looking at the instrument as though it were from another planet, she clicked the TV on, switched to Channel Two, and saw that it was about two A.M. on the day she’d left. No time at all had passed.
Again feeling awkward, she pushed the button on her answering machine only to hear a computer trying to sell her aluminum siding.
At her feet on the stained, cheap carpet of her apartment, was the empty flour tin. There was no wedding dress or Jordan watch, or a photograph of a once-happy family. All those things had been left behind in Legend. What she did have were the clothes she was wearing, a long prairie skirt, cotton blouse, and a wide leather belt. Nothing in the least remarkable about them; they weren’t even very old looking. She had absolutely nothing to show that she had just returned from an extraordinary adventure.
For a moment, loneliness so overwhelmed Kady that she thought she might collapse on the floor and cry, but she wouldn’t allow herself to do that. She was not going to allow herself to grieve for a man who had never lived to be the man she’d met. She was going to think of everything in the way Ruth did: that Kady had given Cole something he would not otherwise have had.
Smiling, she thought of Scarlett. “I’ll think about it tomorrow. If I think about it today, I’ll go crazy.”
Still smiling, Kady went to her bedroom and fell across the bed. She was asleep instantly.
Chap
ter 17
KADY’S FIRST WAKING THOUGHT WAS, WHERE WAS COLE AND why was the house so quiet? It was a full minute before she realized that she was home in Virginia, home in her own time period. And, more important, home to Gregory.
Smiling, she eased herself out of the bed, feeling a bit stiff and sore from the exertion of the last days. “Better not think about that,” she said aloud as she made her way to the bathroom, and for a while she just stood there, marveling at the luxury of a modern bathroom. Running water! Flushing toilet! Hot water!
She took a shower that threatened to wash away her skin, then spent half an hour massaging lotion onto her body. Usually, she was in too much of a hurry to get to work to take time to do something this hedonistic, but today . . .
With a panic she looked at the clock and saw it was ten A.M., but she calmed when she remembered that it was Sunday and Onions was closed. However, usually by this time on Sunday she was already slipping something into the oven. Gregory and his mother liked to sit down to a lavish dinner on Sunday at two, and Kady prided herself on the meal she served them.
“How about fried rattlesnake today?” she murmured, laughing as she went to her closet. It was a small walk-in closet, but that only made Kady’s meager wardrobe look even more sparse. Frowning, she pushed aside the hangers and pondered her drab, oversized tops. She could hear Jane’s complaint, “Don’t you have anything smaller than a circus tent? Where do you find these clothes anyway?” Kady had never answered her friend, but had stood there tight-lipped, thinking it was all right for Jane to wear snug-fitting clothes since she was a size six, but Kady wanted to hide the bulk that was her body as best she could.
Today, as she sorted through her few clothes, Kady seemed to feel different. Maybe it was all the men in Colorado who’d asked her to marry them. Or maybe it was just Cole’s incessant attention.
Leaving the closet, Kady went to the big chest of drawers in the bedroom and began to rummage. Last Christmas, Jane had given her a red blouse, and years before that she had given her some earrings. Now, if Kady could only find them.
An hour later Kady walked into Onions, and her first sight was of Gregory sitting at one of the tables, a newspaper before his face, a coffee cup by his hand. Turning a page, he glanced up at her for just a second before returning to his paper.
At his look, Kady’s breath caught. It had been so very long since she had seen him, and since then she’d spent a great deal of time with another man. Would he know? Would he see the guilt on her face? Would he sense that something was different about her?
“Mom made the coffee,” Gregory said without looking up. “I don’t think I’m going to die from it, but I might.”
Smiling, Kady started for the kitchen. “Coffee coming up.” Nothing had changed, she thought with relief. To Gregory it was only hours since she had last seen him. He had no idea that she’d been away for days or that she’d—
As Kady passed him, she glanced at his profile and thought for the millionth time how good-looking he was. Almost as beautiful as Cole, she thought, then, to rid herself of that thought, she pushed the paper out of his hands and plopped herself onto his lap. Taking Gregory’s head in her hands, she put her lips on his and kissed him deeper and with more passion than she ever had before.
“Hey, what is this?” Gregory asked, his hands on her wrists and pulling his face away. His tone was disapproving. “Before breakfast?”
“I missed you,” Kady said, sliding her arms about his neck and hugging him.
“Well, I missed you, too,” he answered, but again pulling away, and this time there was a frown on his handsome face. “Kady,” he said sternly, “I think there is a time and place for everything, and in the middle of Onions on a Sunday morning isn’t quite the place or the time.”
She was beginning to feel embarrassed, but she tried to make light of it. “How about going to my place then?” she said with what she hoped was a lascivious look.
Drawing back, Gregory studied her for a moment. “What in the world has come over you today? And what do you have on?”
“Like it?” Kady asked, looking down at herself. “It has lycra in it. Jane said that if she had . . . well, if she were endowed like me, she’d show herself off, so she gave me this.” Looking up at Gregory, she fluttered her eyelashes. “Think it does?”
Gregory was frowning rather a lot now. “If you’re asking me if I like to see you hanging out of the top of your clothes, the answer is no.”
Kady brightened. “Jealous?”
“Not quite,” he said as though this concept amused him. “But it’s not very sanitary, and with the top half of you naked, you could be burned at the stove. And, Kady dear, as delightful as this position is, both of my legs have gone to sleep. You aren’t exactly the light-as-a-feather type, now, are you?”
Abruptly, Kady got off his lap. “No, of course I’m not,” she said hastily. “I’ll make you some coffee and get started on Sunday lunch.” Stiffly, she turned away, but Gregory caught her arm.
“Kady, honey, you look great. Really you do, but maybe I’d rather you showed yourself just to me and not to the entire world.” He kissed the back of her hand, and Kady left the room smiling, feeling that she was glad to be home.
“Something has happened to you,” Jane said softly, “and I mean to find out what it is.” They were in a furniture store in Tyson’s Corner Mall, and Kady was inspecting every piece in the big showroom.
“Is that why you’re still here?” Kady asked as she looked at the price tag on a green velvet sofa. “How do you think this would look with the lacquer lamps I bought at auction? And with the new rug?”
“New rug, new sofa, new lamps! That’s just what I’m talking about. What has happened to you?!”
“People are beginning to stare,” Kady said calmly, referring to Jane’s raised voice.
“They are going to stare more when I grab those overpriced curtain cords and tie you to that iron bed and keep you there until you talk to me.”
“I had no idea you were so kinky,” she said, but when Jane didn’t smile, Kady sighed. “I’ve told you a hundred times, nothing is wrong with me. I’m just getting married, and I’m choosing things for my house. And I’m sending the bills to Gregory. Doesn’t that please you?”
“Four days ago you were frightened of buying so much as a sheet, but now you walk into stores and say, ‘I want this and I want that,’ as though you were a born shopper. And the way you bargained with that poor rug merchant I almost felt sorry for him.”
“Did you?” Kady asked, smiling.
“And that’s another thing, Miss Kady Long, you keep flirting with men.”
“I’m getting married, not going to my execution. What’s wrong with flirting a bit?”
Too many words raced through Jane’s mind for her to speak. The Kady she had known all her life ran away when a man looked at her. But three days ago Kady had spent an hour and a half drinking mint tea with a rug merchant and arguing over the price of the rug. Jane and Debbie thought they were going to pass out with boredom, but Kady had seemed to enjoy every minute of it. And when they’d left the store, she’d said, “He asked me to be his second wife. With my own apartment, though.” All three women had laughed about the outrageous proposal as they drove Debbie to the airport so she could return home.
“Kady,” Jane said seriously, “I must return home tomorrow. My husband is threatening to leave me if I don’t return, not to mention what my boss is saying, so we have to talk now.”
“All right,” Kady said, knowing she could put off the inevitable no longer. Part of her liked that Jane saw that she was different, but another part of her wished her friend were more like Gregory and his mother and noticed nothing at all different.
Ten minutes later they were ensconced in the coffee shop of Nordstrom’s, and since it was early, it was quiet in the restaurant. “What’s going on with you?” Jane asked again.
For a moment Kady thought of lying yet again and saying th
at nothing had changed, but Jane was too perceptive for that. Kady wasn’t in the least tempted to tell her about Cole and the people of Legend or about Ruth’s unbelievable story. And if the truth were told, with each day that passed the story seemed to fade from Kady’s mind until she sometimes wondered if it had really happened. The only clear memory she seemed to have was of when she’d cooked for people who needed to know what she could teach. That memory seemed to get stronger every day.
Kady toyed with the straw in her lemonade. “I think I want to do something with my life. Like building orphanages all over Colorado. Cooking fabulous meals for people who’ve eaten many fabulous meals suddenly seems a frivolous thing to do with one’s life.”
“Orphanages?” Jane asked, eyes wide. “What do orphanages have to do with cooking?”
“Cooking for people who don’t have much is more rewarding. And it feels good to teach people how to combine bland ingredients in different ways.”
“Kady, what in the world are you talking about?”
“Welfare mothers,” she said, looking up at Jane’s stunned face. “Did you know that Americans make casseroles with potato chips on top of them? No nutritional value at all. In other countries people are taught to cook, but kids in America grow up thinking McDonald’s is a good meal.”
“So what is it you want to do? Open a cooking school?”
“I don’t know.” Kady thought of the children in Legend and how she’d persuaded them to like vegetables. “I know that everyone thinks the world’s evils are caused by drugs, but maybe kids wouldn’t be so lethargic if their nutrition was better.”
“What’s your idea?” Jane asked, staring at her friend in wonder. As long as she’d known Kady, she’d never heard such ideas from her.
“Nothing really. It’s just something that’s forming in my head. Cooking classes for women on welfare.”
“Cooking classes? Welfare?” Jane said, smiling in a smug way that made Kady angry.
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