LEGEND

by Jude Deveraux

  Kady nodded, as she’d already encountered that secret. “Do I own the clothes on his back, that sort of thing?” she asked earnestly.

  At that Mr. Fowler frowned, and she could tell that he thought her greedy or vengeful or something else equally dreadful. Or maybe he was just concerned about lawsuits involving what he had or had not done.

  She leaned forward on the sofa. “Mr. Fowler,” she said, “you are obviously the attorney representing at least part of the wealth that once belonged to C. T. Jordan, and since that wealth now belongs to me, may I assume that you will now be my attorney? May I speak to you in confidence?”

  “Yes, of course,” he answered, and she could see that he was relieved as well as curious.

  She held up the letter. “Ruth Jordan has asked me to do something for her. What that is, I can’t reveal, but I believe I am going to have to enlist the help of Tarik, er, ah, C. T. Jordan. You know him, I’ve met him, and I think we are both safe in saying that he’ll refuse to help me. Unless I can blackmail him in some way, that is. I want to know everything I own, especially anything personal, like those swords of his, that I can use to make him help me. And I want you to start drawing up a contract that states that if he helps me to my satisfaction, everything will be returned to him. Every penny. I want nothing.”

  Mr. Fowler smiled indulgently. “I think that’s very noble of you, but I don’t think you have any idea how much you’re giving away. You could keep a few million and he wouldn’t miss it.”

  At that Kady blinked, and her first thought was that she wanted enough to open a nice restaurant, in Seattle maybe, with classrooms attached and lifetime funding so she could teach free cooking classes. It was on the tip of her tongue to say just that, but she didn’t. It wasn’t her money, and she had no right to it. “I will take nothing over what is needed for the job.”

  “I don’t think you realize—”

  “No, Mr. Fowler, I don’t think you realize what this is all about. If Ruth hadn’t asked this of me, I would sign everything over to her descendants this minute, but I can’t. As she says, I’ll need power, and money will give me that power. Now, would you tell me what I need to know?”

  He sat there for a moment, still smiling, and Kady could tell what he was thinking. She might believe she could give away all rights to that money, but when the time came, would she be able to? But what he didn’t know was that Kady had seen firsthand the great evil that money could cause. The shots fired by the people of Legend in an attempt to protect their wealth had caused a hundred years of misery. No, she didn’t want any of Ruth’s money.

  “All right,” he said when Kady said no more. “Shall we start going over the portfolios? It will take a while.”

  “I plan to dedicate every minute of my time to this until it is finished,” she said, and for all the nobility of her words, she could have burst into tears. Would the jobs still be open a few months from now? A year? She might be a star in the cooking world today, but people had short memories. Six months from now it might be, “Kady who?”

  She took a deep breath. “Shall we get started?”

  Chapter 23

  AS SHE TURNED THE WHEEL OF THE HEAVY, POWERFUL RANGE Rover sharply, Kady concentrated on staying out of the center gully in the old dirt road that led straight up the side of the mountain.

  It had been several days since her confrontation with Tarik Jordan in his office, and for all of those days she had cursed herself for ever thinking he would help her. What in the world had made her think he’d do anything to help anyone?

  As the car hit the gulley, sending everything in the back flying upward, Kady swallowed hard. “I will not cry,” she said, holding on to the steering wheel with all her might. “Will not, will not, will not.” But keeping the tears back was almost impossible. With a glance skyward, she wondered if Ruth Jordan was looking down on her in disgust. She had every right to, since Kady had failed at every attempt to help correct the evil that had happened in the past.

  It was amazing to think that during the past days since she had been told she owned all the Jordan money, one person could have made so very many errors, in such a short time. In fact, thinking back on it, had she even done one teeny, tiny thing right? No, now that she looked at it, everything she had tried to do she had screwed up. Not just a little bit but in a great big flashy way.

  First there had been Mr. Fowler. What was it she had told herself early on that first day? It was something grand and noble about how she knew what evil money could do, so she’d not be tempted by the Jordan wealth, no matter how tempting it was.

  How little we know ourselves! she thought with disgust as she turned the wheel hard.

  That day in Fowler’s office had been seductive, oh, so very seductive. Going from being Nobody to Somebody was so very pleasurable. All day she had been wined and dined and feted in a way that was guaranteed to make her forget all her noble thoughts.

  She had to give it to Fowler: he missed nothing. The law firm’s private chef had left his kitchen and come out to meet Kady, then humbly asked her to show him how to make her squab with currant sauce, which he been told of and had never been able to duplicate. While everyone watched and applauded, she had demonstrated that she knew her way around a kitchen, using her own knives, which she happened to have brought with her. As a result of limitless praise, she had done the unthinkable: she had usurped another cook’s kitchen. But the chef must have been well coached (and well paid), because he never made a hint of protest, and Kady had come away walking on clouds, feeling that she was the greatest cook on earth.

  All that day had been like that. She had been asked her advice, listened to, consulted. It seemed that everything she said was wise and worth noting.

  As Mr. Fowler had shown her property that she now owned, he had slowly, and almost as though it were not important, told her about Tarik, or Mr. Jordan, as everyone called him. It seemed that only Kady thought of him as Tarik.

  C. T. Jordan was a very private man. Even with a firm of attorneys that had dealt with his family for two generations, he had been exceptionally closemouthed. “He trusts no one,” Mr. Fowler said in a way that let Kady know he thought the young man ought to get professional help. “Though I first met him when he was nine years old, I know very little about him.”

  Kady didn’t want to ask about a man who had been so very rude to her, but she told herself that if she was going to try to enlist Tarik’s help, she had to know what there was to know about him, didn’t she?

  Tarik Jordan had an apartment in New York that was now owned by Kady and a sprawling farm in Connecticut that was his private property.

  “Married?” she asked, trying to sound as though the answer meant nothing to her.

  “No . . .” Mr. Fowler said hesitantly.

  “Ah,” Kady said in a way that she hoped sounded worldly. “Women.”

  Mr. Fowler smiled. “Actually, no. At least not the way I think you mean. When he was younger, there were a few starlets, but since then it’s been one-at-a-time.”

  When Kady didn’t look back down at the papers, Mr. Fowler continued. “What else can I tell you about him? His only extravagance is those swords of his, and he’s a master at all forms of martial arts. As a boy he won contests in nearly everything he entered.” His voice lowered. “But he does seem to have an unhealthy love of sharp instruments.”

  Kady didn’t comment on that, as a few people had accused her of feeling the same way, but she stopped pretending she wasn’t interested. “What about his family life? What about his mother?”

  “I only met her a few times. She is elegant, beautiful, and as glassily cold as his father. As far as I could tell, after the woman gave birth to a son, she was free to live her own life, as long as she created no scandal. She lives in Europe, and her husband lived in New York, when he wasn’t on his private jet, that is. The child, C.T. the third, was brought up by servants in the house in Connecticut.”

  For a moment, Kady’s heart lurched,
but she refused to allow the loneliness of this man’s childhood to stand in her way. What was a lonely childhood compared to no childhood at all?

  At one point during the day, Kady asked Mr. Fowler why he seemed to be so glad that she had been given the money.

  He put his hand warmly over Kady’s and smiled avuncularly. “Let’s just say that I’d like to see a nice person like you given an opportunity to do some good with so much wealth.”

  Kady smiled back at him, and she remembered how Cole had established orphanages with his money, and she wondered what she could do. If it were actually her money, that is, which it wasn’t, so she had to erase that idea from her mind.

  As the day wore on and Kady was shown file after file of papers showing even more of “her” assets, she began to ask Mr. Fowler for advice as to how to deal with Tarik. At first the lawyer was reluctant, but after repeated questioning, he relented and settled back in his chair and began to give her his true thoughts.

  “I have no way of knowing what it is you want from him.” Here he paused to allow Kady to explain, but she said nothing. “However, I do know that you must be tough with him. He’s used to dealing with the Big Boys, not a little cook from Virginia. Pardon my saying that, but I think you’d rather know the truth of how he’ll probably look at you.”

  Nodding, Kady told him she was grateful for his advice.

  He continued. “You must state your demands and make them plain. I don’t think baking him a chocolate cake will work,” he said with an avuncular smile.

  But Kady didn’t return his smile. Maybe all this was a joke to Mr. Fowler, but it was very serious to her.

  When she’d left his offices that night, she had been driven away in a long, black, stretch limo, and she’d never before encountered anything so luxurious. After what she’d seen that day, she wasn’t at all surprised when the limo let her out at the Plaza Hotel and a young man was waiting to take her up to her suite. Nor was she especially surprised when she looked in the closet and saw that it was full of designer clothes in just her size. Looking back on the day, she remembered a man who had come into the office and looked Kady up and down as though he were measuring her for a coffin. No coffin, just Versace and Chanel, she thought now. Shoes to match were on a rack on the floor, handbags on the shelves. In the drawers were piles of silk underwear.

  As Kady headed for the shower, she told herself she Shouldn’t accept any of this. For all that she legally owned the money, she had no moral rights to it. But her strength of will fell in front of a red silk nightgown. Never in her life had she slept in silk.

  “If only I had listened to my higher self,” she said now as she guided the car up the old, washed-out mountain road toward Legend. If she’d kept her higher morals, she wouldn’t have faced that scene in Tarik’s apartment, a scene that still made her nearly sick whenever she thought of it.

  When she thought of her attitude when she’d entered the apartment building where she was told Tarik Jordan was probably staying, it still made her cringe. She had been prepared for battle; she had prepared herself to fight like the “Big Boys,” not like a cook from Virginia. The way he sees me, she thought with disgust.

  Mr. Fowler had called ahead so she had no trouble getting past security, but when the elevator stopped at the penthouse, she started to push the doorbell. But why should I? she thought. It was her apartment, wasn’t it? Besides, she doubted very much if he was actually there. For all that Mr. Fowler said otherwise, Kady figured that a man like Tarik had lots of women. Many, many, many women.

  From the moment Kady unlocked the door, she hated the apartment. Even she could see that it was decorated in what some designer had obviously thought was “class.” There were fake Oriental vases and Steuben glass and lots of chrome and black leather.

  Was this what Tarik Jordan liked? she wondered.

  She made her way around the apartment to the kitchen. She might not know much about decorating but she did know about kitchens, and this one struck her as worthless, just some designer’s idea of what a kitchen should look like. Utterly useless, she thought, looking at the black glass surfaces that would look horrible after cooking one meal.

  The bedroom was like the rest of the apartment, done in burgundy and black, and she had no doubt that if she pulled back the expensive spread, she’d find black silk sheets under it.

  She pushed open the bathroom door to see acres of black marble, brass fittings, and mirrors everywhere.

  She didn’t know how long she had stood there, looking about, before she realized that standing by the glass-enclosed shower was Tarik Jordan, having paused in toweling himself off and staring at her in disbelief.

  “Oh,” she said, startled, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking at him, for the towel covered only the lower half of his body. He was lean and tightly muscled, not round like Cole or thin like Gregory. No, this man had a body that made her eyes hurt just to look at him.

  But what made Kady’s skin seem to grow tighter than normal was the unmistakable look of desire in the man’s eyes. The way men had looked at her in Legend had been a mild version of how this man was looking at her now. No one had ever made her feel like this.

  “Care to join me?” he asked in that rough-smooth voice of his.

  With a gasp, Kady turned and fled. Back in the living room, she had to fight to get her senses back under control. Control, she reminded herself. That’s what you must have now. As Mr. Fowler said, you’re dealing the Big Boys now, and you must remember that you are a millionaire. A multimillion aire.

  When he returned to the room, he was dressed casually but expensively, all in black, and he looked so much like the man in her dreams that she felt weak-kneed. As he walked across the room to the liquor cabinet and made himself a drink, she had to hold on to the back of a chair to steady herself.

  “Since you do not seem to have come here for illicit purposes, what do you want?” he asked when he turned back to her.

  Kady took a deep breath; it was difficult to think when she was near this man. “I need your help.”

  “Oh? Now, why would a woman as rich as you need my help? You can buy anything you want. Didn’t Fowler explain that to you?” He looked her up and down with one eyebrow raised. “Nice suit. You didn’t waste any time spending the money my family has earned, did you?”

  A little wave of guilt went through Kady, but she stamped it down. Drawing her shoulders up, she looked him in the eyes. “I didn’t come here to be insulted.”

  “Then you’d better leave. But then, what am I saying? This is your apartment. Everything is yours, isn’t it?”

  Kady was going to do what she could to prevent getting into an argument with him. “I have a proposition to make you. A business deal, so to speak.” She looked at the glass in his hand. “Would you mind if I also had something to drink?”

  “Help yourself. It’s your liquor.”

  “You really are the rudest man I have ever met,” she said as she poured herself a gin and tonic.

  “Why don’t you just say what you came to say and be done with it? Or have you come to throw me into the street?”

  “Stop it!” She took a deep breath. “I will give everything back to you if only you will do what I ask you to do.”

  For a long moment he stared at her. “That’s a pretty big condition isn’t it?” He refilled his glass with straight single-malt scotch. “When you know that no matter how much you work in your life, it’s all going to be turned over to a stranger from Ohio, it makes you curious about her.”

  When Kady blinked at him without comprehension, he smiled in that smug way he had. “I’ve known of you all my life. My father knew of you and his father before him. After all, ol’ Ruth’s will has been in effect for nearly a hundred years. All the Jordan men knew that the money, the companies, all of it was theirs until one Miss Elizabeth Kady Long was born in a small hospital in Ohio in 1966.” He seemed to be fully aware of her shock. “Now, what is it that you want of me? More than y
ou’ve already taken, that is?”

  Kady was having difficulty thinking, as too much information was clogging her brain. All her life the very wealthy and powerful Jordan family had known of her. Turning, she looked up at him. Had he seen photos of her? Was that why she had dreamed of him? Was there some psychic link between the two them because of Ruth’s will? Long before she met Cole or Ruth, Ruth’s will had been in effect. She just hadn’t known about it.

  “Now, tell me what you and Fowler have planned.” He set down his empty glass. “As fascinating as this conversation is, I think you should tell me what you want of me.”

  She swallowed hard. “I want you to go to Colorado with me and try to find a way to go back to eighteen seventy-three Legend and—”

  She stopped because he had begun to laugh, and it was in the same tone that Ricky had when he laughed at Lucy, as though she were quite cute but totally daffy.

  “Time travel?” he asked. “Is that what you’re hinting at? Is that what you think happened and that’s why Ruthless Ruth left all her money to you?”

  Kady didn’t bother to answer, but just looked at him in silence as he took a few steps across the room to stand very near her, still laughing at her.

  “You want me to return to some ghost town and try to go back through time and . . . and what? Change history? Is that where this is leading? You know, I’ve had a lot of women try different things to get into my bank account, but this is a new one.”

  Lowering his voice, he gave her a look of seduction. “Tell me, Miss Long, have you been reading too much H. G. Wells?”

  Kady didn’t know when she’d ever disliked anyone as intensely as she disliked this man. With one swift gesture, she tossed her drink in his face.

  Stepping back from her, he wiped the drink away with one hand. “First a knife, now a drink. What next? One of your soufflés?”

  Standing, Kady advanced on him. “Let me make myself clear, Mr. Jordan, I never wanted to do this. I never asked for any of this. Had you contacted me three months ago, I would have gladly signed all your money back to you because it’s not mine and I don’t want it.”