LEGEND

by Jude Deveraux

  It was the word “allow” that did it. “I am a free citizen, and you have no right to keep me here,” she shouted at him, then took a deep breath. “I have work to do, and I’m going to do it. And so help me, if you stand in my way, I’ll fight you with every—”

  “Fine,” he said, stepping aside. “Go. Please don’t let me stand in your way. Just tell me one thing.”

  “What?!” she snapped.

  “Where’s your will so I can make sure your heirs get whatever you leave behind.”

  The fact that he was obviously laughing at her made her even more determined to do what she had to do alone. With her nose in the air, she did her best to sweep past him as she started down the path toward the road.

  An hour later, she at last reached her car. She was tired, sweaty, and now that the sun was beginning to set, she was cold and hungry. When she looked at her brand-new, shiny red vehicle and saw that the tires had been taken and it was completely empty of all her new camping equipment, as well as the several bags of food she’d bought, she sat down at the side of the road and put her head in her hands.

  “Ready to give up and return to civilization?” came a deep voice from over her shoulder, and she didn’t have to look up to see who it was.

  “I can’t go back,” she said tiredly, and she could hear the tears in her voice. But she’d be damned if she was going to let him see her cry! He’d probably laugh even harder at her tears.

  But he didn’t laugh. Instead, he sat down beside her, close but not touching, and for a moment he was silent.

  “Did you love him that much?” he asked softly.

  Kady’s first impulse was to say, “Who?” but she suppressed it. For some reason she remembered the gorgeous blonde in his apartment. “Yes, I loved him very, very much.” Truthfully, she wasn’t sure if he meant Cole or Gregory. But did it matter?

  “Look, I’ve set up a camp a few miles back down the mountain. Why don’t we go there and see if we can work out something together?”

  Turning, Kady looked up at him in the growing darkness. He was asking her to spend the night alone with him? Share a sleeping bag maybe?

  “You don’t have to look at me like that. Despite the bad opinion you have of me, I’m not a rapist. Besides, Leonie’d have my hide if I touched another woman.”

  “The blonde?” Kady asked. Of course, she had nothing against the woman except for a few unkind remarks she’d made about Kady’s life work. But if that shapeless, bag of bones was what he liked, who was she to object?

  “Yes, the blonde,” he said with a little smile that made her feel as though he could see right through her.

  When Kady didn’t answer, his face changed. “Look, I’m not after your body, no matter how enticing it is. I have a business deal to work out with you.”

  “Such as?” Kady said, eyes narrowed in distrust.

  “Look, it’s growing dark and Uncle Hannibal’s eyesight isn’t great at best, so maybe he wouldn’t recognize me and might start shooting again. So could we continue this at my camp?”

  Kady knew she didn’t really have any other choice. She couldn’t very well climb down a mountain in the dark, and besides, she was very tired and very hungry. In spite of her discomfort, she hesitated. “What business?”

  Tarik glanced over his shoulder into the darkening woods as though he expected someone to jump out at any moment. “Ol’ Ruthless Ruth left a codicil to her will.”

  “Stop calling her that!” Kady said sharply. “She was a very nice person, and I want to help her.”

  “Oh, yes, I keep forgetting that you met her, that you’re a hundred years old and—”

  “What do you have to eat?” She was not going to be lectured by him again.

  “Trout. I’ll cook it myself.”

  Like Cole, was her inadvertent thought.

  “Unless you would like to cook it. My reports are that you’re a fair cook.” He was laughing at her again!

  “No, not me,” she said, standing and starting to walk away. “I can only make soufflés, not real food like fried fish. And my soufflés are so heavy that if I threw one it would probably break bones.” When she stopped walking and turned back toward him, his eyes were twinkling more than the stars above them.

  His horse was not far away, and this time Kady mounted behind him with reluctance, and now that no one was shooting at her, she leaned away instead of clutching him to her. A short time later they were at his camp, which was complete with a tent, a Jeep, and a horse trailer. Before a fire that was nearly out was a table and chairs.

  “You travel light, I see,” she said with all the derision she could muster as she dismounted. “I almost expect to see a butler and a couple of maids.”

  “Even Jordans have to rough it sometimes.”

  Kady had to bite her tongue to keep from saying anything else, as he seemed to be amused by anything she said. Part of her said that she should be thanking him for saving her life, for coming to her rescue, but somehow the words would not cross her lips. Maybe it had to do with having seen this man so many times during her life. As she sat down on one of the chairs and watched him prepare the fish, she thought how even the movement of his hands was familiar to her.

  He poured her a glass of wine—an excellent vintage, of course—and as she began to get warm as the wine seeped into her system, she was very aware of the growing darkness, and even more aware of his dark good looks.

  “So what did the codicil say?” she asked, and even to her, her voice sounded nervous.

  He dished up the trout, two to each of them, and some roast potatoes flecked with bits of charred wood, flavored with smoke, and took a seat across from her. “It didn’t make any sense really. It said that if Cole Jordan, born in 1864, died when he was nine years old, then no Jordan could accept the return of the money from you for three years after nineteen ninety-six.”

  As he looked up at Kady, the firelight playing on his features, he seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but she concentrated on eating.

  “I’ve done a bit of research into my family history, and there was a Cole Jordan, born in eighteen sixty-four, who did indeed die when he was nine years old.”

  Kady kept her head down. What had she hoped for? That he’d come to save her because he’d fallen madly in love with her? Couldn’t stay away from her? That he’d say he’d been dreaming about her all his life?

  “What do you know about this?” he asked impatiently when she remained silent.

  “I’m sure that my stories wouldn’t interest a businessman like you. What was it you said, that I pop through time like a rabbit in and out of holes, so how could an idiot like me say anything that would interest someone like you?”

  “You’re going to make me work for this, aren’t you?”

  Kady took another sip of wine and smiled at him. “Is there any reason I should be nice to you? Did it cost you a lot to bring a lawsuit against me? Did you have it all prepared for months before I showed up?”

  He didn’t get angry at her reply, but instead gave her a smile that she was sure had melted many hearts. “Everything was done before I met you. But if I’d known what a lovely, kind person you are, then—”

  “If you have tracked me since birth, then you must have learned a lot about me, so could you please stop treating me as though I’m stupid? What do you want me to do to help you get your precious money back?”

  As he leaned back in his chair, his smile disappeared. “All right, business it is. I haven’t any idea what ol’ Ruth was talking about in her letter, and furthermore, I couldn’t care less. What happened a hundred years ago is of no interest to me.”

  “I know. You just want the money.”

  At that he raised an eyebrow at her. “Yes, of course, I’ve sold my soul to the devil and care only for money. You, however, are so noble that you can afford to be given millions and give it away. I am curious, though, on one point: What happens to the many thousands of people who are paid by Jordan money if th
ere is no one to run the company for the coming three years? Do the banks suspend the employees’ mortgages? Do their children stop eating for three years? Do—?”

  “All right, you’ve made your point. You’re a saint, and you want to do nothing but help other people.”

  “It doesn’t matter what my personal interests are, does it? It just seems that the two of us both want the same thing, so I thought perhaps we could work together on this.”

  “I don’t need any help,” Kady said, her jaw set. Looking at him now in the moonlight, she thought that the less time she spent with him the better. He wasn’t a sweet man like Cole, or even an ordinary man like Gregory. This man was . . . was different.

  He refilled her wineglass. “I do wish you’d stop looking at me like that. Contrary to what you seem to think of me, I am not a monster.”

  Kady didn’t pick up the glass. “What do you want of me?”

  “You once asked me to help you, and now I’m saying that I’m willing to do so. Why don’t you start by telling me everything that happened between you and my, ah, great-great-great-grandmother?”

  Standing, Kady put her hands on the table and leaned toward him. “I’m not going to tell you anything,” she said sweetly, with a little smile. “I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you, and I don’t want to spend another minute in your company.” With that, she started to walk away into the darkness, but she had no idea which was the way back to Denver.

  As silent as the wind, he moved to stand in front of her. “Look, Miss Long . . .” His voice softened. “Miss Long, you and I got off on the wrong foot. I apologize, but you must know that since I was a boy your name has been something to be hated.”

  Kady gasped at that.

  “Many years ago my father told me in private about the will and about you. I grew up hearing about you and . . .” He reached out his hand to her. “Couldn’t we start over? Couldn’t we help each other? You seem to have something you feel you must do in Legend, but you’ll never be allowed into the place without my help. My uncle knows me, and if you go with me, he won’t shoot you.”

  Kady knew he was right, and it seemed only fair that a Jordan should help her with the impossible task Ruth had set for her. Cocking her head to one side, she said, “You wouldn’t happen to know where there are some petroglyphs, would you?”

  “Out past the cemetery? Not far from the Hanging Tree? Those petroglyphs?”

  Kady couldn’t prevent a smile. “Yes. Those petrogylphs.”

  When he smiled back at her, Kady felt herself weakening, and she could tell by the way he smiled at her that he knew she was weakening.

  “I got into some trouble when I was fifteen, and my father sent me to Uncle Hannibal in an attempt to . . . to jerk a knot into my tail, is, I believe, the way he put it.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Not in the least,” he said, grinning; then he offered her his arm. “I have some fresh peaches for dessert. Interested?”

  “Yes,” she said and allowed him to escort her back to the fire.

  But it was an hour later, as she was feeling drowsy and as she watched him stirring the embers of the fire that she vowed that she was not, not, not going to allow herself to get close to him. His every movement was graceful, and she could well believe that he was a master at all forms of martial arts.

  “Why did you give the money back?” he asked, taking her out of her own thoughts.

  “Why did you bring a lawsuit against me?” she countered.

  “It never entered my head that you’d peacefully give the money back,” he said, smiling at her.

  Kady didn’t want to think how that smile was making her feel so very warm. Had he brought two sleeping bags or one? “If your Leonie were in my situation, would she have given the money back?” The words came out with more force than she had meant them to.

  But he didn’t seem the least perturbed. “Leonie would have spent all of it in four days.”

  Kady had expected protestations of the perfections of the woman he probably loved. “On what?” she asked, wide-eyed. How did one spend so much so quickly?

  “Jewels, a yacht, a jet or two, houses around the world,” he said as he squatted by the fire and revived it.

  “It’s a good thing you stayed rich then, isn’t it? Maybe she wouldn’t be so anxious to marry you if you were poor.” She knew she was fishing to find out if he was engaged. And she wanted to kick herself for wanting to know.

  “If that’s supposed to shock me or make me reconsider marriage to Leonie, it isn’t working. She and I suit each other. I work all the time, and I’m gone a great deal, so I can’t have a wife who is constantly nagging me because I’m never home.”

  “So why bother to marry at all?”

  “Children. I’d like to have a few.”

  “So you think Leonie will be a good mother?”

  “I think she will look good on my arm, and the very loving couple who raised me will raise my children.”

  “Ah, I see, and look how well you turned out.”

  Her barb made him chuckle. “So let me guess, you’re holding out for a man who loves you to death and gives you three perfect kids. And you also want to have a career, not a job, but a real career, one that fulfills you.”

  She refused to answer him, but her silence said it all.

  “So who do you think is the dreamer, you or me? I try for what I can get; you try for the dream that everyone wants but no one gets.”

  Perhaps his words should have bothered her, but they didn’t. “Without hope you die,” she said, smiling at him, and he smiled back.

  “Like you have hope that you’re going to be able to make a dead man live?”

  “Ruth seems to think that I can, and I’m certainly going to try.”

  Standing, he stretched, looking like a dark animal in the firelight. Taking a burning twig, he lit a lantern and set it near her. “Want to tell me exactly what it is you plan to do?”

  If Kady had been honest, she would have told him that she had no idea, that she had no plan. But she doubted that a businessman would understand such a strategy. It was like not knowing what you are going to cook until you see what food is fresh in the market that day. “I think I’ll keep my plans to myself for a while,” she said, trying to sound mysterious, but from the way he smiled, she had an idea he knew what was in her head—or, more precisely, what was not in her head.

  Standing, she looked at the tent in apprehension, and another laugh made her turn back to him. “Don’t look so frightened. You can keep your virginity for another night.”

  “I’m not—” she began, then halted because she could see that he was teasing her. “What in the world did you do for amusement before you met me?” she demanded.

  “Worked eighteen hours a day. You can have the tent, I’ll sleep in the Jeep.”

  “Sure you wouldn’t rather bunk with your horse?”

  “Is that what Cole would have done?” he asked, suddenly serious.

  “What do you know of him?”

  “If you can have secrets, so can I. Good night, Miss Long,” he said, then slipped into the darkness, where she couldn’t see him.

  Picking up the lantern, Kady went inside the tent to the sleeping bag. At first she thought she might slide between the layers of down fully dressed, but she knew that was ridiculous. He’d reassured her that he wasn’t intent on harming her, and whatever else she thought of him, she knew that she was safe with him. So safe that if she was in danger, no matter where she was, he would appear and protect her. Hadn’t he appeared in her dreams throughout her life? And hadn’t he shown up in Colorado when she’d thought he was thousands of miles away?

  As she drifted asleep, she thought she heard the words, “Good night, Kady,” but she wasn’t sure. Whether it was the wind or not, she went to sleep smiling.

  Chapter 24

  “WHAT? YOU WANT ME TO WHAT?” KADY ASKED, A MUG OF hot coffee in her hands as she stared up at Tarik Jordan. It was early morn
ing, and they were alone in the beautiful wilderness.

  “Play hooky,” he said, smiling. “Ditch school. Take the day off.”

  “I couldn’t do that,” Kady said, aghast. “You have no idea what’s at stake here. People are depending on me. Their whole lives are waiting for me, and I have to—”

  “They’ve waited over a hundred years, so what does one more day matter?” He paused. “Miss Long, don’t you ever have fun?”

  At the very thought of such a thing, it seemed that a thousand scenes went through Kady’s head at once: coming home from school to help Jane’s mother with the housework, cooking for people all weekend, then school during the day and more courses during the night, while catering parties to help pay her way through school. Then there was Onions and Gregory. His idea of “fun” was to have Kady cook dinner for twenty-five people who he said might someday help further his future political career. Then there was Legend, and sometimes what she remembered most from those days was feeling frantic that she’d never get back home. After that was the worry about a job, and now—

  She stopped thinking when she heard Tarik laugh, and squinting, she looked up at him.

  “Going over your life in your head?” he asked, and when Kady’s eyes widened at his words, he smiled. “Miss Long, if it seems that I can read your mind, it’s because I think I can. My father believed that childhood was a preparation for the stress of being an adult, and because I was someday going to be in charge of millions, he made sure that I spent my life in school. And after that I had all the responsibility of the Jordan Company dropped onto my lap. I think my life has been about as much fun as yours has. What do you say we take the day off?”

  “What are you trying to get from me?” she asked suspiciously.

  “All your worldly goods,” he said with a smile, and Kady had to laugh.

  “You could hold everything I own in one hand,” she said. “I’m thirty years old and I own nothing, have nothing. At the moment I don’t even have a job.”

  He made a sound of disbelief. “Are you going to try to make me believe that a chef of your reputation doesn’t have hundreds of offers of employment?”