LEGEND

by Jude Deveraux

  When she awoke, he was gone from the cave, and by the time he returned, a load of damp firewood in his arms, she was sure that she had her emotions under control. She’d made a vow that no matter how provocatively he talked to her, she wasn’t going to be seduced by him. Had he chuckled with his friends that Kady was merely an unemployed cook and he could seduce her into doing whatever he wanted her to?

  “And what have I done to earn such a look of animosity?” he asked without hostility as he put the wood down, making a pile that could be used on the next visit to the cave.

  “Nothing. Are you ready to leave? If we leave early, we might make Legend before nightfall.”

  “Dying to meet Uncle Hannibal, are you?”

  “I just want to . . . to get out of here,” she said more fiercely than she meant to.

  Quietly, Tarik doused the fire, making sure that every coal was out, and when he looked back at her, his face was cold and hard, the face she had seen that first day but hadn’t seen since. “You want to tell me what it is I’ve done that has offended you?”

  Kady wished she had a list of complaints against him, but she didn’t. Except that he’d been too kind and too helpful and too nice and too funny and—

  “You don’t have to struggle,” he said coldly. “I don’t go where I’m not wanted. Are you ready?”

  Kady opened her mouth to explain but decided it was better to say nothing. It was better that they go to Legend, do whatever it was that she could to help Ruth, then get away from this man forever.

  They didn’t speak much on the way down the mountain, and as she followed Tarik, they moved fast. Twice he turned and asked her how her feet were, but other than that, they didn’t speak.

  When they got to the bottom, the camp was just the way they’d left it, Tarik’s jeep parked under the trees, his horse grazing happily in a fenced-in pen that Kady was sure had been built especially for Jordan horses.

  As they packed up the camp together, working side by side as though they had been together for years, Tarik suddenly threw down a couple of tent pegs with such force that they stuck upright in the ground. “What is wrong with you?” he half shouted. “What have I done?”

  “You haven’t done anything,” she yelled back. “You belong to someone else. You belong to another world.”

  For a moment several emotions skittered across Tarik’s dark face, then he grinned, showing strong white teeth, “Ah, I see, the class system. Well, you’re right. Men in my station in life use little girls like you; then we discard them. We marry horsey women like Leonie. Is that about it?”

  When he said it out loud, her complaints sounded Victorian. “Your mother . . .” she said softly, but didn’t finish her sentence. What could she say, that his mother wouldn’t want her son to marry a cook?

  “Ah, yes, the queen,” he said, and she knew he was laughing at her. “Her son the prince must marry a titled princess, right?”

  “I don’t like you very much right now,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “I think, Kady, my love, that only you see me as a prince. I can assure you that my mother does not.” With that, he turned away toward his horse, but Kady could hear him chuckling.

  Whatever he said, she thought, it was better to stay away from him. He was even better looking than Gregory, and she knew from experience that good-looking men only led to trouble.

  “Ready to go meet my uncle?” he asked moments later as he returned to camp, leading his horse behind him.

  Kady drew herself up to her full height and was still only staring at the middle of his chest. “I think we should keep all of this on business terms. I don’t think we should get involved with one another. No more holidays, no more overnight camping trips, no more—” She broke off because Tarik leaned down and kissed her sweetly on the mouth.

  “Whatever you say, habibbi,” he said, then motioned to help her onto his horse.

  Blinking, Kady got on the horse.

  Chapter 25

  “SHE’S MY WIFE,” TARIK JORDAN SAID AS HE SLIPPED HIS ARM tightly around Kady’s shoulders.

  “Your—” she began, but he tightened his grip on her so sharply that her “Ow!” stopped her words.

  “She’s a bit miffed at me now, Uncle Hannibal, so pay no attention to anything she says.”

  “I am not his wife,” Kady said to the tall, thin man in front of her. After she and Tarik had broken camp, he’d led his horse, not down the road, but up a winding trail that had to be a back road into Legend. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out that he was trying to sneak into the derelict town before anyone saw him. “I thought your uncle considered you family,” she said, sitting on back of the horse, holding on to him.

  “There’s family and there’s family,” he said cryptically.

  “I see. And what did you do to him that makes you worry that he may take a shot at you as well as a stranger like me?”

  Twisting around, he grinned at her. “You’ve got a brain inside that pretty head of yours, don’t you?”

  “Only for remembering ingredients and figuring out lying men.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. You certainly seem to allow men to dupe you. Gilford sure pulled one over on you.”

  “Gregory,” she corrected, then felt goose bumps rise on her arms as she remembered the way Cole had always pretended to not be able to remember Gregory’s name. “At least I got away from a man who wanted something other than love from me,” she said snidely.

  He didn’t miss her reference. “With legs like Leonie’s, who cares whether she loves me or not?”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  At that he chuckled and, with his free hand, held hers that were clasped about his flat belly. “You know, Kady, I never knew riding a horse could be so very, ah, pleasurable.” As he said this, he leaned back a bit so her ample breasts were buried even deeper against him, and when Kady, not mistaking his meaning, tried to pull away, the horse sidestepped and nearly threw her off. To keep from falling, she had to grab Tarik even tighter, which made him laugh. “Extra oats for you tonight, my good friend,” he said to the horse.

  Had the circumstances been different, Kady might have laughed, too, but she didn’t allow herself that luxury. She was not going to become closer to this man than she already was.

  But now, standing before his uncle Hannibal, who, with his burning eyes and long, scraggling beard, looked like a prophet from the Old Testament, she was ready to give up the whole idea of trying to help people who were dead.

  “Driver’s license says she’s named Long,” the forbidding old man said, looking down his long nose at Kady, as though she were a liar and a sinner and should be eradicated from the earth. Of course the only reason he’d seen her driver’s license was he’d stolen her handbag from her car. So, was stealing and shooting at innocent people okay in his book?

  As Kady opened her mouth to ask this, Tarik said, “We’re married and I have the license to prove it.”

  “Would you please release me,” Kady hissed, trying to pull away from him, but his grip was like steel.

  With amazement, she watched Tarik pull a piece of paper from under his sweater and hand it to the old man.

  “It’s a copy, of course,” Tarik said as Hannibal Jordan scrutinized it. “But it says that Miss Kady Long was married to Cole Jordan and, as you know, that’s my name. You can see that it’s all duly signed and witnessed.”

  “Let me see that,” Kady said, snatching the paper from the man’s hands. It was indeed a copy of her marriage certificate to Cole. She looked up at Tarik. “This is dated 1873.”

  “So it is,” Tarik said, as though he’d just seen the date; then he grinned at his uncle. “No doubt it’s a computer error. You know how those machines are.”

  “Don’t know, don’t wanta know,” Hannibal decreed. “Machines are destroying this once great nation of ours.”

  With a fierce twist, Kady freed herself from Tarik’s grasp. “That certificate was handwritten, a
nd it was written long before computers were invented. I am not married to this Cole Jordan.”

  “Tetched,” Tarik said to his uncle in conspiracy, tapping the side of his head. “But she’s my wife, so what can I do? You ready to come along, dear? Uncle Hannibal is going to let us stay in the old Jordan homestead with him and the rest of his family.” He glared at Kady pointedly. “And we can’t stay there unless we’re married because Uncle Hannibal doesn’t believe in sin.”

  It didn’t take a degree in espionage to figure out what he was saying, but Kady hesitated, then fluttered her eyes at Tarik. “But, dear, we’re on our honeymoon. Couldn’t we stay in a separate house of our own?” Lowering her eyes, she tried to look demure. In a house of their own she could have a room of her own. Preferably with a door that she could lock.

  “The wages of sin—” the old man said as, to Kady’s horror, he began to advance on her. But Tarik stepped between them.

  “Forgive her, uncle, she has no idea what she’s talking about.” He slipped his arm back around Kady’s shoulders and held on tightly. “We’ll love staying with you and your children. It will be our greatest delight. All I ask is that I might take my bride exploring. We’ll help you look.”

  For a moment Kady thought the old man was going to raise his arm and tell her she had to leave the mountain or maybe that she was to die in some biblical way, but instead, he just turned his back on them and walked away, mumbling to himself.

  The moment he was out of earshot, Kady turned to glare up at Tarik. “Why didn’t you tell me your uncle was crazy?”

  “You thought a sane man shot at you? Or even that a sane man would choose to live up here in this forsaken place? What’s your idea of insanity?”

  “So why didn’t you warn me that you were going to tell him we were married? Obviously you planned it, or you wouldn’t have a copy of my marriage certificate to Cole so handy. And where did you get that, anyway?”

  Without answering her, Tarik turned and looked at the town. “I haven’t been here for years, and it’s difficult to believe, but it’s worse than it was when I was here before. Uncle Hannibal isn’t into maintenance. So, tell me, Kady, my wife, which side of the bed do you sleep on?”

  “You touch me and you’ll die regretting it.”

  Turning, he gave her a look of shock. “You seem to go to bed with other men, so why not me?”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re despicable?”

  “Not any women, no, can’t say that they have.”

  At that she swept past him and started walking up the road to where she knew the old Jordan homestead was.

  As she walked, she looked around her. She had seen Legend in two different guises. First she had come to know and love Cole’s dream town, with pretty houses, a school with a big playground, and no signs of the wickedness of life.

  Later she had seen the town with Ruth. Then it had been abandoned for years and the buildings were already beginning to fall down. But now the town was a sad sight indeed. Very few buildings had roofs on them, and many had fallen into a heap of boards on the ground.

  As she walked, she could feel sadness creeping into her as she thought how the place could have been and what had happened to keep it from being great.

  “How was it when you were here?” Tarik asked from beside her, and for once he didn’t seem to be teasing her. At first Kady thought she wouldn’t answer him; she didn’t want to hear his snide remarks about time travel, but the melancholy of her memories was overwhelming her.

  “Down that road was the school with a huge sports field. I guess Cole dreamed that one up because a playground would be very important to a nine-year-old. This was the freight depot, and down there was the biggest ice cream parlor you ever saw.”

  She began to walk faster as she pointed out each building. Like Cole, she ignored that most of the buildings seemed to have been saloons, choosing to remember what they had been when she’d been with Cole.

  “This was the Jordan Line, but when I was here, it was just a pretty hedge,” she said, looking at the remains of a stone wall that had once separated the “good” and “bad” parts of town from each other. “This was named Paradise Lane, and the church there was large and pretty, and this was a huge library.”

  Turning right, she stopped before the little road that she knew led to the Jordan homestead. “Down there Cole built a mosque.” Turning, she looked up at Tarik. “It was in memory of his best friend, who was killed with him.” Her voice lowered. “He was named Tarik, like you.”

  While she stood there, the heaviness of the place beginning to weigh on her, he took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.

  When she saw that his eyes were full of pity, Kady jerked away from him. “You don’t believe me, so don’t pretend that you do.”

  He scowled at her. “I don’t know why you have the opinion that I am a monster without feeling, but whether or not I believe you met people who lived a hundred years ago is of no consequence. I can see that this place upsets you. Would you like to leave and go back to Denver? Or New York?”

  “And what about Ruth’s codicil? Are you willing to forfeit the money for three years?”

  “You could return to New York with me, and for the next three years, I could make all the decisions and you could sign all the papers.”

  She blinked up at him. “Work with you? Every day? For three years?”

  He gave her a one-sided grin. “Sounds good to me.”

  Kady began walking again. “And how would your lovely Leonie like that?”

  “She’s not the jealous type, and besides, what would there be for her to be jealous of? It’s not as though you and I—”

  “Right,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s not as though there is anything between us. In fact . . .” Halting, she turned back to him. “Why don’t you leave here? You’ve told your uncle that I’m family, so he won’t be shooting at me anymore, so I don’t need you any longer.” In spite of her words, Kady’s heart nearly stopped. Part of her wanted to throw her arms around him and beg him not to leave her with this frightening old man. But another part wanted him to go away so she’d never see him again.

  Tarik didn’t bother answering. “The Hanging Tree is down this way. Want to see it?”

  “I have, thank you,” she said, letting out her pent-up breath and starting to walk again.

  But what Kady had forgotten was that the cemetery was also that way. When she’d been with Ruth, she’d refused to enter it, but now, in the bright sunlight, she stopped before the falling-down fence and stared in hypnotic fascination at the weathered stones.

  “Come on,” Tarik said gently, pulling her by the hand.

  “No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to see.”

  But he was insistent. “Come on, you have to.”

  “No!” she said more fiercely, trying to pull back from him.

  But he wouldn’t release her hand, and when she tugged harder, he pulled her into his arms. “Kady, please,” he said, holding her and stroking her hair. “I want you to trust me. Haven’t I always been here for you?”

  With her face buried against his chest, she nodded. The warmth of him felt so good, and the roughness of his wool sweater made her very aware of his maleness. No other man who had ever touched her made her feel as he did. He seemed safe and dangerous at the same time. She felt that he was her friend and her enemy; her protector and her predator.

  “Look about you,” he said softly, pulling her face away from his chest. “It’s a cemetery, and all the people in here have been dead a very long time.”

  When she managed to open her eyes, the first stone she saw said Juan Barela, and she put her face back against Tarik’s chest. “No,” she whispered and tried to leave, but he pulled her back.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, looking up at him.

  “I want you to recognize the difference between the living and the dead. You were never married to Cole Jordan because he died many yea
rs ago.”

  At that she did pull away from him and ran to the gateway; then she turned back to glare at him. “You don’t know anything about anything. You think that if it can’t be put in a computer, then it doesn’t exist. You think—Oh, who cares what you think? I don’t need you or want you, and I want you to leave me alone.”

  Turning, she began to run toward the Hanging Tree, the place where she first met Cole, but Tarik caught her in his arms. When she fought against him, he held her tighter, until she at last stopped and began to sob against him.

  “Kady, I know you say you don’t like me,” he said softly, “and maybe you have reason not to, but I’m not going to leave you here alone. I think maybe too many people in your life have left you alone. And whether I believe your story or not doesn’t matter. I’m going to do what I can to help you.”

  He pulled her away from him, and when she wouldn’t look up, he put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to his. “We’re partners, remember?” he said.

  As she looked into his dark eyes, she saw the man she’d seen in her dreams for most of her life. She remembered being a child and drawing veils on every photo she saw as she searched for the eyes that were now looking at her. And she knew that if he continued being nice to her, she’d fall in love with him, fall deeply in love with him.

  And that could not be. They were from two different worlds, and all he wanted from her was help in getting his family’s business back. If Ruth hadn’t written that codicil he would never have seen her again. And once this project was done, he’d ride out of Kady’s life with the ease he had ridden into it.

  She moved away from his grasp and wiped at her eyes. “Right,” she said. “We’re business partners, and I’d like to keep it that way. So please keep your hands off of me.” She put her chin up. “And no more of your psychobabble of trying to make me look at tombstones. What I do or do not do is none of your business. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be by myself.”

  His face changed with her speech, going from one of great concern to a mask of arrogant amusement. “Of course,” he said. “I apologize for forcing myself on you. I’m sure you know your way back to the house, and as you have made abundantly clear, you don’t need me.” One side of his mouth curved into a little smile. “If you happen to stumble into the past, say hello to my relatives for me.”