LEGEND

by Jude Deveraux

  “Yes you do, and if I had time now I’d take you upstairs and show you how very much you like me. But I don’t have time. Luke and I—”

  Kady had once thought that Gregory was vain, but this man won all prizes. “You aren’t listening to me, are you? I don’t want anything to do with you. Go spend the night with Luke or your macho Wendell or your anorexic Leonie for all I care. It doesn’t concern me in the least.”

  “Kady, honey, you really don’t mean that, and if I had time—Ow! Why’d you kick me?”

  “Because I don’t have a knife handy.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Tarik said, but from his tone she could tell that he was shocked.

  “I mean every word of it. Go sleep in one of the brothels, that should suit you.” With that she pushed past him and went up the stairs in search of the blue bedroom.

  “Looks like she doesn’t want to have anything to do with you,” Luke said, chuckling, to his cousin when they were alone on the porch. He’d seen too many women make fools of themselves over his extraordinarily handsome and extraordinarily rich cousin.

  “Who? Oh, you mean Kady. No, she’s crazy about me.”

  “So we all heard. Seems to me she wants to stick an apple in your mouth and shove you in an oven.”

  “Naw, no problem. She’s just upset because her last boyfriend was a real bastard. Has nothing to do with me.”

  “I thought I heard you sued her and you told some great, whopping lies.”

  Tarik waved his hand in dismissal. “You shouldn’t listen at keyholes. Listen, I need your help with something. Is there anything you can do to get rid of Wendell for the night?”

  “You mean like drug her beer, that sort of thing?”

  “Can you do that?”

  Luke shook his head in disbelief. “What’s wrong with you? Most men adore Wendell.”

  “I don’t, which is exactly why she wants me. And, no offense to your sister, but I don’t have the stamina for her. So, tell me, how can I get rid of her, and are you willing to spend the night helping me?”

  “Me? A boy like me?” Luke said with heavy sarcasm.

  Tarik gave him a crooked grin. “You touch Kady again and I may make you prove your manhood.”

  Luke laughed. “Don’t tell me you were telling Kady the truth! Hard-hearted Jordan couldn’t have fallen in love with a pretty little woman like Kady? I thought you went in for piranhas like Leonie and my dear, cycle-straddling sister.”

  “Someday, when you grow up, I’m going to tell you the facts of life, but not yet. You want to help me or not?”

  “Would it be too much to ask what you want me to do? Will it be interesting enough to lose a night’s sleep over?”

  “What if I told you I’d found a hole through time and if we go through it we can walk into the past?”

  For a few moments Luke stared at him in speculation. The story was preposterous, but he had faith in his cousin. “Right now you could be upstairs conning your way into Kady’s bed—I don’t believe that story of your being married for a minute—yet you want to spend the night ghost hunting?” he asked softly.

  Tarik just looked at him.

  “If it’s that important, then I have suddenly developed a case of insomnia.”

  “So what do we do with your sister?”

  “Leave her to me. I learned a few things while I was in law school.”

  “I knew all that money I spent on your education would pay off.”

  “Actually, I learned this in a bar way downtown, and I can assure you that it had nothing whatever to do with law school.”

  “So what are you waiting for? Make sure Wendell doesn’t follow us; then meet me by the Hanging Tree in one hour.”

  “Shouldn’t you spend ten minutes or so with Kady?” Luke asked smugly, implying that was all the time his ancient cousin would need with a woman.

  Tarik didn’t smile but looked up at the window of the blue bedroom. “If I went back to that room, I’d never leave, not for days,” he said with tears of regret in his voice.

  “This must really be important,” Luke said softly.

  “It is. I’m preventing Kady from risking her life. Now, go on, do whatever you need to so you can meet me in one hour.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Chapter 27

  SO MUCH FOR LOVE, KADY SAID TO HERSELF AS SHE WANDERED along the old path winding up the mountain. What did it matter to her that Tarik, this man who said he loved her, hadn’t come home all night? It wasn’t as though they were actually married, not any more than she was actually married to Cole. After all, a person can’t marry a ghost, can she?

  As she strode up the path, she stopped now and then to pick herbs and wildflowers and put them into the basket she carried.

  This morning, just as the sun was rising, Tarik had stumbled into “their” room and flopped onto the bed beside her. He was dirty, caked with mud, and there was the faint smell of manure about him, but he didn’t remove his filthy clothes, just fell onto the bed. When Kady had awakened and looked at him, he’d said, “Hi, darlin’,” then instantly fell asleep.

  Getting out of bed, Kady glared at him. She should have left him where he was, as he was, but instead, she’d pulled off his shoes, then struggled to pull his denim jacket off. He’d wakened just enough to tell her she smelled good and he was very glad to see her, but then he’d fallen asleep again. So Kady covered him, then went downstairs to make breakfast.

  Afterward she’d packed some lunches, and taking one herself, she’d headed up into the mountains, wanting time to get away and think about her life. Which, as far as she could tell, was a mess.

  Tarik had told her that he loved her, but of course that was a lie. How could a person love another after they’d known each other only a few days? Even if all the books were full of such stories, it couldn’t really happen, could it?

  And what did she feel for him?

  “Nothing,” she said aloud as she looked up at the sky and saw the darkening clouds. She felt as much for him as he felt for her, which was exactly nothing.

  After she’d solved the problem of Legend, and she had no idea when that was going to happen because this morning the rock still wouldn’t open, she was going to get a job cooking somewhere and never see Tarik Jordan again. He’d go back to his Leonies and his Wendells, and she’d never see him again.

  Now, as Kady looked around her, she thought how she was going to miss Legend. If Tarik was telling the truth—the truth about his lie, that is—then she didn’t own Legend because she’d never owned his assets and therefore couldn’t give the town to herself. After she left this time, she’d never see the place again.

  The first cold drops of rain hit her in the face, and she knew she had to run for shelter. She’d come out without rain gear, and in the mountains, hypothermia was a danger.

  Within minutes the rain started coming down harder, and she started running. Maybe she could find a rock overhang or—

  She stopped her thoughts as she stood in the middle of the trail and looked ahead of her. Blinking, trying to clear her eyes, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There seemed to be a cabin just ahead of her.

  “Cole’s cabin,” she said in disbelief. The cabin she had stayed in with him, where he’d growled at her and teased her and made her laugh.

  Ignoring the mud and puddles, she started running, and within minutes she had reached the cabin and the dryness of the porch. With her breath held, she put her hand on the door, hoping it wouldn’t be locked, for the cabin was in excellent repair. Obviously, someone took good care of it.

  The well-oiled hinges moved easily as the door opened, and Kady held her breath as she looked inside. It was quite beautiful, with curtains of red, green, and gold, Berber throw rugs, a couch of dark green corduroy, and a bed with a spread that matched the curtains. To find a cabin in the middle of nowhere that looked as though it had been done by a professional decorator was like entering a fantasy.

  The huge st
one fireplace looked just as it had when this was Cole’s cabin, and it was laid for a fire. Shivering in her wet clothes, Kady put a match to the paper and kindling, and within minutes the big room glowed with warmth.

  By the bed was a carved wooden chest, and she was reminded of the lidded box that Cole had and the clothes she’d found inside. When she opened this finely carved chest, she wasn’t surprised to again find clothes and minutes later she had removed her wet garments and was in warm, dry sweatpants, a thick sweater, and big wool socks.

  Smiling, feeling much better, she went to the corner of the room to look in the kitchen cabinets and found, hidden from view, a microwave and a food processor, which meant that someone had added electricity to the cabin.

  “Luke,” she said, thinking of the young man with his law degree. Thinking back on it, she realized that she had asked Luke nothing about himself, about how he came to be in Legend yet still managed to go to law school.

  The cabin also had running water, and there was a door near the bed that hadn’t been there before, and when she opened it, she found, to her delight, a working bathroom.

  Suddenly, the door burst open and a very wet and very angry Tarik burst in. “Just what the hell do you mean disappearing like that? No one knew where you were. From now on, you’re never to leave my presence without telling someone where you are going.”

  Her first elation at seeing him was killed by his words. “Your ‘presence’? As in His Royal Highness’s presence?”

  His dark features were drawn into a scowl and water was dripping off his nose onto his sweater. Kady had to force herself to stay where she was or she might have gone to him and thrown her arms about his waist.

  Instead, she forced herself to turn away and look at the fire. “You’ve seen that I’m all right, so you can go now,” she said softly. Behind her, she didn’t hear a sound. He didn’t move away from the doorway, didn’t start to remove his wet clothing.

  She kept her face turned away from his as long as she could; then she turned back to him. He was staring at her with an intensity that made goose bumps rise on her body. She could feel his look. Staring into his eyes, she saw the man she had seen hundreds of times in her dreams, the man she had searched for and daydreamed of. He was the man she had compared all other men to and found them wanting.

  Now, just as in her dream, he held out his hand to her. He wasn’t riding a horse, but he’d done that when he’d ridden out of the forest and rescued her from gunfire. The bottom half of his face wasn’t veiled, but he had been that way the first time she had seen him. There wasn’t an endless expanse of desert behind him, just a cabin door with rain pelting down outside.

  But even though this was different from her dream, it was the same. He was the same man, with the same dark, intense eyes, and the same look that said he would take care of her forever, the look that he wore in her dream. And she knew she could trust him. Whatever petty arguments they had between them, in the end, she knew that he would guard her with his life.

  She hesitated only a minute. In her dreams she had tried to get to him, tried to reach his outstretched hand, but had been unable to. Something had always held her back. But now there was nothing between them except her own stubborn temper.

  She didn’t take his hand. Instead, she ran to him, her arms wide, and fell against his chest as he held her tightly.

  “Oh, Kady,” he said, his mouth against her hair. “I love you so very much. You don’t know how happy I am to see that you’re not angry at me anymore. I’m sorry about the lawsuit, but my father set it up. I didn’t even remember it. I’m sorry I lied to you about Ruth’s codicil, but I was afraid you would send me packing if you didn’t have a reason to stay with me.”

  “I would have,” she said, her head against his wet clothes.

  “And the marriage . . . That was just my dream. I wanted to live with a girl with a long dark braid. You don’t have a spotted pony, do you?”

  It was the same dream that Cole had, the one he had told her about in this very cabin.

  Pulling away from her a bit, he lifted her chin so her eyes met his. “Do you forgive me for telling a few fibs? I just wanted to be near you and to make you love me.”

  At that last she turned away from him. Did she love him? She wasn’t sure, but then she didn’t seem to be sure about her feelings for any man. All the time she was with Cole she had told him and herself that she was in love with Gregory. Then she’d found out what Gregory was truly like and she’d begun to remember Cole as though he were a saint. But she could do that, couldn’t she, since he was dead and had never reached adulthood.

  “I don’t know—” she began but he cut off her words with a soft kiss.

  “You don’t know whether or not you love me,” he said, his eyes showing amusement. “I’m patient and I can wait for you to find out. It’s just a matter of time.”

  He carried her to the bed then and began to slowly remove her clothing, all the while kissing the skin that he exposed.

  “Kady, I . . .” he began, as though he had something very important to say to her, but then he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, and what she saw there was fiery hot. “The hell with finesse,” he said with a bit of a grin, and the next minute her clothes went flying.

  And Kady found that she was ignited in a frenzy of desire such as she’d never felt before. She tore at his sopping wet clothes, wanting her hands and mouth on his skin, wanting to taste and touch him, as he was doing to her.

  His hands and mouth seemed to be everywhere at once, and when he was naked, he stretched out on the bed and pulled her on top of him, his mouth on her breasts, his hands on her hips, both of them frantic, excited, kissing, tasting.

  When she could stand it no more, he pushed her to her back and entered her with a driving force. Kady arched her hips to meet him and nearly screamed aloud at his first touch. This was the man she had been waiting for, the man she’d wanted all her life.

  Within seconds they had both reached a peak of ecstasy, and, limp, Tarik collapsed on her, holding her close to him. For a few moments Kady lay still, trying to catch her breath, but then he began kissing her neck and his hand strayed downward and they began again.

  Kady sat on the floor, her back against the bed, and she could feel her heart pounding under her naked breasts. She knew she should get up and put some clothes on but she was too worn out, too satiated to think of moving. Actually, she was too happy to care about little things like clothes.

  The room was a mess. At one point during the day, Tarik had thrown her across the dining table, and in his exuberance, he’d knocked ornaments and place mats to the floor. They had stopped making love long enough for her to make them something to eat; then they’d eaten off each other’s bare bodies.

  Now, when the bathroom door opened, she looked up at him and started to pull the bedspread that was on the floor under her up to cover her body.

  “No,” he said, grinning, and she smiled back. He was naked, and she had never seen a more beautiful body. He had broad shoulders, with a great mat of black hair on his chest, and he was muscular from years of learning how to handle hand weapons. In the last hours she had learned just how flexible and strong he really was. However, there were bruises over most of his body, and when Kady asked about them, he’d given his cocky grin and said, “Training.”

  Now, he sat on the floor beside her, pulling her head down to his shoulder. “Like to take a bath with me?”

  “Very hot with bubbles?” she murmured.

  “Very hot, lots of bubbles,” he said as she stood and pulled the bedspread about her shoulders. “Put some clothes on, but not many,” he said, grinning lasciviously.

  Kady started to ask him why she had to put on clothes to go to the bathroom, but then she knew what was in his mind: Cole’s hot spring, the place where she’d washed her hair in a time long past.

  Thirty minutes later they were both up to their necks in a hot natural spring, the same one Kady had used before.
But there were many changes now, as a natural-looking grotto had been built, with beautiful rock ledges and ferns hanging above them.

  “Did you do this?” she asked, her head back, eyes closed. “Did you restore the cabin?”

  “Yes,” he said softly, watching her.

  “Why? If Hannibal shoots at people for trespassing, then—” She opened her eyes to look at him. “Does he usually shoot at people who come to Legend?”

  Tarik gave her a one-sided grin. “Not usually.”

  Kady’s first reaction was anger that she had discovered yet another of his lies. She thought of accusing him of forcing Hannibal to participate in Tarik’s . . . Losing her anger, she closed her eyes and relaxed. In his pursuit of her, she thought, Tarik had made a great deal of effort to get near her, and it felt good. Thinking back to her relationship with Gregory, yes, it felt very, very good to have a man go to such lengths to win her.

  “Kady,” he said softly. “I want you to tell me everything. I want to know what happened between you and Ruth.”

  Looking at him, she sighed. “You’d never believe me. In fact, the more time passes, I don’t know if I believe what happened myself.”

  “I’d like to hear, whether you believe it or not.”

  For a moment she hesitated. Yesterday she would never have considered telling him or anyone else what she’d been through, but today he was no longer a stranger. She knew his body as she’d never known anyone else’s. And, if she was honest with herself, he had never been a stranger to her.

  She took a deep breath. “On impulse I bought an old flour tin. I was going to put it in my new kitchen in the house I was going to live in with Gregory. Inside the tin was a wedding dress, a watch, and a photograph.”

  She talked for over an hour. After a while, without interrupting her, Tarik got out of the pool, then helped her out, dried her off, and they both dressed. It was growing dark as they walked back to the cabin, yet still Kady talked. He made no comment, but she could almost feel how closely he listened to her. It was as though he were listening with his soul.