“No one has to marry me as a favor,” she said through clenched teeth. “And put me down before one of your ‘Legendary’ saints sees us together.”
Her play on the town’s name made him smile. “Too late,” he said, his smile widening.
Kady rolled her head back to look up at the entire choir of Legend, Colorado, as they jammed themselves together in the doorway to stare in open fascination at her and Cole.
“I’m afraid that now I have no other choice except to marry you,” he said. “Now that I have—”
“So help me, if you say that you’ve ruined my reputation, I’ll throw up on you.”
For a moment Cole looked at her half in amusement, half in shock, then he glanced up at the choir, still staring as though they were natives seeing their first peep show. “If you will excuse us, Miss Long and I need to discuss a few matters in private.”
When the spectators were gone, Cole looked back at Kady, opened his mouth to speak, but instead, looked down at her. The way she was positioned in his arms made the tops of her breasts push up out of the dress until they were nearly popping out of the neckline. And the tight dress showed off every curve of Kady’s lush figure. She might be thought to have a “weight problem” in the late twentieth century, but she’d already been in this century long enough to know that here a woman was supposed to look like a woman.
“Touch me and you die,” she hissed, her nose a quarter inch from his.
For a moment he just looked at her; then with a sigh of reluctance, he slowly set her back on the porch step beside him. “You are right,” he said after a while. “I do owe you. I owe you my life, and I did offer to marry you, so I must—”
He stopped when he saw Kady’s tight-lipped glare.
“I would be honored to marry you,” he said solemnly. “Honored and pleased. And I want you to know that I respect your unusual circumstances, so you are under no obligation to perform your wifely duties. Unless you want to, that is,” he added.
Kady hadn’t really tho
ught that far ahead. Right now she wanted a meal, a bath, and a bed, in that order. Her anger at this man was taking the last of her energy.
Kady drew a deep breath, but no matter how much she tried to calm herself, her voice still came out with a nervous tremor. “Yes,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Pardon? I couldn’t hear you.”
She glared at him. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something about you that I truly dislike. Only starvation would make me marry you.”
He gave her a smug little smile. “Maybe I could find another man to take care of you. I’m sure someone somewhere would be willing to marry you.”
She ignored his snide remark, refusing to think of what might befall her if she found herself married to a man who didn’t own a badge for continuous church attendance. “I want to remind you that you owe me,” she said levelly. “I saved your life and as for my wifely duties, if you try to force me to do anything I don’t want to, I’ll—”
The voice that cut her off was angry. “I do not force women or harm them in any way,” he said, his jaw clenched. “I am marrying you as a necessary way of protecting you. It is as you say, I owe you. Now, if you are through disparaging my character, would you like to go into the church and get married or not?” he asked. “You are free to leave if don’t want to marry me.”
Kady knew she’d been put in her place. Maybe she was making more of this than there was. He had told her he thought she was beautiful, but that had obviously not sent him into uncontrollable lust. As he’d said, he could have forced her when they were alone near the Hanging Tree, but he hadn’t.
A wave of guilt overtook Kady. “Marriage is very serious, and you must know that I will go back to my home the very second I can,” she said. “Aren’t you involved with some girl you’d rather marry? Maybe some woman is going to be furious when she finds out that a man she thought was hers has—”
“Pretty much all the women in this town are in love with me,” he said solemnly. “Even the married ones want to widow themselves so they can marry me. Women follow me down the street like so many baby ducks. I have to change my sleeping place every night to foil their attempts to find me because they seduce me all—”
Kady grabbed his arm. “Shut up, and let’s get this over with. The sooner this is done, the sooner I can get something to eat.”
“After you,” Cole said, smiling at her and pushing the door to the church open wider. “Mrs. Jordan,” he said under his breath.
Chapter 7
KADY AWOKE BECAUSE HER SCALP WAS ITCHING FURIOUSLY, and there was something constricting her breathing. When she opened her eyes, it took her a moment to focus on the ceiling, which was constructed of closely set posts. Idly, she wondered when her landlord had redecorated and why he’d decided to give the rustic look to an apartment in Alexandria, Virginia.
Turning her head, she looked about the place as she rubbed her eyes and tried to clear what seemed to be pounds of crusty sleep from them. A cabin, she thought, a mountain cabin. One room, very clean, all homemade furniture, blue calico curtains on the windows.
Abruptly, Kady sat up as memory came flooding back to her. She was no longer in Virginia but in the mountains of Colorado, and the year was 1873.
For a moment she buried her face in her hands and remembered all that had happened in the last few days, especially what had happened yesterday. Cole Jordan, a man she hardly knew, had escorted her into a church that was nearly crushed under the weight of the flowers that adorned it. Kady’s eyes had widened as she looked at the lilies and roses and great swags of wildflowers that hung from every conceivable surface.
“There’s a wedding later today,” Cole had said, smiling down at her dirty face. “Or maybe the flowers are for us.”