Legend (Legend, Colorado 1)

Had it been up to him, right then he would have swept her away to marry her and keep her forever, but little Elizabeth Kady Long had other ideas. First, she seemed to believe she was in love with another man. Cole had enough sense to know that when a woman believed she was in love with a man, no one could change her mind. At least not without a lot of time and effort—both of which he planned to dedicate to this project.

Maybe he’d been in an awkward position when he’d first seen her, what with a rope stretching his neck until he couldn’t breathe, but he knew what he felt from that first moment. Kady was brave and good; she had risked her life to save a man she didn’t know. As she’d said to Cole, she hadn’t known if he was a bad guy or a good one, but she’d saved him and taken care of him just the same.

Smiling, he thought of the way she spoke, with her odd phrasing and strange words and even stranger concepts. It was enough to make him believe she was from the future as she said. Almost enough, anyway.

Wherever she came from, it wasn’t from anywhere he knew about, as he was sure there wasn’t another woman like Kady in the state of Colorado. One minute she was fierce and strong, the next she was soft and innocent.

But whatever she was, she kept herself locked inside a protective shell. It was as though she lived all by herself in the world because she was always making sure that no one paid her way or took care of her. She seemed to think she needed to exist all by herself in the world.

And she didn’t allow Cole to get near her no matter how hard he tried. He knew she must be frightened, after all, she was alone in a strange place, but she refused to ask for help or even to let him see how afraid she was.

And she kept talking about this . . . this man named Gregory. Even when thinking of the name, Cole sneered. Kady didn’t love this man. Maybe Cole wasn’t an expert on love, since he’d only recently discovered it, but he knew enough to know that when Kady said the name, her voice didn’t resonate with the feeling that he, Cole, had for Kady. Actually, she sounded more as though she were talking about a business partner than a man she planned to marry.

Or maybe that was how Cole wanted to see the situation. Now, sitting in the cabin in the early morning half light, he looked at Kady and knew that he’d never be able to hear love in her voice for any man except himself.

She was his. His for all time. Minutes before he was to die, she had been sent to save him. Save him from death, save him from loneliness. Save him from a life that had increasingly held little meaning for him. Since he was nine years old, since that day-in-hell when the bank had been robbed and the townspeople of Legend had opened fire, Cole had wondered why he had been spared. Just him, and no one else. In two days he’d lost his sister, his friend, his father, and his grandfather. The year after that his mother had died. His grandmother had said she couldn’t bear the sight of Legend, so she’d moved to Denver. Cole had begged his grandmother, his only living relative, to be allowed to stay in the mountain town; he couldn’t abide the city. His grandmother Ruth had a soft heart, so she’d allowed her grandson to stay with people she trusted in his beloved Legend.

For all that the people he’d stayed with had been good to him, the emptiness he’d felt at losing his family had never been filled.

Smiling, he looked at Kady, sleeping like the angel she was, half buried under the pile of covers on the hard bed. She was so innocent, as innocent as she seemed to think he was. And as far as he could tell, she believed everything he told her. It was difficult to comprehend, but she had even believed his story about being a eunuch.

His lie had been spur-of-the-moment, the word triggering childhood memories for days after he’d been shot no one knew whether he was going to live or die, Cole had taken advantage of the worry he saw in everyone’s eyes to get answers to all the grown-up secrets he and Tarik had tried to figure out on their own. One of his questions was, What was a eunuch? His grandmother had said it was a man who couldn’t make babies and no women wanted to marry such a man. So now, years later, when Kady mentioned the word in jest, Cole had seized on it to concoct a rather marvelous lie.

And Kady had believed him! She’d believed him and agreed to stay with him. In amazement, Cole had watched her eyes soften, and he could feel her heart melting.

Maybe Cole should feel guilty for telling such a great, whopping lie, but he’d do anything to gain time with Kady. He’d even thought about throwing himself over a cliff, hoping to break a bone or two so she’d stay and nurse him. Maybe if he was wounded and she thought he was helpless, she wouldn’t jump every time he got near her.

So now what was he to do with this time? he wondered. By lies and trickery, more lies than she could possibly know, he had made her agree to spend three days alone with him. He’d also managed to get her married to him. That thought made him smile. Planning the strategy that led to that marriage had taken some work on his part. But it had been worth it! Kady was now his, even if she didn’t yet know it.

All he had to do now was erase from her mind all thoughts of this man she thought she loved and show her that she actually loved Cole and no one else.

He just had to figure out how to do that. Cole had once heard a man say that all you had to do was whisper a few sweet words to a woman, then kiss her on the neck in just the right spot, and she was yours. But Kady had that shell around her that kept him outside, and he didn’t think all the neck kisses in the world were going to make her love him.

Now, looking at her, he wondered what this Gregory had done to get past her shell. Then, abruptly, understanding lit Cole’s face. What if this Gregory hadn’t penetrated Kady’s shell? What if that’s what she liked so much about him? Maybe this Gregory asked nothing of her except that she cook a few meals, maybe smile at his friends, and probably, he also wanted her to leave him alone. Cole didn’t know for sure, but he guessed Kady wouldn’t be the kind of wife who asked too many questions about where a man had been last night.

If all this was true, what did ol’ Gregory want from Kady besides her accommodating nature? If all the man wanted was to not be questioned, why had he asked Kady to marry him? Cole had no idea what the answer was, but he thought he’d do his best in these next few days to find out.

And he’d do whatever he had to do to get close to her. He’d lie all that he needed to. He’d continue telling her that he had no idea where those petroglyphs were; he’d tell her he didn’t even remember the tree where the men were trying to hang him if he needed to. He’d tell her anything that was necessary in order to keep her with him until she told him that she didn’t want to leave.

Quietly, Cole went to the bed and knelt beside it, stroking her hair gently until she began to awaken. He’d stayed outside last night while she was getting ready for bed, even giving her time to fall asleep. When he’d returned, in the darkness, he’d stripped down to his underwear and crawled in beside her. She had snuggled next to him like a warm puppy, and he’d pulled her close to him, a smile on his face.

“I love you, Kady,” he’d whispered just before he fell asleep. “I love you, and I have waited for you forever.”

Kady awoke slowly, smiling from some unremembered dream, and when she saw Cole’s handsome face, with those beautiful lips of his, she smiled even more broadly. He was sitting on the floor beside the bed, and maybe she should have felt nervous at his nearness, but instead, she just felt comfortable. “Good morning,” she whispered, closing her eyes again. She wasn’t sure where she was, but it smelled as good as freshly baked bread. And the blankets were so warm they seemed to be tempting her to stay forever.

Just as she felt herself drifting back into sleep, she heard the man say, “Did you ever ride a spotted pony when you were a kid?”

Turning to look at him, she smiled again; then she spent so much time thinking that he had such lovely long eyelashes, that it was a while before she responded to his earnest-sounding question. “My mother and I didn’t have the time or the money to do such frivolous . . .” she began, then stopped. “Actually, I did ride a spotted pony. When I was five, one of the children who lived near me had a birthday party with a hired pony. All the children rode the pony, and we had our pictures taken on it.”

“You were wearing a red dress,” Cole said softly, playing with the curls of her hair, twisting them about his long fingers.

“Yes,” Kady answered. “How in the world did you guess?”

“I didn’t guess, I knew.” Raising his eyes, he looked at her, and when he spoke, his breath was warm on her cheek. “When I was a boy, up until I was nine, I used to have a dream about a little girl wearing a red dress and riding a black-and-white-spotted pony. She never said anything, but she was always laughing, and I felt that she was my friend.”

“Wh-what happened to her?” Kady asked, now fully awake, her mind full of her own recurring dream.

“Nothing. She disappeared right after the shooting when I was a kid. Or at least it seemed that way to me. I remember being delirious with fever and telling my mother that the little girl had gone away. But now I think the ending of the dream had to do with all the people who died that day.”