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.