M-Three shook her head. “Cole has said no. You’re not to leave the ranch. He’s set guards all around the perimeter of the ranch so you can’t leave.”
“And he’s taken all the horses, too.”
“You can have anyone from town come to see you, but you can’t even go into Legend.”
“He’s afraid you’ll steal a horse and ride down the mountain to Denver.”
Kady could not comprehend what she was hearing. “Are you trying to tell me that I am a prisoner?”
“Exactly.”
“Couldn’t be more of a prisoner if you were behind bars.”
Kady sat there blinking for several moments. “Wait a minute, this is still America, isn’t it? I’m not a criminal, and he doesn’t have the right to hold me prisoner. I’m a free person, and I—”
“Are you a suffragette?” M-Three asked.
“I’m a human being, with all the rights and privileges that encompasses.”
“Maybe in Virginia but not here in Legend. Here you’re a subject, just like the rest of us.”
“Oh?” Kady said, one eyebrow raised. “We shall see about that. I think Cole Jordan has been dealing with women who don’t know the tricks I do. Will you five help me?”
The women looked from one to the other, then back at Kady. “No,” Martha said. “We’re very sorry, but we have too much to lose. Our fathers would kill us if they lost their jobs.”
“But we’re sisters,” Kady said, and even to herself that sounded stupid. She didn’t know these women, so why should they risk anything for her?
“Then I shall do it myself,” she said with all the strength she could muster. “I’ll get out of here, you’ll see.”
The five women just sat on the end of the bed and looked at her in pity. Their faces said that Kady would soon find out what they already knew.
Two days, Kady thought, her fists clenched at her side. Two days of doing absolutely nothing. Another day like this and she was sure she would go mad.
After the five Ms left yesterday morning, Kady was so full of righteous indignation that she had been determined to find the petroglyphs and get out of this time period forever. All she wanted in the world was to get back to Virginia and Gregory.
But after a day and a half of trying to escape, she had failed as badly as when she’d tried to get a job in Legend. She certainly had to give it to Cole that when he gave an order, it was obeyed.
After the Ms had left, she’d found a note Cole had left for her on the dresser saying he was very sorry but he’d had to leave and he’d see her again in about ten days. There was no mention of her incarceration during that time period, nor had he even had the courtesy to explain where he’d gone and why.
For the entire first day, Kady had tried to escape, but, truthfully, where was she going? Anyone she asked looked blank when she mentioned the rock carvings, so even if she had managed to steal a horse and ride, she had no idea where to go.
She had become so frustrated that last night she’d even written a letter to Cole’s grandmother, begging her to come to Legend and help her escape.
So now, the afternoon of the second day, Kady sat at the desk in what had to be Cole’s office and asked, Why me? Why had she been chosen for this outrageous time mix-up? First of all, she wasn’t heroine material. She was just a simple girl from Ohio who wanted to cook. There was no great tragedy in her life, or in Cole’s for that matter, that needed to be righted. So why was she here?
Somewhere around one o’clock that day, she’d given up fighting. She had talked, begged, pleaded with every person she saw on the ranch to help her, but they looked at her as though she were crazy. How could she be complaining when she was the mistress of so much? And Kady had to admit that Cole was the owner of a great deal. His house stood on the most beautiful piece of land she had ever seen, and the house itself was breathtaking. There had to be twenty rooms, and each of them was furnished luxuriously in a cozy, comfortable style. It was the house Kady had always dreamed of and had never known how to achieve.
Her favorite room, the kitchen, was a dream, with a huge wood-fired iron stove, giant oak worktable, four ovens built into brick walls, and a pantry big enough to hold a 7-Eleven store. Unfortunately, the cooking utensils consisted of four stupendously greasy cast-iron pieces and a few wooden spoons.
“If things were different,” Kady muttered now as she sat in the library-office, doodling on a
piece of paper with a fat pencil. Thinking back, she remembered the yeast starter she’d made at the cabin and how she’d thought of making pickles and jams.
“Kady is such a helpful child.” The words echoed in her head, the words she’d heard Jane’s mother say a thousand times. When Kady was a child her mother had had to work two jobs. When Jane’s parents had offered to look after her daughter, she’d accepted the favor without hesitation. She never knew that Jane’s family treated Kady as little more than an unpaid servant.
What was it Cole had said? “You don’t have to be the best little girl in the world. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to do anything to make sure people love you. I love you just as you are.”
“Just as you are,” she said aloud. To be accepted as you are, isn’t that a sort of freedom? And in her heart, she knew that Cole had been telling the truth. She could sit here in his beautiful house for the next eight days, or eighty years, for that matter, and do absolutely nothing if she wanted and he’d be perfectly pleased.