Legend (Legend, Colorado 1)

She pushed open the bathroom door to see acres of black marble, brass fittings, and mirrors everywhere.

She didn’t know how long she had stood there, looking about, before she realized that standing by the glass-enclosed shower was Tarik Jordan, having paused in toweling himself off and staring at her in disbelief.

“Oh,” she said, startled, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking at him, for the towel covered only the lower half of his body. He was lean and tightly muscled, not round like Cole or thin like Gregory. No, this man had a body that made her eyes hurt just to look at him.

But what made Kady’s skin seem to grow tighter than normal was the unmistakable look of desire in the man’s eyes. The way men had looked at her in Legend had been a mild version of how this man was looking at her now. No one had ever made her feel like this.

“Care to join me?” he asked in that rough-smooth voice of his.

With a gasp, Kady turned and fled. Back in the living room, she had to fight to get her senses back under control. Control, she reminded herself. That’s what you must have now. As Mr. Fowler said, you’re dealing the Big Boys now, and you must remember that you are a millionaire. A multimillion aire.

When he returned to the room, he was dressed casually but expensively, all in black, and he looked so much like the man in her dreams that she felt weak-kneed. As he walked across the room to the liquor cabinet and made himself a drink, she had to hold on to the back of a chair to steady herself.

“Since you do not seem to have come here for illicit purposes, what do you want?” he asked when he turned back to her.

Kady took a deep breath; it was difficult to think when she was near this man. “I need your help.”

“Oh? Now, why would a woman as rich as you need my help? You can buy anything you want. Didn’t Fowler explain that to you?” He looked her up and down with one eyebrow raised. “Nice suit. You didn’t waste any time spending the money my family has earned, did you?”

A little wave of guilt went through Kady, but she stamped it down. Drawing her shoulders up, she looked him in the eyes. “I didn’t come here to be insulted.”

“Then you’d better leave. But then, what am I saying? This is your apartment. Everything is yours, isn’t it?”

Kady was going to do what she could to prevent getting into an argument with him. “I have a proposition to make you. A business deal, so to speak.” She looked at the glass in his hand. “Would you mind if I also had something to drink?”

“Help yourself. It’s your liquor.”

“You really are the rudest man I have ever met,” she said as she poured herself a gin and tonic.

“Why don’t you just say what you came to say and be done with it? Or have you come to throw me into the street?”

“Stop it!” She took a deep breath. “I will give everything back to you if only you will do what I ask you to do.”

For a long moment he stared at her. “That’s a pretty big condition isn’t it?” He refilled his glass with straight single-malt scotch. “When you know that no matter how much you work in your life, it’s all going to be turned over to a stranger from Ohio, it makes you curious about her.”

When Kady blinked at him without comprehension, he smiled in that smug way he had. “I’ve known of you all my life. My father knew of you and his father before him. After all, ol’ Ruth’s will has been in effect for nearly a hundred years. All the Jordan men knew that the money, the companies, all of it was theirs until one Miss Elizabeth Kady Long was born in a small hospital in Ohio in 1966.” He seemed to be fully aware of her shock. “Now, what is it that you want of me? More than y

ou’ve already taken, that is?”

Kady was having difficulty thinking, as too much information was clogging her brain. All her life the very wealthy and powerful Jordan family had known of her. Turning, she looked up at him. Had he seen photos of her? Was that why she had dreamed of him? Was there some psychic link between the two them because of Ruth’s will? Long before she met Cole or Ruth, Ruth’s will had been in effect. She just hadn’t known about it.

“Now, tell me what you and Fowler have planned.” He set down his empty glass. “As fascinating as this conversation is, I think you should tell me what you want of me.”

She swallowed hard. “I want you to go to Colorado with me and try to find a way to go back to eighteen seventy-three Legend and—”

She stopped because he had begun to laugh, and it was in the same tone that Ricky had when he laughed at Lucy, as though she were quite cute but totally daffy.

“Time travel?” he asked. “Is that what you’re hinting at? Is that what you think happened and that’s why Ruthless Ruth left all her money to you?”

Kady didn’t bother to answer, but just looked at him in silence as he took a few steps across the room to stand very near her, still laughing at her.

“You want me to return to some ghost town and try to go back through time and . . . and what? Change history? Is that where this is leading? You know, I’ve had a lot of women try different things to get into my bank account, but this is a new one.”

Lowering his voice, he gave her a look of seduction. “Tell me, Miss Long, have you been reading too much H. G. Wells?”

Kady didn’t know when she’d ever disliked anyone as intensely as she disliked this man. With one swift gesture, she tossed her drink in his face.

Stepping back from her, he wiped the drink away with one hand. “First a knife, now a drink. What next? One of your soufflés?”