Her peace didn’t last long, for he soon halted the horse and dismounted. Then, with a scowling face, he held his arms up for her, and once she was on the ground, he turned on her.
“I have never seen a woman who could cause more trouble than you!” he began. “Do you have any sense at all? If I hadn’t come along when I did, do you realize that you’d be dead by now? Dead! Ol’ Hannibal would have shot you, and no one would have found the body. Who would have looked for you? Fowler? That boyfriend of yours who wants to open hamburger joints in your name? Or did you think—”
Why did he always have to make her feel incompetent? “Why did you come here? Were you angry that I took any of what Ruth left me? You wanted it all?”
Moving closer, he bent, towering over her. “I came to save your neck. I knew this was going to happen. Couldn’t you see the No Trespassing signs? Or can you only read cookbooks?”
If he made one more derogatory remark about her cooking, she was going to throw a
rock at his head. Or maybe she’d take his suggestion and throw a soufflé. Still in its thick porcelain pot. “Since I own the place, what do the signs matter to me? And who is Hannibal?”
Tarik gave her a little smile that made her think he could read her mind. “He happens to be the man who has a ninety-nine year lease on the place, that’s who he is. Whether you own the town or not, you have no right to enter it, at least not for eighty-two more years, that is.” His smile increased until a dimple appeared in his cheek. “But then, I forgot. You pop around time like a jackrabbit going from one hole to another. So what’s eighty-some years to someone like you?”
With a tightened mouth and fists clenched at her side, Kady turned and started walking down the mountain.
He caught her after two steps. “Mind telling me where you’re planning to go?”
“As far away from you as I can get. You are the most unpleasant, unreasonable, horrible man I have ever met, and I don’t even want to be in the same state with you, much less on the same mountain.”
With his hand still on her arm, she saw that he was quite startled at her words. No doubt, between his looks and his money, he’d never before had a woman say an unkind word to him. She wondered if any of his women called him anything except Mr. Jordan.
When he touched her, Kady tried to pull her arm away, but he wouldn’t release her.
“You can’t leave,” he said, holding her tightly.
“You’re hurting me,” she said, and he dropped her arm, but when she started walking again, he put himself in front of her.
“Are you planning to hold me prisoner?”
“If I must. You can’t wander about these mountains. I doubt if you know east from west.”
“I managed to get myself up here, and I can get myself down.”
“You,” he said ominously, “got a Range Rover stuck. You can’t even drive, much less walk, so I cannot allow you to—”
It was the word “allow” that did it. “I am a free citizen, and you have no right to keep me here,” she shouted at him, then took a deep breath. “I have work to do, and I’m going to do it. And so help me, if you stand in my way, I’ll fight you with every—”
“Fine,” he said, stepping aside. “Go. Please don’t let me stand in your way. Just tell me one thing.”
“What?!” she snapped.
“Where’s your will so I can make sure your heirs get whatever you leave behind.”
The fact that he was obviously laughing at her made her even more determined to do what she had to do alone. With her nose in the air, she did her best to sweep past him as she started down the path toward the road.
An hour later, she at last reached her car. She was tired, sweaty, and now that the sun was beginning to set, she was cold and hungry. When she looked at her brand-new, shiny red vehicle and saw that the tires had been taken and it was completely empty of all her new camping equipment, as well as the several bags of food she’d bought, she sat down at the side of the road and put her head in her hands.
“Ready to give up and return to civilization?” came a deep voice from over her shoulder, and she didn’t have to look up to see who it was.
“I can’t go back,” she said tiredly, and she could hear the tears in her voice. But she’d be damned if she was going to let him see her cry! He’d probably laugh even harder at her tears.
But he didn’t laugh. Instead, he sat down beside her, close but not touching, and for a moment he was silent.
“Did you love him that much?” he asked softly.
Kady’s first impulse was to say, “Who?” but she suppressed it. For some reason she remembered the gorgeous blonde in his apartment. “Yes, I loved him very, very much.” Truthfully, she wasn’t sure if he meant Cole or Gregory. But did it matter?
“Look, I’ve set up a camp a few miles back down the mountain. Why don’t we go there and see if we can work out something together?”