Legend (Legend, Colorado 1)

With her face buried against his chest, she nodded. The warmth of him felt so good, and the roughness of his wool sweater made her very aware of his maleness. No other man who had ever touched her made her feel as he did. He seemed safe and dangerous at the same time. She felt that he was her friend and her enemy; her protector and her predator.

“Look about you,” he said softly, pulling her face away from his chest. “It’s a cemetery, and all the people in here have been dead a very long time.”

When she managed to open her eyes, the first stone she saw said Juan Barela, and she put her face back against Tarik’s chest. “No,” she whispered and tried to leave, but he pulled her back.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, looking up at him.

“I want you to recognize the difference between the living and the dead. You were never married to Cole Jordan because he died many yea

rs ago.”

At that she did pull away from him and ran to the gateway; then she turned back to glare at him. “You don’t know anything about anything. You think that if it can’t be put in a computer, then it doesn’t exist. You think—Oh, who cares what you think? I don’t need you or want you, and I want you to leave me alone.”

Turning, she began to run toward the Hanging Tree, the place where she first met Cole, but Tarik caught her in his arms. When she fought against him, he held her tighter, until she at last stopped and began to sob against him.

“Kady, I know you say you don’t like me,” he said softly, “and maybe you have reason not to, but I’m not going to leave you here alone. I think maybe too many people in your life have left you alone. And whether I believe your story or not doesn’t matter. I’m going to do what I can to help you.”

He pulled her away from him, and when she wouldn’t look up, he put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to his. “We’re partners, remember?” he said.

As she looked into his dark eyes, she saw the man she’d seen in her dreams for most of her life. She remembered being a child and drawing veils on every photo she saw as she searched for the eyes that were now looking at her. And she knew that if he continued being nice to her, she’d fall in love with him, fall deeply in love with him.

And that could not be. They were from two different worlds, and all he wanted from her was help in getting his family’s business back. If Ruth hadn’t written that codicil he would never have seen her again. And once this project was done, he’d ride out of Kady’s life with the ease he had ridden into it.

She moved away from his grasp and wiped at her eyes. “Right,” she said. “We’re business partners, and I’d like to keep it that way. So please keep your hands off of me.” She put her chin up. “And no more of your psychobabble of trying to make me look at tombstones. What I do or do not do is none of your business. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be by myself.”

His face changed with her speech, going from one of great concern to a mask of arrogant amusement. “Of course,” he said. “I apologize for forcing myself on you. I’m sure you know your way back to the house, and as you have made abundantly clear, you don’t need me.” One side of his mouth curved into a little smile. “If you happen to stumble into the past, say hello to my relatives for me.”

With that, he turned on his heel and headed back toward Legend.

Feeling very alone, Kady walked toward the mountains. She was fairly sure that she could find the petroglyphs by herself, and when she did, she knew that she would find the doorway. And when she went through it, what would she find? Maybe there’d be a time error and she’d arrive in Legend in 1917. Or maybe the rock would close around her as she walked through it and she’d be trapped.

Suddenly, she wished Tarik were with her, then told herself that was a stupid thought. Why was she so attracted to a man like him? Why wasn’t she remembering every minute she’d spent with Cole and longing to go back to him? Why had this dark man blocked out her memories of any other man?

“He means absolutely nothing whatever to me,” she said as she put her chin in the air and kept walking, not noticing that “he” meant Tarik.

In the hundred years since she’d been there last, the trail up the mountain had changed. Some of the rocks had eroded, and the trees had changed. A big old cottonwood was gone, and in its place were several seedlings. But the ancient piñon trees didn’t seem to have grown an inch.

When she finally reached the sheer rock face, she had to pull aside scraggly vines to see the petroglyphs, now not as clear as they had been many years before, but she could still see them.

Stepping back, Kady looked at the rock and waited for it to open. When nothing happened, she went to it and ran her hands over the surface as though she were looking for a latch.

“Try, ‘Open sesame,’” came a voice from behind her.

Turning, Kady saw Tarik standing there, the now-familiar smirk on his handsome face, but when he saw her, his expression changed. Leaping down from the rock he was standing on, he put his arms around her and drew her to him.

“Kady, honey, you’re shaking like a leaf. Come on, sit down.” With his arms still around her, he led her to a low rock and gently seated her, then gave her a drink of water from a bottle he had hooked to his belt.

“Better?” he asked, sitting beside her, his arms still around her.

“I’m not your honey, and what are you doing here?”

“Taking care of my wife. You like habibbi better?”

“I don’t like any endearments from you, and I’m not your wife.” Her words would have had more impact if she hadn’t remained in the circle of his arms and hadn’t put her head down on his shoulder and hadn’t allowed him to brush her hair from her eyes with his fingertips.

“How do you know so much?” she asked softly as she leaned against him.

“I know surprisingly little, but I’m a good listener. Want to tell me everything?”