LEGEND Read online

  “Doesn’t look like they’ve done any good so far,” she said, turning away from him.

  “I figure the kisses were never from the right woman.” He’d left the water and walked up behind her. “What’s in the basket?”

  He was standing too close, so she stepped away. “Just bacon and biscuits and—” Her voice lowered. “A peach cobbler.”

  “Oh?” He stepped close to her again. “Washed your hair, didn’t you? Like the soap I got for you?”

  “Very nice.” She turned on him, glaring. “Get on that side of the blanket and don’t come near me.”

  For some reason, this declaration made him laugh as he walked to the stream and pulled out a long string of trout.

  I shall smoke them, Kady thought, then corrected herself. She was going home and wouldn’t have time to smoke fish. “Build a fire; I’ll go get a skillet and some wild onions I saw, and we’ll have lunch.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she heard him say as she raced up the hill, grabbing the onions as she went. What a cooking challenge, she thought as she ran. Here she didn’t have every ingredient known in the world at her fingertips, as she did in Virginia. No lemongrass, no star anise, not even any olive oil. Wonder if I could make—she thought, then made herself stop. She wasn’t going to be here long enough to make anything.

  Be firm, Kady, she told herself. You must demand that Cole take you to the rocks tomorrow. And if he refuses, you must go by yourself. Even as she thought this, she realized that she didn’t know the way back to town, much less the way to a bunch of carved rocks.

  By the time she got back with the skillet, Cole had the fire going and was lounging on the blanket, eating what looked to be his third buttered biscuit. Right away she noticed that he hadn’t bothered to clean the fish, but that was all right as Kady had her own way of cleaning and deboning trout.

  “What do you need?” he asked when, minutes later, she had the fish in her hands and had glanced back up the hill toward the cabin as though dreading the necessary climb.

  “A knife.”

  “What blade?”

  She smiled at his question. Considering the lazy way he was lounging, it was very nice of him to offer to return to the cabin and get a knife for her, not that she’d seen anything there except a rusty old paring knife. “An eight-inch boning knife, long, thin blade,” she said, smiling smugly. Let him try to find that!

  A second later, a knife with a long, thin blade twanged as it stuck in the ground inches from her hand. Startled, she looked up at him, silently questioning where it had come from.

  Cole looked away, his smile telling her that he expected her to ask.

  But Kady would have died before she pleaded for information. “Thanks,” she said, then set about boning the fish and slicing the potatoes.

  Working in a restaurant for so many years had taught her to be fast and efficient. Within minutes she set a skillet before him that was filled with sautéed potatoes flavored with wild onions and perfectly cooked trout, touched with a splash of vinegar and raisins on top.

  The look Cole gave her when he bit into the fish was all the praise Kady needed. Sitting down on the blanket, as far from him as she could get, she pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them. It was one thing to cook for the President, a man who was used to excellent food, but it was another to cook for a man who was used to a monotonous, bland diet. Cole had looked at her food as though it were ambrosia, fit only for gods.

  She sat in silence, watching the clear, unpolluted water, while Cole gave the ultimate tribute to a cook by cleaning his plate.

  When the skillet was empty, he set it down and stared at her profile. “I never tasted anything like that,” he said, awe in his voice.

  Kady just smiled, then nudged the basket toward him. “Have room for peach cobbler?”

  Cole took his time on the cobbler, and when he was finished, he leaned back on his elbows and stared at the creek. “If I hadn’t already married you, I’d ask for your hand now,” he said, his seriousness making Kady laugh.

  As she busied herself with cleaning the skillet and handing Cole a jar full of the crystal-clear creek water, she said, “What time do we leave in the morning to go find the rock where I came through?”

  When Cole didn’t answer, Kady tightened her lips, then went to sit on the blanket by him, preparing herself for a fight. She knew without words being spoken that he didn’t want her to go.

  “Kady,” he began. “I like you. I’ve never met a woman whose company I enjoy as much as yours. You have a wonderful sense of humor, you’re smart, you’re beautiful. And . . . and this . . .” He waved his hand at the basket, as though her cooking were indescribable. “I’ve never met anyone like you. Please stay here with me for just a few days. Then I’ll help you get back. I swear that I’ll do whatever I can to help you go anywhere you want. I’ll move heaven and earth to get you back. Just give me these few days. Three days. That’s all I ask.”

  Kady knew she couldn’t do that. The temptation of a man who says he likes your sense of humor and thinks you’re smart would be too much for any woman to resist. She loved Gregory, but with each passing hour he seemed to be further away. She didn’t want to stay here in this time of no medical facilities, of no bathrooms, of no . . . Of no Gregory.

  “I can’t,” she said softly. “Gregory might be looking for me.”

  “You don’t know that he is. Maybe you could stay here six months or ten years, a lifetime even, then step through that rock and you’d be standing in your house wearing that white dress and not a moment will have passed.”

  It struck Kady odd that he had not asked her many questions about her statement that she was from another time period. He had never asked for verification, and she had no idea whether he still disbelieved her story or not. But he did seem to believe that if she could find the rocks, she would disappear. “But I don’t know that, do I? For all I know Gregory will be frantic with worry now. There could be police looking for me.”

  “Then when you return he’ll be doubly glad to see you.”

  “Ha!” Kady said. “Three hundred women will have taken my place by then. You haven’t seen what Gregory looks like. Even my bridesmaid, Debbie, who is married and has three children, has a crush on him. She just sits there and stares at him.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I don’t sit and stare at him, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Mmmm. Sounds a bit as though you do. Are you afraid of him?”

  “Afraid of Gregory?” she snapped. “That’s absurd. Gregory wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s gentle and kind and . . . and sexy.” She looked at Cole. He’d draped his shirt about his shoulders, but his washboard stomach was exposed and he was very appealing. “Yes,” she said fiercely. “Gregory is very, very sexy, and I’m mad about him.” She forced herself to calm. “I don’t want to spend three days alone with you or any other man, I want to go home to Gregory.”

  Cole took a moment to answer. “All right, I’ll take you back in the morning,” he said slowly as he leaned toward her to remove a leaf that had fallen on the back of her hair.

  But as he neared her, Kady jumped as though he were going to hit her.

  “I can’t figure out what I’ve done to make you feel that you can’t trust me,” he snapped.

  “The only way I’d trust you is if you were a eunuch,” Kady muttered, brushing the leaf from her hair.

  For a moment Cole made no reaction to her remark, then, to her utter astonishment, she saw his eyes widen as his face turned pale. “How did you find out? Who told you?”

  Kady was confused. “Who told me what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Cole didn’t say anything as he began to hastily, almost angrily, gather up the cooking gear, and Kady couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, watching him. “I don’t know what I said that’s upset you so much. What is it that I’m supposed to have been told?”

  Cole s