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  “Probably a cookbook,” she said, smiling, then made the mistake of turning toward him and found that her face was inches from his.

  For a moment Kady was sure he was going to kiss her, but instead, he turned away, leaving Kady feeling relieved but also annoyed. But then, what did she expect? He was engaged to be married to someone else.

  Involuntarily, she thought, Just like you were engaged to Gregory even though you didn’t love him.

  “So tell me all about Leonie,” she said as she walked back to the fire.

  He didn’t respond to her request. “Sit down here. I want to look at your feet.”

  She didn’t bother asking how he knew there was something wrong with her feet; he seemed to know many things about her. Sitting on a rock that had obviously been meant to be used as a chair, she started to untie her laces, but Tarik brushed her hands away. In seconds he had her foot bare, the wet sock peeled away.

  “Do you have any idea how dangerous a blister like this is?” he asked with anger. “Look at this! You have two blisters on this foot and how many on the other foot?” He didn’t wait for an answer before he pulled her other wet shoe off, then gave her a look of reprimand at the three blisters on that foot. One of them had burst, and blood had made her sock stick to her skin. Gently, he peeled the sock away.

  After retrieving medical supplies from his pack, he began to doctor her feet, putting salve on them to prevent infection.

  “You take care of everyone, but no one takes care of you, do they?” he asked, her small foot held securely in his big warm hands.

  Kady didn’t like to admit it, but there was something about the intimacy of the tender care he was giving her feet that made her feel closer to him than she’d ever felt to any other man. She’d been to bed with Gregory, but she’d never known him. She’d spent time with Cole, but she’d never felt a part of him, at least not as she was beginning to feel a part of this man. Maybe it should have been disconcerting to find that Tarik had known about her all his life, but then she had also known about him too, hadn’t she?

  “What did you play when you were here? Were you alone?” she asked.

  “Always,” he answered as he began to wrap gauze about her foot.

  “Did you play that you were a cowboy? Or did you want to be a space ranger?”

  “Neither,” he said as he took her other foot in his hand and began to warm it between his palms. “I played Arabian Nights.” With a smile he looked back up at her. “When I was a kid, I was obsessed with all things Arabian. Al el Din, not as we westerners call him, Aladdin, fascinated me. There was a year of my life when I played that I was a Berber prince and ran around in a wool cloak, half of it drawn across my face. Like a veil, I guess, to protect me from the desert sands.”

  Looking up at her, his eyes twinkled. “I had to give it up when my face broke out in a rash from the wool.”

  As Kady looked at him, she was not smiling. “What did you mean when you said, ‘This time you can reach me’?”

  “I don’t remember. When was that? There, is that better?” he asked, referring to her foot. “I think you should stay off your feet tonight. No more climbing for you. Tomorrow I may have to carry you down the mountain.”

  “You’ll do no such thing. And what did you mean?”

  “About what?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Oh. About your reaching me? I have no idea. I don’t remember saying it.”

  She could tell by his eyes that he was telling the truth. No one could fake such a blank look. “Did you think of me when you were wearing your black wool?” she blurted, her face earnest.

  “How did you know it was black?”

  Kady didn’t respond, just waited for his answer.

  As he began to take food from the pack, he seemed to think about her question. “I guess I always thought of you,” he said softly. “You were part of my childhood.”

  “Did you imagine riding a white horse across the desert and asking me to ride away with you?” she asked softly.

  “Exactly,” he said with a dazzling smile. “Now what shall we eat for dinner? I have dehydrated beef Stroganoff and dehydrated chicken à la king and dehydrated—”

  “This is a joke, isn’t it? You expect me to eat reconstituted . . . ” She couldn’t say the words of the foods, as though to even say them would make her ill.

  “Got any other suggestions?”

  “Give me that pack and let me see what’s in there,” she said, and with a smile, he motioned her to have a look inside the pack.

  Thirty minutes later Kady had cooked a seasoned rice casserole, covered with cheese, and for dessert she had made a bread pudding with trail mix and powdered milk.

  “Not bad,” Tarik said as he ate three helpings, then cleaned out the bowls. “Not bad at all.”

  Kady had to laugh because she suddenly saw all his remarks about her cooking as what they were, teasing.

  The rain still pelted outside, but inside the little cave they were cozy and warm, and as the darkness fell, Kady looked out nervously. What happened now? Was she supposed to climb into a sleeping bag with him?

  Instinctively she knew that sex with this man would be different from any other sex she’d experienced. Sex with Tarik, or making love, as she intuitively knew it would be with this man, would change her life.

  But worse, it would make her want him, and he wasn’t for her. He was going to marry someone like Leonie, with the sound of money and Ivy League schools in her voice. Men like Tarik Jordan didn’t take home cooks from Ohio to meet Mother. Especially not a mother who dedicated herself to retaining her beauty. What would she think of Kady, who never seemed able to remember to put on lipstick, much less all the rest of it?

  “And what is going on in that little mind of yours?” Tarik asked as he set a pan of rainwater down by the fire and began to wash the dishes.

  “That I would never have pegged you for a man to do the washing up.”

  “And I would never have thought you were a liar. What were you really thinking?”

  “About your mother. Does she adore your Leonie?”

  “Two of a kind. Mother picked her out for me.”

  “You mean like a set of dishes?”

  “Exactly,” Tarik answered.

  “And your father? Did he meet your . . . your . . . before he died?” She was hesitant about mentioning his father because Mr. Fowler had told her that it had only been six months since Tarik’s father had been killed in a plane crash. And she couldn’t seem to say the word fiancée.

  Tarik very politely pretended he hadn’t noticed Kady’s speech problem.

  “Oh, yes. He said I was an idiot. He said I should marry the cleaning lady’s daughter before I married one of Mother’s friends. There was no love lost between my parents.”

  “So why did they stay married all those years?”

  “If my father had divorced her, he would have had to give away some of his wealth, so he had one mistress after another. And my mother, as far as I can tell, hasn’t had sex since I was conceived, messes up the maquillage, you know.”

  Kady laughed at that. “Is Leonie like your mother?”

  “Come here,” he said, sitting on a rock, his knees wide apart. “No, don’t give me that look, as though I’m about to steal your virtue. I want you to sit here so I can brush your hair. It has so many twigs in it that I’m afraid a forest ranger will arrest you for stealing national property.”

  Smiling, Kady moved to sit on the ground between his legs, and he gently began to brush the tangles from her hair, now and then tossing a twig onto her lap. She was silent as he worked, feeling the sensuousness of his hands in her hair. It was warm now in the cave, and the firelight was lovely. She was tired, but she didn’t yet want to go to sleep because she didn’t want this day to end. Not ever.

  “No more questions for me?” he asked softly, her hair in his hands.

  “No,” she said, “none,” then paused. “But I could listen.