LEGEND Read online

  Only once did he say anything and that was to ask a question. “Did you love him?”

  “Cole?” she asked, knowing that was whom Tarik meant. “I don’t know. I did in a way, but I guess I knew that it would never last between us, so I held back.”

  “You’re good at holding back,” he said under his breath, then asked her to go on with her story.

  By the time they returned to the cabin, Kady had told him everything about the time she’d spent in Legend with Cole.

  Tarik led her to the round oak table where a few hours before they had made love. “You don’t believe me,” she said as she sat on the chair he pulled out for her.

  “I believe every word you’ve said,” he answered. “Now, what do you want on your omelet?”

  “It’s what a person wants in an omelet, not on it,” she said, unconvinced that he believed her. Who could believe a story like hers? “Here, let me do that,” she said as she started for the kitchen counter.

  “Kady, my love,” he said as he put his hands on her shoulders and ushered her back to the table. “I did not fall in love with you because I need a cook. You’re my guest, and I’ll take care of you. I might not be able to turn out a meal like yours, but I can certainly make an omelet.”

  Kady smiled up at him. No one anywhere, ever, volunteered to cook for her. Except Cole. Except Tarik. “Everything,” she said. “I want everything you’ve got on the omelet, and in it. Drag it through the garden.”

  “One muddy omelet, comin’ up,” he said, turning back to the stove. “Now tell me about . . .” He hesitated as though the word were difficult for him. “About Gregory.”

  Kady laughed. “Not until I hear about Leonie and Wendell and all the others.”

  Turning, he gave her a grin that almost took her breath away. “There are so many women in my past that it’s going to take the rest of my life to tell you about all of them. I think that for now we better stick to your men. There are fewer of them.”

  “Ha ha. There happen to be many men in my life.”

  “Give me their names so I may slay them.”

  She laughed as she looked at the back of him, and it suddenly occurred to her that at this moment, for the first time in her life, she was happy. All her life she seemed to have been searching for something, but she’d never known what it was. She’d never been content with what she was doing. When she’d been chef at Onions she had dreamed of being married to Gregory and having children. When she was in old Legend, she had wanted to be elsewhere. Then when she’d returned to her real life, everything she’d found there had made her want to get away from it.

  But now she was where she should be and doing what she should be doing with the man she was supposed to be with.

  “Want to share that with me?” Tarik asked softly as he watched her.

  “Did you ever want to crystallize a moment? Did you ever say to yourself, ‘I want right now to last forever’?”

  He put down his chopping knife and knelt before her, taking her hands in his. “Ever since I first saw you in my office I’ve felt that way.”

  “Ha! You were with another woman when I went to your apartment. And before that you were rude and nasty and—”

  “I didn’t say I liked the feeling,” he said, eyes twinkling. “I knew from the first moment I looked into your eyes that I was seeing the end of my freedom. No more wild parties. No more supermodels. No more—”

  “All I hear is what a private man you are. In fact, people don’t even know your name. You can’t have privacy and still have parties and zillions of women.”

  Smiling, he went back to his chopping board. “Did anyone ever tell you that women with brains are annoying?”

  “Gregory did.”

  “I bet he did. I imagine that at one time he thought he’d found his dream woman, someone who would cook and keep her mouth shut. I bet you shocked him when you told him you were never coming back, didn’t you?”

  Standing behind him, she smiled, for she knew that he was asking her a question. He wanted assurance that she had indeed left Gregory. “You’re right. He couldn’t believe it.” She paused for a moment. “I guess Leonie was a bit angry when you dumped her.”

  Turning, he gave her a look of puzzlement. “I didn’t know ladies knew such words. She used some I’d never heard before.”

  Kady was laughing as he set an enormous steaming omelet in front of her; then he put his chair near hers and they ate from the same plate, sipping white wine from the same glass.

  “I want to know about you,” she said softly, peering at him over the wineglass. “I’ve told you all there is to know about me, but I know nothing about you. What exactly does that company of yours do?”

  “Makes money. We Jordans are good at making money. We’re bad at personal relationships, but then maybe that’s the curse that was put on us by the people of Legend for what they believed Ruth did to them. Or maybe it’s my great-great-grandfather, Ruth’s youngest son, who cursed all of us. Or, possibly, it’s my own fault, but I think that’s highly unlikely.”

  For just a moment Kady saw beneath the laughing, self-confident, cocky grin and saw the loneliness in his eyes. She also saw pain. Mr. Fowler had told her that C. T. Jordan was thirty-four years old but had never been married and now she wondered why.

  “Were you really going to marry that Leonie? Just to have children?”

  “Yes. I really was, because, you see, I had given up hope of finding you.”

  She started to ask him what he meant by that, but, actually, she knew. Putting her hand over his, she looked into his eyes. “I have to return, you know that, don’t you? As soon as the rock opens again, I have to go back to Legend.”

  Instantly, his eyes blazed anger. “And what can you do there? Can you change what has already happened? Do you want to bring your saintly Cole back to life so you can go back to him?”

  “No, of course not. I just want to do whatever I can to . . . to . . .”

  Standing, he glared down at her. “You have no idea what you want to do, or even what you’ll be able to. The only way to prevent the tragedy of Legend is for you to prevent Cole from getting shot. And how are you going to do that? By placing your body in front of his?”

  She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “I don’t know what I can do. Maybe I can find Ruth before the bank robbery happens and warn her.”

  “And how are you going to get past the Jordan Line?”

  She looked up at him blankly, not understanding him. There was an open road between the wall that was the Jordan Line. All she had to do was walk down the road.

  Tarik went on his knees in front of her and held her hands; his eyes were pleading. “The Jordan Line is a stone wall that separates the town, the clean, pure, untouchable Jordans on one side, the riffraff on the other. Did Ruth tell you that the wall is patrolled by armed guards twenty-four hours a day? Did she tell you that any outsiders who try to get near the ivory-towered Jordans are shot at? Strangers can’t just go up to the royal Jordans and talk to them.”

  “Why do you say ‘is’ and ‘are’? Don’t you mean ‘was’?”

  Standing, Tarik moved away from her to go to the fireplace. “Of course I do,” he said softly. “You said that you were afraid to tell anyone your story because no one would believe it, but I do, and I can see the danger of it. You cannot go back, Kady. Even if the door in the rock opens, you cannot go back.”

  “I must,” she said simply.

  “No!” he shouted, his fist coming down on the mantelpiece. “I cannot allow it.”

  Perhaps she should have taken offense at his words, but she didn’t, for she saw the concern for her in his eyes, and she wanted to calm him. “I don’t think I’ll be given a choice, since every time I look, the door is closed.”

  At that he smiled at her, a warm, friendly smile, and he moved to put his arms around her. “Good, I hope it stays closed forever.” Pulling away, he looked into her eyes. “Will you marry me, Kady?” he asked sof