LEGEND Read online

  “You risked your life to protect me,” she whispered.

  “Of course. What else could I have done?”

  “Gone back to work and left me on my own.”

  “And lose a woman like you? One who’d give up millions because she didn’t believe it was rightfully hers?”

  “Speaking of all that money of yours, let’s get married in a community property state.”

  He laughed. “Oh? So you do want to marry me?”

  She just kissed his neck in answer.

  But he pulled her away to look at her, his face serious. “Kady, are you sure? What about your Cole? What about Gregory?”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “I don’t think I ever loved Gregory. I was just afraid I’d never get anyone else. As for Cole . . .”

  His hands tightened on her shoulders. “What about him?”

  She started to make a smart remark, but his eyes were too intense. “Cole could have loved any of a hundred women and they would have loved him in return. But you make me feel as though I’m the only person you could love. I think you might share things with me that you share with no other person on earth.”

  Slowly, he began to smile. “Yes, you make me feel like that, as though I have known you forever and that you are part of me.” Still smiling, he pulled back to look at her. “I’m not the easiest person in the world to live with.”

  “Really? And here I thought you were. You’re so even-tempered, so easy to get to know, so—”

  “Okay, so I have a few rough edges.”

  “I’ll whittle them down, sort of like carving something beautiful out of an onion.”

  Laughing, he kissed her again, then broke off with a great yawn. “I think I must go to bed. You wouldn’t like to join me, would you?”

  “Mmmm,” she said as though she were considering the matter “I might—”

  “What the hell is that?” he asked, lifting his head and listening.

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “It sounds like a motor. A two-cylinder motor actually.”

  Kady glanced around them at the Jordan house in the distance, the outbuildings and barn. They were new, since they were in 1873. “We haven’t been transported again, have we?” she asked, half in jest; then suddenly, her eyes grew wide. “Wendell,” she whispered.

  Instantly, Tarik was alert. “What about her?”

  “I, ah, I forgot about her.”

  Tarik grabbed her shoulders. “What do you mean you forgot about her? You don’t mean that Wendell is here, do you? Please tell me that you don’t mean that.”

  “Wellllllll,” she said, taking a step backward.

  “With her motorcycle?” Tarik asked, eyes ablaze.

  Kady put her hands on her hips. “I was in a hurry, and she gave me a ride up the mountain, and she rode through the doorway behind me. Was I supposed to stop all six feet of her? Maybe you can deal with women like her but the only thing I could do short of roasting her is to tell her to wait for me. Which she did, but I forgot about her, and have you ever slept with her, your own cousin?”

  For a moment Tarik blinked at Kady in consternation, doing his best to understand her logic but gave up after about three seconds. “Stay here,” he ordered. “Do not leave this place. Do you understand me?”

  When he turned back toward the stables, Kady followed him, having to run to keep up with him. “What are you going to do? Maybe you shouldn’t call attention to yourself, because they might reconsider hanging you. Maybe I should go instead and—”

  At that Tarik halted and turned toward her. “Are you about to say that maybe I should stay here and wait while you go into a place where men wear guns strapped to their hips? Maybe I should allow you to try to calm down my large, enraged cousin?” He seemed to think this was a rhetorical question, because he started walking before she could reply.

  “How do you know she’s enraged?” Kady asked, running beside him. She was really feeling quite guilty for having forgotten Wendell.

  “My cousin is always enraged. She was born that way.” As he reached the stables, he glanced at her. “How could you have forgotten Wendell? That’s like a general forgetting that he brought an army with him.”

  “Or a circus owner forgetting his wild animals,” she muttered as Tarik began throwing a saddle on a huge, eye-rolling black horse. Wisely, she didn’t enter the stall with him.

  “How long have you been riding horses?” she asked.

  “Don’t change the subject. I want you to wait here, and don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone. When I return with Wendell, we’ll all go back to Legend.” He paused in saddling. “You didn’t bring Luke and Uncle Hannibal, too, did you?”

  “No,” she said with a sweet smile. “I drugged Luke and left Uncle Hannibal meals in the refrigerator. I doubt if he’ll know we’re gone.”

  “Good,” Tarik said as he swung onto the horse; then he looked down at her, his face stern. “I’ve been riding all my life. Kady,” he said, “don’t leave here, please. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but Wendell is not easy to handle.” The horse danced around a bit, and it took him a few moments to get it under control. “Oh, and I’ve never slept with Wendell,” he said, then was off, heading toward Legend, where even Kady could now hear the roar of Wendell’s motorcycle.

  The instant he rode past the Jordan Line, Kady turned to look at the horses in the stables.

  “Looking for something to ride?”

  She was startled as a voice came from behind her. Turning, she saw Gamal standing in the shadows, his strong arms folded over his chest. Kady’s first thought was that he’d heard Tarik’s orders and he’d report on her to him.

  “I don’t know how to ride,” she said innocently, “and I was just looking at the animals anyway.”

  Gamal smiled at her, and she knew she was seeing what Tarik would look like at his age. Not bad, she thought. “Then I am to believe that you are the only woman in the world who does what she is told?”

  Kady grinned at him. “So which horse should I take? I can’t let him go alone. Heaven only knows what will happen to him in that town.”

  “Is this Wendell very beautiful?”

  “A knockout.”

  Gamal may never have heard the term before, but he understood its meaning. “Then may I suggest that we ride together? My horse is saddled and ready.”

  Moments later she was mounted behind Gamal. “If you hold me very tight, I think it will make young Tarik very jealous.”

  “Oh?” she said, laughing. “Like this?” She tightened her arms about him, which made her breasts press into his back.

  “Yes, exactly like that,” he said, smiling, and the next minute they were heading down the road.

  Chapter 30

  BUT KADY NEVER MADE IT TO THE CENTER OF TOWN, WHERE, judging by the sound of it, Wendell was giving a demonstration on what a twentieth-century motorcycle could do. Instead, she asked Gamal to let her off his horse when she saw two little boys walking toward the cemetery, fishing poles over their shoulders.

  “Here!” Kady said rather fiercely. “I want down here.”

  Instantly, Gamal halted his horse; then, turning, a smile on his handsome face, he held his arm rigid as Kady used it to swing herself down. The boys had paused in the road, staring up at the two people on the horse. Gamal said something in Arabic to the dark boy, who was unmistakably his son; then, after a polite nod and smile to Kady, he rode away.

  For a moment Kady stood on the opposite side of the road from the boys, and the three of them just looked at each other. Young Tarik looked from his friend, a nine-year-old Cole, then to Kady and back again, for Cole and Kady were staring at each other with great intensity.

  A man on a horse rode between them, looking at Kady with a grin of invitation, but when she ignored him, he shrugged and rode away. And when he was gone, Kady crossed the street, her eyes on the blond boy, who stood in frozen silence next to his dark-haired friend.

  At nine years old, Cole