LEGEND Read online

  For a moment Kady lay where she was, blinking up at the lacy underside of the cottonwood tree branches, but the need to breathe brought her back to the urgency of the situation. Every ounce of the man was draped across her like some great, warm blanket. A blanket so heavy that she could not draw a breath.

  When pushing against his shoulders didn’t budge him, she realized that she was not going to be able to move him. Using what strength she had left, she did her best to wiggle out from under him; when she had the upper half of herself free, she paused to take a few deep, delicious breaths, and then finally managed to get the bottom half of her out from under him.

  “Now what do I do with you?” Kady asked aloud, looking down at him, sleeping with all the innocence of a child.

  “Feed you,” she said brightly, then hauled herself up and began to search his saddlebags for something to cook.

  Chapter 4

  AN HOUR LATER KADY KNEW THAT SHE HAD DONE WHATEVER she could to save the man. He seemed to breathing all right now, but he hadn’t regained consciousness. Since there was no way she could get him back onto the horse to get him to a hospital, she set about making a camp for the night.

  She had searched through the saddlebags for what could be cooked, but had found only beef jerky, a canteen of water, and a tin cup. After she’d covered the man with the single blanket, she built a fire, something she was quite good at since she’d done a great deal of outdoor grilling in her life.

  Within minutes she’d boiled a concoction of the dried beef, wild mustard, and some very nice greens she’d found growing nearby. After cooling the broth so it wouldn’t burn him, she put the man’s head onto her lap and began to try to get the liquid down his sore throat.

  He’d fought her until she’d spoken quite sharply to him and told him she was going to tie his hands again if he didn’t drink his broth and behave himself. Her stern voice seemed to reach the little boy in him because he grimaced, but he drank. Afterward, Kady let him sleep while she sat on a boulder a few feet away and tried to think about what had happened to her in the last hours.

  She was certain she was no longer in Virginia, but she didn’t know where she was now and certainly not how she’d come to be there. Once again she opened the satin envelope and looked at the photograph, for her instinct told her that that picture had something to do with what had happened to her.

  It didn’t take much deducing to see that the injured man lying on the ground before her was the boy in the picture. Even with his eyes closed and years older, he was the same. He’d opened his eyes once while Kady was trying to get him to drink, and she’d seen that they were dark blue, like sapphires.

  But, of course, it was impossible for this man to be the boy in the photo because that picture was over a hundred years old. If he were the boy in the photo, then that would mean that when she went through the rock, she’d done a bit of time manipulation. Which, of course, was impossible.

  After a while she went to the man and began to search through the pockets of his trousers. She found a half dozen coins, no paper money, and the coins were all dated in the eighteen seventies. There was a letter in the saddlebag dated July 1873, saying that Cole Jordan owed twenty dollars for cattle. The initials on the saddle were C.J.

  Impossible, she thought as she shoved the items back into the saddlebags. Better to stop thinking of this.

  The sun was going down, and it was growing cold, making Kady shiver in her corset and drawers. As she went to stir up the fire, the man began to thrash about and mumble something. Or at least he tried to say something, but his throat was too damaged to make much noise.

  As Kady leaned over him, she ran her hand over his forehead. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “I’m here, and you’re safe. No one is going to hurt you any more.”

  She couldn’t imagine how she could reassure him when the truth was she was quite frightened herself. What if those men who had been trying to hang him returned? What if they were the good guys and this man was a murderer and that was the reason they had been about to hang him? Maybe he’d done something really truly horrible to cause men to try to lynch him without a trial.

  But as she stroked the blond man’s forehead, he began to shiver, and even though she tucked the blanket tighter around him, he still trembled. So she did the only other thing she knew to do: she lay down beside him.

  Immediately, his strong arms encircled her, drawing her to him, as he threw one big leg over her much smaller ones. At first Kady started to protest, but then fatigue overtook her. She’d been awake for nearly twenty-four hours now. Even so, out of habit she started to push the man away because she didn’t like to sleep close to anyone. On the rare occasions when Gregory spent the night, they each kept to opposite sides of the bed. Kady always said things like, “If I rolled onto you in the night, I’d crush you.” But with this man there was no threat of crushing any part of him. In fact, Kady thought maybe he could even sleep comfortably under the horse.

  At that thought she giggled, and the man, his face and warm breath near hers, smiled in his sleep. He said something, but she wasn’t sure what the word was. However, it sounded like “Angel.”

  Whatever the word was, Kady rested her head against the muscle of his arm and went to sleep.

  She awoke slowly to someone kissing her softly on the lips, and not yet fully awake, she smiled and kissed him back. His hand was running up her thigh, over her waist, and onto her breast. Sleepily, Kady moved her leg so his thigh was between hers; then she moved forward to get closer to him. His kisses were so very nice, not urgent or frantic as though he had to do this quickly so he could get to work, but as though he had all the time in the world.

  His lips moved to her neck, and as she arched against him, he put his face into her breasts, which were pushed high above the corset. “Oh, yes,” she murmured, trying to get closer to him.

  It was a noise from the horse that made her open her eyes for a moment, then close them. In the next second she opened them with a jolt. This most certainly wasn’t her bedroom, and those trees with the snow-covered mountains in the background certainly weren’t part of the Virginia landscape.

  And if this wasn’t her bedroom and this wasn’t Virginia, then it was quite likely that the man whose face was buried between her breasts was not Gregory.

  Arching her back in an attempt to pull away from him, she pushed at his shoulders, but his face was glued to her breasts—which for some reason were nearly fully exposed and—

  Memory came flooding back to her. “Get your hands off of me!” she half shouted to the top of the man’s blond head.

  Instantly, he stopped kissing, but he took his time before lifting his head to look at her. What Kady saw was a man with the most innocent eyes she’d ever seen. He’s a choirboy, she thought. A huge, gorgeous choirboy, as innocent as fresh asparagus tips. But, oh, so deadly, she reminded herself as she remembered his lips on her skin.

  “You are beautiful,” he said, then winced at the pain in his throat.

  Kady was glad that his wince kept him from seeing her look of shock, for his voice was the same rich, deep timbre she’d heard last night from her Arabian prince. No two men could look less alike, but they certainly did sound alike.

  “Would you mind releasing me?” she said, pushing at his shoulders since his hands were still on her body.

  “Yes,” he gasped out. “My apologies. I thought you were . . .” He swallowed painfully. “I thought you were my every dream come true.” At that he gave her a little one-sided smile that almost made her slide back into his arms.

  But she controlled herself and rolled away from him, then stood, hands on hips and looked down at him. But his look made her glance down at herself and become very aware of her dishabille. If a man had grown up surrounded by women who wore only long granny dresses, then suddenly saw a woman wearing a bikini, he’d probably wear the same expression as this man. By late-twentieth-century standards Kady was fully dressed, except maybe for her breasts