“You want to tell me what misfortune has befallen you? I’m a good listener.”
“I don’t know,” she said, her head against his chest. “I really don’t know what happened or where I am. And I don’t know why those men were trying to hang you. Are you a good guy or a bad guy?” As she said this, she looked up at him in question.
“A what?” he asked, one eyebrow arched; then he smiled and pushed her head back down to his chest. “I’m a good guy. Deacon of the church. I even sing in the choir every Sunday. Look.” He drew up his leg, pulled up his trouser leg, then reached into the top of his boot and withdrew what looked like a small hunting knife. Imbedded in the handle was a little medallion.
He handed the knife to Kady, and she looked at the medallion. “One year,” she read, then saw that there was a Christian cross in the center. “One year for what?”
“One year at church service without missing once.” He gave her that one-sided grin again. “I even went once when I had chicken pox and infected most of the kids in Sunday school.”
She laughed as, out of habit, she ran her hand over the blade of the knife, wondering if he had sharpened it himself. It wasn’t a perfect job, she could do better, but she’d felt worse. “So if you’re a paragon of virtue, then why were the men trying to hang you?”
“Ever hear of greed?”
“I do believe I have,” she said, smiling. “You have something they want?”
“A few head of cattle and a piece of land.”
“Ah, one of those. Millions of cattle and millions of acres?”
He
laughed. “Not quite. Last I heard the Colorado Rockies weren’t the best grazing land.”
Lifting her head, she looked around her. “Is that where I am? Colorado?”
When she looked back at him, his eyes were intense as he spoke. “You want to tell me what’s going on? Why are you here? Who’s abandoned you? Did this Gregory—” He sneered the name. “Did he jilt you?”
“Of course not!” she said, starting to get up, but he pulled her back down.
“All right, I apologize. It’s just that a man doesn’t usually see a woman wandering about the mountains alone wearing a silk wedding dress.” He lowered his eyes a bit, and a husky quality came into his voice. “Especially not one as beautiful as you.”
Kady blushed. “I’m not beautiful. I’m thirty pounds overweight, and I never pay any attention to how I look. Usually I have on baggy trousers and a dirty smock. I own one pair of black dress shoes and half a dozen pair of sneakers. I—”
She stopped because the man was laughing at her. “Do you find my situation amusing?” she asked with some anger.
“What kind of men do you know that do not think you are the most beautiful of women? I have never seen a woman as pretty as you. Your face and your . . .” He looked down at her, and when he raised his eyes, there was wonder in them. “All of you is perfection. No man could be so blind as to not see you for the Aphrodite that you are.”
For a moment she just stared at him with her eyes wide and her mouth in a little O. “I see,” she finally managed to say. “Just so . . .” She moved away from him a bit. “I think I’d better go.”
Instantly, he was on his feet, offering his hand down to help her stand. “You must tell me where you want to go, and I will take you.”
As Kady looked up into those blue eyes, she felt herself sway toward him, but she forced herself to stand upright. Get hold of yourself! she commanded. What is wrong with you anyway? You’re engaged to one man, dream about another, and now, you seem to be thinking of ripping the clothes off a third.
“Is there a bus around here? Or an airport?” How she was going to pay for anything, since she hadn’t a penny on her, couldn’t concern her, but, somehow, the look of consternation on the man’s face didn’t surprise her.
“What is an airport?” he asked, and for some reason she couldn’t define, his query made Kady dizzy again.
“No, don’t touch me,” she said when he made a move toward her. She had to take control of the situation. “Look, I appreciate all your old-world chivalry, and I thank you for your shoulder to cry on, but I must leave you now. I really do want to go home.” And not get involved here, she thought. Nor do I want to find out why you don’t know what an airport is.
With as much dignity as she could muster, she looped her train over her arm and started toward the rocks that she knew held the path that led to the doorway back to Virginia—and back to Gregory.
Chapter 5
HE DIDN’T FOLLOW HER, AND KADY WASN’T SURE WHETHER she was glad or terrified. What if she couldn’t find the opening? What if the cowboy left her alone in these mountains and she could never find her way out?
Right now she wasn’t going to allow herself to give in to her emotions. But the question, Why me? was going through her head. Why had what appeared to be a supernatural thing happened to her? She was a very ordinary person, and all she wanted was what she had: her cooking, marriage to Gregory, and maybe a baby or two.
Since the cowboy she’d saved was obviously the man in the photo, she knew that what had happened was meant to save him from hanging. But now that he was saved, why didn’t she instantly return to Virginia and Gregory?