When Kady looked very sad, he smiled and kissed her nose. “
That was all a very long time ago. Twenty-four years to be precise, but I still remember that little girl who used to smile at me. You remind me of her, and since you did ride a spotted pony, I’m sure you actually were that little girl.”
Kady had to bite her tongue to keep from telling him about her own lifelong recurring dream. She’d like to tell him that Gregory was the man whom she’d seen in her dreams so many times, but she had an idea Cole would see the lie in her eyes. But at least Gregory was closer to being the man of her dreams than this blond-haired, blue-eyed man was.
Standing, Cole took her hand from under the covers and tugged on it. “Come on, get up, lazybones,” he said. “We have things to do.”
Kady allowed herself a final, luxurious closing of her eyes, then tentatively stuck a toe out from under the blanket. “Tell me if I get close to the floor,” she said.
“Come on and I’ll fry you up some flapjacks.”
“Using lard?” she asked innocently.
“Using bear grease.”
“Oh? And what did you do with the rest of the bear?”
Cole had been looking down at her, quietly and calmly, but in the next second his voice lowered and he growled, “I ate his spirit and became him.” Making his big hands into claws, Cole leaped on Kady and attempted to devour her neck with his teeth.
Kady was squealing with laughter, fighting him, telling him to get off, while his bear-claw hands clutched at her, easily holding her, then releasing her.
“Ah, now, here is a tasty bit of flesh,” he growled, his hand taking firm hold of her breast.
“Cole!” she yelped, pushing at him, but not exactly with any strength. But when he opened his mouth and pointed his head downward, she saw where he was going. Kady was fairly strong from all those years of dealing with twenty-five-pound roasts and copper pots big enough to boil a hogshead of soup. Thrusting her hips upward, she caught him by surprise and sent him rolling until he landed against the wall with a thud.
The look of surprise on his face was worth everything as Kady tossed the blanket over him and made a leap for freedom. But he caught her arm and pulled her back into the bed, where he threw a leg and an arm over her to pin her into place, then lowered his face as though to kiss her.
With another great upward thrust and a twist, Kady wiggled out from under him, falling to the floor at the head of the bed. Another roll and she was on her feet, running to stand in front of the fireplace, where she grabbed a poker and waved it like a sword. “Touch me again, Sir Bear, and I’ll take your hide and use it for a floor mat.”
Sitting up, Cole’s face feigned anguish as he clasped both hands over his heart and fell back onto the bed. “I am killed. You have murdered me. I am no more.”
Kady replaced the poker into the holder by the side of the fireplace. “Oh, well,” she said loudly. “If my bear is dead, I shall have more pancakes for myself.” Cole didn’t move. “Made with butter.” He still didn’t move. “With apples and cinnamon on them.”
Cole opened one eye. “I think my heart has begun to beat again. To survive such a slaying, I must be immortal.” He raised himself onto his elbow and looked at her.
“Immortals don’t eat,” she said.
“Then I am definitely of this earth,” he answered, getting out of bed and heading toward Kady, but she sidestepped him.
“Go out and get firewood so I can cook,” she said as sternly as she could manage, for he had removed his shirt in order to put on woolen underwear. Only after he’d left the cabin could she let out her pent-up breath.
Odd, she thought, remembering the mock battle with Cole. For all that he said he couldn’t make love, it didn’t feel as though he was a man who had been emasculated. Not that she knew what such a man would be like. Instead, it was almost as though Cole needed . . . The thought made her laugh out loud. A teacher, she thought. It was almost as though Cole needed a teacher.
You’re getting fanciful, Kady, she told herself, then put her thoughts into the familiar routine of cooking; then, checking on her biga, seeing that it was bubbling nicely, she started planning what she would do that day. She’d wander about the mountainside and refresh her knowledge of edible wild plants. Then she’d—
“What are you doing?” she asked Cole, who’d come back to the cabin with a load of wood and was now filling a canvas bag with things like matches and a canvas tarpaulin.
“I thought we might go see some Indian ruins a few miles from here,” he said. “It’ll take a day there and a day back.”
“We’re going camping?”
That seemed to strike him as amusing. “Yes, camping. Under the stars, just you and me. Anything special you want to take?”
“A chaperon?”
Cole gave her a one-sided grin that made her turn back toward the fireplace to hide her nervousness.
He’s harmless, she told herself, trying to remember the awful story he’d told her yesterday. And besides, in three days she’d be back to Gregory and true safety.