As Cole strode through the people, they parted for him, and they were still laughing, but now the tone of their laughter had changed. Now they weren’t so much as laughing at him as with him.
“Put me down,” Kady hissed, and when Cole ignored her, she pinched his side. For this Cole slapped her smartly on her fanny that was pressed so enticingly against his right ear.
For once Cole was glad to see that no one had paid any attention to his tired horse and the poor creature was grazing, unattended, on the flowers at the front of the house. Cole threw Kady into the saddle, then mounted behind her.
“I thought you could take a joke,” she said when he was behind her and had led the horse away from the house. “That’s all it was, a joke. Don’t you have a sense of humor?”
Cole didn’t answer, and after a while Kady stopped trying to talk to him. If he wanted to sulk, let him, she thought, then folded her arms over her chest and decided that two could play at this silence game as well as one.
They had traveled for only minutes before Kady realized where they were going. He was taking her back to the petroglyphs. He was going to send her back to her own time!
As soon as she realized where he was going, it was as though her mind started a war with itself. Of course she wanted to return to Gregory and Onions and to all the people she knew and loved there. Well, truthfully, there weren’t many people outside of Gregory and his mother that she knew very well. And, truthfully, it had been difficult to find women who could be bridesmaids at her wedding. But it was where she belonged!
But then, here in Legend she had made new friends. Many, many friends. In the last days she’d come to know people. For one whole day she’d sat with women and peeled and chopped vegetables. There wasn’t a child or adult from Socorro she didn’t know by name, and they appreciated what she had taught them about how to cook foods that grew for free on the mountainsides.
And there was Legend itself, a town she planned to help, just as soon as she got it out from under Cole’s rule.
“There,” Cole said coldly as he dismounted, then pulled Kady down to stand beside him. As usual, Cole had taken a shortcut, and they were already at the petroglyphs. When she didn’t move around the horse so she could see the rock, he grabbed her hand and pulled her.
Before her was the opening, that odd fading of the rock, and beyond it she could see her dim, gray apartment, just as she’d left it, the rusty flour box on the floor. How different it looked, away from the Colorado sunshine that brightened everything here.
“Go on,” he said, giving her a little push. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said tentatively, but she didn’t move. She looked back up at him. “I left some puddings steaming on the back burner, and I didn’t take the bread out of the oven. I think I better go back and—”
Cole put his hands on her shoulders, making her turn back to the scene before them. “That is where you belong. Not here.”
“You’re angry because of the money I spent, aren’t you? And the rat. Look, I’m sorry. I’ll cook you a dinner that will bring tears to your eyes. You’ll see.”
Again, Cole turned her back toward the opening, slowly but steadily pushing her toward it.
When Kady’s foot stepped through the opening, she could see that her leg was already in the apartment. Cole’s hands were pressing down on her shoulders, refusing to allow her to back up. Maybe the dark man on the horse will show up, she thought, looking about her. But there was no sign of him, and Cole kept pushing.
At last she was standing in her apartment, Cole’s hands no longer on her shoulders and she turned back to look at him. For a moment her breath caught in her throat, as she feared that she’d see only the wall, but he was still there, looking at her, the sun shining on his blond hair.
As she watched, the opening through time was growing smaller and Cole seemed to be getting farther away. Suddenly it seemed that a thousand images went through her head as she remembered him dressed as an eagle. She thought of the ribbon he’d tied to the outhouse and how he’d prepared a bath for her at the hot springs. He’d raced down the side of a cliff when he thought she was injured.
Now, with the opening growing smaller, she looked into his eyes, but she could not read them. Why wasn’t he holding out his hand to her? Why wasn’t he telling her that he loved her? Why wasn’t he telling her that he needed her and wanted her as no one else in the world had ever told her?
As she looked at him, she saw a
stain on his shirt on the left shoulder. It was a stain that was growing darker and larger as she watched, and all of a sudden she understood. Those ten days he’d been gone, he’d been trying to keep her safe. He had ordered her not to leave the ranch not because he was a monster but because he wanted to protect her in case there was any trouble. Maybe protect her in case he didn’t return.
Kady didn’t think about what she was doing, she just leaped. Like a dog jumping through a burning hoop, she dove through the circle that was left in the wall and leaped into Cole’s arms.
“Kady,” was all Cole could manage to say as he held her so tightly her ribs nearly cracked. “Are you sure? Are you sure?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t seem to know the answers to anything anymore.” She was kissing his face. “You’re hurt and bleeding and—”
He pulled away to look at her. “You came back to be my nurse?”
She looked into his eyes. “I really don’t know why I came back. I still love—”
To keep her from saying the name, he kissed her. “Maybe you’ll change your mind later, but I’ll take what time we have now. Shall we tell it to go away?”
Turning in his arms, Kady looked back at the rock and saw that the hole had widened. There was her apartment, her clothes still tossed over the couch, the light on her message machine still on.
“You can still go,” Cole said softly. “I won’t force you to stay here.”