could feel the beginning of a blister on her little toe.
But she didn’t complain. As a child, she’d learned not to complain about anything, to accept her lot and get on with life as best she could. So when Tarik turned and asked how she was doing, Kady always replied that she was doing great.
And except for her feet, she was. The air was cool and crisp, and she found that she actually could forget about the past and her uncertain future. For this one day she wanted to think about nothing but the sunlight and the herbs she was gathering and putting into her small backpack.
The hardest part of walking behind Tarik was trying not to think about him. It was difficult not to look at him and smile when he’d turn and say something to her. He seemed to know this forest as well as he knew how to handle those swords of his.
“When did you start being interested in knives?” she asked, then could have kicked herself because this was an oblique reference to Cole.
With a knowing look, he glanced back at her. “Did I inherit my hobby from someone?”
“Do magnets stick to you?”
“Sometimes,” he said, laughing. “You know, Miss Long, I’ve spent my life wondering what you were like.”
“And I never knew you or your family existed,” she said with exaggerated nonchalance. She’d give up her skillets before she told him about her dreams of him. Suddenly she thought of what Jane’s reaction would be if she were to call and say that she’d found her veiled man. Jane would no doubt say that Kady should marry him instantly because under Jane’s bossy little calculator of a heart she was a true romantic.
“I certainly knew about you. My father had a private detective on retainer, and twice a year he’d give my father a report, complete with photographs of you. By accident I found the combination to my father’s home safe, and I used to open it and read the reports.”
Kady was sure she should have been horrified at this, but instead she was fascinated. “What could the reports say about me? I have led a very boring, uninteresting life.”
He took so long to answer that Kady thought he wasn’t going to, but then he halted under a big shade tree and removed a water bottle from a hook on the side of his pack while Kady sat down on a rock and looked up at him. He handed her the bottle first, and it seemed perfectly natural when he drank after her.
“Your life was never uninteresting to me,” he said softly, looking out over the trees, as though he couldn’t bear to look at her. “I have no doubt Fowler told you all he could about me. He’s not liked me since I took away most of my business from him.”
“No, he didn’t tell me much,” Kady said. Tree branches hung down low over them and the forest was very quiet.
“I wasn’t allowed much in the way of companionship when I was a child, and there was always the threat of kidnaping, so I had to make do with what I could find in the form of companionship.” After a pause, he looked down at her. “It made me feel better about my lot in life that I knew of someone else on this planet who had to work for a living.”
Smiling, Kady tried to lighten the mood, for she could see little white lines of bitterness along the side of his mouth. “I’d have thought that a rich kid like you would have been given every toy and plaything imaginable. If you wanted playmates, couldn’t your father have bought you some?”
Tarik snorted in derision. “My father felt he had to get his money’s worth for every penny he spent. He bought me a horse, then expected me to fill the walls with prizes for riding. Martial arts was another way for him to take credit for what I achieved.”
“And did you? Did you excel in everything you tried?”
For a moment Tarik’s dark eyes were lost in memory; then as he looked at her, his smile returned. “Damn right I did! Didn’t you? If you were going to have to cook for your mother and the family you stayed with, weren’t you going to become the best damn cook in the world?”
“Yes,” Kady said, her eyes wide in wonder. “I never thought of it that way. I just thought that I learned to cook out of necessity. And need. People need food.”
“And people need money, too. They need jobs, so when my father created them, I knew he was doing a good thing. But sometimes I wished he could have allowed me to fail at something and still loved me.”
Blinking, Kady looked up at him. What he was saying was similar to what Jane had said about her family taking advantage of Kady and how Jane felt she owed Kady.
“I made you feel less alone?” she asked softly.
“Yes,” he answered, grinning at her, his dark introspection seeming to have disappeared. “I read all those reports and studied all the pictures of you until I felt that I knew you.” He clipped the bottle back onto his belt. “So, Miss Long, if I sometimes am too familiar with you, please forgive me. It feels as though I’ve known you most of my life.”
“Since you were nine years old,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said brightly as he held out his hand to help her stand. “But I don’t remember telling you that.”
“You must have, or how else would I have known it?”
“Of course,” he said, but he was looking deep into her eyes, and Kady knew that he didn’t believe her.
“Don’t you think you should call me Kady?” she said, then hesitated. “And . . . What should I call you?”
“Mr. Jordan, just like everyone else does,” he said with sparkling eyes.