But the next morning the sunlight burned off the rain, and Kady felt that she could see life more clearly. Tarik Jordan was paying attention to her only because of Ruth’s codicil.
When she awoke, he was gone from the cave, and by the time he returned, a load of damp firewood in his arms, she was sure that she had her emotions under control. She’d made a vow that no matter how provocatively he talked to her, she wasn’t going to be seduced by him. Had he chuckled with his friends that Kady was merely an unemployed cook and he could seduce her into doing whatever he wanted her to?
“And what have I done to earn such a look of animosity?” he asked without hostility as he put the wood down, making a pile that could be used on the next visit to the cave.
“Nothing. Are you ready to leave? If we leave early, we might make Legend before nightfall.”
“Dying to meet Uncle Hannibal, are you?”
“I just want to . . . to get out of here,” she said more fiercely than she meant to.
Quietly, Tarik doused the fire, making sure that every coal was out, and when he looked back at her, his face was cold and hard, the face she had seen that first day but hadn’t seen since. “You want to tell me what it is I’ve done that has offended you?”
Kady wished she had a list of complaints against him, but she didn’t. Except that he’d been too kind and too helpful and too nice and too funny and—
“You don’t have to struggle,” he said coldly. “I don’t go where I’m not wanted. Are you ready?”
Kady opened her mouth to explain but decided it was better to say nothing. It was better that they go to Legend, do whatever it was that she could to help Ruth, then get away from this man forever.
They didn’t speak much on the way down the mountain, and as she followed Tarik, they moved fast. Twice he turned and asked her how her feet were, but other than that, they didn’t speak.
When they got to the bottom, the camp was just the way they’d left it, Tarik’s jeep parked under the trees, his horse grazing happily in a fenced-in pen that Kady was sure had been built especially for Jordan horses.
As they packed up the camp together, working side by side as though they had been together for years, Tarik suddenly threw down a couple of tent pegs with such force that they stuck upright in the ground. “What is wrong with you?” he half shouted. “What have I done?”
“You haven’t done anything,” she yelled back. “You belong to someone else. You belong to another world.”
For a moment several emotions skittered across Tarik’s dark face, then he grinned, showing strong white teeth, “Ah, I see, the class system. Well, you’re right. Men in my station in life use little girls like you; then we discard them. We marry horsey women like Leonie. Is that about it?”
When he said it out loud, her complaints sounded Victorian. “Your mother . . .” she said softly, but didn’t finish her sentence. What could she say, that his mother wouldn’t want her son to marry a cook?
“Ah, yes, the queen,” he said, and she knew he was laughing at her. “Her son the prince must marry a titled princess, right?”
“I don’t like you very much right now,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I think, Kady, my love, that only you see me as a prince. I can assure you that my mother does not.” With that, he turned away toward his horse, but Kady could hear him chuckling.
Whatever he said, she thought, it was better to stay away from him. He was even better looking than Gregory, and she knew from experience that good-looking men only led to trouble.
“Ready to go meet my uncle?” he asked moments later as he returned to camp, leading his horse behind him.
Kady drew herself up to her full height and was still only staring at the middle of his chest. “I think we should keep all of this on business terms. I don’t think we should get involved with one another. No more holidays, no more overnight camping trips, no more—” She broke off because Tarik leaned down and kissed her sweetly on the mouth.
“Whatever you say, habibbi,” he said, then motioned to help her onto his horse.
Blinking, Kady got on the horse.
Chapter 25
“SHE’S MY WIFE,” TARIK JORDAN SAID AS HE SLIPPED HIS ARM tightly around Kady’s shoulders.
“Your—” she began, but he tightened his grip on her so sharply that her “Ow!” stopped her words.
“She’s a bit miffed at me now, Uncle Hannibal, so pay no attention to anything she says.”
“I am not his wife,” Kady said to the tall, thin man in front of her. After she and Tarik had broken camp, he’d led his horse, not down the road, but up a winding trail that had to be a back road into Legend. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out that he was trying to sneak into the derelict town before anyone saw him. “I thought your uncle considered you family,” she said, sitting on back of the horse, holding on to him.
“There’s family and there’s family,” he said cryptically.