Behind her she heard Wendell say, “You didn’t really marry her, did you, darling?” She heard Tarik’s answering chuckle, and she knew that she had surprised and, possibly, pleased him.
Humming to herself, feeling that she had just slain a dragon, Kady went back to the house. “I wonder who does the cooking around here?” she said aloud as she stepped onto the porch.
“Whoever is hungry first,” came a voice that nearly made Kady jump out of her skin.
Swinging down from the porch roof was a beautiful young man. Not of the caliber of Tarik, but he was like something out of Li’l Abner. He was wearing a pair of farmer’s overalls with no shirt underneath, and his young muscles bulged, while his blue eyes twinkled under a thatch of dark blond hair. She would have recognized him as a relative of Cole’s anywhere.
“Share the joke?” he asked, smiling in an infectious way.
“Ever see the movie Li’l Abner?”
“I think so. Do I remind you of anyone?” His pride in himself was evident.
“Li’l Abner, of course. And that woman on the motorcycle is Moonbeam McSwine.” She laughed, then looked startled. “Oh! She must be your . . .”
“Sister. Much, much older sister, and I’ve never heard her described more aptly. I’m Luke Jordan, and who exactly are you?” He was advancing on her.
“My wife,” came from the patch of grass in front of the house, and they both turned to see Tarik standing there, his eyes hot coals of anger. “And if you look at her like that again, I’ll make you regret it.” There wasn’t a touch of humor in his voice or manner.
Instantly, the blond man leaped over the porch rail, obviously aiming to land directly on Tarik, but the older man sidestepped him, and the younger one went skidding into the dirt.
“Think you can take me, little boy?” Tarik said, his hands in the traditional pose of a person who has studied martial arts.
“I want your woman. You, I care nothing about.”
/> To Kady’s horror, the men then started to fight as she’d never seen anyone outside of a ring fight. The young man went slamming to the ground as Tarik easily twisted his lean body to one side as the other man tried to overtake him with brute strength.
For a few moments Kady stood on the porch and watched in horrified fascination. She had never seen anyone fight with the ease and grace that Tarik did, and he never lost his smug smile while doing it. He was so much better than the young man that there was no contest. Within minutes, the younger man’s nose was bleeding and there was a bloody scrape on his side where he had landed on gravel.
“Stop it!” Kady yelled, but neither man paid any attention to her as the younger blond man kept lunging and the older one kept dodging, then tripping his opponent.
“Stop it!” she yelled again and ran down the stairs, and without thought for her own safety, she jumped between the two men. Unfortunately, her leap was so ill timed that she stopped just under the young man as he was in midair. He’d been aiming to come down on top of Tarik and thereby cushion his landing, but Tarik grabbed Kady and twisted sideways, so the young man landed facedown in the thinly grassed area, his mouth full of dirt.
Jerking out of Tarik’s hold, Kady went to the young man. “Look what you’ve done. You’ve hurt him.”
“Yeah, cousin, you’ve hurt me,” the man said, sitting up and wiping blood from his nose.
Until now Kady had thought the fight was real, but now, looking from one to the other, she realized it was just one of those boy things that is incomprehensible to women. Sorry that she’d wasted a moment of concern over either of them, she stood up.
“You can bandage your own wounds,” she said, glaring at Tarik, who had blood running from the corner of his mouth.
As she walked back up the stairs and into the house, she could hear the laughter of the two men, and when the door slammed behind her, Kady grimaced. Men! she thought and started looking for the kitchen.
Chapter 26
THE KITCHEN OF THE OLD HOUSE LOOKED VERY MUCH LIKE the one in Cole’s fantasy house, with a huge cast-iron stove and a big oak worktable sitting in the middle of the room. Next to the kitchen was a pantry that was stocked to the ceiling with every conceivable canned good and great bags of flour and rice. Outside the window was a patch of herbs that were struggling to stay alive in spite of years of neglect.
Grabbing canned tomatoes and a bag of apples from the pantry floor, Kady carried them back to the kitchen. “Tarik, darling,” she mocked aloud as she grabbed an apple and a dull paring knife. “Aren’t I just too, too divine for words.”
Tarik chuckled from the doorway. “Don’t let Wendell get to you. She’s been that way since she was a kid.”
“And what way is that? Tall, beautiful, and a bitch?”
“Let’s just say that she doesn’t have many women friends. What are you doing?”
She looked up at him as though he were terminally stupid. She was so angry with him, what with not believing her about the opening in the rock, then that horrid woman, then frightening her with his mock battle with Luke, that she could hardly speak. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“If you’re planning to cook dinner, and I hope you are, I think I had better warn you that Uncle Hannibal isn’t a gourmet. He won’t like squid ink pasta or anything dribbled with balsamic vinegar; besides, all you’ve got to cook on is that,” he said as he nodded toward the cast-iron stove. “Ever seen one of those before?”