Instantly, Tarik was alert. “What about her?”
“I, ah, I forgot about her.”
Tarik grabbed her shoulders. “What do you mean you forgot about her? You don’t mean that Wendell is here, do you? Please tell me that you don’t mean that.”
“Wellllllll,” she said, taking a step backward.
“With her motorcycle?” Tarik asked, eyes ablaze.
Kady put her hands on her hips. “I was in a hurry, and she gave me a ride up the mountain, and she rode through the doorway behind me. Was I supposed to stop all six feet of her? Maybe you can deal with women like her but the only thing I could do short of roasting her is to tell her to wait for me. Which she did, but I forgot about her, and have you ever slept with her, your own cousin?”
For a moment Tarik blinked at Kady in consternation, doing his best to understand her logic but gave up after about three seconds. “Stay here,” he ordered. “Do not leave this place. Do you understand me?”
When he turned back toward the stables, Kady followed him, having to run to keep up with him. “What are you going to do? Maybe you shouldn’t call attention to yourself, because they might reconsider hanging you. Maybe I should go instead and—”
At that Tarik halted and turned toward her. “Are you about to say that maybe I should stay here and wait while you go into a place where men wear guns strapped to their hips? Maybe I should allow you to try to calm down my large, enraged cousin?” He seemed to think this was a rhetorical question, because he started walking before she could reply.
“How do you know she’s enraged?” Kady asked, running beside him. She was really feeling quite guilty for having forgotten Wendell.
“My cousin is always enraged. She was born that way.” As he reached the stables, he glanced at her. “How could you have forgotten Wendell? That’s like a general forgetting that he brought an army with him.”
“Or a circus owner forgetting his wild animals,” she muttered as Tarik began throwing a saddle on a huge, eye-rolling black horse. Wisely, she didn’t enter the stall with him.
“How long have you been riding horses?” she asked.
“Don’t change the subject. I want you to wait here, and don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone. When I return with Wendell, we’ll all go back to Legend.” He paused in saddling. “You didn’t bring Luke and Uncle Hannibal, too, did you?”
“No,” she said with a sweet smile. “I drugged Luke and left Uncle Hannibal meals in the refrigerator. I doubt if he’ll know we’re gone.”
“Good,” Tarik said as he swung onto the horse; then he looked down at her, his face stern. “I’ve been riding all my life. Kady,” he said, “don’t leave here, please. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but Wendell is not easy to handle.” The horse danced around a bit, and it took him a few moments to get it under control. “Oh, and I’ve never slept with Wendell,” he said, then was off, heading toward Legend, where even Kady could now hear the roar of Wendell’s motorcycle.
The instant he rode past the Jordan Line, Kady turned to look at the horses in the stables.
“Looking for something to ride?”
She was startled as a voice came from behind her. Turning, she saw Gamal standing in the shadows, his strong arms folded over his chest. Kady’s first thought was that he’d heard Tarik’s orders and he’d report on her to him.
“I don’t know how to ride,” she said innocently, “and I was just looking at the animals anyway.”
Gamal smiled at her, and she knew she was seeing what Tarik would look like at his age. Not bad, she thought. “Then I am to believe that you are the only woman in the world who does what she is told?”
Kady grinned at him. “So which horse should I take? I can’t let him go alone. Heaven only knows what will happen to him in that town.”
“Is this Wendell very beautiful?”
“A knockout.”
Gamal may never have heard the term before, but he understood its meaning. “Then may I suggest that we ride together? My horse is saddled and ready.”
Moments later she was mounted behind Gamal. “If you hold me very tight, I think it will make young Tarik very jealous.”
“Oh?” she said, laughing. “Like this?” She tightened her arms about him, which made her breasts press into his back.
“Yes, exactly like that,” he said, smiling, and the next minute they were heading down the road.
Chapter 30
BUT KADY NEVER MADE IT TO THE CENTER OF TOWN, WHERE, judging by the sound of it, Wendell was giving a demonstration on what a twentieth-century motorcycle could do. Instead, she asked Gamal to let her off his horse when she saw two little boys walking toward the cemetery, fishing poles over their shoulders.