“Not far,” he said in a way that, had she been less tired, would have annoyed Kady. He said it as though the location of his house was secret, something mysterious.
Kady didn’t meet his eyes because she didn’t want him to see what she’d already figured out. Cole was embarrassed that he was a poor cowboy, probably with only a horse and half a dozen cows to his name. His clean clothes to the contrary, she wondered if the place he lived in was any better than a shack.
“It’s all right,”
she said softly. “It doesn’t matter where I live. I won’t be here long anyway.”
He’d smiled at her, then tucked a curl of her hair behind her ear. “Where we live,” he said, then withdrew his hand when Kady pulled away from him, a look of fear on her face.
Cole turned away but not before she’d seen the look of hurt on his face. He didn’t think this was going to be a real marriage, did he? she thought. He couldn’t. Not after all the things she’d said. Not after—
“Ready to leave?” he asked, pulling back her chair.
At least his manners are nice, she thought as she followed him out to the horse. Outside, the stars were overhead, and the night was quite cool, and when she was mounted in front of him, the position felt almost familiar. It seemed quite natural to lean back against his solid form, and feeling his strong arms around her, she fell asleep.
That was the last she remembered until she awoke this morning in the bed, looking up at the cabin ceiling. As her memory came back to her, she peeled the pile of blankets and quilts back to see that she was in her underwear, what she’d stripped down to when she’d first seen Cole. It didn’t take a great detective to see that the space next to her, the side between her and the door, was indented from a larger, heavier form having slept there.
Rolling out of bed, Kady knew that she had to stop looking at the past, what could have been, and start looking toward the future. She had to do whatever she could to get back home.
Flung over the back of a pine chair was the wedding dress that had caused all her problems, and for a moment she grabbed the torn, dirty garment, then raised her hand to fling it into the stone fireplace where a nice little fire burned cheerfully. But something held her back. Maybe it was her belief that it had been Cole’s mother’s dress that stopped her. Neither his mother nor he deserved to have such disrespect paid to a dress that had been meant for happiness.
There was a wooden chest against one wall, so Kady went to it, lifted the lid, meaning to put the dirty dress in there out of sight. But as she put the gown in one end of the chest, she saw what looked like boy’s clothes: shirts, worn trousers, underwear, even boots and socks. Kady was sure that nothing in the world had ever pleased her as much as the sight of those clean, soft clothes. Now, if she could only find a bar of soap and a stream, she’d be clean for the first time in days.
But search as she might, she could find no soap. She did find an interesting heap of food supplies that she wanted to explore later, but what she wanted most, soap, was nowhere to be had. “So much for wedding gifts,” she said as she went toward the cabin door, still wearing the underwear, the boy’s clothes over her arm.
For just a second, her hand on the door latch, she thought that maybe the door would be locked. When the latch lifted easily, she told herself her fears were ridiculous. Cole Jordan was a very nice man who sang in the church choir. He was not a monster who imprisoned women.
The outhouse was in back of the house, up a little hill, or more correctly, further up the mountainside. Inside, Kady was intrigued to see a rope attached to one wall, a big blue calico bow tied to it. The rope went out through a knothole in the back of the sturdy little building.
When she left the outhouse, she walked around to the back and saw that the rope led into the trees. There were blue bows tied every few feet along the rope.
Curious, Kady followed the line, wondering where it would lead. Had Cole planned an ambush? A sexual tryst in the woods, maybe? With every step she took, she became a bit more cautious, hesitating now and then, looking about her in case he should pounce from behind a tree. They were married now, so he would think he had every right to do what he wanted to her, wouldn’t he?
When Kady came to the end of the rope, she stood and stared, not believing what she was seeing. She’d always heard that Colorado had hot springs, and this divine little pool before her was obviously one of them. Steam rose from the warm water. Around the stone sides of the little pool were bunches of wildflowers and what had to be—oh, deliciousness!—at least six bars of soap. And there were three blue towels stacked on a rock just outside the pool.
Tears came to Kady’s eyes. Cole Jordan really was the very nicest man! she thought as her hands tore at the fastenings of the clothing she wore. It flashed through her mind that he might be spying on her, but at the moment she didn’t care. When she unhooked the corset and it fell to her feet, Kady breathed a great sigh of relief, then took so many deep breaths of the thin mountain air that she felt dizzy.
The other clothes quickly followed, and when she was naked, she cautiously stuck one toe into the pool. The water temperature was perfect!
Never in her life had Kady enjoyed a bath as much as this one. The water was fed by an underground spring, so it was replenished constantly. She lathered her body and her hair, sliding down under the water to rinse.
She probably spent at least an hour in the pool, until her skin was shriveled and her hair was squeaky clean. Reluctantly, she emerged and grabbed a towel to wrap around her naked body. When a comb fell from the first towel, she wasn’t in the least surprised, as Cole seemed to have thought of everything.
By the time she got back to the cabin, she was a new woman. The boy’s clothes fit her quite well, if she belted them tightly so the pants wouldn’t fall down and rolled up the cuffs so they didn’t drag the ground. She was a bit large busted to go without a bra, but she wasn’t about to put that corset back on.
She half expected to see Cole in the cabin, but there was no sign of him, so Kady set about organizing the food supplies. There wasn’t much variety: flour, beans, bacon, potatoes, dried fruit, dried peas. “How do I make bread with no yeast?” she asked aloud, then gave a cry of delight when she pulled the plug of a small keg and found it was full of beer. “Biga!” she said, giving the Italian name to the yeasty mixture that could be used to make bread. She could have used the potatoes to make the yeast, but beer would be quicker. Under the bags of flour was a crock full of butter and a basket of eggs.
Within minutes, Kady had food started. She mixed the beer with the flour to make a mixture that would form yeast, scoured the enamel coffeepot with sand, and used it for clarifying the butter so it would keep longer. After drawing water from a huge barrel in the corner of the room, she put the beans in an iron pot to soak. She had to make her own baking powder from soda and cream of tartar before mixing a batch of biscuits. Climbing on the bed, she pulled an Indian pot from a shelf high on the wall and was glad to see that the inside of it was glazed. She set the dried fruits to soaking in the pot.
Only when these things were done did she make herself an omelet. She hadn’t done much cooking in an open fireplace, but she always loved to try new equipment and new foods, so she enjoyed the heat on her face. There was an iron spider, a sort of Dutch oven on legs, rusting at the side of the hearth, and after cleaning it and smearing it with butterfat, Kady set the biscuits to bake in the coals. When they were done, she removed them, then made a cobbler from the dried peaches.
By now hours had passed, and Cole still had not returned. Kady had no watch, but she could tell from the sun coming through the windows that it was late afternoon. He hadn’t put her in this cabin then gone off and left her, had he? she wondered, then told herself that could not be possible.
When another half hour or so went by and still there was no sign of Cole, she removed the eggs from the basket and filled it with what she’d cooked so far. She’d found a bottle of vinegar, so now if she could just find something to pickle, she thought, she’d make condiments to go with whatever game she could find.
With the basket over her arm, a blanket about her shoulders, and feeling a bit like Little Red Riding Hood, she set off into the forest to look for the Big Bad Wolf. At this thought she gave a little laugh, then told herself that this was definitely the wrong attitude. She had to remember that her one goal in life was to get out of this place. She didn’t have time to make bread and pickles. Didn’t have time to wander about the woods smel
ling clean, pure air that had never known the fumes of the diesel engine.