When the skillet was empty, he set it down and stared at her profile. “I never tasted anything like that,” he said, awe in his voice.
Kady just smiled, then nudged the basket toward him. “Have room for peach cobbler?”
Cole took his time on the cobbler, and when he was finished, he leaned back on his elbows and stared at the creek. “If I hadn’t already married you, I’d ask for your hand now,” he said, his seriousness making Kady laugh.
As she busied herself with cleaning the skillet and handing Cole a jar full of the crystal-clear creek water, she said, “What time do we leave in the morning to go find the rock where I came through?”
When Cole didn’t answer, Kady tightened her lips, then went to sit on the blanket by him, preparing herself for a fight. She knew without words being spoken that he didn’t want her to go.
“Kady,” he began. “I like you. I’ve never met a woman whose company I enjoy as much as yours. You have a wonderful sense of humor, you’re smart, you’re beautiful. And . . . and this . . .” He waved his hand at the basket, as though her cooking were indescribable. “I’ve never met anyone like you. Please stay here with me for just a few days. Then I’ll help you get back. I swear that I’ll do whatever I can to help you go anywhere you want. I’ll move heaven and earth to get you back. Just give me these few days. Three days. That’s all I ask.”
Kady knew she couldn’t do that. The temptation of a man who says he likes your sense of humor and thinks you’re smart would be too much for any woman to resist. She loved Gregory, but with each passing hour he seemed to be further away. She didn’t want to stay here in this time of no medical facilities, of no bathrooms, of no . . . Of no Gregory.
“I can’t,” she said softly. “Gregory might be looking for me.”
“You don’t know that he is. Maybe you could stay here six months or ten years, a lifetime even, then step through that rock and you’d be standing in your house wearing that white dress and not a moment will have passed.”
It struck Kady odd that he had not asked her many questions about her statement that she was from another time period. He had never asked for verification, and she had no idea whether he still disbelieved her story or not. But he did seem to believe that if she could find the rocks, she would disappear. “But I don’t know that, do I? For all I know Gregory will be frantic with worry now. There could be police looking for me.”
“Then when you return he’ll be doubly glad to see you.”
“Ha!” Kady said. “Three hundred women will have taken my place by then. You haven’t seen what Gregory looks like. Even my bridesmaid, Debbie, who is married and has three children, has a crush on him. She just sits there and stares at him.”
“And what about you?”
“I don’t sit and stare at him, if that’s what you mean.”
“Mmmm. Sounds a bit as though you do. Are you afraid of him?”
“Afraid of Gregory?” she snapped. “That’s absurd. Gregory wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s gentle and kind and . . . and sexy.” She looked at Cole. He’d draped his shirt about his shoulders, but his washboard stomach was exposed and he was very appealing. “Yes,” she said fiercely. “Gregory is very, very sexy, and I’m mad about him.” She forced herself to calm. “I don’t want to spend three days alone with you or any other man, I want to go home to Gregory.”
Cole took a moment to answer. “All right, I’ll take you back in the morning,” he said slowly as he leaned toward her to remove a leaf that had fallen on the back of her hair.
But as he neared her, Kady jumped as though he were going to hit her.
“I can’t figure out what I’ve done to make you feel that you can’t trust me,” he snapped.
“The only way I’d trust you is if you were a eunuch,” Kady muttered, brushing the leaf from her hair.
For a moment Cole made no reaction to her remark, then, to her utter astonishment, she saw his eyes widen as his face turned pale. “How did you find out? Who told you?”
Kady was confused. “Who told me what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Cole didn’t say anything as he began to hastily, almost angrily, gather up the cooking gear, and Kady couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
“I’m sorry,” she said, watching him. “I don’t know what I said that’s upset you so much. What is it that I’m supposed to have been told?”
Cole s
at back on the blanket. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he said. “I just can’t bear it when women find out. I know you will think this is horrible of me, but I like it when a beautiful woman like you pulls away from me in fear of what I might be seeking from her. I hate the way the girls in town feel so safe with me. They treat me like another girlfriend.”
Kady’s eyes couldn’t have widened any more. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. How could a woman feel safe with a man who looks like you?”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” he said, turning his head a bit toward her and raising one eyebrow. “God’s little joke. He made me grow to man size, but he took away my manhood.”
“Your—? Your . . . ?” She tried to stop herself, but she couldn’t help glancing down at the fork of his legs.
Cole looked away from her. “The bullets . . . These,” he said, pointing to the five deep, ugly wounds that marred the upper half of his body. “They hit the lower half of my body too,” he said softly.