“They prepare the food in here, then bake what they can in here and take the rest outside to bake,” Manuel said. “Kady says—”
Cole lifted one eyebrow. “I’m sure it’s either Kady or Juan,” he said with grea sarcasm. “Where is she?”
Manuel gave him a look that said, Need you ask?
With great strides, Cole went to the kitchen, then stood in the doorway and watched until he was pushed aside as people ran from one room to another. Any general of an army would have been pleased to have the authority that Kady did as she managed what looked to be fifty or more people moving quickly about the kitchen and entering and leaving through three doors. Cole was amazed to see the space so full, but no one was trying to murder anyone else. This was especially astonishing when he recognized three men whose faces he’d seen on wanted posters.
Juan Barela came in through the outside door, three empty trays in his hands. He stopped abruptly, then turned and saw Cole standing to one side of the doorway.
Nothing wrong with his instincts, Cole thought, and looking into Juan’s dark eyes, Cole knew Juan was questioning whether Cole was going to cause any trouble. Was he going to turn him over to the sheriff?
Frowning, Cole nodded toward a pile of crescent-shaped rolls in a basket on a table by the wall.
With a bit of a smile, Juan grabbed one and tossed it to Cole, then went to the ovens, where, as Cole watched with interest, the “hardened killer” pulled out three huge metal sheets covered with cookies.
One by one, people in the kitchen began to see Cole as he stood to one side of the doorway, and each face asked what he was going to do. Would he stop feeding the whole town for free? Would he be so angry that he’d do something horrible, like kick everyone out of the town he owned?
But Cole’s eyes were on one person, and that was Kady, with her dark hair tumbling down her back and one of his shirts covering most of her lovely body. The heat of the stove made her skin glow, and he’d never seen her look so meltingly beautiful.
“You’ll burn those!” she said as she grabbed a copper saucepan that was nearly as big as she was, then slid it to the cool side racks of the stove. “Look at—” She broke off as she caught sight of the person in charge of that saucepan and saw he wasn’t looking at the stove.
When Kady turned and saw Cole standing there, his heart leaped because he saw in her eyes that she was glad to see him. Maybe it wasn’t the love that he wanted to see, but she wasn’t angry with him, and she certainly didn’t hate him.
It took her several seconds before she got her emotions under control so she could look at him the way she thought she should look at him, which made Cole smile. His little Kady of the Shoulds, he thought, always doing what she thought she should do.
“Won’t you join us?” she asked sweetly. “We’re having a bite to eat. I do hope you have time to share a meal with us.”
There were several snickers at that. Over the last days it had been agreed upon by the entire town that Cole was an idiot for leaving Kady alone for even seconds. The gen
eral opinion was that any man in his right mind would have all the time in the world for a woman like Kady.
Cole, not really versed in the ways of women, was pleased by Kady’s tone. Maybe things were going to be all right now. Now that she’d seen that Legend wasn’t such a bad place, and since she’d seen the advantages of being his wife instead of returning to that Garvin, he was sure she’d come around.
Still smiling at Cole, she said a few words to Juan; then he left the room. “We have a special table just for you,” Kady said, “and I am going to prepare your meal with my own hands. No one else will be allowed to touch it.”
With two strides, Cole crossed the room to his wife. He meant to pull her into his arms, but she stepped back, so his kiss touched only her cheek. “You have to go now, or I’ll never get anything ready,” she said with a flutter of her lashes.
Cole wanted to take her upstairs to bed, but there had to be at least a hundred pairs of eyes watching him, so he just nodded, then went outside. There’d be time for privacy later.
Under the cottonwood trees at the back of the house were about twenty-five tables of different sizes set up, and each table was loaded with delicious-looking food. Cole started toward the biggest table, but one of Juan’s cousins held out a chair at a solitary table set deep in the shade of the biggest tree.
When Cole was seated, he was aware that he was alone at the table, alone under the tree, and that he was the focal point of all eyes. Martha and Mavis were serving food, and now and then they would look at him, but when he glanced at them, they turned away. On the ride to the ranch Ned had made Cole laugh by telling him that Kady called the women the five Ms.
Kady, he thought. In a mere ten days she had changed the town’s interest from silver to food—and to Kady herself. His hair still bristled when he thought of Ned’s telling him of all the marriage proposals made to Kady. What did they think she was going to do about the husband she already had?
After about thirty minutes, Kady came outside, a plate covered with a big napkin in her hand, and a hush fell over the crowd. By now all the people from the front of the house had moved to the back so they could watch what was happening. What was Kady going to serve her husband?
With feelings of pride, Cole looked at the plate Kady set before him, then took her hand and kissed it as she started to pull the napkin away.
At first Cole could do little more than gape as the napkin revealed what was under it. On his plate were potatoes, carrots, slices of buttered bread—and a rat. A great big black rat that she had rolled in bread crumbs and fried, but leaving the head and tail intact, so there was no mistaking what it was.
As Cole stared in disbelief at the monstrosity on his plate, the people around him began to laugh. And laugh. And laugh. It was as though they had been waiting years to play such a joke on him, and now their pent-up laughter could escape.
Slowly, Cole turned to look up at Kady and saw that she was smiling as though he were what she’d just served: a rat for a rat, so to speak.
It was at that moment that Cole changed. Why was he trying to force a woman to love him? Force her to stay here against her will? What did he hope to accomplish with a woman who didn’t want to be his wife?
In one motion, he was out of his chair and had thrown Kady over his shoulder and started walking toward the stables. For a split second Juan stepped in his path, but the look Cole gave the man made him step aside. No matter how fierce an outlaw, he didn’t want to get between a man and his wife.