Outlaw Carson (3 page)

“I think you’ve made a mistake,” Kristine
said. And as soon as she cleared it up and sent him on his way, the
better, she added silently. Which didn’t begin to explain why she
was pouring him a cup of coffee. He stood on the opposite side of
the breakfast counter, not close, but not far enough away to suit
her. Not when she could still feel the warmth of his kiss, and not
when she was still in her it’s-seen-better-days bathrobe.

“Mistake?” he repeated.

“Yes, a mistake.” The cup rattled on the
saucer as she picked it up. His hand immediately steadied hers, but
also sent her pulse racing. She stared at the calloused fingers
covering hers on the rim of the saucer. Prominent veins laced the
back of his hand like a river delta, a confluence of life flowing
beneath richly tanned skin.

“I’ve made many mistakes in my life,
Kreestine. Could you be more specific?”

His admission surprised her, but no more
than the man himself. She wasn’t exactly sure what she had
expected, but even in her wildest dreams she wouldn’t have imagined
him. Who would have?

Asian sensibilities overlaid a face and body
of pure European extraction, and the soft mysteries she’d seen in
his eyes defied his Caucasian heritage. He wore his hair long, like
a Khampa warrior, but the color told a different story, a story of
Scottish highlands and fair-skinned people. Despite the muscular
grace of his movements, despite the natural ease with which he wore
his foreign trappings, the man didn’t fit together. She couldn’t
think of a single series of events that would have placed him in an
Asian monastery, let alone brought him out into the world on the
wings of sudden renown.

She lifted her gaze to meet his, a definite
mistake. He was color and energy, tangible, fascinating energy.
Thick lashes shadowed his spice-hazel eyes and the smudges of
weariness beneath his mahogany skin. His nose was straight,
chiseled by a divine hand to match the planes of his cheekbones,
the clean lines of his face, and the rugged strength of his jaw
dusted with a day’s growth of dark beard.

The unchecked wanderings of her mind
surprised her, and she realized she’d been staring at him for much
too long, somehow having gotten lost in all those mysteries in his
eyes. She cleared her throat and broke the spell-like trance. “I’m
not sure who sent you here,” she said, “but they must have told you
who I was, Kristine Richards?”

“No one sent me,” he said with a grin. He
dropped a handful of sugar cubes into his cup, more sugar than even
she would have attempted to get into a single serving of
coffee.

He must have misunderstood, so she tried
again.

“You didn’t talk to Harry Fratz or somebody
from the university?” she asked helpfully, hoping to jog his memory
and trying to ignore the jump in her pulse every time he smiled his
roguish smile. She unconsciously shook her head to negate her
unnerving response to him and the shiver winding its way down her
spine.

He cocked one brow in confusion, his eyes
narrowing. “You know Harry Fratz?”

“Yes,” she said, overcoming a ridiculous
urge to run, trying to be the helpful hostess.

“Ah, then I have made a mistake,” he said
with another sly grin. “Harry doesn’t have the imagination to think
of a concubine.”

“I should hope not!” she exclaimed, shocked
out of her politeness and her wayward thoughts. “Harry and I are
associates, professional associates.” Concubine, indeed!

“You aren’t my housekeeper?” He tilted his
head to one side, sending his braid sliding across the black cotton
and one broad shoulder. Rather than detract from his masculinity,
his long hair added an extraordinary touch to what was arguably the
most male animal she’d ever met. Everything about him spoke of eons
long past, every rough edge, every mannerism—except his eyes, for
what she saw there was timelessness itself.

She took a deep, calming breath before
replying with all the propriety she could muster. “No, Mr. Carson.”
She paused for a second, aware of how inappropriate the title
sounded. Mister implied a degree of civilization she doubted he’d
attained. “I am not
your
housekeeper. I am Kristine
Richards, Dr. Richards, Harry Fratz’s replacement, which you would
have known if you had bothered to check in with the univers—” A
light bulb clicked on in her head like a floodlamp, giving her
another pause. When she continued, she did so with a gaze much
narrowed by skepticism. “And if you didn’t talk to anybody at the
university, how did you know to come here?”

“I followed the trunks.” He gestured behind
him to where the trunks lay stacked across her living room floor in
all their curious splendor.

As explanations went, his was sorely lacking
in salient points. She lived a good five miles outside of Fort
Collins, up in the foothills of the Rockies, and most people
couldn’t find her house with a map full of directions. Correction,
she thought. No one could find her house
without
a map
full of directions.

“You followed the trunks,” she repeated,
allowing every single one of her doubts to show.

His innocent yet oddly ancient gaze held
hers. “Things of power always leave a trail. It is your choice
whether or not to believe.”

Things of power, she repeated silently.
Right
. She shifted uneasily, casting a wary glance at the
trunks. She’d thought they were plenty strange and plenty old, what
with their heavy iron hinges and padlocks, the oiled leather
reinforcements on the corners, and the intricate grid of metal
holding the blocked planks together, but she hadn’t felt any power
coming off them, in truth, she was damn glad she hadn’t.

“Do you have cream?” he asked.

“Uh, sure,” she stammered, dragging her gaze
away from the trunks. His fingers brushed hers again as she handed
him the carton of cream from the refrigerator, physically reminding
her of the energy he embodied.
Things of power
.

Dammit-all, she thought. Somebody should
have warned her about Kit Carson. Harry was a milksop, but surely
Dr. Chambers, the dean, or Dr. Timnath, her department head, had
known more than they’d told her. The list of digs and articles she
and Jenny had compiled on Carson didn’t begin to add up to the
enigmatic man standing in her kitchen, looking for all the world
like he’d just ridden into a caravanserai somewhere on the Eurasian
steppes.

Plastering a wan smile on her mouth, she
backed away from the counter. She spied a box of chocolate covered
doughnuts, and shoved them in his direction. “Have a doughnut,
please. I’ll be back in a moment.”

She didn’t exactly flee into her office, but
neither did she dawdle on the short trip across the living
room.

Kit leaned on the counter and helped himself
to a doughnut, watching Kristine until she disappeared, enjoying
the quick sway of her hips beneath the white cotton robe and the
determined set of her shoulders. She wasn’t what he’d expected or
initially hoped for, but she would do. She would more than do.

For fair measure, he tripled the price of
his treasures. Shepard and Stein had failed on all counts,
especially in the destination of his trunks. Harry Fratz,
frightened fool that he was, had made the university’s position on
contraband quite clear. They didn’t want anything to do with his
more questionable activities, no matter how nobly motivated. His
partners should have accepted the trunks he’d shipped from Nepal
and trusted him to obtain the documentation necessary to soothe
their collective legal conscience. His unorthodox means of
delivering the Tibetan antiquities had obviously scared them off,
but he’d thought Shepard at least was made of sterner stuff. He’d
thought her convictions were strong enough to weather a small storm
of Chinese anger and empty threats. He’d been wrong, and she’d
unloaded the trunks on this unsuspecting university professor.

He didn’t bother to waste anger on any of
them. He’d known the probable outcome of his last mission long
before he’d crossed the border into Tibet. The Turk, the damnedest
brigand of the plateau, wanted a second chance to sink his knife
into his heart; the Chinese had posted his name and face at every
guard station; and the Nepalis had kicked him out of the land of
his birth. He could not go back, not legally, not yet.

He’d weighed the risks and found them worth
taking, and only regretted that Kristine Richards hadn’t had the
same opportunity. But due to her ignorance in accepting the trunks
his partners and the university had sent her way, or Shepard’s and
Stein’s cowardice, or even the winds of Fate, she’d become his
responsibility. What he’d felt in her kiss made him lean heavily
toward Fate. He’d spent too many years of his youth under the yoke
of Buddhist monks to mistrust his instincts, and his instincts were
still mildly and pleasantly aroused. He’d been too long without a
woman not to enjoy this one in whatever capacity she allowed.

All in all, he had no complaints with the
turn of events and no doubts about his ability to protect Kristine
until his business was finished. Maybe he would quadruple the
price—for the price was his to set—and give her a portion of the
rewards. She had surely taken on part of the risks.

Picking up another doughnut, he pushed away
from the counter and strode over to his trunks. He knelt by each
one and methodically checked the padlocks, holding the doughnut
between his teeth. The heavy locks were secure. She hadn’t given
him reason to question her honesty, but the trunks had passed
through many hands before falling into hers.

He bit off a hunk of the sweet and ran a
gentle hand over one of the trunks, smiling slightly as he chewed.
He had found the legendary monastery Chatren-Ma, and the
K
ā
h-gyur—
the Buddhist Scripture—of the
last great khan, Kublai. His smile broadened into a grin. Or at
least he’d found as much of it as had been in the monastery, about
one-fifth of one volume of the whole one-hundred-volume set. Still,
it was more than anyone else had ever been able to get their hands
on, and it guaranteed him a full belly for as long as his days in
this life lasted.

In her office, Kristine hung onto the phone,
listening intently to the muffled voices on the other end of the
line. She’d started at the bottom of her list with Harry, but her
eavesdropping didn’t bode well.

“Dr. Richards?” Harry’s wife came back on
the line. “I’m sorry, but Harry has had a bit of a relapse and is
unable to take calls this morning.”

Relapse, my foot, Kristine thought. “I’m
sorry to hear that,” she said sweetly, tapping her pencil on her
desktop. “He looked so healthy last night.”

“Yes, well, I think the party was too much
for him. I’m sure he’ll call you when he feels better.”

Don’t bet on it, Mrs. Milksop
. “Be
sure and tell him his old friend Kit Carson has finally arrived.
I’m sure he’ll want to see Harry while he’s in town.”

“I . . . uh, don’t think that’s a good idea.
The doctors are afraid Harry might be contagious or . . . uh,
something. Good-bye.”

The phone clicked in Kristine’s ear. She
pulled the receiver away and gave it a good long look, her free
hand sliding the pencil through her fingers. Harry’s wife was
either a terrible liar, or half the history department at Colorado
State University was in for a very rough summer. If Kristine
believed for a minute that Harry was contagious, her next call
would be to buy shares in Poudre Valley Hospital.

Instead she called Dr. Timnath, who was
conveniently out of town. Convenient for him, not for Kristine.

That left Dean Chambers, the man who held
her tenure bid in the palm of his hand. She’d been kowtowing to him
for nine solid months and really hated to ruin a perfect streak of
subservience with an irate phone call. Maybe if she forewent the
irate part she’d be okay. The man would surely want to know his
outlaw had come home to roost—on her doorstep.

Thinking only pleasant thoughts, Kristine
punched in the dean’s number with the chewed eraser end of the
pencil.

“Hello,” the man himself answered on the
third ring. There was no mistaking the deep bass of his voice. It
was one of his greatest tools of intimidation.

“Good morning, Dr. Chambers. This is
Kristine Richards.”

“Yes?”

So much for idle pleasantries, she thought.
“I’m calling to tell you Kit Carson has arrived, and I was
wondering . . . uh, wondering what you wanted me to do with
him.”

“
Do
with him, Dr. Richards?”

She rolled her eyes heavenward. On the
downswing she got waylaid by the sight in her living room. Outlaw
or not, Kit Carson couldn’t possibly be doing what she thought he
was doing. She craned her head to the right and watched in growing
disbelief as he rolled something up in a cigarette paper and licked
the edge.

“Dr. Richards?” Dean Chambers’s voice
rumbled into her ear.

“Yes,” she hissed into the phone.
“
Do
with him. He’s—” She stopped abruptly, lifting her
head and sniffing the air. Tobacco. She immediately calmed down.
Then she got riled all over again, watching wide-eyed as he blew
smoke rings into her pristine mountain air. Perfect smoke rings,
one after the other, sending little ones through big ones, single
ones through double ones. The smoke hovered above him, holding
shape in concentric circles long after it should have dissipated.
She’d never seen the like.

“. . . suggest you work with him,” she
caught Dean Chambers saying. “You have Harry’s preliminary
research. If you had doubts about your qualifications for this
opportunity, you should have spoken up before agreeing to the
project.”

She snapped her attention back to the phone.
“No, that’s not it,” she said quickly. “I’m more than qualified to
write up Carson’s findings, but—” But what, Kristine? But he kissed
you? Right, that was just what Dr. Chambers needed to hear. “But
he’s . . . but I’m . . . but he doesn’t . . .”