Outlaw Carson Read online

  Outlaw Carson

  Tara Janzen

  First published by Bantam/Loveswept, 1991

  Copyright Glenna McReynolds, 1991

  eBook Copyright Tara Janzen, 2012

  eBook Published by Tara Janzen , 2012

  Cover Design by Hot Damn Designs, 2011

  eBook Format by A Thirsty Mind, 2012

  Smashwords Edition, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For more information about Tara Janzen, her writing and her books please visit her on her website www.tarajanzen.com; on Facebook http://on.fb.me/mSstpd; and Twitter @tara_janzen http://twitter.com/#!/tara_janzen.

  Table of Contents

  Reader Letter

  Other Titles

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Excerpt: Shameless

  Excerpt: The Dragon and the Dove

  Dear Reader

  Welcome to the Tara Janzen line of classic romances! New York Times Bestselling author, Tara Janzen, is the creator of the lightning-fast paced and super sexy CRAZY HOT and CRAZY COOL Steele Street series of romantic suspense novels. But before she fell in love with the hot cars, bad boys, big guns, and wild women of Steele Street, she wrote steamy romances for the Loveswept line under the name Glenna McReynolds. All thirteen of these much-loved classic romances are now available as eBooks.

  Writing as both Glenna McReynolds and Tara Janzen, this national bestselling author has won numerous awards for her work, including a RITA from Romance Writers of America, and nine 4 ½ TOP PICKS from Romantic Times magazine. Two of her books are on the Romantic Times ALL-TIME FAVORITES list – RIVER OF EDEN, and SHAMELESS, a Loveswept romance, and LOOSE AND EASY, a Steele Street novel, is one of Amazon’s TOP TEN ROMANCES for 2008.

  She is also the author of an epic medieval fantasy trilogy, THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE, DREAM STONE, and PRINCE OF TIME.

  Classic Romances

  Scout’s Honor

  Thieves In The Night

  Stevie Lee

  Dateline: Kydd and Rios

  Blue Dalton

  Outlaw Carson

  Moonlight and Shadows

  A Piece of Heaven

  Shameless

  The Courting Cowboy

  Avenging Angel

  The Dragon and the Dove

  Dragon’s Eden

  Medieval Fantasy Trilogy

  “A stunning epic of romantic fantasy.” Affaire de Coeur, five-star review

  The Chalice and the Blade

  Dream Stone

  Prince of Time

  River of Eden – “One of THE most breathtaking and phenomenal adventure tales to come along in years! Glenna McReynolds has created an instant adventure classic.” Romantic Times – 2002 BEST ROMANTIC SUSPENSE AWARD WINNER

  Steele Street Series – “Hang on to your seat for the ride of your life…thrilling…sexy. Tara Janzen has outdone herself.” Fresh Fiction

  Crazy Hot

  Crazy Cool

  Crazy Wild

  Crazy Kisses

  Crazy Love

  Crazy Sweet

  On the Loose

  Cutting Loose

  Loose and Easy

  Breaking Loose

  Loose Ends

  SEAL of My Dreams Anthology

  All proceeds from the sale of SEAL Of My Dreams are pledged to Veterans Research Corporation, a non-profit foundation supporting veterans medical research.

  Panama Jack, by Tara Janzen

  One

  “I can’t work with the man,” Kristine Richards announced. She tossed the memo from the dean of the university onto the piles of clutter on her desk, starting a small avalanche of papers.

  Jenny, her elderly graduate assistant, crouched down and retrieved a few of the letters, stuffing them into her arms already filled with many other important papers.

  “Won’t, not can’t,” Jenny said, looking around for someplace to stash the unattended-to business. No empty space magically appeared. Sighing in resignation, Jenny opted for the last resort, collating the correspondence by using the thousand or so books lining the walls of the office. She made sure an edge of each envelope stuck out from the volumes. Within a minute, the shelves looked like they might take off and fly.

  “Okay, have it your way,” Kristine agreed easily. “I won’t work with the man.”

  “The university is already into Carson’s Tibetan project up to their ears,” Jenny said, “and they want to make sure the findings get published. You’re the logical choice for his assistant.”

  “Then they should have made darn sure I was the one chosen to go to Tibet in the first place. But no, they sent Harry Fratz, and Harry caught some god-awful bug. Lucky for Harry.”

  Less than a year ago, Kristine had been stunned and thrilled to learn that her employer, Colorado State University, had been selected to help fund—and then share in the glory—of an ambitious archaeological study. A renegade archaeologist named Carson planned to compile an inventory of ancient Tibetan monasteries, temples, and shrines. Kristine had been certain she’d be picked to go along as Carson’s assistant. No one on the university’s staff was more qualified, least of all Harry—except by virtue of his gender. But they’d picked Harry, who had barely lasted two months, and now the whole expedition was in shambles, an international disaster.

  They had a lot of nerve, she fumed, trying to drag her in on the tail end of Carson’s Catastrophe, as the history department now labeled the project. The whole damn thing should have been Richard’s Reward from the start. She knew more about Tibet, fact and fiction, than Harry had ever even bothered to imagine.

  She sorted through the junk on her desk, finally coming up with a chocolate chip cookie. She blew a little dust off one edge and took a tentative bite.

  “You’re going to die someday,” Jenny admonished her.

  “I’ll be in good company. What else does the university have to offer their finest Asian historian for summer employment, besides sorting out somebody else’s mess and babysitting the glory boy who made it?”

  “Probably a pink slip.”

  Kristine choked on her cookie. Jenny patted her on the back.

  “There, there, honey. I hear the community college is looking for a history teacher.”

  Kristine raised her watery eyes to meet Jenny’s. She didn’t doubt her assistant’s summation of the situation. The older woman’s uncanny intuition had never failed her when it came to the inner workings of the university.

  “That’s . . . blackmail,” she gasped, reaching for her cold cup of coffee.

  “You’ll be dead before you’re thirty,” Jenny said as she watched Kristine use a pencil to stir the sugar up from the bottom.

  Kristine swallowed a sip or two anyway. “Still in good company.”

  “But you’ll probably live through the summer,” Jenny went on. “It’s up to you whether you do it working on Kit Carson’s Tibetan findings or job hunting.”

  “Blackmail,” Kristine muttered. Carson, she thought. Kit Carson. Even his name rankled her. What kind of fool name was Kit Carson?

  A famous fool’s name, she
silently admitted. He’d come out of the vastness of Asia nearly ten years ago, dazzling museum directors from Beijing to Calcutta with the extent of his knowledge and the rarity of his archaeological finds. He was a virtual unknown who’d made a name for himself by being part of the spectacular excavation of the burial tomb at Lishan in China, with its amazing collection of thousands of lifesize terra-cotta warriors; a renegade Buddhist monk with unparalleled access to the secrets of the Far East.

  She’d never met him. No one she knew had, except for poor, dumb Harry, and the hospital wasn’t allowing visitors. Still, you couldn’t get three historians in the same room without his name coming up, usually on the end of “That damn barbarian.” It took only two archaeologists to reach the same consensus, both of them praying Carson wouldn’t be the first to be allowed to excavate any of Tibet’s hallowed ground. Tibet was an archaeologist’s dream, but no one could do more than list any artifacts that were visible. It was illegal to dig at any of Tibet’s religious sites.

  Carson was too unorthodox to fit in the realm of academia, and he’d lost his reputation shortly after he’d gotten it. He didn’t have a degree in anything, not even the equivalent of high school, if the rumors were correct. And if what they were hearing from China was true, while supposedly cataloguing Tibet’s shrines and temples, Kit Carson had crossed the final line into out-and-out grave robbing.

  Kristine groaned and dropped her head on the desk. The university must be desperate to threaten her with dismissal. Any tenured professor would refuse to work with Carson on the grounds of protecting his or her reputation, now that Carson had slipped into infamy. Unfortunately Kristine didn’t have tenure or a reputation. “Publish or perish” went the old adage, and she’d be damned if she perished this close to a full professorship.

  “Kristine, dear?”

  “Yes?” she replied without lifting her head.

  “That green rag you’re wearing today is really too awful for words. I’ve told you a hundred times you’re a winter.”

  “Thank you, Jenny,” she muttered into the papers cushioning her face. Carson. Kit Carson. She groaned again.

  * * *

  The first two trunks arrived at her house the first Monday after finals. The second pair came on Tuesday. By Wednesday, Kristine and the deliveryman were on a first-name basis. The university, through Dr. Timnath, the head of her department, had insisted she accept Kit Carson’s luggage, assuring her she’d need the trunks for her research and requesting that she be discreet. She’d countered with a mention of tenure, priding herself on being able to discreetly work it into the conversation three times. She was beginning to wonder, though, if the owner of the luggage was ever going to make a personal appearance, and whether or not she dared break off the heavy iron padlocks to see what was inside the fascinating old cases. One look at them had convinced her, albeit belatedly, of the wisdom of taking on the Carson project. Who knew what treasures lurked in the trunks’ cavernous depths?

  “Now, Bob,” she said, Wednesday morning, yawning and scrawling her name across three of the tiny lines on his delivery sheet. Her second signature missed the lines completely. With her free hand she tightened her grip on the one hundred and twenty pounds of pure ugly she called a dog and most people called a beast. “I want you to notice I’m giving you an extra signature here. If you show up tomorrow morning, please put the trunks on the deck without knocking or ringing the bell. Okay?”

  “It’s against the rules, Kristine,” the deliveryman said nervously, keeping one eye on her mastiff.

  “Come on, Bob. Live dangerously. Bend the rules.” And let her have at least one morning of sloth, she prayed. Last night there had been a welcome home party for Harry to celebrate his hospital release. She’d stayed much too late in a vain attempt to corner the guest of honor. He’d looked far healthier than she would have guessed for a man newly risen from his deathbed, and he’d avoided her like the plague.

  “Okay,” Bob finally said. “I’ll try it . . . once.”

  “You’re a great guy.” She flashed him a smile, using the last of her strength.

  Half an hour, two aspirin, and one mug of coffee later, Kristine draped herself over the open refrigerator door and searched for something edible. Mancos nudged her legs, whining.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Old Mother Hubbard better get something for the cupboard.”

  The whining stopped abruptly, and Mancos whirled around, almost knocking her over in the process. He barreled out of the kitchen hell-bent for leather, sliding on the wood floor and letting out a woof that made coffee redundant.

  Eyes painfully wide, Kristine shuddered and shook her head, trying to get rid of the ringing in her ears. She heard Mancos hit the dog-door at full speed, followed in the next second by a loud, deep, “Aaiieey-yah!”

  “Dammit, Bob,” she muttered, slamming the refrigerator door shut and stumbling after the mastiff. She ran through the living room, threw back the curtains, and jerked the atrium door open—to the most amazing sight.

  He was fast, she had to give him that, and light of foot, like a highwire artist. And he definitely wasn’t Bob. He was racing along the deck railing, keeping either one step in front of or one step behind Mancos’s snapping jaws. The morning light spilling over the foothills cast him in a golden halo, a color shades paler than the thick, silky hair pulled away from his face and hanging in a roan braid down his back. Shorter strands of dark auburn hair feathered across his cheeks and melded into the winged curves of his brows.

  The sleeves of his black tunic were rolled up, revealing dark skin, tightly corded muscle, and more gold bracelets than she could count. A wide leather belt hung low on his hips, banded on one side with the hilt and sheath of a large, wickedly curved khukri, the blade of a Gurkha mercenary. His jeans were tucked into roughly made short boots, nothing more than flaps of leather sewn together with strips of rawhide that were secured with silver hoops at the top. He was a running wind chime, and the music of his quick steps left her stunned.

  She really needed to do something to save him, she thought, or her dog, if he went for his knife. Then he saw her, and his flashing grin and sly wink made her instantly aware of a need to save herself.

  She stepped backward with a hand to her chest, a blatant gesture of self-defense, and a totally inappropriate action for a contemporary woman living in an age when the only raiding hordes inhabited Wall Street. But the uncivilized look of him conjured up undeniable visions of a long-ago time, when women were women and men were the barbarians who took them.

  Barbarian . . . Between one breath and the next she placed him, that damn barbarian, Kit Carson.

  “Kukur, ahA!” he shouted in a deep voice, watching the dog, but tossing her the chamois bag slung over his shoulder. When Mancos went for the bag, he clapped his hands and shouted again, recapturing the mastiff’s attention. “Hey, dog!”

  Kristine caught the heavy bag and clutched it closely, not daring to take her eyes off Carson or the animal so determined to eat him for breakfast. He wasn’t afraid of the slavering, growling beast. The realization went through her with absolute certainty and wavering disbelief. Mancos’s looks alone kept most visitors in their cars, honking their horns. But then he wasn’t most men. He was the outlaw Carson, and she’d bet anything he was no Buddhist monk. Not with that smile.

  The dog lunged for his ankle, and Kristine’s fingers tightened around the strap of the bag. The melange of soft textures drew her gaze—the strap was made of silk and the finest leather, and a yard-long auburn braid that matched the color of his hair. Her jaw slackened as she raised her head to stare at him again.

  He was pacing the rail now, not running, and Mancos matched him step for step, back and forth across the deck. He was talking to the dog, and the singsong lilt underlying the rough timbre of his voice mingled with the fresh, light sound of his bracelets, mesmerizing the dog and her both. When he hunkered down on the rail, she felt sure Mancos would snap out of it, but he didn’t. Neither did she
. The man reached down to scratch behind one of the dog’s rusty-brown ears, and she almost dropped his bag in shock. Then, with seemingly no effort, he stepped off the rail. He didn’t jump or leap. He just stepped, an act of power and grace that told her more about the muscles in his legs than any amount of running on the narrow rail. And he wasn’t even breathing hard.

  She wasn’t breathing, period.

  “Namaste,” he greeted her. Bracelets, beaten gold and chased in ancient designs, jangled as he touched his palms together. “Good morning.”

  “Hi,” she said, but it came out more like the breath she’d lost than a word. Six feet of masculine brawn towered over her, gentled only by the teasing light in his eyes. The sheer size of him was overwhelming, and it was compounded by the energy she felt radiating off him. Renegade, outlaw, or monk, the man had presence in spades.

  Kit grinned at the stunned woman. Finally, he mused, the long journey seemed worthwhile. He’d tracked his trunks across the breadth of America, from one fleeting destination to the next, until they’d led him here, to a house and a woman. His fainthearted partners had more than compensated for their irresponsible treatment of the trunks.

  He took in her dishabille and the amazement in her eyes, and his smile broadened. If she’d been less beautiful, he would have been too tired. A wild cloud of dark curls tumbled past her shoulders, framing a face of untold delicacy; eyes of a color he’d never imagined, like mountain violets, and the palest skin he’d ever seen, skin delightfully unmarred by the heavy makeup that covered the faces of so many Western women.

  “Concubine?” he asked, running his finger along her cheek. She was so soft, so beautiful, so welcome, he sighed. Yes, Shepard and Stein had done well. He graciously forgave them for their cowardice and merely doubled the price of the treasures he’d risked his life to bring them.

  Con . . . cu . . . bine, concu-bine, con-cubine. Kristine tried to untangle the word from his accent. When she did, her face flamed, especially where he’d touched her.

  “No,” she gasped, then put more force into the word. “No. I am not a concubine.”