Outlaw Carson Read online

  “Not mine?” One eyebrow lifted over spice-colored eyes, spice like cinnamon, dark, rich, and mysterious.

  “No. No. Not yours.”

  “Too bad, eh?” His grin flashed again, more dangerous than before.

  Yes. The word formed in her mind, and she chased it out on rapidly beating wings of panic. “I am . . .” She took a deep breath and tried again. “I am Kristine, Kristine Richards.”

  “Kreestine, Kreestine?” he repeated, smiling again to ease her discomfort. Kristine felt anything but eased by the inherently sensuous curve of his mouth and the glimpse of strong, white teeth. Sensuality, she’d learned the hard way, was a thing to be avoided at all costs.

  “No, just one Kristine,” she explained when she found her voice again.

  “Ah, Kreestine,” He rolled her name off his tongue, putting a lilt on the second syllable. “Very pretty.”

  “It’s a—a nice enough name.” she stammered, wondering when her brain was going to kick back in.

  “No.” He slowly shook his head and his grin faded. Capturing her chin with a large, rough hand, he tilted her head back, immobilizing her with the gentleness of his touch and the light in his eyes. “Kreestine is pretty,” he murmured, his mouth lowering to hers, his breath warming her lips.

  A flood of heat poured down her body at the slight touch. When he sealed his mouth over hers, her last shred of sanity followed. She melted as a masterfully strong arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her close, close enough to feel every curve of muscle in his chest and the tautness of his abdomen; close enough to feel the rising tide of his desire and his iron-hard thighs.

  Good Lord, she thought through a haze of faintness. His tongue asked for and gained purchase into the recesses of her mouth. He tasted sweet, musky sweet, like honey from a faraway land, and he kissed with an abandon to match the wild flavor, completely, exotically.

  Ravished. The indescribable feeling spread through her mind as the moment slipped deeper into fantasy, further from reality. She was being ravished and she really needed to stop it before she decided she liked it.

  More than beautiful, more than tantalizing, Kit discovered so much in her kiss. His first instant of astonishment slowly transformed into curiosity, then into exploration. With the patience of the ages he began to learn the pleasure she gave. He followed the path dawning in his mind as he deepened the kiss, drawing her ever closer, the way he was being drawn.

  Ah, she should have been a concubine, he thought, but even as a simple keeper of his hearth she was more pleasing than any other. He’d been right to come to this unseen land of his mother and father. He’d been no monk. No amount of beating had changed the truth that the life of aesthetic riches had not been for him. He’d been meant to live this life with all its joys and pain.

  Drawing on her strength for what she knew was her one and only chance, Kristine pushed against his chest. Where was Mancos when she needed him?

  “Aaiieyah,” he whispered softly into her mouth, helping her push away.

  She looked up dazedly at the pained expression on his face. Goodness sakes! Had she hurt him?

  Hurt him? What was she thinking? She should have slapped his face.

  “The dog likes you better than me?” he asked.

  She followed his gaze down the length of his body to where Mancos’s huge jaws were wrapped around a mouthful of jeans and undoubtedly the leg beneath. No sound emanated from the jowly animal, a good sign.

  “M-Mancos, shoo, shoo.” She flicked the tail end of her robe at him, grateful for the distraction and the chance to catch her breath. What in the world had she been thinking, to sink against him like some sunstruck coed?

  “Sha, sha?” she heard him repeat above her head.

  “Shoo . . . uu,” she instinctively corrected him, then wondered if she’d lost her mind.

  “Sha-sha, Mancos. Sha-sha.” He raised his foot and shook it the slightest bit. “Sha-sha.” The dog did, but only a little. The ugliest head on the continent lifted just far enough to shove into the man’s crotch. He laughed, a deep, rolling sound that seemed to wash all through Kristine. And then he embarrassed her beyond the ends of the earth. “Not for you, Mancos.” He pushed the dog away. “For Kreestine.”

  She figured her only glimmer of hope lay in the heretofore unheard of possibility of spontaneous disappearance. Of course, it didn’t happen. Her luck hadn’t been running in the right direction for miracles lately.

  Or had it? Her own laughter rose in her throat, but she couldn’t tell if it was a mature response to his or the beginnings of hysteria. He took the opportunity to steal a kiss off her cheek, his head bending close to hers, his braid sliding over his shoulder, and she knew it was hysteria she fought.

  “Namaste, Kreestine,” he murmured.

  “N-namaste . . .” She knew who he was, knew the only person he could be, but she still didn’t believe it.

  “Kautilya Carson,” he said, filling in the blank left by her trailing voice.

  “Kit Carson?” she questioned breathlessly, having never heard the other name.

  “Westerners say Keet, yes.”

  “The Buddhist monk?” she asked, attempting to clear up one of the obviously more doubtful rumors she’d heard about him.

  “No. I am not a monk.” He laughed and touched her cheek again, as if she needed reminding of the kiss they’d shared. “I ran away before they gelded me.”

  “They geld the monks?” She hadn’t read anything about gelding in her comparative religion textbooks.

  “They try, in the mind,” he explained. “But some like boys.”

  And she certainly hadn’t read that in any textbook.

  “Don’t worry.” He laughed again. “They didn’t get me. You taste like coffee. Do you have coffee?”

  She absolutely did not believe this. She didn’t believe any of it. He tasted of honey, and she tasted like coffee. They’d barely met and all they’d talked about and attempted was sex, an occurrence so rare in her life and so far back in her past, she’d completely forgotten what all the fuss was about until he’d reminded her. Oh brother, had he reminded her. She needed to go back to bed and give the morning another shot at normalcy.

  “Yes,” she blurted out in panic, realizing bed was the last place she dared to go. “Yes, I have coffee.”

  “Good.” He reached for the bag dangling from her hand and slung it over his shoulder. “Let’s share coffee.”

  In the five feet stretching from where she’d stood on the deck to the front door, she managed to stumble over thin air.

  “Careful, Kreestine.” He laughed and reached out to steady her. The warmth of his hand only flustered her more. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “No. No, I’m not hurt.” She really needed to stop repeating herself, she thought. Then she ran into something substantially harder than thin air, the huge duffel bag he’d dropped on her deck.

  “My fault.”

  He grinned, and that, she knew, was something he really needed to stop doing, if she was going to get her pulse slowed to a reasonable pace. He bent down and picked up the duffel bag, slung it over his shoulder, then hefted a large trunk onto his other shoulder, a trunk to match the six already piled in her living room.

  If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it. Even with a ton of luggage weighing him down, he moved with more grace than she could have imagined, as if his feet weren’t touching the ground.

  Two

  “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 pic
ked 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.<
br />
  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 Kāh-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.”