“Actually, I’m feeling rather intimidated,” she admitted. “Some women would be able to get out of this hole alone, but not me. In gym classes I was a total disaster at chinning myself on the high bar.”
Ten measured the distance to the ceiling and the cedar beams. “No problem. God made men with that in mind.”
“He did?”
Ten nodded and kicked aside a bit of loose rubble, giving himself stable footing beneath the hole. He braced his legs and held out his arms to Diana.
“Okay, honey. Up you go.”
She looked at him as though he had just suggested that she teleport herself out of the hole.
“Don’t worry, I won’t drop you,” Ten said. “I handle heavier things every day. I’ll lift you up. You balance yourself on the cedar poles until you can scramble from my shoulders to the ground.”
“What about you?”
“That’s where God’s design comes in. He made men stronger than women.” The smile faded, leaving only the hard male lines of Ten’s face. “It’s all right, Diana. I won’t hurt you. Trust me.”
“I-” Her voice broke. She swallowed and forced herself to take the two steps toward Ten. “I’ll-try. What do I have to do?”
“First, put your hands on my shoulders.”
For a few moments Diana was afraid she wouldn’t be able to force herself to do it. Silently, fiercely, she closed her eyes and fought old fears.
Ten watched with narrowed eyes, feeling Diana’s fear as clearly as he had the soft feminine curves of her body while he checked her for injury.
“Diana. Put your hands on my shoulders.”
Her eyelids snapped open. Gone was the velvet reassurance of Ten’s voice. In its place was a steel reality: she could help Ten get her out of the kiva or she could fight him; either way, she was going up through that hole in the ceiling. Diana didn’t know how he would manage the feat without her cooperation, but she had no doubt that he would.
Diana lifted her hands to Ten’s shoulders. She knew he felt her trembling but was unable to stop it.
“Are you afraid of falling again?” he asked.
Her hands clenched around the hard resilience of Ten’s shoulder muscles. He was so strong. Much too strong. She was as helpless as a kitten against his power.
Remember that tiger-striped kitten cuddled in Ten’s hands. The kitten was relaxed, purring, trusting. Ten didn’t hurt that sick kitten. He won’t hurt me.
“What d-do you want me to do?” Diana asked, forgetting everything except the need to hold on to her belief that Ten wouldn’t hurt her.
“Brace yourself on my shoulders. I’m going to lift you until you can grab a cedar pole. Use it to help you kneel on my shoulders, then stand on them. From there you should be able to get out of the kiva without much problem. Okay?”
She nodded, gripped his shoulders more tightly and braced herself for whatever might come.
“Not yet,” Ten said, stroking Diana’s back slowly. “You’re shaking too much. Slow down, honey. You’re all right.”
“Being p-petted is just going to make me m-more nervous.”
One black eyebrow lifted, but Ten said nothing except “Hang on. Here we go. And keep your back straight.”
Diana didn’t understand the last instruction until she felt the brush of Ten’s body over hers as he bent his knees, wrapped his arms around her thighs and straightened, lifting her within reach of the cedar poles. He need not have worried about her back being straight-her whole body went rigid at the intimacy of his powerful arms locked around her thighs and his head pressed against her abdomen.
“Ten!”
“It’s okay, honey. I’ve got you.”
That’s the whole problem! But Diana had just enough control left not to blurt out her thought.
“Can you grab one of the poles yet?” Ten asked.
Diana pulled her scattering thoughts together, lifted one hand from the corded muscle of Ten’s shoulder and grabbed a cedar pole. It was as hard as Ten but not nearly so warm.
“Got it,” she said breathlessly.
“Good. Now grab the other pole.”
A few seconds, then, “Okay. I’ve got that one, too.”
“Hang on.”
Ten moved so quickly that Diana was never sure how he had managed it, but within seconds she was kneeling on his shoulders, using her grip on the poles for balance. His hands on her hips were holding her firmly and his face was—
Don’t think about it or you’ll fall.
“Steady, honey,” Ten said in a muffled voice.
“Easy for you to say,” Diana muttered through clenched teeth.
He laughed softly.
She felt the intimate heat of his breath.
“Oh, God.”
“What’s wrong?” Ten asked. “Is one of the beams rotten?”
Diana didn’t answer. She pulled herself up and out of the kiva before she had a chance to question the shivering sensations that cascaded throughout her body. She scrambled back from the edge and sat hugging herself, feeling flushed in the most unnerving places.
“Everything okay?” Ten called.
“Yes. No. I-” She clenched her teeth. “Fine. Just fine.”
“Get back. I’m coming out.”
Diana scooted back away from the hole, wondering how Ten was planning to get out. A few seconds later, two hands closed around a cedar pole. With a grace that startled her, Ten chinned himself, held himself one-handed while he grabbed the second pole with his other hand, swung his legs up and levered himself out of the hole with the ease of a gymnast at work on a set of parallel bars.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” Diana asked.
“Same place I learned to patch up kittens.”
“Where was that?”
“Long ago, far away, in another country.”
“But where?” she persisted. “Why?”
“Commando training.”
Diana opened her mouth but no words came out.
Commando training.
Ten held out his hand to help Diana to her feet. “Let’s go, honey. The sun will be setting soon.”
A wild glance at the sky told Diana that Ten was right. The sun would soon slip beneath the horizon, leaving her alone in the dark at the ends of the earth with a man who was not only far more powerful than she but who was trained to be a killer, as well.
“You sure you’re all right?” Ten asked, sitting on his heels next to Diana. “If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you.”
She flinched away from him before she could grab her unraveling courage in both hands. She gave Ten a searching look but saw no triumph in his expression, no malice, no brute hunger, nothing but polite concern for her welfare.
“I can-” Diana’s voice broke. She swallowed. “I can walk.”
Ten started to reach for her, saw her flinch away and dropped his hand. He stood and moved a pace back from her.
“Get up. We’ll drive back to the ranch after we eat,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What? Why?”
“You know why,” Ten said, turning away from Diana. “Every time I come close to you, you cringe. You’ll feel more at ease with one of the other men.”
“No!”
The stark emotion in Diana’s voice stopped Ten. He looked back at her.
“Please stay,” she said quickly. “I trust you more than I’ve trusted any man since-since I-since he-Ten, please! It’s nothing you’ve done. It’s nothing personal. Please believe me.”
“It’s hard to,” he said bluntly.
“Then believe this. You’re the first man who’s touched me in any way for years and it scares me to death because I’m not scared and you’re so damned male.”
Ten’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not making much sense.”
“I know. I’ll get better. I promise.”
For a moment Ten looked at Diana. Then he nodded slowly and held out his hand. If she stretched she could take it and help herself up. She looked at th
e lean hand and remembered the strength and lethal skill of the man behind it.
Then Diana took Ten’s hand in both of hers and pulled herself to her feet.
9
While the night wind blew outside, Diana sat in the old ranch house, staring at a potshard in her palm, remembering the incident two weeks ago when Ten had dropped down into the darkness beside her and lifted her to the solid ground above. The tactile memories had haunted her…his hands searching carefully over her body, his easy strength when he lifted her, his face pressed so intimately against her while she climbed back into sunshine.
Shivering, remembering, Diana saw nothing of the shard in her palm. The memories resonated in her body as much as in her mind, sending sensations rippling through her, heat and cold, uneasiness and curiosity, a strange hunger to touch Ten in return, to know his masculine textures as well as he knew her feminine ones.
I’m going crazy.
Once more Diana tried to concentrate on the shard lying across her palm, but all she could think about was the instant when she had taken Ten’s hand between her own and pulled herself to her feet. She thought she had felt his fingers caressing her in the very act of releasing her, but the touch had stopped before she could be certain.
And since then Ten had been the heart, soul and body of asexual politeness. At the site he treated her with the casual camaraderie of an older brother. It was the same at the ranch. At night they sorted shards together, spoke in broken phrases about missing angles and notched curves, discussed the weather or the ranch or the progress of the dig in slightly more complete sentences-and he never touched her, even when he seated her at the dinner table or passed a box of shards to her or looked over her shoulder to offer advice about a missing piece of a pot. He had every excuse to crowd her personal space from time to time, but he didn’t.
For the first few days Ten’s distance had reassured Diana. Then it had piqued her interest. By the fourteenth day it outright annoyed her.
You’d think I didn’t shower often enough.
“Did you say something?” Ten asked from across the table.
Appalled, Diana realized that she had muttered her thought aloud.
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
A few moments later she put the shard aside and stood up, feeling restless. As it often did, her glance strayed to the man who had shared so many days and evenings and nights with her.
The nights were perfectly proper, of course. Some outlaw. The Rocking M’s ramrod is nothing if not proper.
Broodingly Diana watched Ten’s long fingers turning potshards over and over, handling the fragile pottery deftly, running his fingertips over the edges as though to learn the tiniest contours by touch alone. She did the same thing when she worked, a kind of tactile exploration that was as much a part of her nature as her expressive eyes and her fear of men.
But she no longer feared men. At least, not all men. Luke still startled her from time to time with his sheer size, yet she had no doubt that Carla was perfectly safe with her chosen man, as was little Logan with his father, a father chosen by fate rather than by the baby. Not all children were that lucky in their parents. Diana hadn’t been. Nor were all wives as fortunate in their husbands. Diana’s mother certainly had not been safe or cherished with her man.
Restlessly, Diana ran her fingertips over the table-top, feeling the grit that rubbed off the shards no matter how carefully they were handled. She smoothed her fingers over the table’s surface again and again, watching Ten’s hands, fascinated by their combination of power and precision.
What would it feel like to be touched with such care?
The glittering sensation that shivered through Diana at her silent question made her feel almost weak. She wanted to be touched by Ten, but it was impossible. He was a man. He would want more than touching, gentleness, cherishing, holding.
With a small sound Diana looked away from Ten. She didn’t notice the sudden intensity in his eyes as he watched her over the pot he was assembling from ancient shards.
“Mmrreeow?”
The polite query was followed by another, less polite one. Diana hurried to the window, grateful to have a distraction from her unexpected, unnerving attraction to Ten.
“Hello, you old reprobate,” she said, opening the window and holding out her arms.
On a gust of air, the tiger-striped cat flowed into Diana’s arms. Pounce’s fur smelled cool, fresh, washed by the clean wind. Smiling, rubbing her face against the cat’s sleek head, she settled back into her chair. Pounce’s rumbling, vibrating approval rippled out, blending with the fitful sound of the wind.
“King of the Rocking M, aren’t you?” she asked, smiling. “Think you can trade a few dead mice for some time in my lap, hmm?”
Ten looked up again. Diana was kneading gently down the cat’s big back, rubbing her cheek against Pounce’s head while he rubbed his head against her in turn. The old mouser’s purring was like continuous, distant thunder, but it was Diana’s clear enjoyment of the cat’s textures and responses that brought every one of Ten’s masculine senses alert. He had kept his distance from her very carefully since the first day at the site; he would never forget the raw terror that he had seen in her eyes the first time he had reached for her in the gloom of the ancient kiva.
No matter how carefully Diana tried to conceal it, Ten sensed that she was still afraid of him. Perhaps it was because the first time she had seen him, he was the victor in a brief, brutal fight. Perhaps it was the way he had handled the pothunters. Perhaps it was his commando training. Perhaps it was simply himself, Tennessee Blackthorn, a man who never had worn well on women-and vice versa. An outlaw, not a lover or a husband.
Pounce purred loudly from Diana’s lap, proclaiming his satisfaction with life, himself and the woman who was stroking his sleek body.
“If I thought you’d give me a rubdown like that, I’d go out and catch mice, too.”
Diana gave Ten a startled look.
“Don’t know that I’d eat them, though,” Ten added blandly, measuring a shard against the bright lamplight. “A man has to draw the line somewhere.”
Uncertainly Diana laughed. The idea of Ten purring beneath her hands made odd sensations shiver through her. Surely he was joking. But if he weren’t…
Shadows of old fear rose in Diana. When she spoke her voice was tight and the words came out in a torrent, for she was afraid of being interrupted before she got everything said that had to be said.
“You’d be better off eating Carla’s wonderful chicken than trading dead mice for a pat from me. I’m not the sensual type. Sex is for men, not women. In the jargon, I’m frigid, if frigid defines a woman who can live very well without sex.”
Ten looked up sharply, caught as much by the palpable resonances of fear in Diana’s voice as he was by her words. He started to speak but she was still talking, words spilling out like water from a river finally freed of its lid of winter ice.
“A man must have thought up the word frigid,” Diana continued quickly. “A woman would just say she isn’t a masochist, that she feels no need of pain, self-inflicted or otherwise. But no matter what label you put on it-and me-the result is the same. Thanks but no thanks.”
The words echoed in the quiet room. Their defensiveness made Diana cringe inside, but she wouldn’t have taken back a single blunt syllable. Ten had to know.
“I don’t recall asking you for sex,” Ten said. For a long minute Diana’s hands kneaded through Pounce’s fur, soothing the cat and herself at the same time, drawing forth a lifting and falling ramble of purrs.
“No, you haven’t,” she said finally, sighing, feeling herself relax now that the worst of it was over. Ten knew. He could never accuse her now. “But I’ve learned the hard way that it’s better to be honest than to be quiet and then be accused of being a tease.”
“Don’t worry, Diana. Like the moon goddess you’re named after, you’ve got No Trespassing signs posted all over you. Any man who do
esn’t see them would have to be as blind as you are.” “What?”
Ten looked up from the shards he had assembled. “You’re stone-blind to your own basic nature. You’re not frigid. You have a rare sensuality. You drink storm winds and nuzzle Logan’s tiny hands and touch pieces of pottery with fingertips that are so sensitive you don’t even have to look to tell what kind of edge there is. You rub that old tomcat until he’s a vibrating pudding of pleasure, and you enjoy it just as much as he does. That’s all sensuality istaking pleasure in your own senses. And sex, good sex, is the most pleasure your senses can stand.”
Diana sat transfixed, caught within the diamond clarity of Ten’s eyes watching her, the black velvet certainty of his voice caressing her. Then he looked back to the shards, releasing her.
“Did a new box come in from the site?” Ten asked in a calm voice, as though they had never discussed anything more personal than potshards. “I’ve been waiting for one from 10-B. I think part of this red pot might have washed down to that spot on the grid. A long time ago, of course.”
Her mind in turmoil, Diana grabbed the question, grateful to have something neutral to talk about. “Yes, it’s over there. I’ll get it.”
If Ten noticed the rapid-fire style of Diana’s speech, he didn’t comment.
Releasing a reluctant Pounce, Diana went to the corner of the room where recently cleaned, permanently numbered shards were stored in hope of future assembling. The carton collected from 10-B on the site grid was on top of the pile. She brought the box to the long table where Ten worked by the light of a powerful gooseneck lamp.
“Thanks,” he said absently. “I don’t suppose there’s a piece lying around on top with two obtuse angles and a ragged bite out of the third side?”
“Gray? Corrugated? Black on white?”
“Red.”
“Really?” she asked, excited. Redware was the most unusual of all the Anasazi pottery. It also came from the last period when they inhabited the northern reaches of their homeland. “Do you think we have enough shards to make a whole pot?”
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