by Janzen, Tara
“What did you mean when you said you were taken away?” There, she’d said it. She looked up, waiting for Kit’s answer. When he didn’t immediately reply, she gave him another hint. “By Sang Phala? Your second father?”
Kit had met a few people with blue eyes, not many, but enough to know that hers were rare not only in their violet shade, but in their inherent warmth. They pulled at him on that same hidden plane his jealousy had discovered, asking for a truth he seldom gave.
But this woman no sooner asked than he discovered a need to answer.
“Sang Phala came for me when I was nine,” he said, holding her gaze. “He paid the Khampas—the warrior bandits—dearly, trading the life of his brother’s son for mine.” He softened the harsh reality of his words with a slight smile as he picked up his beer. “He regretted the trade many times when I was a boy. I did not make a proper novice.”
Watching her lean forward, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, trying to hide her shock, he broadened his grin. She’d be horrified if she knew what a poor job she was doing.
“Trading his nephew? Why?” Her voice had the purely feminine mixture of breathlessness and small catches he found so sweet . . . and erotic. He’d spent the night dreaming of her voice whispering close to him in the dark, breathless with pleasure and catching each time he moved inside her. He shifted restlessly in his chair, once again surprised at the powerful ease of his response to her.
“An old promise to the old man my father became after my mother died giving birth to me,” he explained, forcing his concentration back to the conversation and the facts he’d long ago accepted. “In the few years we spent together, until I was seven, I don’t think he ever forgave me for being the cause of his loss. Sang Phala was much more generous in that respect, but in no others. He eventually beat the wildness out of me, and in the end I did learn.”
“And then you ran away?”
“And then I ran away,” he agreed before taking another long swallow of beer.
“What happened to your first father?”
“He was killed by a rifle on Thorong La.” He shrugged, a slight lifting of one shoulder. “There were many such misunderstandings on the high passes after the Chinese invasion.”
“You call murder a misunderstanding?” Her voice rose to an incredulous degree.
“It is a sin, but one others will pay for.” He knew the words sounded callous, but he’d spoken the simple truth.
“Who? Who will pay?”
“I will never know. He wasn’t killed in our camp. The Khampas denied any responsibility, though they were the ones who came for me. Sang Phala found me two years later.” To ease her distress, he tried to explain further. “My father chose his life. He chose to take my mother with him into a wild land. He chose the place of my birth. He chose to sacrifice himself in the name of scholarly research. I did not choose these things for him, Kreestine. I cannot live with regrets for his choices.”
Scholarly research in Tibet, Kristine mused. An American murdered in Nepal . . . She put the information together in her mind, then added a guess at his age. Slowly, she sank back in her chair. All of the pieces fit, and she felt like an idiot for not having put them together earlier.
“Dwayne Carson was your father,” she said.
Kit lifted one eyebrow. “He never published his work, and his research was lost. How do you know his name?”
“Bertolli mentioned him in A Land of Snows, credited him with finding the tomb of Nachukha.” Suddenly the mystery of Kit Carson no longer existed. She felt relieved, a little disappointed, and inexplicably sad. She’d discerned no emotional scars in him, but at one time he must have hurt badly, as a child, when the wounds of life cut much more deeply.
Kit reached across the table and took her hands into both of his. “Sang Phala healed me well, Kreestine. There is no need for sadness. And as for the other . . .” A slow smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “There is much still to discover.”
“Don’t . . . don’t do that, please.” She pulled her hands free, disturbed by the clarity of his understanding. She’d have to watch herself very carefully around him, and she’d never been any good at watching herself. More often than not, words hit her mouth at the same time they hit her brain. In either case, she wasn’t safe from him.
Kit reached for her again, for no other reason than that he wanted to touch her, to feel the vibrancy of her life and the satin smoothness of her skin. Her thick lashes hid her eyes from him, but even so he felt her compassion for a stranger who wished to become more. Soft of heart and strong of mind, with a passion tamped so far down inside her, he doubted she knew it was there, she drew him ever stronger, ever closer. “I think the lady said no, mister.” A meaty hand landed palm down on the table, jiggling the beer bottles. “Or is it miss?”
Kit and Kristine both looked up at the intruder, but only one gaze was wide-eyed with surprise. Kit remained calm as he assessed the size—quite large—and the sensibilities—quite crude—of the man he’d felt approaching their table. He wore a rumpled flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up over hairy forearms, and a pair of dirty jeans hanging low beneath a broad belly. A mop of unruly brown hair stuck out from beneath his baseball cap.
“You have misunderstood,” Kit said. “Leave us, please.” He returned his attention to Kristine.
“You haven’t answered my question, miss.” The insult was delivered in a slurred baritone drawl, and the man planted another hand on the table, leaning closer. He reached up and flicked Kit’s braid. “Where’d you get your pigtail, son? Or should I be calling you girly-girl?”
“You may call me Kautilya,” Kit said, his voice losing a trace of his lilt, “and I wear the plait by choice.”
“Well, it’s mighty pretty, girly-girl. How about if’n I take it as a kind of souvenir? I could hang it on the wall with my hunting trophies.” The big man laughed, inordinately amused by his own joke.
“You would not be the first to try,” Kit said softly.
Kristine instantly recalled his chamois bag and the long cord of auburn hair woven into the silk and leather strap. Someone had more than tried, she thought. They’d succeeded.
“Yep,” the intruder said. “The more I think about it, the more I like the idea, girly-girl.” The man’s voice lowered to match Kit’s, and he pulled a pocket knife out of his jeans. His hand was unsteady. Kristine didn’t know what frightened her more, the little knife, or the wavering hand holding it. “Now you just sit real still like and I’ll be real careful not to cut you.”
The man was drunk, his gray eyes bloodshot, and he must he crazy to boot, she thought. Kit didn’t have the look of a man easily intimidated. Quite the contrary. Belligerent glances were one thing, but any fool would have kept his distance. She should’ve known better than to bring him in there. The culture shock was obviously too much for these life forms on the low end of the food chain.
“Let’s go,” she said, digging in her purse and throwing a twenty-dollar bill on the table. The waitress would be getting a good tip after all. She scraped her chair back, almost knocking it over in her haste to leave.
She was halfway to her feet when the man reached for her. In the next second he froze into immobility, restrained by Kit’s hand around his throat. She sank back into the chair, her knees jelly, her heartbeat on pause.
“Take your hand off Kreestine and put your knife away.” Kit’s voice remained soft, strangely gentle. “I have no wish to hurt you.”
The man blinked, seemingly unable to move, and Kit released him, smiling. “Good.”
A round of laughter followed the man as he lurched out the door, one hand clapped to his throat.
“That’s showin’ him, Luke.”
“Must be losin’ your touch, boy. Or your nerve. Come on over and let ole Buck tell you how it’s done.”
“Drown it in a beer, Luke. Next round is on you.”
Kristine barely heard the jeers through the nervous buzzing in her brain. Kit had done
something to the man with his brief touch, and she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know what. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You haven’t eaten your supper.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Kit noted the slight trembling of her hands and covered them with one of his own. “I am sworn to protect you, Kreestine. You will not come to harm.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” she whispered, trying not to draw any more attention. “Let’s just go, please, before somebody else decides to give you a haircut.”
He laughed, about as inappropriate reaction as she could imagine, given the circumstances. “No one is going to cut my plait, bahini. Not even Sang Phala dared such a trespass in his later years, and he was compelled by convictions stronger than prejudice to use his razor on my head.”
“Well, somebody dared at least once,” she countered, glancing nervously around the bar and wishing he wouldn’t argue. They were being watched, and none too kindly by her estimation.
“Yes,” he said, grinning. “The Turk dared, but he was going for my throat and got my plait by mistake. Sometimes the gods are with us, eh?”
The man was too much, and Kristine was just the lady to tell him so. “You’re in America now, Kit Carson, and we don’t have nearly as many gods as you’re used to,” she informed him under her breath. “We only have one, and with everything else going on in the world tonight, He might be a little too busy to make sure you get out of this seedy bar in one piece. So why don’t we do the smart thing and get out on our own while the getting is good? And while we’re on the subject, if the damn thing causes you so much trouble, why don’t you cut it off yourself?”
The barest flicker of anger lit the cinnamon depths of his eyes, giving her reason to regret the quickness of her tongue. “Do you not understand the importance of choice, Kreestine?”
“Yes. I do. I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. How long he wore his hair was none of her concern, and if it had been, she would have made no changes. Visions of her hands tangling in the thick auburn silk had infused her dreams with a sweet ache. When he’d held her so close in his room, the visions had resurfaced, sorely tempting her to touch, to pull away the chamois tie and let the strands slide through her fingers as she urged his mouth down to hers. “I’m leaving,” she said abruptly. “You can do—”
“Then understand my choice,” he interrupted, his hand wrapping around her wrist. “For six years the monks shaved my head. For six years it was the mark of my slavery. They beat all of us, but they beat me harder. My rice bowl was emptier, my days longer, my meditations never-ending, because I was no monk.” He slowly rose to his feet, pulling her out of her chair, his gaze unflinching. “No more, Kreestine.”
When he would have moved way, she stopped him by holding her arm steady. “I’m sorry.”
He released her then, but his face remained devoid of emotion. “There is no reason for sorrow. I gained much in those years that other men spend a lifetime looking for and never find. Come.” With his hand resting in the small of her back, he guided her out of the bar, and once again she found comfort in his touch.
The night had grown cool, the stars brighter. The moon had risen higher. The soft music of his steps played counterpoint to the crunch of gravel under their feet, but the tension in him remained. She’d had no right to be angry with him, Kristine told herself. They were supposed to be professionals working together, not two people wrapped up in a personal relationship she seemed incapable of controlling.
But everything about him affected her personally, very personally. She hadn’t had a clear thought since he’d kissed her, a situation his non-kiss that evening had only magnified. She should have just kissed him and gotten it out of her system.
Oh, sure, Kristine, a mocking voice inside her head nagged at her. But she’d kissed Grant Thorp once and immediately decided not to subject either of them to any more boring dates.
She’d kissed Kit once, too, and his kiss had been so warm, so sweet. He had a way about him, a way of sharing his heat, a way of giving even as he took. She’d never felt anything quite as magically seductive as his mouth on hers, as his tongue tracing her lips and her teeth, seeking entrance. When he held her she didn’t feel frigid; she went limp.
What would it be like, she wondered, to make love with a man who could read your mind?
Embarrassing? Probably, and she’d had enough embarrassment in her sex life.
Dangerous? Maybe, and she’d shown no inclination toward danger in her twenty-nine years on the planet. She’d made her share of snap judgments and rash decisions, but nothing approaching true danger, not even in her decisions concerning Kit.
Incredible.
The word floated across her mind as fact, without the doubt implied in a question, and a teasing warmth drifted up from her nerve endings to encompass her whole body.
“Wait,” Kit said, stopping her by increasing the pressure of his hand against her back.
She glanced up at him, appalled by the direction she’d allowed her mind to wander, especially with him touching her. “It’s nothing,” she said quickly looking around for her car. “Nothing, really. I was just thinking about how warm it was in the bar and how—”
“Hush, bahini.” He slowly turned on the balls of his feet, searching the parking lot, and Kristine picked up on the undercurrent of unease in the air.
“What . . .” she started, but the question ended in hesitation. She hadn’t noticed the other men leaving the bar, and now it was too late. They blocked a retreat back into the building, spreading in a haphazard circle between the cars and pickup trucks. Her first instinct was to back into something, and she did, into Kit. Her second instinct was to run, but she didn’t, stayed by the command in his touch.
The shadowy figures wove in and out of the parked vehicles, and within moments her mouth was too dry to create anything more than a hoarse whisper. “Maybe we should make a run for the car.”
“No, Kreestine.” He turned her in his arms and placed a soothing kiss on her brow. “Do not run.”
Well, now he’d confused her but good, she thought wildly, kissing her when she was all primed to panic. Her gaze darted from one hulking shadow to the next. There were five, four too many for a fair chance, and five too many to suit her. The very idea of a gang of subintelligent, bar-hopping cretins following them into a parking lot looking for trouble infuriated her. Kit couldn’t fight all of them. “You can’t fight all of them.” And she couldn’t fight one of them. “I think we should run. I—I never took any self-defense, and the last person I hit was much smaller than me. It was my little sister, actually, and about twenty years ago, and of course, she hit me back, and to tell you the truth I bruise rather easily, and—”
“Hush, Kreestine, there will be no fight.”
He must know something she didn’t, because it sure looked to her like those men meant business, fist kind of business. The five of them rounded the last layer of protective cars, trapping Kit and Kristine between two in front, three behind, and a pickup and a convertible on either side.
“Get in the car,” Kit told her.
“It’s not my car.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I thought you said there wasn’t going to be a fight,” she hissed. For some unknown reason she was not only furious with the cadre of jerks, she was angry at him again too. Men, she thought in disgust. It was always men. Not once in her life had she heard of a group of women piling out of a bar to duke it out in the parking lot. Not once.
“Obedience is a virtue, Kreestine, and one it would do you well to learn quickly.”
“If’n you and your girlfriend wanna stop your confab,” one of the men called, “we can get on with it, son. I’ve still got a mind for a souvenir.” The man the others had called Luke pressed forward out of the trio on their right, his courage obviously revived by his buddies.
Kristine had heard enough. “I’m going to call the police.”
“You got that right, son,” Luke said. “Hold on to her, Buck. Later we can show her a few things she can do with that mouth besides call the police.” His crudity drew forth a round of laughter and a few, “Come on, Lukes” and sent a shot of startled terror through Kristine. A scream she had no intention of giving into lodged in her throat like a thick knot, making it nearly impossible to breathe. She would have run then and there except for Kit’s calm, gentle voice cutting through the chuckling guffaws.
“The first man who touches her dies.” His gaze drifted from one man to the next, one brow cocked in question. “Which of you is ready for your next life?” His confident words made them all pause, but only for a moment.
“Grab her, Buck.”
“Dammit, Luke, grab her yourself if you’re so hot.”
Even Kristine felt the pressure in the dare. One of the cowboys walked away, muttering under his breath about a little fun getting out of hand.
Backed into a corner of his own making, Luke made a move forward, but only one. Kit caught Luke’s fist with his palm, whipped him around, and slammed him against the door panel of the pickup.
That was it.
One of the other men knelt by Luke and made his diagnosis, “Out cold.” Kit confirmed that conclusion when he, too, knelt down and checked Luke’s pulse. He made a cursory examination of body parts and bones, his hands and demeanor as gentle as his voice had been.
Two others drifted away, and the fourth helped the first drag Luke to his feet.
Dear Lord, Kristine thought, still shaking. These people must be bored out of their ever-lovin’ minds! She’d never considered herself the product of an overprotected childhood, but there were obviously some major gaps in her life that eight years of higher education hadn’t filled in. She was shocked by her own naïveté and astounded by Kit’s consideration of a man who’d insulted him and attempted to assault him.
“Come, Kreestine.” Kit turned back to her and took her arm.
She jerked away, not trusting herself to speak.
