by Janzen, Tara
Ah, yes, Kristine. You are sweetness incarnate in my arms. His smile faded and his eyes darkened, and he slowly shook his head with the same wonderment she felt.
“No?” Lois’s voice broke into their silent communication. “Then we’ve got a major problem. You should have told me on the phone, Kit, and saved me a trip.”
“Told you what, Lo-eese?” He glanced up, realizing he’d missed a part of the conversation. At least part of the less important conversation swirling through the living room.
Lois stepped back from the boxes. “I can’t touch this stuff without some kind of authorization from somebody. You knew that before you left.” She took another step. “You promised—”
“And I never break a promise,” Kit interrupted her, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out a sealed envelope. He rose from the couch and handed it to Lois.
Thomas stood up and walked over to his associate, waiting while she broke the seal. Together they read the document, and two pairs of eyebrows rose in unison.
“Did you really meet him?” Lois asked, scanning the paper again.
“I accepted it from the god-king’s own hand,” Kit answered. “The Dalai Lama has little recourse against the imperialistic tendencies of his northern neighbor, but he is still the spiritual leader of his people. The Kāh-gyur, we both agreed, is a very spiritual asset.”
Lois nodded. “I’m satisfied.”
Thomas balked. “It’s still contraband.”
“Back out if you want to, Stein,” Lois said. “L.A. will take full responsibility and all one hundred and forty-two blocks. I’ve had an international law team on this from the beginning. They’ve been looking for a loophole in the antiquities law”—she glanced at Kit—“and I think our friend has delivered the key.”
Thomas still wasn’t convinced. “It’s a long shot.”
Lois looked at him over the rims of her wire-framed glasses. “Then leave before we get down to business.”
The older man held his ground, though none too confidently. “Chicago has lawyers too.”
“I’ve heard a rumor to that effect,” Lois drawled, baiting the man.
“I’m in, Shepard,” Thomas grumbled, taking a white handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing at his brow. “I’m in.”
“Good.” Lois turned her attention to Kit, giving Kristine a nod on the way. “I think everybody in this room knows that what we’re dealing with here is priceless, but those of us who have dealt with Mr. Carson in the past also know he has never failed to set a price for his services.” She tapped her glasses farther down on her nose and narrowed her gaze at Kit. “Usually an outrageous price.”
“I have lost much in this deal already, Lo-eese.” Kit took a deep draw of smoke, then leaned forward to crush the cigarette in an ashtray.
“Such as?” Lois asked in a wary tone.
“My homeland, my house, most of my possessions, a yak and a mule, and a good portion of my freedom.”
“You’re Buddhist, Kit,” Lois reminded him. “You know freedom is a state of mind. Nepal is not for sale, so I don’t see that entering into the bargain, but I have connections in Kathmandu. I could arrange for the sale of your house and to have your possessions shipped over here, and I’ll split the difference on the livestock.”
“No.” He stood up, and with his familiar musical grace, walked over to the large windows framing the reservoir. Three pairs of eyes followed his every step, two pairs with caution, and one pair, the hue of mountain violets, with utter fascination at the beauty of his movement. Kristine knew whatever spell he’d started with his first kiss had been sealed in the room above them.
He rested his hand high on the window frame, and a cascade of gold slid down his arm. They waited. Finally he spoke, and when he did, all their gazes held the same reaction—disbelief.
“I want to go home.” The lilt of his accent was softened by the true need that infused his words.
“Unlikely,” Thomas said.
“It’s your head.” Lois said, then shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”
Kristine had no such comment to offer. Home? Away from her? After he’d stolen her heart? And in record time. She reached for her wineglass and found her trembling fingers couldn’t hold the stem. She pulled her hand back into her lap.
“What’s your price on the Kāh-gyur?” Lois asked.
“Four hundred thousand.”
“Four hundred thousand what? Rupees?” The older woman didn’t even attempt to hide her shock.
“No, Lo-eese.” He turned to face the curator. “The hard currency of American dollars.”
Thomas sank onto the couch, but Lois quickly recovered. Kristine wasn’t even close to recovering.
“One hundred thousand, and I’ll buy the mule and the yak,” Lois said.
“One of my muleteers was injured. I need to compensate his family for his lost labor. Three hundred and fifty thousand, and two hundred dollars apiece for the animals.”
“That’s a damned expensive yak, Kit. I’ll give you fifty for the mule, and know I’ve been robbed, and one hundred for the yak, not a penny more. One hundred and seventy-five thousand.
“Three.”
“Two. Bottom line.”
“You’ll arrange for the trust?” he asked.
She nodded. “What’s your commission?”
“Fifty percent.”
“Your neck is coming pretty high these days, isn’t it?”
A rogue’s smile teased his mouth, and he lifted one broad shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Such are the economics of risk.”
The economics of risk, Kristine repeated silently, wrapping her hands tighter around each other. Now why in the hell hadn’t she thought of that before she’d fallen in love with him? The outlaw was going to break her heart.
“I’m catching the red-eye back to Los Angeles,” Lois said, “and I’ve got a crew waiting in Denver to pack this thing right. Unless, of course, you want to chant over it a few more times and save me the trouble?”
Kit laughed and drew the older woman into a hug. “For you, Lo-eese, I will chant.”
And what was he willing to do for her? Kristine wondered. Love her and leave her?
The afternoon slid into dusk and then into evening with every minute feeling like her last. She pored over her computerized versions of his journals and his catalog of artifacts, explaining her work and the system Kit had used to Lois and Thomas. She had voluminous packages for both of them, and both expressed an interest in the university’s project. Lois even offered to write an introduction to her book on the temples and shrines of Tibet. Dean Chambers, indeed, would be impressed, Kristine thought, and Harry would probably never forgive himself.
It was as close to acclaim as Kristine had ever gotten. She held the opportunity dear, knowing it might be the only thing left after he was gone, a published work of historical significance and the shadowed glory of being the conduit of knowledge of Chatren-Ma. It wasn’t enough.
Damn him. Who did he think he was, to waltz into her life and waltz back out? Dear Lord, had she really made love with him? She lifted her gaze over Lois’s shoulder and watched him go over the boxes with Thomas, double-checking the inventory lists.
Had she really held him in her arms and felt the very life of him surround, invade, and fill her with the sweetest love she’d ever known? Had she really kissed him with desperate need, wanting nothing more than to know the heat of him forever? Had she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to her again and again, turning ravenous for every touch of his mouth.
Yes, her memories answered as her gaze drifted up his long, jean-clad legs and over his broad back and shoulders to the profiled angle of his jaw. His bracelets, those broad bands of gold incised with the fauna of the high plateaus—snow leopard and ram, a coiled panther striking down a stag, the gentler symbolism of birds nesting in trees—jangled when he knelt on the floor and lifted the bottom of one box for Thomas to notate a number in his book. She follo
wed the path of his plait down between his shoulder blades, then at last returned her gaze to the folio Lois was studying.
Yes, she’d made love with him, and she knew she’d never be free of the whispers he’d put in her mind, of the imprint of his body, the touch he gave that went beyond both.
The older woman sifted through the papers and shuffled around through a couple more notebooks, her brow furrowing.
“Is something wrong?” Kristine asked, forcing her attention back to the job at hand.
“I’ve known him a long time, Kristine,” Lois said absently, continuing her search, “since before Lishan. He’s not like most men, but then neither was his father.”
The personal turn of the conversation surprised her, but she couldn’t help but follow Lois’s lead. “Which father do you mean?”
Curious, brown eyes peered at her over the rim of Lois’s glasses, and Kristine thought she detected a note of surprise in the older woman’s expression. “He told you about Sang Phala?”
Kristine eased down into one of the kitchen table chairs, her own curiosity at full flame. “Only that Sang Phala was the one who took him into the monastery.”
“Kicking and screaming by all accounts,” Lois said after pausing to remove her glasses. In those short moments Kristine knew she’d been scrutinized inside out, upside down, and backward by an expert. “He was nine when Sang Phala found him with the Khampas. By then Kit was wilder than a cub wolf, rebellious, resentful, confused, and still too young to understand why he’d been abandoned by his parents.”
“Abandoned?” Kristine was hanging on every word, every bit of information about the unique man who’d slipped inside her defenses, but she hadn’t expected that particular word.
“They died, but to a child it’s the same,” Lois explained. “He’d been left alone. I looked for him myself. Melanie and Dwayne were both good friends of mine.”
Melanie, Kristine thought, testing the name in her mind. His mother’s name had been Melanie.
“But you couldn’t find him?” she prompted, not wanting the discussion to end. No other explanation made sense, but Lois quickly dissuaded her.
“Oh, I found him all right.” Lois shifted one of the folders on top of another. “And I had the legal right to bring him back to the United States. He was, and is, an American citizen.”
Kristine heard the regret in the older woman’s voice and wondered what could have compelled her to leave her friend’s son in such a wild land.
Lois glanced up at Kit. “I chose to leave him in the monastery.” Then, as if seeking confirmation of her decision, she said, “Look at him, Kristine. Can you imagine him different than he is? In a Brooks Brothers suit?”
No. Try as she might, Kristine couldn’t fit those shoulders into pinstripes. She couldn’t fit his smile behind a facade of civilization. He was elemental, of the earth and sky, and no outward trappings could enhance the man he’d become.
“He was still hurting so badly when I found him,” Lois continued, sounding lost in her own thoughts. “A little boy shoved from an extreme of freedom into an extreme of discipline. I couldn’t turn his world upside-down again. I wasn’t sure I could offer him the peace Sang Phala promised me would be his.” A fleeting smile graced the curator’s mouth. “I could have wrung the old man’s neck when I found out Kit had run away. Those were the bad years, not knowing where he was, not knowing if he was dead or alive, wondering how he’d survive on his own. Then the kid shows up at Lishan, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
She sighed, her gaze returning to the pile of folders. “For a moment, when I found him in the monastery, when I stood in the cold hallway watching his small head bowed in prayers, that tinge of red hair like a beacon among so much darkness, I thought he could be mine, that I could bring him home and raise him as my son.” Lois lifted her head and gave Kristine a long, thoughtful look, and her voice softened. “But he never belonged to me, Kristine. He’s never belonged to any woman, mother, sister, or lover.”
The woman’s intuitive deduction and subtle warning sent a blush burning across Kristine’s cheeks. She’d been a fool to succumb to her longings and his desire. He’d had other lovers. She’d known that simple truth from his first kiss. He’d left them all, and less than an hour ago he had professed a need to leave her too. Lois hadn’t brought the boy home, and she’d just told Kristine she doubted if the younger woman could hold the man.
“Was there something wrong with the data?” Kristine asked, drawing the personal vein of the conversation to an abrupt close.
“The map.” Lois opened the top folder and flipped through the pages until she found what she wanted. “It’s missing an important piece of information.”
Kristine had studied every iota of his research and had found nothing missing. In truth, it was the most complete report she’d ever seen. “What’s missing?” She looked and still didn’t know.
“The location of Chatren-Ma.”
Kristine gave Lois a quizzical glance. Maybe the woman wasn’t as sharp as she’d believed. No, she quickly amended. Lois Shepard was plenty smart. Maybe the trip had tired her out.
“He’s put the maps together in a series of enlargements,” she explained in a brisk tone, keeping her doubt to herself so as not to embarrass the woman. “The first map, here, where he’s lifted out a section, refers to the second map where the section is enlarged. The series continues through all five maps until he gets down to the illustrations and photographs of the monastery.” Kristine didn’t know how anyone could have done a more thorough job.
Lois did, though. “He lost some latitude and longitude on the way, and he doesn’t pick it back up.”
“Well, yes,” Kristine agreed. It was true. He hadn’t marked degrees on every single map, but with a little figuring and backtracking, a person could pinpoint a fly on one of the stone walls.
Or could they? She flipped forward a few pages, holding the bearings in her head until she reached the map where they stopped. Okay, she thought, returning to the previous page, now all a person had to do was . . . wonder what Kit was up to.
She checked again, comparing the two maps. The consecutive enlargement was out of kilter, off just enough to make it useless.
Lois tapped a lot of numbers into her calculator and said dryly, “I don’t think he wants anyone within a hundred and fifty-mile radius of the place, or . . . Just a second. Make that a hundred and fifty-two-point three-mile radius.” She looked up, her eyes wide. “That’s a helluva lot of country up there to go wandering around in.”
“It’s an oversight,” Kristine said, staunchly defending him.
Lois didn’t buy it. “Kit Carson has never made an unintentional oversight in his life. The boy is holding out on me.”
And me, Kristine silently added, shifting her gaze to his broad back. What in the hell was he up to? With time she would have discovered the deception herself, after he’d gone, when her anger wouldn’t have had such a handy target. He’d promised her his knowledge of Chatren-Ma, and he’d delivered everything except the damn location. What kind of bimbo did he think she was?
The kind of bimbo who fell in love and in bed with a barbarian she barely knew, she answered herself. The kind of sex-starved female who responded to the first man with enough charm and enough skill to make her feel what she had thought could never be hers.
She wasn’t going to die, and she wasn’t going to disappear. The spell was beginning to crack a little, and if she still knew she would spend weeks and months of days and nights missing him after he’d gone, she wasn’t admitting to the weakness. Not yet.
“Where is it, Kit?” She spoke loud enough to capture both men’s attention.
“Direct and to the point,” Lois murmured beside her. “I like that.”
“Where’s what?” Thomas asked.
Kit didn’t need further explanation. He saw the maps spread on the table. “I think the ladies have discovered a slight discrepancy. Lo-eese, I believe, understands.
Kreestine less so.”
“You can’t hide it forever, Kit,” Lois said, usurping Kristine’s next broadside with a volley of her own. “Word is already out that you made a major find, and when those blocks go on exhibition, everyone is going to know exactly where you’ve been.”
“Without knowing exactly where I’ve been,” he added, emphasizing his own point.
Kristine kept her silence, letting Lois fight the battle. The older woman was much better prepared to win, and Kristine suddenly knew she had no place in the famous trio. Kit had granted her entrée onto the playing field, but from the moment he’d said he wanted to go home, she’d felt more and more like the outsider she was. Kit’s “oversight” had only made it perfectly clear.
She didn’t know how she could be worthy of his love and remain unworthy of his trust, unless what they’d shared hadn’t been love. Maybe out of her own need she’d imagined his deeper responses. She wasn’t an expert. What did she know of the difference between sex and love. People more worldly than she had been confusing the two for centuries. Or was it just women who got confused, while men got what they wanted? For sure as she sat there, she was getting more confused by the minute.
“You may or may not be the best, Kit,” Lois said after a tense pause, “but you’re not the only one with enough mental and financial resources to track down Chatren-Ma. If we know where it is, we can organize some protection, let the world know there is something worth protecting.”
Kit laughed, but it was a cynical sound. It unnerved Kristine more than his leaving, more than his subterfuge, making her doubt everything she felt for him. “The world has shown little interest in protecting that which I hold dear. You know this, Lo-eese.”
“Somebody is going to find it, Kit. Don’t you think it would be wise to inform the Chinese before the Turk—”
“He will never find it,” Kit interrupted her harshly.
“He’s got the backing.”
“Money will not buy entrance into Chatren-Ma, nor craft or cunning. That one’s beliefs will forever bar the door.”
For the first time, a ripple appeared in Lois’s professional demeanor. “Don’t go mystical on me, Kit. I’m talking facts.”
