Outlaw Carson (11 page)

“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.”

“Police is not a good idea, Kreestine,” Kit
warned.

“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.

He removed his hand and gestured toward her
car, letting her lead the way with her long, stiff strides.

* * *

Kristine fought anger and incomprehensible
tears as she ground the car through its gears up the mountain road.
She’d never felt so helpless, so vulnerable, and she’d hated it.
There should have been something she could have done, could have
said, to diffuse the animosity and the stupidity behind it. But no,
she’d stood there like a terrified female waiting for some man to
do something to save her.

She tore into her driveway, slammed on the
brakes, slammed out of the car, and slammed into her house. With
each explosion of sound she heard the thud of a man’s body hitting
metal, all so he could have some fun. John Garraty was starting to
look like a well-bred saint.

“It’s best to let go of your anger,
Kreestine.”

She turned on him, unaware that he’d
followed her into the house. “You said there wasn’t going to be a
fight!”

“That wasn’t a fight.”

“Well, what in the hell else do you call
knocking somebody out cold?”

“Expedient.”

“Expedient?” she blustered. “I would have
thought someone with your background could have come up with
something a little more
stylish
than beating a
guy’s
brains
out on a
truck door!
”

“The situation didn’t call for style, and I
barely touched him, Kreestine. I think he’d had too much to
drink.”

She stared at him, her mouth agape. “Too
much to drink?”

He nodded sagely. “Yes. He’d had too much to
drink and was feeling territorial. He obviously saw me as a threat
to American womankind and decided violence was the answer. A poor
choice, as always.”

“Violence is a poor choice?” Her voice rose
toward shrill. “This from a man who threatened to kill one of those
overgrown idiots?”

“I would not have actually killed one of
them,” he said, stepping with her into the kitchen. “But under the
circumstances I thought it wise to put the possibility in their
minds.”

Kristine watched him open the refrigerator
and pull out a bottle of beer, an action that roused Mancos from
his sleep in front of the fireplace. The mastiff padded over and
stood by Kit, pressing his head against a jean-clad leg and waiting
for a treat.