Outlaw Carson Read Online Free PDF

felt in his smile, chasing the lightness out of her
heart.
    She girded herself against the intensity of
his gaze by tightening the sash on her robe. It was far too early
in the morning to be thinking the thoughts racing around in her
mind, and he was far too much of a stranger to have put them
there.
    But he hadn’t felt like a stranger when he’d
kissed her, and there weren’t enough hours in the day for her to
explain that discrepancy.
    “I meant, I’ve found you a place to stay.
The university will pick up the tab, but”—she unwittingly shook her
head to match the movement of his, and her words slowed—“I’m afraid
you’ll have a roommate—” She suddenly realized what she was doing
and stopped. “Is there a problem?”
    “I must stay here, Kreestine,” he said, his
gesture taking in the whole house. Her house.
    “Here? Right here?” Surely she’d
misunderstood. There seemed to be an awful lot of that going
around.
    He nodded, and she found herself again
following along, her hair brushing against her shoulders. With
effort, she jerked her head in the opposite direction.
    “No. No, I don’t think so.” She shook her
head vigorously. “You can’t possibly stay here. It’s totally out of
the question. Impossible.”
    “Imperative,” he countered.
    “Unreasonable,” she said more firmly.
    “Ordained.”
    “Ordained?”
    “You have accepted responsibility for the
trunks. In return I must accept responsibility for your safety.
There is no other way.”
    Kristine stared at him, dumbfounded. Her
first instinct was to call Dean Chambers back and reexplain the
situation a little more succinctly. Or better yet, demand he talk
to Kit Carson himself and get a good dose of what she’d been up
against all morning. The man needed more than a cultural liaison.
He needed a full-blown course in Western civilization. One in logic
wouldn’t hurt either.
    “Good, we are agreed,” Kit said, taking her
silence for the necessary acquiescence, pleased he hadn’t had to
resort to more energy-consuming means. The journey had been very
long, tiring his mind as well as his body. “I will need food and
rest. Then we will begin sorting through photographs and my
accompanying notes. We lost a mule in a river crossing, and one of
the yaks disappeared into a crevasse, but these things happened
early in the journey, and I’m sure they were only carrying supplies
and not journals. Still, the inventory must be checked. Our camp
was raided under the shadow of Mount Tise, but once again the gods
were with us and the bandits did not get what they had come for,
though one of the muleteers was injured. Sometimes, this is the
way, is it not?”
    His wild story caught at her imagination,
despite a strong warning that told her to cut short his litany of
disasters and insist that he leave—before her curiosity completely
overruled her common sense. But the longer he talked, the more
curious she became, especially about healthy Harry.
    “When did Dr. Fratz jump ship?” she asked
baldly, playing a disturbing hunch. “After the mule, or did he make
it through the raid?”
    Kit chuckled and shook his head. “Ah, Harry.
He has no heart for adventure, no heart at all. He abandoned the
caravan shortly after we crossed the border into Tibet, which was
just as well. It was his mule we lost.”
    “He wasn’t sick?”
    “Only with fear.”
    Her hand tightened into an unconscious
victory fist. She’d suspected it the night before, and now she
knew. That milksop had run out on an expedition she would have
given her eyeteeth to be on, river crossings, disappearing yaks,
bandits, and all. Now, instead of sharing in the glory of
discovery, she’d been relegated to sorting and writing—neither of
which required a bodyguard, as Carson had implied.
    She glanced back up at him, silently
admitting he would make an impressive one, if one was needed. Which
it was not, she firmly reminded herself. The very idea was
ludicrous. No woman needed