Outlaw (11 page)

"Feeling feisty, are you?" he asked.

Diana looked away from Ten, afraid her approval of him would be much too clear. She didn't want that. She didn't want to give him any reason to expect anything from her as a woman. With narrowed eyes, she examined the hole in the ceiling that was their only exit from the kiva. If she stretched up all the way on her tiptoes she might be able to brush her fingertips close to a cedar beam. And then again, she might not.

"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 the 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.