Elizabeth Lowell: Outlaw

"Oh." Relief changed Carla's face from strained to pretty. "Then Ten will take care of it. He's had medic training." She looked closely at Diana. "You're pale. Are you all right?"

Diana closed her eyes. "I'm fine. It was a long drive out and the road was rough. Now I know why. I was going back in time as well as miles."

Laughing, shaking her head, Carla shifted the sleeping baby and held out her hand to Diana. "Come in and have some coffee. French roast, Colombian beans, with just enough Java beans blended in to give the coffee finesse as well as strength."

Diana's eyelids snapped open. The dark blue of her eyes was vivid against her still-pale face. "I'm hallucinating. They didn't have French roast in the Old West, did they?"

"I don't know, but this isn't the Old West."

"You could have fooled me," Diana said, thinking about outlaws and brawls and a man with the lethal quickness of a cat. But despite her thoughts, she allowed Carla to lead her across the porch and into the cool ranch house. "Your ramrod would have made one hell of an outlaw."

"In the old days, a lot of good men were outlaws. They had no choice. There wasn't any law to be inside of." Carla laughed at the expression on Diana's face. "But don't worry. The bad old days are gone. Look in our side yard. There's a satellite dish out there sucking up all kinds of exotic signals from space. We have television, a VCR, radios, CD players, personal computers, a dishwasher, microwave, washer-dryer-the whole tortilla."

"And cowboys swinging quirts full of lead shot," Diana muttered.

"Is that what Baker did?"

Diana nodded.

"My God. No wonder Ten lost his temper."

"What temper? He looked about as angry as a man chopping wood."

Carla shook her head unhappily. "Poor Ten. He's had a tough time ramrodding this crew in the past year."

'' 'Poor Ten' looked like he could handle it,'' Diana said beneath her breath.

"The ranch is so remote it's hard to get good men to stay. I don't know how we'd manage without Ten. And now that we've found museum-quality Anasazi artifacts in September Canyon, the pothunters are descending in hordes. Someone has to stay at the site all the time. Cash has been doing it, but he has to leave tomorrow for the Andes. We're going to be more shorthanded than ever."

"The Andes, huh? Great. Everybody deserves a vacation," Diana said, cheered by the thought that there would be one less big man on the Rocking M.

"Cash isn't exactly going on a vacation. One of his colleagues thinks there's a mother lode back up on the flanks of one of those nameless granite peaks. That's the one thing Cash can't resist."

"Nameless peaks?"

"Hard rock and gold. Ten calls Cash the Granite Man but swears it's because of Cash's hard head, not his love of hard-rock mining."

Carla tucked the baby into an old-fashioned cradle that was next to the kitchen table. The baby stirred, opened sleepy turquoise eyes and slid back into sleep once more as Carla slowly rocked the cradle.

"How's the little man doing?" Diana asked softly, bending over the baby until her short, golden brown hair blended with the honey finish of the cradle.

"Growing like a weed in the sun. Logan's going to be at least as big as his daddy."

Diana looked at the soft-cheeked, six-week-old baby and tried to imagine it fully grown, as big as Luke, beard stubbled and powerful. "You'd better start domesticating this little outlaw real soon or you'll never have a chance."

Carla laughed in the instant before she realized that Diana was serious. She looked at the older woman for a moment, remembering the class she had taken from Dr. Diana Saxton, artist and archaeologist, a woman who was reputed not to think much of men. At the time Carla had dismissed the comments as gossip; now she wasn't sure.

"You make it sound like I'm going to need a whip and a chair," Carla said.

"Those are the customary tools for dealing with wild animals, and men are definitely in that category. What a pity that it takes one to make a baby."

"Not all men are like Baker."

Diana made a sound that could have been agreement or disbelief as she began stroking the baby's cheek with a gentle fingertip, careful not to awaken him. She admired the perfect, tiny eyelashes, the snub nose, the flushed lips, the miniature fingers curled in relaxation on the pale cradle blanket. Gradually she noticed more of the cradle itself, how the grain of the wood had been perfectly matched to the curves of the cradle, how the pieces had been fitted without nails, how the wood itself had been polished to a gentle satin luster.

"What a beautiful cradle," Diana said softly, running her fingertips over the wood. "It's a work of art. Where did you get it?"

"Luke made it. He has wonderful hands, strong and gentle."

Diana looked at the cradle once more and the baby lying securely within. She tried not to think how much she would like to have a child of her own. Sex was a necessary step toward conception. For sex, a woman had to trust a man not to hurt her-a man who was bigger, stronger and basically more savage than a woman. Years ago, Diana had abandoned the idea of sex. The thought of a baby, however, still haunted her.

"If Luke is gentle with you and little Logan," Diana said quietly, touching the pale blanket with her fingertips, "you're a lucky woman. You have one man in a million."

Before Carla could say anything more, Diana stood and turned away from the cradle.

"I think I'll take a rain check on that coffee. I want to get my stuff unloaded before dinner."

"Of course. We're putting you in the old ranch house where all the artifacts from the site are being kept. Just follow the road out beyond the barn. When the road forks, go to the right. The old house is only about a hundred yards from the barn. Dinner is at six. Don't bother to knock. Just come in the back way. The dining room is just off the kitchen and both rooms have outside doors. We all eat together during the week. Sundays the hands fend for themselves. You'll eat with us."

Diana looked at the long, narrow room just off the kitchen. Two rectangular tables pushed together all but filled the room. She tried to imagine what it would be like to eat surrounded by big male bodies. The thought was daunting. She took a slow breath, told herself that she would be spending nearly all of her time at the site in September Canyon, and turned back to Carla.

"Thanks," Diana said. "I'll be back at six, whip in one hand and chair in the other."

The alarm on Diana's digital watch cheeped annoyingly, breaking her concentration. She set aside the stack of numbered site photos, reset her watch for a short time later, stretched and heard her stomach rumble in anticipation of dinner. Despite her hunger, she was reluctant to leave the hushed solitude of the old house and the silent companionship of the ancient artifacts lining the shelves of the workroom.

Slanting yellow light came through the north window, deepening the textures of stone and sandal fragments, potshards and glue pots, making everything appear to be infused with a mystic glow. Diana couldn't wait until tomorrow, when she would drive to September Canyon. Photos, artifacts and essays, no matter how precise and scholarly, couldn't convey the complexity of the interlocking mystery of the Anasazi, the land and time.

Her mind more on the past than the present, Diana walked slowly into the bathroom. The slanting light coming through the small, high window made the gold in her hair incandescent and gave the darker strands a rich satin luster. Her eyes became indigo in shadow, vivid sapphire in direct light. The natural pink in her smooth cheeks and lips contrasted with the dark brown of her eyebrows and the dense fringe of her eyelashes.

Once Diana would have noticed her own understated beauty and heightened it with mascara and blusher, lipstick and haunting perfumes. Once, but no longer. Never again would she be accused by a man of using snares and lures to attract members of the opposite sex, then teasing and maddening them with what she had no intention of giving. Never again would she put herself in a position where a man felt entitled to take what he wanted in the belief that it had been offered, and if it hadn't, it should have been.