Outlaw Carson Read Online Free Page B

is
unable to take calls this morning.”
    Relapse, my foot, Kristine thought. “I’m
sorry to hear that,” she said sweetly, tapping her pencil on her
desktop. “He looked so healthy last night.”
    “Yes, well, I think the party was too much
for him. I’m sure he’ll call you when he feels better.”
    Don’t bet on it, Mrs. Milksop
. “Be
sure and tell him his old friend Kit Carson has finally arrived.
I’m sure he’ll want to see Harry while he’s in town.”
    “I . . . uh, don’t think that’s a good idea.
The doctors are afraid Harry might be contagious or . . . uh,
something. Good-bye.”
    The phone clicked in Kristine’s ear. She
pulled the receiver away and gave it a good long look, her free
hand sliding the pencil through her fingers. Harry’s wife was
either a terrible liar, or half the history department at Colorado
State University was in for a very rough summer. If Kristine
believed for a minute that Harry was contagious, her next call
would be to buy shares in Poudre Valley Hospital.
    Instead she called Dr. Timnath, who was
conveniently out of town. Convenient for him, not for Kristine.
    That left Dean Chambers, the man who held
her tenure bid in the palm of his hand. She’d been kowtowing to him
for nine solid months and really hated to ruin a perfect streak of
subservience with an irate phone call. Maybe if she forewent the
irate part she’d be okay. The man would surely want to know his
outlaw had come home to roost—on her doorstep.
    Thinking only pleasant thoughts, Kristine
punched in the dean’s number with the chewed eraser end of the
pencil.
    “Hello,” the man himself answered on the
third ring. There was no mistaking the deep bass of his voice. It
was one of his greatest tools of intimidation.
    “Good morning, Dr. Chambers. This is
Kristine Richards.”
    “Yes?”
    So much for idle pleasantries, she thought.
“I’m calling to tell you Kit Carson has arrived, and I was
wondering . . . uh, wondering what you wanted me to do with
him.”
    “
Do
with him, Dr. Richards?”
    She rolled her eyes heavenward. On the
downswing she got waylaid by the sight in her living room. Outlaw
or not, Kit Carson couldn’t possibly be doing what she thought he
was doing. She craned her head to the right and watched in growing
disbelief as he rolled something up in a cigarette paper and licked
the edge.
    “Dr. Richards?” Dean Chambers’s voice
rumbled into her ear.
    “Yes,” she hissed into the phone.
“
Do
with him. He’s—” She stopped abruptly, lifting her
head and sniffing the air. Tobacco. She immediately calmed down.
Then she got riled all over again, watching wide-eyed as he blew
smoke rings into her pristine mountain air. Perfect smoke rings,
one after the other, sending little ones through big ones, single
ones through double ones. The smoke hovered above him, holding
shape in concentric circles long after it should have dissipated.
She’d never seen the like.
    “. . . suggest you work with him,” she
caught Dean Chambers saying. “You have Harry’s preliminary
research. If you had doubts about your qualifications for this
opportunity, you should have spoken up before agreeing to the
project.”
    She snapped her attention back to the phone.
“No, that’s not it,” she said quickly. “I’m more than qualified to
write up Carson’s findings, but—” But what, Kristine? But he kissed
you? Right, that was just what Dr. Chambers needed to hear. “But
he’s . . . but I’m . . . but he doesn’t . . .”
    “Is there a problem, Dr. Richards?” The
dean’s voice cut through her confusion like a knife.
    “He’s strange,” she said weakly, knowing how
stupid it sounded. At least she had enough presence of mind not to
add that he was better looking and more of a barbarian than the
dean could imagine. She’d always thought that derogatory term
referred to Carson’s methods, not his personality. His kiss had
wiped that little theory right out of her mind.
    “He’s