Miss Greenhorn
Auteur
Diana Palmer
Lezers
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Hoofdstukken
7
Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
It was the second day of the dig, and Christiana Haley was having the time of her life. She’d signed up with Dr. Adamson’s Pastfinders team earlier in the year, planning the three-week trip to coincide with her summer vacation from teaching. It was a long way from Jacksonville, Florida, to Tucson, Arizona, but as Christiana had pointed out to her worried older sister, sand was sand.
However, she was learning the hard way that ocean sand and desert sand were amazingly different. She’d forgotten to wear a hat yesterday morning, and he had given her hell. In fact, he gave her hell at every possible turn, and had ever since she and the team had registered at his dude ranch. If only Professor Adamson had picked anywhere other than the Lang Ranch for the dig. It was pure bad luck that the Hohokam ruin the professor was interested in was on property owned by Nathanial Lang, who seemed to hate science, modern people, and Christiana with a passion.
Christy had actually daydreamed about meeting a handsome, charming, eligible cowboy out West when she’d paid the group rate for joining the private archaeological expedition. And what did she get? She got Nathanial Lang, who was neither handsome nor charming even though he was eligible. He’d barely looked at Christy at the Tucson airport and his slate-gray eyes had grown quickly colder. Men had really started noticing her just recently. Her new image gave her a confidence she hadn’t had, and it had helped her to overcome her former demeanor—which was shy and awkward and old-fashioned. She had a nice figure anyway, and the new wardrobe really did emphasize it. She was slender and had pale green eyes and long silvery blond hair, a soft mouth and a delicate oval face. She looked very nearly pretty. But Nathanial Lang had stared at her as if she had germs, and he’d made sure to keep his distance from her, even while he was being charming and courteous to the rest of the twelve-member group.
It wasn’t her fault that she had two left feet, Christy kept reassuring herself. Just because she’d tripped over her suitcase at the airport and sent its contents flying—and her bra had landed on top of Nathanial Lang’s dark head and given him a vague resemblance to a World War I flying ace—well, why should he have been so insulted? Lots of people spilled things. Everyone else had found it simply hilarious. Including, unfortunately, Christy herself.
He hadn’t spoken directly to her after that. At supper, a delicious affair served on the ranch’s sprawling patio facing a range of mountains that became a shade of pale burgundy in the setting sun, she’d managed to spill a bowl of tomato soup on the lap of her white skirt and while frantically trying to wipe it up with the tablecloth, she’d pulled that off her table—along with most of her supper. It was good luck that she’d been sitting alone. Mr. Lang’s mother had been caring and sympathetic. Mr. Lang had fried her with his slate-gray eyes.
The first morning they went out to the dig, she’d tried to get on a horse and had to be helped into the saddle. The horse, sensing her fear of it, helped her right back off again and reached down to bite her.
She’d screamed and accused it of cannibalism, at which point the increasingly irritable Mr. Lang had put her into his Jeep and promptly driven her to the dig site, where he’d deposited her with bridled fury. After a day in the sun, her skin was fried and she’d been no trouble to anybody, preferring a bath and bed to supper.
Somehow, she’d managed to avoid Mr. Lang this morning. Two other members of the party hated horses, so the three of them had begged a ride with the equipment truck driver. It was almost noon, and so far no Mr. Lang. Christy mentally patted herself on the back. She’d avoided him for several hours now; maybe her luck would hold.
Just as the thought occurred, a Jeep climbed over the distant mountain and threw up a cloud of dust as it barreled toward the dig site. A lean man in a creamy Stetson was driving it, and Christy knew just by the set of his head who it was. With a sigh, she laid down the screen box she’d been manipulating for fragments of pottery. It had been too good to last.
He got out of the Jeep and after a few terse words with Professor Adamson, he headed straight for Christy.
“At least you had enough sense to bring the sun hat,” he muttered with a pointed stare at the floppy straw brimmed hat that shaded her pale skin. “Sunstroke is unpleasant.”
“I’m not stupid,” she informed him. “I teach school—”
“Yes, I know. Grammar school, isn’t it?” he added, insinuating with that thin smile that she wasn’t intelligent enough to teach older students.
She bristled. “Second grade, in fact. I have thirty students most years.”
“Amazing,” he murmured, studying her. “They carry medical insurance, presumably?”
She got to her feet. Too quickly. She tripped over the screen box and cannoned into a startled Nathanial Lang, tipping him headfirst into another amateur archaeologist. They collided in an almost balletic sequence, toppling down the small rise and into the small trickle of water in the creek.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Lang!” Christy wailed.
He and the other man got to their feet as she made her way carefully down the small incline, her hand against her mouth.
Nathanial Lang’s once-immaculate pale blue pinstriped shirt was muddy now, along with the deep blue sports coat he’d worn with it. There was a long trail of mud down one sharply creased trouser leg, and a smear on his creamy Stetson. He stared down at Christy with eyes that she couldn’t meet.
“Things were so quiet around here before you came, Miss Haley,” he said through his teeth. “And this is only your second day, isn’t it?”
Christy swallowed down her fear. He was tall and very intimidating, not at all the hero type she’d been hoping to meet. “I’m doing my best, Mr. Lang.”
“Obviously,” he said without inflection.
She reached out to brush off a few spots of dust on his jacket, but he caught her wrist. His touch, even firm and irritable, was exciting.
“Gosh, Mr. Lang, I’m sorry about that,” George, the young student archaeologist, apologized. George had gone down the hill with the older man.
“Not your fault,” Nathanial said curtly.
“Not Christy’s, either,” George defended her bravely. He was tall, thin, blond and wore glasses. He was studious and shy and had a habit of going scarlet when he was embarrassed—like now. He managed a smile for Christy and plodded back to his table, where he was sorting and matching pottery shards.
“A fan of yours, I gather,” Nathanial remarked as he brushed angrily at his Stetson while his slate-gray eyes pinned Christy.
“A friend,” she corrected. She shifted. He made her nervous.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked unexpectedly.
Glad for an opportunity to really talk about her work, she said, “I’m searching for pieces of Hohokam pottery. We’ve mapped this area and we’re doing a pottery search.”
“I know that,” he said with forced patience. “What are you doing in Arizona?”
“I had a vacation and I like ruins.”
“There’s Rome,” he pointed out. “They have lots of ruins over there.”
“They’ve all been dug up,” she replied. “I wanted to go someplace where everything hasn’t already been discovered.”
“You might try the North Pole.” He frowned. “On second thought, don’t do it. There’s a theory about the calamity that would strike if it melted. With your background, who knows? You might trip over some forgotten thermonuclear device and blow it up.”
She glared at him. Anger gave her delicate features added beauty and color, and her green eyes blazed up. “I can’t help having the occasional accident!” she said angrily, wishing she could see him better. He was very tall and his face seemed far away.
He put his spotted Stetson back on his head and cocked it at an angle across his brow. “I’ll bet your insurance company has prayer every morning.”
“I don’t have an insurance company,” she managed under her breath.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He tipped his hat and started to walk away.
“I’m really sorry about your hat and all,” she called after him.
“Lucky for me that it was a little creek instead of an old mine.” He stopped and turned, his expression very serious. “That reminds me, there are a few old mines around here, so for God’s sake stick to well-traveled areas. If you go down a shaft, you could disappear forever.”
She sighed. “Okay. I’ll stay where I’m told.”
“You’d better,” he said firmly and kept walking.
The thought of a mine shaft opening under her kept Christy nervous for the rest of the day. So far all they’d found had been little bits and pieces of pottery, mostly gray. But the fact that it was over a thousand years old made her giddy. Imagine holding something in her hand that a Hohokam potter had held in his or hers that many centuries ago! She held one shard up to her nose and drank in its earthy, dark scent with her eyes closed.
They were a very special race, the Hohokam. They’d had irrigation and a unique form of peaceful government here in southeastern Arizona about the same time people were hitting each other over the head with battle-axes in Europe. They had a religion which united and uplifted them, a society which was equal for rich and poor alike. They were a poetic people, with a reverent attitude toward the land and each other. From this ancient people, it was said, the Pima and the Papago (Tohono O’odham) tribes evolved.
“Exciting, isn’t it?” George asked, squatting down beside her as she laid the shard back down. “I’ve read everything I could find about the Hohokam. What a pity that their way of life had to vanish.”
“At least there are offshoots of it—the Pima and the Papago,” she reminded him. “The Anasazi left no trace of themselves as far as we know.”
He sighed. “I’ve dreamed all my life of coming here,” he remarked, his eyes lifting to the surrounding sharp, lifeless mountains and the blue sky. “Isn’t it clean? Like it might have been a thousand years ago.”
“They have pollution alerts in Phoenix these days,” she said, “and water and soil pollution are just as big a threat. Toxic waste and radioactive debris and chemical spills…”
George glowered at her. “You’re a real thrill to have around.”
“Sorry. I have a soapbox. I got hooked on conservation when I was just a little girl. I’ve never lost the fire. I think the Indians had the right idea—to live in harmony with nature. All we’ve managed to do is pollute it out of existence. We’ve destroyed the delicate balance of predator and prey that once sustained the whole planet. Now we’re trying to recreate it by synthetic means. I wish we’d left it alone.”
“If that had happened, you would be pounding maize to make cornmeal and chewing deerskin to make it soft enough for clothing. I would be hunting buffalo and dodging bullets trying to provide meat for somebody’s lodge.” He grinned. “In between there would be prairie fires, attack by enemy tribes, rattlesnakes, dust storms, floods and droughts and rabid animals—”
“Stop.” She held up her hand. “I agree wholeheartedly that there are two sides to every story.” She grinned back. “How about helping me organize these pottery shards?”
“There’s something we can agree on,” he said.
* * *
That night, Christy managed not to do anything remotely clumsy at dinner. She sat out on the patio watching the stars, munching a cookie while Hereford cattle grazed and lowed in a fenced pasture just a few yards from where she sat. The gauzy white Mexican dress she was wearing was cool and comfortable, and her long hair was blowing in the soft wind.
Footfalls behind her made her start. She knew almost without looking who was going to be there when she turned around.
“There’s a pool game going on and several people are playing bridge,” he said. “I saw a chess match and a checkers tournament. There are books in the library and a television and several new movies to watch.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lang, but I find this much more entertaining.”
“Waiting for George to show up?” he queried, pausing beside her chair.
“George is playing chess,” she informed him.
“And you aren’t going to cheer him on?” he asked with cheerful mockery. He lit a cigarette and straddled a chair across from her. He was wearing jeans and boots and a silky blue shirt that clung to the hard muscles of his arms.
She lowered her eyes shyly. “George is just a colleague.”
“Not quite what you expected when you signed on?” he probed. He lifted the cigarette to his lips. “Didn’t you come out here looking for adventure and romance? And what did you find? George.”
“George is intelligent and kind and very nice to talk to,” she faltered. “I like him.”
“He’s not likely to throw you over his saddle and carry you off into the hills,” he pointed out.
“Thank God,” she replied. Her fingers clenched the arms of her chair. Her heart was going crazy. Why wouldn’t he stop baiting her?
He turned his head and watched her, his eyes missing nothing as they ran down her body to her long, elegant legs peeking out from the skirt of the white dress and to her strappy white sandals. “No taste for excitement, Miss Haley?”
“Being carried off like a sack of flour is hardly my idea of excitement, Mr. Lang.”
“Ah. A career woman.” He made it sound like a mutated strain of leprosy.
“I’m not a career woman. I have a job that I like and I’m very satisfied with my life and myself.”
“How old are you?” he persisted.
“Twenty-five,” she said after a minute.
“Not a bad age,” he remarked. He blew out a cloud of smoke. “I’m thirty-seven.” She didn’t say anything and he smiled mockingly. “No comment? No curiosity about my life?”
“What do you do, Mr. Lang, besides run this ranch?” she asked politely and folded her restless hands in her lap.
“I’m a mining engineer. I work for a company near Bisbee. You’ve heard of the Lavendar Pit, I imagine? It was the biggest mine around in the heyday of mining here in southeastern Arizona. Of course, now it’s little more than a tourist attraction. But we have plenty of other mining interests, and I work for one of them.”
“I’ve heard about the Lavendar Pit, but I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know much about Arizona. Do you like your work?”
“Sometimes. I like geology. Rocks fascinate me. I was a rock hound as a kid and as I got older, I found that I liked it enough for a career. I studied it in college for four years, got my degree, worked briefly for an oil company and finally wound up here.” He took another draw from his cigarette. “I might have gone to Alaska to work, but my father died and mother couldn’t manage the dude ranch alone.”
“You…never married?”
He shrugged. “No reason to,” he said honestly. “It’s a great time to be a man, in a world where women would rather be lovers than wives. All the benefits of marriage, no responsibilities.”
“No security, no shared life, no children,” she added.
He shifted in his chair. “That’s true. Especially, no children. How about you, Miss Haley? Why are you still single yourself?”
“I haven’t ever been in love,” she said simply, smiling as she glanced his way. “I’ve had proposals and propositions but I’ve never cared enough to give my heart.” Or my body, she could have added.
“I can understand that.”
She glanced at him, but she couldn’t see him well enough to gauge his expression.
He leaned toward her, his eyes narrowed. “Why did you come out here?”
“I wanted to do something wild just once in my life, if you must know,” she replied. “My sister—she’s five years older than I am—leads me around like I’m a lost soul. She’s so afraid that I’ll have a terrible accident and die. Our parents are gone, and that would leave her alone in the world. I can’t seem to breathe without Joyce Ann asking if I’ve got asthma. I haven’t been out of Jacksonville in my whole life, so I thought it was time. I escaped on a plane and didn’t tell Joyce Ann where I was going. I left her a note and told her I’d call her in a week and tell her where I was.”
“I imagine she’s worried,” he said quietly.
“Probably.” She stared at her hands. “I guess it was a cowardly thing to do.”
“Why don’t you go inside and call her? You don’t have to tell her where you are. Just tell her you’re all right.”
She hesitated, but only for a minute. “I should, shouldn’t I?” she asked softly.
“Yes, you should.” He got up and reached a lean, very strong hand down to pull her up. For a few seconds, they were almost touching and she had her first really good look at his face.
He had a lean face with a jutting chin and thin lips and high cheekbones. His eyebrows were dark over deep-set eyes and there were little wrinkly lines at the edges of his eyes. His hair was thick and very dark and he combed it all straight back away from his face. He was a hard-looking man, but appearances could be deceptive. He was much more approachable than she’d imagined.
If she was looking, then so was he. His gaze was slow and very thorough, taking in her delicate features like a mop soaking up water. The hand still holding hers contracted with a caressing kind of pressure that made her stomach tighten as if something electric had jumped inside it. She almost gasped at the surge of delicious feeling.
“Don’t stay up too late,” he said. “You’re two hours behind your time in Jacksonville. It will take a couple more days for you to get used to the difference.”
“All right. Thank you, Mr. Lang.”
“Most people call me Nate,” he said quietly.
“Nate.” She liked the way it sounded. He must have liked it, too, because he actually smiled. He dropped her hand and stood back, letting her move around the chair and back to the small guest cabin she occupied. She paused at the corner of the patio and looked back. She made a little farewell gesture with her hand, smiled back self-consciously, and went on her way.
