"No." The stark refusal was out before Diana could prevent it.
Not that it mattered. She wasn't going back to the Rocking M. Not this weekend. Not the weekend after. Not ever. She couldn't bear seeing Ten again and pretending that nothing had ever happened between them in September Canyon. Nor could she pretend that his baby wasn't growing day by day within the loving warmth of her womb.
"Carla's right," Cash said. "You're angry with her."
"No."
"With Luke?"
"No," Diana said quickly. "It's nothing personal." She licked her lips with a tongue that was dry. "I'm-I'm very busy. The school year is just getting rolling. There are a lot of things I have to do."
Cash's eyes narrowed to brilliant blue slits. "I see." And he did. He saw that Diana lied very badly. "Surely you'll have everything under control by, say, November?"
"I don't know."
"Probably?"
She gave him a dark look. "I don't know!"
"Well, I know that Carla will have a strip off my hide if you don't turn up for Thanksgiving. Now I can probably finesse my little sister, but I'd hate like hell to try finessing the Rocking M's ramrod with anything less than a bulldozer."
Color drained from Diana's face, silently telling Cash that Carla's guess had been correct: it was Tennessee Blackthorn who was keeping Diana away from the ranch.
"I can't see that the…" Diana's voice dried up. She swallowed painfully and continued. "What does Ten have to do with this?"
"You tell me."
"Nothing."
"Whatever you say," Cash muttered, not believing Diana and not bothering to disguise it. "Ten has developed a passion for all things Anasazi. If the recent past is any example, he's going to be a miserable son to live with until that kiva gets excavated."
Diana's eyelids flinched, but her voice was under control when she spoke. "Then by all means he should have the kiva excavated as soon as possible."
"Amen. How long will it take you to pack?"
"I'm not going anywhere."
"You're not making any sense, either."
"Mr. McQueen-"
"Cash."
"-the kiva can be excavated by any number of qualified archaeologists. I'm sure Ten knows it. If not, he'll know it as soon as you go back and tell him."
"I already have. He almost tore off my head. Either you excavate that kiva or it doesn't get done."
"Then it doesn't get done."
"Why?"
"Would you like more coffee before you leave?"
"None of my business, is that it?"
"That's it."
"Would it make any difference if Carla dragged the baby all the way out here to talk to you?"
"I'd love to see Carla and Logan, but they would be going home alone."
"What if Ten asked you to excavate his damned kiva?"
Diana's eyes darkened and her tone became as bittersweet as the line of her mouth. "He already did."
For the first time Cash showed surprise. "You refused?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Ask Ten."
"No thanks. I like my head just where it is. Lately that boy has a fuse that's permanently lit. The only one willing to take him on is Nevada. They had hell's own brawl a week ago. Never seen anything quite like it A miracle no one was killed."
Diana remembered Nevada's dark, cold power. She closed her eyes and fought against showing her fear and love and despair. It was useless. When she opened her eyes she saw that Cash knew exactly how she felt.
"Is he all right?" Diana asked tightly.
"Nevada's a little chewed up, but otherwise fine."
"Ten," she said urgently. "Is Ten all right?"
Cash shrugged. "Same as Nevada."
Diana hesitated for a moment, then went to the bin and withdrew a two-by-three-foot folder. She opened it and silently looked at the drawing. Within the borders of the paper, September Canyon lived as it had once in the past, stone walls intact, houses and kivas filling the alcove. But the people were no longer walled off within their beautifully wrought prisons. They were responding to the call of an outlaw shaman who had seen a vision filled with light.
Women, children, warriors, every Anasazi was pouring out of the cliff dwelling, walking out of the alcove's eternal twilight and into a dawn that blazed with promise. Their path took them past the shaman, who stood in the foreground within the shadow of the cliff, watching with haunted eyes, his outstretched arm pointing the way for the stragglers as they filed past below. Something in the shaman's position, his eyes holding both light and darkness, his body removed from the other Anasazi, stated that he was not walking out of darkness with his people. The face, the lithe and muscular body, the stance, the haunted crystalline eyes were those of Tennessee Blackthorn.
"I sketched this for the owner of September Canyon," Diana said, closing the folder and holding it out to Cash. "It's a bit awkward to mail. Would you take it to the Rocking M for me?"
"Sure." Cash looked at the folder and then at Diana. "You do know that Ten owns September Canyon, don't you?"
"Thank you for taking the sketch." Diana went to the front door and opened it. "Say hello to Carla and Luke for me."
"Should I say hello to Ten, too?" asked Cash on his way out.
Diana's only answer was silence followed by the door shutting firmly behind Cash. He raised his fist to knock on the door again but thought better of it when he heard the broken, unmistakable sounds of someone who was trying not to cry. Swearing silently about the futility of trying to talk rationally to a woman, he turned away and went toward his beat-up Jeep with long, loping strides. If he hurried, he would be at the ranch house before the afternoon thunderstorms turned the road to gumbo.
The next night, barely fifteen minutes after the last grad student left, Diana spotted the scruffy knapsack slumped in a corner. Bill usually remembered halfway home, turned around and came back. It had become a ritual-the knock on the door, the knapsack extended through the half-open door and the embarrassed apologies. Tonight, however, she wondered whether the knapsack would be an overnight resident. Bill had left with Melanie, and the look in his eyes had nothing to do with unimportant details such as knapsacks.
Diana glanced at the clock. Midnight-if Bill were going to retrieve his property, he would be back soon. With a shrug, she sat down at the table full of shards and picked up two. The edges didn't match, but that didn't matter. Diana wasn't seeing them. She was seeing other shards, other shapes and a matching that had been superb.
At least for her.
I've got to stop thinking about it. I've got to stop asking where I went wrong and why I wasn't the woman for Ten when he was the man for me. I've got to stop thinking about the past and start planning for the future. He trusted me enough to give me his baby. That has to be enough.
The sound of knuckles meeting the apartment door was a welcome break from Diana's bleak thoughts.
"Hang on. I'm coming," Diana called out.
She snagged the knapsack by its strap, opened the front door without looking, held out the knapsack at arm's length and waited for Bill to take it.
The door opened fully, pushing Diana back into the living room. The knapsack hit the floor with a soft thump, falling from her nerveless fingers.
Ten walked into the room and shut the door behind himself, watching Diana with hooded eyes that missed none of the subtle signs of stress-the brackets at the side of her mouth, the circles beneath her eyes, the body that was too thin. And most of all the eyes, too bleak, too dark.
Ten didn't know what he had expected Diana to do when he walked back into her life, but shutting down like a flower at sunset wasn't one of the things he had imagined. He kept remembering the moment when she had looked at him with eyes still dazed by pleasure and whispered that she loved him. She must have accepted his explanation that what she felt was temporary rather than lasting, for she had never mentioned love again. Yet the moment and the words had haunted him at odd moments ever since, tearing at his emotions without warning, making it painful to breathe.