Bittersweet Return (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 6) Read online

  "I'm serious about this work," Kit said. She opened her daily log and picked up a pencil and started her entry, as if to drive her statement home to him.

  "That's debatable," Marc contested.

  Kit looked across at him, pencil poised in her hand, and said, "How so?"

  "You want a cushy job at an Indian mound," Marc replied.

  "That's because I've studied about the Kalapuya tribes in Oregon," Kit said. "There are over four hundred Indian mounds scattered around the Willamette Valley and there's little information about them because there's been no systematic research. Overseeing a mound or midden dig and uncovering the site of a village, maybe even one once occupied by the Chelamela, who were a small division of the Kalapooian family that's now extinct, would be ideal for my dissertation."

  Interesting eyes, Marc noted, deep blue, but with long dark lashes. The lashes could have been curled and darkened, but at the dig site earlier, when she mopped her face with water, her lashes were still dark and curled… and she'd just said something about her PhD project...

  "There's a mound on the ranch where I grew up," he found himself saying, while staring at her lips again, which parted and were moistened by the tip of a glossy wet tongue he could imagine teasing any number of body parts.

  "Are you serious?" Kit asked. "There's actually an Indian mound on your property?"

  "Umm... humm," Marc replied, distracted when his gaze dipped to her cleavage again, and the fact that she was breathing heavily. Yeah, he could bring out hot in her.

  "Then you didn't hatch out of an egg." When he looked at Kit, baffled, because she'd just said something about an egg, she added, "We've all wondered if you hatched from a prehistoric dinosaur egg. You never talk about your family."

  That took Marc's mind away from whatever he'd been absorbed in. Eyeing Kit, who was looking steadily back at him while waiting for the answer to a simple question on a subject he never discussed with anyone, he said, "My parents are dead," which was partially true, but the comment was aimed at cutting further questions, the tendency in human nature to steer clear of personal tragedies. It always worked in the past.

  "But you still didn't hatch out of an egg," Kit said. "Did they die when you were little?"

  Marc gave an almost imperceptible nod. Obviously Kit didn't fit the human nature mold.

  "Then who raised you?"

  "My... adoptive parents," Marc said, and felt a twinge of unwanted memory, along with a little stab of guilt.

  "I won't burden you with the details," Kit said, "but you said something about a ranch. Did you grow up on it, or was that before you lost your parents?"

  "I grew up on it," Marc replied, annoyed that he'd already said more than he intended, and wondering why he had. He didn't want to unload anything in his past on Kit. That was the first step in the being-friends-and-telling-all stage of the trap.

  "Then your adoptive parents own the ranch?" Kit asked.

  What the hell. "They're part owners with my... umm… adoptive father's twin." Again that little stab of guilt. But he still hadn't reconciled things.

  "So, you must have done some digging in the Indian mound," Kit said.

  "I uncovered a few shards and some bird points, but any serious digging was discouraged. My... adoptive father doesn't want diggers coming around. It opens the place up to authorities and tribal reps coming in. Find a couple of old Indian bones and suddenly your ranch is a designated burial ground and you might as well hand it over to the Feds to turn into a museum."

  "Do you have any reason to believe the mound's a burial ground?" Kit asked.

  "No, but you can have at it," Marc replied. "You'd still have to get permission from my... adoptive father." He gave a little snort of derision. She'd never get that past Jack Hansen.

  "You sound angry," Kit said, "and you keep stumbling over the word adoptive. Do you have issues going with him?" She put her pencil down and waited.

  Marc shrugged. "No, I haven't seen him in over four years."

  "But you've kept in contact with him, I assume," Kit said, but in a way that came across as an accusation, not an affirmation that Marc Hansen was a family man. Which might be a good thing. It would shoot down what's left of the idea of commitment. But maybe she'd still be open to spending the last six nights in his tent, and with a clear understanding that, after the dig was over, they'd reel in their hot and heavy passions, Kit would find her next Wally, and he'd supervise the team at Cahal Pechto, or if that didn't pan out, find another dig, somewhere oceans away from the Dancing Moon Ranch.

  "No contact," he replied, and hoped that was it.

  "Then you definitely have an issue," Kit said. "And your adoptive mother? Have you seen her?"

  "No."

  "Siblings?"

  "Six?"

  "You've got to be kidding!" Kit fixed that wide blue-eyed stare on him, followed by the parted lips, and the tongue stroking her bottom lip as she mulled over what she'd just learned. Then her brows drew together and she looked at him thoughtfully, and said, "Why aren't you contacting them?"

  "I've been busy," Marc replied. "Digs take me to places where there's no cell service."

  "You ever heard of snail mail?" Kit challenged. "Last I checked Belize had post offices."

  "I don't have any stamps or envelopes."

  "You're also running out of excuses."

  Next would come the 'you need to go back and square things away' part. Which was the reason he'd never told anyone why he'd left the ranch, except his grandparents. They'd opened their lives and their home to him, and had been supportive in every way. When he'd graduated from college and gotten his masters, John and Barbara Templeton had been as proud as they'd been of their dead son. It had been odd, seeing photos of his real father and hearing all about him. Unlike the man who raised him, Marc Templeton Sr. had been a college-educated man, on his way to becoming a physics professor like his father, when he died of cancer.

  The irony was, because his grandparents had been denied knowing they had a grandson, when he showed up in their lives, they were so angry and disgusted with the Hansens, they never made him feel like he should go back and mend things. He'd given it little thought after that, until now.

  "So, did your adoptive father beat you? Was your adoptive mother a drunk?" Kit asked.

  "No, they were perfect," Marc replied, "Too perfect in fact. So damn perfect they neglected to tell me my aunt was my mother and my father died two years before I was conceived."

  Kit eyed him cautiously, as if trying to decide if he were filling her with a pile of crap, or just maybe he was on the level, which wouldn't make a hell of a lot of sense no matter how he tried to explain it. But he could also tell she was mulling it over, carefully.

  Leaning further toward him, so he had no choice but to look her in the eye, she said, "Do you want to talk about it?"

  Marc shrugged, and replied, "No. I'm fine with it."

  "No, you're not. You're completely hung up on it," Kit said, zeroing in on places he didn't want to go. He'd put all that convoluted era in his life behind and had moved on. But he could tell from the tenacious look on Kit's face that she wasn't about to let him off the hook.

  Returning to his daily log, he entered the date, while saying, "Did you hear about the 390-million-year-old fossilized claw of an eight foot sea scorpion named Jaekelopterus rhenaniae that was found in a German quarry?"

  "Does that mean you want to change the subject or you want me to leave?" Kit asked.

  Marc glanced up and knew from the unyielding set to Kit's jaw, that she wasn't ready to drop things. "It means I'd rather talk about an eight foot scorpion named Jaekelopterus rhenaniae than my past life," he replied.

  "You already opened a Pandora's Box to your past that you can't shut now," Kit said. "You told me you were conceived two years after your father died. I might fall for an eight foot scorpion, but a dead man coming to life in the part of him where it matters is bordering on the paranormal. Even our most well preserved mummies
can't get it up."

  "Artificial insemination," Marc said, simply.

  Kit eyed him with skepticism at first, but gradually her expression changed to believability, then to curiosity. "Why were you conceived that way?" she asked.

  Her tone, which was not one of curiosity, but like she was interested enough to really give a shit about Marc Hansen, had him replying, "My adoptive mother was a widow, and her first husband, my bio father, stored his sperm in a sperm bank before he started chemo because they wanted kids, but he died. So two years later, my adoptive mother was inseminated with my dead father's sperm, but because of a mix up at the fertility clinic, she was accidentally inseminated with my adoptive father's sperm and ended up marrying him."

  "So then, who gave birth to you?" Kit asked.

  "My adoptive father's identical twin brother's wife got my dead father's sperm, since my adoptive uncle was also sterile after chemo. But he and my bio mother wanted to have a savior baby for my half-brother, so that's why my bio mother got pregnant. Then when she found out she got the wrong baby she didn't want me, so my adoptive mother and my adoptive father adopted me. Then later my bio mother committed suicide and that's when I found out she was my real mother, and that my real father was dead, and my fraternal twin was my cousin, and the people I'd grown up thinking were my parents weren't even blood relations."

  "I think I understand muons better," Kit said.

  "I'll draw a chart later if you want."

  "What I want," Kit said, "is to go to your parent's ranch and excavate the Indian mound."

  "Adoptive parents," Marc corrected.

  "How old were you when you went to live with them?" Kit asked.

  "They took me home from the hospital after I was born," Marc replied, and again felt a little stab of guilt. He hadn't felt it before Kit started pumping him with questions. All he'd felt was betrayal because the people he'd thought were his real parents had lied the entire time he was growing up.

  To his surprise, Kit reached across the table and placed her hand over his, and said, "What is it about men with personal baggage that attracts me?"

  Marc looked down at her hand on his, small and white in comparison, and clean, like she'd scrubbed her nails and filed them into perfect curves, which had him thinking about those fingers trailing up and down his body, mainly down, and wrapping around him where it mattered.

  Don't forget the trap...

  He slipped his hand from beneath hers, and said, while returning to his log, "Korban, you haven't even begun to know a man with personal baggage."

  It wasn't until he'd said the words that he realized maybe there was some truth to them.

  What troubled him more was, Kit Korban had him contemplating commitment, which didn't work for him. But the other thing that didn't work was keeping his eyes off her lips, and her cleavage, and her hands and fingers, and everything he'd seen the day he passed her in the shower and the plywood shifted, giving him a full-length view of what she had to offer. She'd stood with her eyes closed and her face turned up to the spray, so he had a few moments to get a good long look, and what he saw was branded on his mind—high firm breasts, small pink nipples puckered from the cold water, a neat little nest of blondish-red curls between her thighs.

  Snapping his unit log shut, he stood, and said, "I need a cold shower," and left.

  CHAPTER 3

  When Marc stood to leave, it was obvious to Kit why he needed the cold shower. She hadn't intended that to happen when she covered his hand with hers, but at least she knew she had some effect on the man. But then, Georgia or Lindy could have caused the same reaction by strutting past him. It was nothing more than simple physiology. It worked for her too, had her wanting to stroll past the shower and hope the wind would move the trees so she could see Marc bare from head to toe. Then maybe she'd join him in the shower and let things go from there.

  She let out a little soft chuckle. She'd had the thought in jest, but her progesterone level was creeping up like it did whenever she was around the man. Georgia and Lindy had no problem crawling into tents with guys they'd known less than a week when they first started staying with them, and neither of the women were talking long-term relations. They'd zeroed in on men they thought were hot, while claiming they needed some benefits when sleeping in a steamy tent in an insect-infested jungle, which also led to the couples showering together at odd times, like in the middle of the night, when Kit was unable to sleep because it was so hot, and the sound of husky laughter and running water had her wondering what it would be like with Marc.

  She looked across the table at the unit log, which remained where Marc had left it, and knowing she'd have a few minutes before he'd return, pulled it across the table and opened it, noting the clear, careful penmanship. Paging to where Marc entered the names and information about the archaeological team members, she read over his initial evaluation and his comments on what he thought each brought to the team, and read his entry about her.

  "The candidate is enthusiastic, well-qualified, eager to get started, and appears suitable for difficult outdoor work. Her medical records show she has a mild reaction to the sting of honey bees, but nothing considered life-threatening. I advised her to wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants and tuck her pants into her boots, and to apply deet daily."

  Marc had done more than just advise her about the deet. He'd demonstrated how to dab it on.

  It happened while he was giving a dry, long-winded recap to the team about the excavation methods they'd be using for the dig, along with warnings about working long hours in the sun, and the dangers of heat exhaustion from dehydration and lack of salt, which led into his lecture about protection against insect bites.

  And that's when she first noticed that Marc Hansen was really kind of a hunk. His shirt had already been unbuttoned and hanging open because of the almost intolerable heat that day, but it wasn't until he demonstrated the deet that she really took note. Standing directly in front of her, because she was the one in the crew who had the sensitivity to bee stings, he placed dabs of deet on the back of his neck, and in the hollows between his shoulders and collar bones, and in a few spots on his broad chest and along his waistband—which had her eyes dropping lower for a moment—then rubbed his palms together and ran his hands across his chest and ribs while looking at her.

  Georgia and Lindy took note too, but by the end of Marc's long dry spiel about documenting and cataloging methods he used, with no hint of humor, they'd christened him the professor and dismissed him as a total nerd.

  Kit flipped a few pages ahead then turned back when she spotted her name. Her heart gave a lurch, followed by heavy thumping, as she read: Kit Korban, in particular, is diligent about keeping her daily log and turning in detailed field notes with proper and accurate descriptive reporting of what was found in the field, and with meticulous and competent drawings. In addition, her evaluations of excavation techniques, soil colorations, and other features are both proficient and professional.

  Kit passed her fingers over the writing, her heart kicking yet faster as she reread Marc's words. He'd given no indication that her work had been any different from the others. In fact, he'd given no indication that she made a difference at all.

  Moving on, she hoped to find other entries about herself, but when she did, it was only to document the results of the waterscreening she'd done the day before, which uncovered a small copper bell and an elaborate copper button, both of which he described in his notes as being finds of significance...

  "You get to keep all those notes too, Korban," Marc said, startling Kit as he came up behind her. He reached around, and lifting the book from where it sat open in front of her, closed it with a snap, and said, "Did you find any entries about yourself?"

  Kit turned and looked directly at a bare chest that was still damp from the shower, then up at Marc, while wondering if he'd been watching when she read what he'd written about her and maybe saw her run her fingers over the entry. "I noticed you commented on th
e bell and button I found yesterday," she said, attempting to cover both bases.

  Marc gave her an ironic smile, like he knew better, and said, "You're very thorough, Korban. You've been a good member of the team and you'll make a good field supervisor."

  Kit felt like she'd just been praised by one of her college professors. By the professor. Marc was all field supervisor again. She also noticed that the shower had done its part, or maybe Marc was wearing looser khakis. And unlike the ponytail he usually caught up with a rubber band at his nape, his wavy brown hair with the natural gold highlights was loose and wet from his shower. Normally she disliked men with long hair, but for some reason, the ponytail Marc wore looked right on him, like there were more important things in life than worrying about cutting hair.

  He was also standing and staring at her, with the unit log clasped in his hand, and making no move to leave, like he wanted something. "So, how was your shower?" she asked, while her eyes made a zigzag path across the expanse of his bare chest. He was a very impressive man from head to waist. She imagined he'd be equally impressive from waist down.

  "Effective," Marc replied, and didn't have to explain further. "But I've run out of rubber bands. You wear a ponytail. Can I bum some off you?"

  Kit eyed him with amusement. "Yes, but you might want to stay with your new look. No one can accuse you of being the professor. Tarzan maybe," she mused, while continuing to look at him in appreciation, "but definitely not the professor." She stood then, tugged the rubber band out of her hair, allowing it to fall around her shoulders, and said, "Here, be my guest."

  For a few moments Marc made no attempt to take the rubber band as his eyes moved in a slow arc from one side of her head to the other in a thorough perusal, like he hadn't noticed her hair before. Then he raised his hand, and weaving his fingers through a long tendril, studied it closely, and said, "Your hair's an interesting color, darker than blond, not quite brown, a little red. I saw the same color on a mummy."

  Kit was about to tell him to go in his tent and play with himself when she saw he was smiling. "You're kidding then, I take it."