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  This time Karla hesitated, contemplating her response. “Not for the entire period, no.”

  “So what were you doing to keep yourself too busy and too broke to take a vacation, of even the most inexpensive variety?” he asked with blatant curiosity.

  Glancing away to stare at the passing scene of flat yet uneven desert-like terrain, Karla considered telling him her personal life, past or present, was none of his business. Then with a light shrug, she returned her wary gaze to his chiseled profile. “I was keeping myself busy keeping a man,” she said with blunt honesty.

  Jared’s attention was effectively snared. A smile twitched the corners of Karla’s mouth at the visible ripple of shock that jolted through his body. Risking disaster, he whipped his head around to stare at her; his expression revealed astonished disbelief.

  “You were doing what?”

  It was almost funny, but as Karla had recently informed her assistant, “almost” didn’t count. “You heard me.” Her flat tone held not a hint of humor. “And if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it,” she added, not at all hopeful about deflecting the obvious questions hovering on his lips.

  Jared’s snort of laughter confirmed her lack of hope. “Not talk about it!” he exclaimed, slanting a lots-of-luck look at her. “You can’t toss out a provocative remark like that and then tell me you’d rather not talk about it!”

  He was right, of course. Upbraiding herself for having responded to his curiosity in the first place, Karla gazed at his uncompromising profile a moment, then sighed in defeat. “It’s a very boring story,” she said in warning.

  Jared’s smile told her plainly that he wasn’t buying her evasive ploy. “It’ll help pass the miles,” he retorted in a mocking drawl.

  Asking herself why she continued to walk wide-eyed into his traps, Karla sighed and settled more comfortably into the plush bucket seat. “Well, never say you weren’t warned,” she muttered. “And remember: Should you find yourself nodding off out of sheer boredom behind that wheel, the life you save may be mine.”

  “You’re stalling.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Get on with it.”

  Except for the confidences she had shared with Alycia and Andrea, Karla had never related the humiliating details of her single previous affair. Yet, after a tearing moment of uncertainty, she complied with his command. In a clipped monotone, she recited a brief, concise account of her one and only unromantic romance. When she was finished, she shifted her gaze to the side window in a pretense of utter fascination with the scenery that was in fact so very different from the rolling countryside of her home in eastern Pennsylvania.

  Jared had listened to her narrative without interruption. When he did speak, he homed in on one small segment of her account. “Did you say he was your one and only lover?” he asked in disbelief.

  Karla turned away from the window to give him a dry look. “Yes, that’s what I said. Does that make me some kind of freak or something?”

  “You haven’t been with a man in over five years?”

  “Actually, it’s been over six years.” Karla’s waspish tone betrayed her dwindling patience with the subject. “But since I never found being with a man all that earth-shattering anyway, I haven’t considered myself all that deprived of anything really important.”

  “Whoa!” Jared ejaculated on a soft burst of grim laughter. “Honey, calm down. That bastard really put you through the shredder, didn’t he?” Before she could respond, his voice deepened with compassion, and he went on softly. “The stupid ass injured your emotions, your ego, and your self-esteem!”

  His display of concern for her brought a sting of tears to Karla’s eyes. Amazed at her emotional reaction, she disguised it with a show of bitter humor. “He didn’t do a bad job on my finances, either.”

  Jared shot a narrow-eyed look at her. What he saw revealed in her face set a muscle jerking in his jaw. His etched features locked into tight lines of determination as he returned his glance to the now nearly traffic-free highway.

  “I’ve upset you, and I’m sorry for that.” His voice was low, intense—hardly the tone of a ruthless man accustomed to coldly using women. “But I’m glad you told me and”-he smiled faintly—”at some future time, perhaps, I would like to hear more about your friends, Andrea, Alycia, and Sean. They sound like nice people. I think I’d like them.”

  The emotional constriction eased in Karla’s chest, allowing her to breathe normally. And though the confusion caused by trying to equate this man with the picture Anne had drawn of him remained, she was able to respond without strain. “I think they just might like you, too. And I’ll be happy to tell you about them ... at some future time.”

  Jared flashed a bone-melting grin at her. “Good enough. I’ll look forward to it.” He drove off the highway and into a secondary road. “But, for now, we have arrived at our first destination—the Petrified Forest. Let’s relax and enjoy the really ancient West.”

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  Pondering the emphasis Jared had placed on the word “ancient,” Karla glanced around with alert interest. They entered the national park from the south entrance. Jared parked the car at the Rainbow Forest Museum. His reference to the ancient West became clear to her as she examined the museum exhibits of petrified wood and of the area’s geological story and human history. Disdaining the explanatory notices posted, Jared proceeded to give her a history lesson.

  “This high, dry tableland was once a flood plain,” he said in his best tour-guide tones, indicating the entire area with a sweeping movement of one arm. “To the south, tall pine-like trees grew along the headwaters. Crocodile-like reptiles; giant, fish-eating amphibians; and small dinosaurs lived among a variety of plants and animals that we know today only through fossils.”

  They moved slowly from one exhibit to another as Jared spoke, and though Karla’s eyes were fastened to the displays of multicolored petrified wood and the conceptual paintings of the animal, plant, and tree life of that long-ago time, her ears were sharply attuned to his deep voice.

  “The trees fell and were washed by swollen streams into the flood plain,” Jared continued as he ushered her through a door at the back of the museum. “There they were covered by silt, mud, and volcanic ash, and these deposits cut off oxygen, slowing the decay of the logs. Gradually,” he went on, leading her onto the trail through a section named Giant Logs, “silica-bearing waters seeped through the logs, replacing the original wood tissues with silica deposits. As the process continued, the silicas hardened, preserving the logs as petrified. That all happened about two hundred million years ago,” Jared said, inclining his head toward the huge pieces on the ground, which looked like brilliantly hued tree trunks but felt like stone.

  “Two hundred million years!” Karla exclaimed, stooping to examine the pieces more closely.

  “Yes.” Jared smiled. “This is ancient, yet still an integral part of the modern West.”

  From the museum, they followed the twenty-seven-mile scenic drive through the park. Jared stopped at several pullouts, and they left the car to wander around, Karla exclaiming enthusiastically over the abundance of petrified trees. But it wasn’t until he had parked in one area that Karla once again felt the impact of his reference to the ancient West.

  Carrying binoculars he’d taken from the glove compartment, he led her to a railed section of what appeared to be rock that jutted over a shallow canyon. Strewn on the canyon floor were enormous rocks. Pointing out the side of one such rock, Jared told her to focus the glasses on its flat side. For a few minutes, Karla could see nothing but a blur of slate gray. Then, as the blur cleared, she gasped.

  Since he had not given her time to read the explanatory sign posted near the car park, the petroglyphs were a delightful surprise.

  “How wonderful!” Karla exclaimed, moving the glasses slowly as she examined the ancient paintings.

  “I thought you’d like it,” Jared observed dryly. “It�
��s called Newspaper Rock. Very little is known about it, other than that it is thousands of years old”—he smiled—”but, again, definitely part of the modern West.”

  “A fantastic part,” Karla agreed, sparing a quick glance away from the sight to return his smile. (The paintings of the different animals are incredible!” she said, focusing on the likeness of a large wildcat. After looking her fill, she gazed up at him, her expression contemplative. “What were they like, I wonder, the people who left those drawings?”

  “I’ve wondered the same,” Jared said, “and drawn my own conclusions.” He laughed. “The beauty of it is that my speculations can’t be either proved or disproved.”

  After a moment’s consideration, Karla realized that he was right. She laughed with him. “And what conclusions have you drawn?” she asked, resisting an urge to focus once more on the fascinating Newspaper.

  Jared didn’t resist a similar urge. Plucking the glasses from her hand, he stared through them intently at the rock face. “I suspect they weren’t all that much different from us. Whether deliberately or not, they left a legacy for the future on the rock.” He grinned as he lowered the glasses. “Hell, for all we know that intriguing rock face might have been their graffiti wall.” The intensity of his stare didn’t lessen as he transferred it to her eyes. “Yes,” he murmured, “I suspect they were very much like us; they laughed, they cried, they loved, they lived out their years—good, bad, or indifferent—and then they died”—he sighed—”and very likely, questioned every feeling and emotion along the way ... just as we more sophisticated humans do today, thousands of years later.”

  Karla had been attentive to his every word, and when he finished, she simply stared at him, attempting to equate the philosophic man before her with the ruthless user Anne had described to her. The exercise was not unlike trying to arrive at the sum of three by adding one and one. Karla wasn’t dull or stupid, and it didn’t take long to conclude that there was an unknown factor in the equation of Jared Cradowg—but then, she mused, wasn’t there usually an unknown factor in any complex personality? A frown was beginning to pucker her brow when Jared’s wry voice derailed her train of thought.

  “Why do I have this sensation of being dissected?”

  Karla started and felt her face grow warm as she gazed into his dark eyes, gleaming with amusement. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.” She lowered her eyes, then immediately looked up at him again. “I was thinking about what you said.” The frown returned to her brow. “Do you view all of history in such a personal way?”

  Jared smiled, not condescendingly, but with a warmth that Karla felt to her very depths. “I view history in terms of lives lived, if that’s what you mean—lived and relived through all the necessary phases of growth and development.”

  Karla was suddenly uneasy; his explanation had the ringing echo of similar theories expounded by Andrea, Alycia, and the celebrated historian, Sean Halloran. And since the concept had strong overtones of lives lived repeatedly, in ongoing cycles of awareness, she was uncomfortable with it. Like many others, Karla was thoroughly steeped in the now, today, and had firmly proclaimed she had no time to indulge in the esoteric possibility of recurring experiences.

  And this was the man she had decided she‘d have an affair with?

  The thought was sobering, and it demanded some serious consideration. Automatically, she began walking beside him when Jared turned to stroll back to the car. Awareness rushed back to her with the electric tingle that charged up her arm and through her body when he casually took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. Her lips forming a soundless 0, Karla raised her startled eyes to his.

  “You object?”

  Object? Karla shivered. How in the world could she object to a touch that, though ordinary, felt so deliciously exciting, so very right? She couldn’t, and told him so. “No, I don’t object.”

  “Good.”

  Again the ordinary, and yet his response described the feeling settling inside her. With a sense of shock, Karla realized that the very ordinary act of clasping hands with Jared had instilled in her a deeper sense of excitement and satisfaction than she had ever experienced—even while in the supposed throes of the physical expression of love. The realization sparked a related consideration: If merely holding hands with Jared could induce such pleasure, what would making love with him be like?

  Simultaneously aroused and frightened by the prospect, Karla slid a sideways glance at Jared, to discover him studying her intently. He was quiet, allowing her thoughts to bounce around wildly, until they were seated in the car. Then he somehow managed a frown and a smile at one and the same time.

  “There’s a problem?”

  A problem? Karla had to fight down a burst of apprehensive laughter. At that moment, she felt she had almost as many problems as the forest had petrified trees, the primary one being her own amazing emotional and physical reaction to the many-faceted man seated beside her.

  Her resolve of the night before had seemed perfectly clear and simple: She would take some time off, which was long overdue in any case, and enjoy Jared’s company and the combined research and sight-seeing jaunt. Now, suddenly, her decision didn’t seem at all simple; the picture that Jared was presenting to her of himself was too interesting, too intelligent... and too damned appealing.

  Karla felt vaguely threatened, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why she felt as she did. So, naturally, she pounced on the single unnerving statement he’d made to her.

  “I am having a bit of a problem with your reference to lives lived and relived through all the necessary phases of growth and development.”

  “You know precisely what concept I was referring to,” he retorted with a soft, chiding laugh.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” Karla groaned. “Your ideas sound too much like those expounded by Andrea and Alycia, and even Sean, at times.” She sighed.

  Jared laughed. “I knew from the little you said that there was a reason I felt I’d like your friends! They’re into esoteric studies?”

  “In spades.” Karla rolled her eyes. “Even though, most of the time, they’re quite normal.”

  “What’s normal?” Jared demanded, shrugging his shoulders. “Can you define normalcy?”

  Feeling cornered, Karla retaliated. “Well, it’s certainly not the belief in lives lived—and relived—through all the necessary phases of growth and development!”

  His smile started slow, and grew into a wicked grin. “You have factual proof of that, do you?”

  Beginning to get annoyed, Karla glared at him. “You know I don’t. But then, you don’t have proof to back up your belief, either, do you?”

  “No, but I’m not demanding or seeking proof.” Jared’s tone was free of concern. “I neither accept nor reject the concepts. I have an open mind, and I find the possibilities fascinating ... especially one particular recent theory.”

  “And that is?” she asked warily.

  “The theory of soul mates being drawn successively to each other,” he replied quietly. “I feel the pull of the drawing force, and I think you feel it, too.”

  Soul mates! Karla was stunned and shaken... and suddenly very uncertain of every earthbound precept she harbored within herself. Soul mates. The term activated a humming response deep inside her. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t deny it; she also felt the pull of the drawing force.

  It was a strong physical attraction, nothing more, she told herself.

  Acting on the defensive thought, Karla shook her head and repeated it to him. “What we feel is a strong physical response to each other, Jared. There isn’t anything esoteric about that.”

  “You’re grasping at straws, sweetheart, and you know it.”

  The calm certainty of his voice set loose a flood of conflicting emotions in Karla, uppermost of which was the thrill of pleasure she felt at his sincere-sounding endearment. As she had before, Karla lashed out at him without thinking.

  “I’m in l
ust, Jared!”

  “I’m in love, Karla.”

  Full stop. Shut down. Experiencing the odd sensation of mental abrogation, Karla stared at Jared with blank astonishment as the impact of his declaration shuddered through her entire system. When reason asserted itself, it did so with a rush of internal dialogue.

  Love. The man had said he was in love with her. Hadn’t he? Yes, he had. But why? He couldn’t be in love with her. Could he? No. It wasn’t possible. They were still virtual strangers. They barely knew each other. They hadn’t even been to bed together! It wasn’t possible. Was it? Well, maybe...

  “Have you been petrified like these ancient trees?” Jared asked, effectively ending her inner argument.

  Karla blinked, then shivered and attempted a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “I don’t believe this!” she cried, glancing around convulsively. “I’m sitting in the middle of a national park... and, Jared! I simply don’t believe this!”

  Jared’s smile was so tender it made her want to cry. “Don’t let it throw you, sweetheart. You’ll get used to the idea.” His glance tracked hers. “But for now, we’d better get moving.” Settling in his seat, he switched on the ignition. “We’ll talk about it later.” As he drove out of the parking area, he shot a rakish grin at her. “Tonight,” he promised, “when we’re alone.

  * * * *

  The remainder of the day was predictably anticlimactic. Feeling mind-bruised and emotion-numbed, Karla was only vaguely aware of the sights the park had to offer. Though she voiced appreciation and awe of the magnificent shadings of purple, red, and gray sediments that streaked the eerie moonscape mounds of the Painted Desert, and exclaimed excitedly over the skeleton of Gertie, the German shepherd-sized plant-eating plateosaur, the world’s oldest dinosaur skeleton, discovered near Chinde Point in 1985 and being assembled in the park by paleontologists, Karla really didn’t absorb much of it. Nor did she eat or absorb much of her lunch in the Visitor Center restaurant.