ignored that little voice in his head and came to a halt a few feet from her car. The woman he wished he could ban from the pueblo wheeled around, her eyes growing round as he slipped from his Jeep.
“I didn’t think I would see you again in San Angelo.” He hadn’t intended to fling a challenge in her face, but somehow his words came out that way.
She stiffened, a white-knuckled grip on her black purse straps. “I didn’t think I had to ask your permission.”
“What brings you out this way a second time?”
She pinched her lips together and opened her car door. “Nothing that concerns you. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to town.”
He observed her driving away and decided to do a little investigating. Striding to the café’s entrance, he knew if anyone could tell him why Kit was in town it would be Anna.
Inside, only a few tables held customers enjoying a late lunch. He scanned the large room and saw his cousin behind the counter, talking with Lester Running Bear, his long black hair hanging in a braid down his back. As Hawke moved toward Anna, the older man rose and turned toward him. A frown marred his craggy face.
“See ya, Anna.” Avoiding the direct path to the exit, his head down, Lester circumvented Hawke.
Hawke stopped at the long counter that ran the length of the café. “Has Lester been drinking? Is that why he’s dodging me?”
“He was sober.” Anna began wiping down the laminated top, her gaze averted.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Hawke settled onto a stool.
She stopped her cleaning and looked him directly in the eye. “Lester’s going to be Kit Sinclair’s guide to Desolation Canyon.”
He leaped to his feet and started for the door, then realized that the woman in question was probably halfway to the highway to Albuquerque. He came back to Anna. “Why didn’t you try to stop that?”
“Because I didn’t know until after she left. Lester was just telling me.”
“He can’t do that. He’s never sober long enough to show anyone anything.”
“Then I suggest you give her a call and tell her that.”
After the look she’d sent him out in the parking lot, he was sure that the second he identified himself she would slam down the phone. He would be in Albuquerque in two days for the dedication ceremony. He’d go see her then and make her listen to him. There was no way he would let Lester guide her anywhere.
Saturday evening Hawke rang Kit Sinclair’s bell. When no one answered, he pounded on the door. After a few minutes, he had to acknowledge she wasn’t home, which meant he would now have to make an extra trip into town to see her. Unless she was at the dedication tonight for the Collier/Somers Wing at the museum. She’d helped Zach with the exhibit, so hopefully Hawke would see her there and set her straight.
Leaving the porch, he headed toward his Jeep in the driveway. If she wasn’t at the museum, he would stop by on the way back to the pueblo. He didn’t intend to stay late at the ceremony, anyway.
“She’s already left,” said the distinguished-looking neighbor. Probably in his early forties, he held a hose, watering his plants, most of them cacti, along the border of his property with Kit’s.
“Do you know if she’ll be back soon?” He could be a little late to Zach’s if it would save him a trip into Albuquerque another day.
The man removed his hat, revealing thick, wavy blond hair. “I don’t think so. She said something about a function at the college. I can tell her you came by, Mr….”
Hawke took the man’s outstretched hand and shook it. “Hawke Lonechief. I don’t think that’ll be necessary. We’re going to the same function. I’ll catch her there.” At least, he hoped they were, and he could put an end to the woman’s pipe dream once and for all. He definitely was going to have a word with Zach about putting such a foolish idea into Kit’s head.
Since his cousin lived across town from Kit’s, Hawke had some time to plot his strategy. He really had no way of stopping anyone from going into that maze of canyons if that person was determined—like Kit—but he was sure going to try with her. He wondered if she even owned a pair of hiking boots. She had amateur written all over her face. Even if he hadn’t known exactly the hazards of the tangle of sheer cliffs, pockmarked land, treacherous escarpments that led to Desolation, not to mention the dangers in the canyon itself, he still would have discouraged her.
He wished he’d discouraged Pamela. But his wife had wanted an adventure—something risky and challenging. And he’d agreed, wanting to please her after the fight they’d had about living in New York City.
If only he had remembered what Gus had said about the canyon, with its blood-red walls when the sunlight struck it just right. If only—
Hawke shoved the thought from his mind, along with the vision of his wife the last moment he’d seen her alive. Her smile would haunt him forever. As would her scream as she plunged down to the bottom of the jagged, rocky ravine below.
Twenty minutes later he pulled in front of Zach’s house and noticed the red Honda sitting in the driveway. For a few seconds he considered leaving and grabbing dinner somewhere else before the ceremony. But he’d never run from a problem before, and this would be a good time to have that little conversation with the good professor.
His long strides quickly chewed up the space between his Jeep and the porch. When Zach opened the front door to his knock, Hawke entered, surveying the entry hall and spacious room off to the side.
“Where is she?” Hawke asked, stopping in the middle of the living area.
“Who?”
Amusement flickered in Zach’s eyes, producing a swell of anger in Hawke. “You know good and well who I’m talking about. Kit Sinclair.”
“I’m right here.”
The voice, husky for a woman, sounded behind him. Hawke pivoted toward her. She stood just inside the living room with a brown leather couch between them. “We need to talk about Lester Running Bear.”
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Zach hurried toward the French doors that led out onto the deck.
“No, we don’t,” Kit said when the click of the door closing announced they were by themselves. “Lester has agreed to be my guide. You wouldn’t, so it’s none of your business.”
“It’s my business when you’re engaging a man who is rarely sober for longer than a day and can’t find his way out of a building with a well-lit exit sign.”
Blinking, she looked away. When she reestablished eye contact with him, her neutral expression hid her earlier surprise. “You gave up that right when you turned me down.”
“Have you talked to Lester today?”
“What have you done?” She covered the few feet to the sofa and grasped its back.
“Convinced him not to take you.”
Glaring at him, Kit opened her mouth but snapped it closed before saying anything. She sucked in a soothing breath. “Do you make it a practice to interfere with someone’s life like that?”
“Yes, when that someone ignores my advice.” He circled behind the sofa and stopped just two feet short of her.
Kit plastered herself against the back of the couch, her gaze flittering from one side of him to the other. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I’m going to that canyon with or without your help.”
“Lady, there is no one else, so make it easy on yourself and give the idea up.”
“You mean make it easy on you.” Lifting her chin, she stabbed him with a withering look. “I’ll find