They just wanted to.

So she had turned and run from the scene of her personal Waterloo. Driving recklessly, crying, putting as much distance as she could between herself and the man who was much too sophisticated for her, she had fled the ranch. All the way home she had told herself that she hated Luke. She hadn’t believed it, but she had wanted to.

Since then, Carla had tried to put Luke Mac-Kenzie out of her mind. She hadn’t succeeded. Every time she went out on a date, she only missed Luke more. Not surprisingly, she didn’t date much. The harder she tried to find other men attractive, the brighter Luke’s image burned in her memory.

No man can be that special, Carla told herself fiercely. My memory isn’t reliable. If I were around Luke now, as a woman, he wouldn’t be nearly so attractive to me. Familiarity breeds contempt. That’swhy I let all this happen. I wanted to get familiar enough to feel contempt.

That, or outright insanity, was the only explanation for what had happened the evening of her twenty-first birthday, a celebration of the very date when she had legally become old enough to know better.

Look on the bright side. A summer on the Rocking M beats a summer as a gofer for the Department of Archaeology. If I have to check one more reference on one more footnote, I’ll do something rash.

Get used to it. That’s what being an archaeologist is all about.

While learning about vanished cultures and peoples fascinated Carla, she wasn’t certain that a career as an archaeologist was what she wanted. She was certain that she was going to find out; she would begin work on her master’s degree in the fall. But first she had to get through the summer. And Luke.

Carla’s mind was still seething with silent questions when she drove into the Rocking M’s ranch yard, got out slowly and stretched. She was presently just under three and one half hours from the bright lights of Cortez, assuming that the weather continued fair and clear. In bad weather, she was anywhere between six and sixty hours from "civilization."