The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

Chapter 9

He was dressed in his usual combat fatigues. Even in the deep shadows of premature dark Lauren could see that his face was painted in green-and-brown blotches, a dark and sinister mask from which his eyes glittered like chips of cold steel.

Chills coursed through her; her heart raced with a primitive fear.

But his body filled the opening; there was nowhere for her to go. Even so, she took a step back and held her head high as she demanded, in a much steadier voice than she’d thought herself capable of. “What are you doing here? Where’s Bronco?”

Masters didn’t bother to reply. He stepped through the tent opening, and as she retreated farther, snaked out a hand and caught her wrist. She pulled against his crushing grip, resisting instinctively, with all her strength, oblivious both to pain and to the reality that resistance was hopeless-a reality that was driven home to her a moment later when she was jerked forward with a force that made her bite her tongue, then spun into the embrace of an arm that felt like iron, rather than human flesh and bone.

She gave a little grunt of pain. The shock of her bitten tongue brought tears to her eyes.

Ron Masters grunted softly, too, as he held her even more tightly. His voice was a hard rasp in her ear. “The commander said to bring you and he didn’t specify what condition. Keep that in mind in case you feel like puttin’ up a fight.”

Lauren said nothing; her whole being was focused on fighting the fear and the pain. Don’t let him know how afraid you are, her instincts whispered. This man’s cruelty feeds on fear. She concentrated on making her breathing slow and steady. She concentrated on the metallic taste of blood in her mouth and on keeping her knees from buckling. She concentrated on the sweet cool kiss of rain on her face when they stepped outside, and on the smell of the man-a mixture of gun oil and sweat.

She would not let herself think of Bronco. You’re on your own, she thought. It’s up to you to survive.

There were others waiting outside the tent. At least three that Lauren could see, all dressed and painted in camouflage, all carrying automatic weapons. This is it, this is real, she thought. The meadow, the horses, Bronco-that had been some strange sort of fantasy interlude, like being in a movie about a kidnapping. But these men-she had no doubt whatsoever that these men were killers. And she was their hostage.

Stay alive. For as long as you can, any way you can.

For Lauren time seemed to telescope. The journey from her sanctuary by the spring to the camp’s main compound seemed to take only minutes, but in that time so many things passed through her mind. She thought again of her family, of the life she’d had and of Benjamin, the nice respectable lawyer she was supposed to have married next spring-a White House wedding, in all probability. She thought again of the choices she’d made that had changed all that and brought her to where she was now. And was astonished to find that she felt no regret.

Even if I die tonight, leaving was the right decision.

Yes. Because to have stayed, to have taken the firm’s offer, to have married Benjamin, that would have been worse than dying. What could be worse than dying at the age of twenty-six? To have never really lived-that would be worse.

But I haven’t lived! Not yet. I haven’t loved-really loved-a man. Loved him enough to want to spend my life with him, bear his children…die for him. There’s so much I haven’t done!

Yes, came the gentle reply. But you gave yourself the chance. You made the right choice, Lauren. Have no regrets.

The cleared slope before the cabin, all but deserted when she’d come through it with Bronco the night before, now seemed filled with the dark ominous shapes of heavily armed men. There were no lights. The cabin, so hospitably lit for her arrival last evening, was dark except for the last of the sunlight that had leaked through clouds on the western horizon to splash across the porch and down the steps.

It was oddly quiet, especially after the thunderstorm’s fury. There were no comments or mutterings from the men gathered before the cabin, just a rustle of movement as they made way for Lauren and her escort to move through. As he had the night before, Gil McCullough was waiting for them on the porch, and again as they approached he moved down the steps to meet them. Tonight, though, there was no welcoming smile, however false. No body language that spoke of confidence and authority. He looked oddly shrunken, Lauren thought, but at the same time seemed finely balanced as a hair trigger, taut as a trap about to be sprung.

Her escort halted at the base of the steps. Ron Masters’s fingers dug viciously into the flesh of her arms as he jerked her around to face his commander.

Her only thought was, My God, my God, what’s happened?

Dread made her queasy and weak in the knees. Even in the fading light, she could see that McCullough’s face was a mask of pain, as if he’d been terribly ill. He’d aged twenty years overnight.

McCullough spoke to her in a voice like windblown sand. “Your father is a very foolish man, Lauren.” She sucked in a breath but managed to hold back her retort. He regarded her for a moment while a smile tugged fruitlessly at the corners of his mouth. “At least I hope he is. I’d hate to think he cares so little for you that he’d throw your life away to save his political career.”

Still Lauren didn’t reply. Smoldering with anger and fear, she stared hard into McCullough’s eyes. Seared his image onto her retinas, into her brain.

Then suddenly his eyes narrowed and his face seemed to crumple with an anguish so naked she uttered a sharp gasp and jerked backward, an instinctive protective distancing.

“Do you know what they’ve done?” he rasped. “Your father’s people-his storm troopers, his Gestapo? They shot my wife.”

“No.” Lauren shook her head, and heard herself saying it over and over. “No, no…”

“My Katie. That little woman never harmed a soul in her life, and they gunned her down in her own front yard!”

“It’s not true,” Lauren stated flatly. “My father would never do such a thing. Never.”

“He authorized it.” McCullough’s voice was hard now, and cold as his eyes. “And I’m sorry, but it is true. Two sheriff’s deputies were right there and saw it happen. I got worried when I couldn’t get through to my wife, so I sent some of my men to see if they could find out what was going on. Ron, there, was one of ’em-he can confirm it. The fact is, Miss Brown, government storm troopers have occupied my ranch and shot down my wife in cold blood. This after I warned them what would happen to you if they took any such action against me. I’m afraid they’ve left me no choice.”

“No,” Lauren whispered, beginning to struggle against Ron Masters’s merciless grip. He jerked her so hard she nearly fell.

And suddenly, as if that small brutality had been a slap in the face, she felt the panic fade, felt herself calm. I won’t grovel, she thought. I won’t plead. If she was going to die, by God, she would do it bravely.

But you’re not going to die. You’re going to stay alive. No matter what it takes.

“You don’t have to kill me.” Her voice was quiet, breathless. “If you just let my father think you have-” she paused, encouraged by the thoughtful narrowing of Gil McCullough’s eyes “-then if it comes to that, I can testify to how well I was treated. I could even say I wasn’t kidnapped at all, that I just…that I went off with Bronco.”

A snicker close by her ear made her shudder as if something cold and slimy had crawled down her back. “Nice try,” Masters crooned against the side of her face, like a lover. But it’s killing he loves, Lauren thought. And she could smell his blood lust, a dark feral odor.

A new wave of terror swept over her. Defying it, she held herself straight and tall and tried desperately not to tremble. “Speaking of Bronco, where is my jailer?” she asked brashly, hoping it would sound merely curious, even a little contemptuous. “What, does he just always split when things get ugly?”

Masters gave a short cackle of laughter-was there a note of jealousy in it?-while McCullough’s face took on the affronted expression of a man whose child has just been maligned. “Bronco doesn’t ‘split,”’ he said stiffly. “He was…needed elsewhere. I sent him-” He broke off. For a second, maybe two, he stood frozen, listening, like a buck at a water hole catching the predator’s scent.

Then, in the sudden eerie quiet, Lauren heard it too, strange sounds far off in the distance. Like someone making popcorn, she thought, in another room in the house.

McCullough uttered a single sharp obscenity. And after that it seemed to Lauren that everything happened at once.

The compound, which had been so quiet and still, was suddenly, instantly, a hive of sound and motion. A muttering of sound that grew, like a wave rolling onto shore, then broke all at once into voices yelling instructions, shouts of alarm and of warning. A confusion of shapes and shadows, a moving picture that seemed to whirl around her as she was spun about and jerked roughly to and fro. Gil’s voice shouting orders she couldn’t quite make out. Pain in her arms and shoulders as she fought to stay upright in Ron Masters’s careless grip.

Then gradually, out of the noise and confusion, a new sound, a rhythmic thumping that was familiar to her. A horse’s galloping hoofbeats. And almost seeming to grow out of that, another driving pulsing beat that grew steadily louder, like crescendoing tympany-the chop-chop-chop of helicopter rotors.

Men dove out of the way as a horse and rider burst through the crowd. Lauren could feel a wave of heat from the animal’s body, smell his sweat and hear grunting sounds as he came to a bone-jarring stiff-legged halt, so close to the man who held her prisoner that he was jostled and had to jerk himself out of the way to keep from being trampled. She heard Masters swear.

Lauren’s heart gave a tremendous leap of hope and joy as horse and rider separated and became two individual shapes. Tears burned her eyes when Cochise Red lowered his head to bump her shoulder and whickered an affectionate greeting.

Johnny Bronco spoke to Gil McCullough. “They’re coming,” was all he said.

It was then that Lauren realized she wasn’t in Ron Masters’s hands any longer. That the fingers that held her now did so, not with bruising force, but with a firm and gentle touch. She turned her head to stare at the fierce warrior’s profile, and her breath caught. Bronco’s glittering black eyes were locked in silent struggle with the angry blue ones belonging to the man who stood facing him at the foot of the cabin steps-a struggle, Lauren sensed, that likely meant life or death. For her.

Then just like that, it was over. McCullough surrendered with a jerk of his head and a violent wave of his arm. “Go on-get her out of here!” he yelled as he stormed up the steps, making for the cabin door.

Bronco wasted no more time-he knew he didn’t have much left. He half threw Lauren into the saddle and clucked to the stallion, and he could feel ol’ Red already gathering himself for the takeoff as he vaulted up behind her. “Get down-get down,” he growled in Lauren’s ear, then leaned hard against her, pressing her down and covering her body with his as the stallion launched himself, as only a quarter horse can, from standstill into full gallop in one tremendous leap.

The noise of the choppers was deafening now, right overhead, all but drowning out the gunfire. Light streaked across the compound and danced among the pine trees, illuminating the smoke that had begun to collect there so that it resembled a blanket of ground fog. The acrid smell of powder drifted on winds driven by the choppers’ blades.

In the chaos and confusion of battle, Bronco knew, anything could happen. That was why his first thought had been to get the hell out of there, get Lauren as far away from the danger as he possibly could. And after that? After that, maybe he could think about how he was going to get her back to her father without giving himself up in the bargain.

“Come on, Red, get us out of here,” he murmured. Crouched low over the woman’s body, he gave the stallion his head.

To Lauren it didn’t seem real, that twilight gallop through a tranquil meadow while behind her the world was exploding in a nightmare of sound and fury, fire and destruction and death. There was something surreal about it-like an amusement park thrill ride gone berserk.

She’d been riding horses since she was a child, but as many times as she’d ridden, she’d never ridden like this, racing a quarter horse-the fastest horse alive at short distances-flat out at full gallop. Oh, and it was terrifying. Exhilarating. Like riding a lightning bolt.

The sheer brute power of the animal beneath her filled her with awe. With her face against the stallion’s neck, she could hear his labored breaths and grunts of effort, feel his surging muscles and thundering heartbeats. And there was another heartbeat hammering against her back, and her own intermingled with it until she could no longer separate one from the other. Another body, strong as steel and supple as wire, as formidable as the stallion’s but in a different way, pressed hard against her and holding her firmly in the saddle…and his embrace.

Sandwiched like that, between the awesome power of man and horse, Lauren had never felt safer, more secure. Or more frightened. Not that she would fall. Bronco would never let her fall, she knew that. Yet…she felt as though the earth had slipped out from under her feet. She felt off balance, scared.

What’s happened? she kept thinking. What’s happened to me?

And for the first time in days the kidnapping was far from her mind.

At the far end of the meadow where the ground rose sharply and the trees began, Bronco straightened, with one arm still holding Lauren securely in the saddle, and spoke to Cochise Red with a touch and a murmured, “Ho, boy…” Excited as he was, the stallion fought the bit, tossing his head and dancing sideways as Bronco eased him to a walk.

Though Lauren hadn’t spoken, he could feel her body shivering. Her hair felt damp against his cheek. He didn’t know whether she was in shock or just plain cold, but either way he knew he had to get her into shelter and wrapped up in something warm pretty quick. But they couldn’t stop yet. Not here. Although he knew Red was pretty well winded and he was asking a lot of him, especially now that it was getting dark, he didn’t see how he had much choice. He had to get through the perimeter fence, put a ridge or two between them and the SOL camp.

Calming the big bay horse-and the woman, too-with soothing wordless sounds, Bronco signaled with a slight pressure from his knees, and they slipped into the shadows between the trees.

The sounds of gunfire had faded to a distant grumbling before they finally halted in the cover of timber. Bronco’s feet had barely touched the ground before Lauren came tumbling out of the saddle behind him. He turned, and she fell into his arms.

It never occurred to him not to hold her. She was wet, cold, trembling…probably in shock. He muttered something-he didn’t know what-as he reached one-handed to untie the blanket roll behind the saddle, somehow got it shaken out and wrapped around her. It was when he folded her back against him that she began to cry. Not quietly, either, but with sobs and wails, like a little child.

Bronco hadn’t had much experience with weeping women, but for some reason he wasn’t surprised or even all that upset to find one in his arms. He thought he should have been-especially this woman. What did surprise him was how altogether natural it felt to hold her, to stroke her hair, weave his fingers through it and cradle her head against his shoulder. To exhale soothing wordless whispers into its silky dampness and inhale its sweet green-apple scent.

The storm was only a squall and it passed quickly. To Bronco it seemed all too short a time before she quieted, then began to stir in the restless way that let him know she was already sorry she’d let herself cut loose like that. Regret was a heaviness in his muscles as he eased her away from him.

She quickly bowed her head and he could see her brush at her eyes and nose with jerky embarrassed movements, then give up and begin to yank on her T-shirt, trying to haul it out of the waistband of her jeans.

“Here,” he scolded, “don’t do that.” He untied his bandanna, pulled it off his neck and passed it to her. She croaked something he took for a thank-you and turned away self-consciously to blow her nose, though as dark as it was he couldn’t have seen much, anyway. He stood and waited while she mopped up, uncomfortable himself now, and the damp place she’d left on the front of his shirt a cold reminder of her warmth.

“You okay?” he asked when it sounded as though she was about done.

She nodded, and he could see her shift about, looking for someplace to put the bandanna. Before he could take it from her, she shoved it in her pocket and cleared her throat. “Sorry. Reaction, I guess.”

“Natural.” His voice was diffident, remote. “Don’t worry about it.”

Suddenly bereft, Lauren fought an urge to reach out and touch him, to feel again the strong hard body and warm arms that had so recently sheltered her. Her eyes strained against the darkness, but she could make out only a faceless shape topped by the pale blur of a white Stetson.

His voice came quietly from the shadows. “Think you can go on a ways?”

“Sure,” said Lauren. It didn’t occur to her then what an odd thing it was for a terrorist to ask his hostage.

“I’d feel better if we could put more distance between us and those choppers.”

She didn’t know what to say to that when she knew that in all probability those helicopters had come to rescue her. Of course, they might just as easily have killed her, instead, and that made no sense. Surely her father would never have allowed such an all-out assault, knowing she was still being held hostage. He’d never risk her safety that way. He wouldn’t.

A chill shook her as Gil’s awful words played again in her mind: He’d throw your life away to save his political career.

No. He wouldn’t. Not the Rhett Brown she knew. Not in a million years.

She drew a breath and said firmly, “I’m fine. Let’s go.” But in the next instant fear stabbed through her like a spear of ice, pinning her to the spot. Something-and it sounded like a herd of buffalo-was tramping, crashing through the brush, coming straight for them!

Her lungs filled with air and her jaw went rigid, but before she could give in to the instinct to run or scream, she felt Bronco’s hand on her arm, heard him murmuring to Cochise Red without any trace of alarm. Next she heard a low excited whinny, and two large dark shapes bulldozed through the darkness, stamping and snorting and whickering in joyful reunion.

“The mares!” Lauren gasped in astonishment. “How-”

“I turned ’em out when I saddled up Red.” Bronco’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Figured they’d have a fighting chance that way.” His body brushed against hers and she heard a soft grunt as he half leaped, half pulled himself into the saddle. His hand touched her shoulder, reaching for her. “Better if you ride behind now. Moon won’t be out of the clouds for a while yet, and we’re gonna need to take it easy in the dark.”

She said nothing until she was seated behind Bronco astride the stallion’s back with the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and the ends clutched firmly together in the middle of her chest. Inexplicably, her teeth had begun to chatter.

“Y-you knew this was c-coming?” she said in a low voice, as Bronco clucked to Cochise Red and they began to move at an easy walk through the dark forest. “You were prepared?” She felt him shrug.

“I had a good idea. Enough I thought it might be a good idea to get ready for Plan B.”

“Plan B… And that’s?”

He gave a little huff of mirthless laughter. “To get you out in one piece.”

Lauren said nothing for a time, though there were all sorts of confusing things tumbling around in her mind. Then she drew a shaken breath and whispered, “Why? I mean, your friends are being attacked, and instead of helping them, you save my life. Why would you do that?”

This time his whole body jerked with his snort of laughter. “Like I told you down at the ranch, Laurie Brown-you’re worth way too much to take a chance on gettin’ you killed.”

“But,” she cried, “Gil was going to kill me-or have me killed. He was ready to do it. I know he was. I could see it in his eyes.”

“He’d just found out his wife had been shot-what did you expect?” He paused for a moment, then went on in a voice soft with disgust. “You met Katie McCullough-nice lady. A real nice lady. Sweet as they come. And they shot her down.”

“I’m sorry,” Lauren whispered.

“What for? You’re not the one who did it.”

“No, and neither is my father.”

He acknowledged that with a grunt. They rode a distance in silence, and after a while the horse’s steady rocking gait began to soothe her, ease the tension from her muscles and the turmoil from her mind. “Well, anyway,” she murmured, swallowing a yawn, “for what it’s worth, I’m very grateful for Plan B.”

“You’re welcome.”

The words felt like pebbles in Bronco’s throat. Because he knew he didn’t deserve her thanks. The truth was, he’d come near blowing everything. He’d cut it too damn close.

From the beginning, ever since Gil had first told him about his plan to kidnap the candidate’s daughter, he’d been trying to walk a tightrope. Trying somehow to keep himself balanced between two opposing objectives: one, to keep his cover intact, and two, to keep Lauren Brown alive and healthy. To do one or the other would have been simple enough. To do both was proving to be a whole lot harder than he’d expected, thanks to those trigger-happy idiots-and he’d be willing to bet it was the FBI who was at fault-down at the ranch. His stomach burned when he thought about them shooting down Katie McCullough like that. They’d had a reason, of course-they always had a reason. Mistaken identity. She might have drawn on them, might even have shot first. Still didn’t make it right. And just one of the many reasons he didn’t carry a gun unless he had to.

Behind him, Lauren’s head had begun to bob with the rhythm of the horse’s gait. As they started down a steep slope, her face bumped against his shoulder. She abruptly jerked upright and said, “Sorry,” in a slurred voice.

“Almost there,” Bronco said as he reined the stallion in. He swung his leg over the saddle horn and slid to the ground, and instantly the mares were right there, bumping and jostling. Looking for their feed bags, he thought, el bowing them good-naturedly out of the way as he said to Lauren, “I’m gonna walk a ways-trail’s a little steep here. You be okay?”

“Sure.” And obviously she was trying to sound wide awake and chipper.

“You can move into the saddle if you want.”

She did so, and he took the reins and they started down the trail. Though it had been many years since he’d been over it, it was a trail he knew well.

They’d been going steadily downhill and had long since left the pine forest behind. Now a clearing sky bright with stars shed just enough light to hint at shadowy shapes of bull pines and piñons, and provide a glittery backdrop for the denser blackness of canyon walls. A brisk little wind blew down from the higher peaks, cool and fresh from the earlier rain, bringing with it the scent of damp earth and sage, juniper and pine. The smells of Bronco’s boyhood.

Up ahead he could hear the trickling sounds of running water-the stream that ran along the canyon floor, dry for most of the year, brought to life by the recent rain. Just before he reached it, the ground leveled out and became sandy grassy patches interspersed with thickets of young willows and piles of rocks and gravel washed there by flash floods. Not recently, though-the ground here was dry. The monsoon clouds had dumped their burden elsewhere tonight.

After pausing to fill his canteen and let the horses drink, Bronco led Cochise Red across the stream and up the bank on the other side. Here, where the ground was rockier and rose sharply once more to become sloping foothills splayed out at the base of steep canyon walls, he halted.

“We’ll leave the horses here,” he said, moving to the stallion’s side in case Lauren wanted help getting off. It came as no surprise to him that she didn’t. He unbuckled the saddlebags and slung them across his shoulder, then went to work on the girth. “We have a little bit of a climb.”

“Can I carry something?” Her voice was still slurred, groggy. Exhausted, he thought, and no wonder.

He was careful to be all brusqueness and business, though, when he told her to bring the canteen and to keep the blanket out of the weeds. Sympathy makes you weak, not strong, he told himself.

He reached toward her shadow-shape and found her arm. A small shock went through him when he touched her, felt her warmth and substance, smooth soft skin over firm muscle, nerves jumping and pulse racing against his fingertips. He felt a strange sense of recognition, and of pleasure, and longing.

“Can you see well enough to follow me?” he asked hoarsely.

There was a pause; he thought she nodded. Then she said, “Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay, then-stay close.” And he started up the zigzagging trail he knew would take them to the mouth of a cave about halfway up the canyon wall.

He had no trouble finding it. In a way it seemed like only yesterday, the last time he’d been here, though in reality it had probably been more like fifteen years. That was the thing about natural landmarks, he thought; in the short term mountains and canyons and rock formations didn’t change much. He went in first, just to make sure nothing-or nobody-had taken up residence there in the past dozen or so years. It felt unoccupied-nothing rustled or scuttled away into deeper shadows at his intrusion-and smelled like all caves do, just vaguely dank and fusty.

“Okay, you can bed down here,” he said gruffly, and turning, found that, instead of staying out on the edge where he’d left her, Lauren had followed him into the cave and was right there beside him. So close her clothing brushed his. He heard her breathing, rapidly after the climb, and felt her body heat.

His heart swelled and bumped against his throat. All at once he knew that he didn’t dare touch her. Not even to take her hand.

“There’s food in there,” he mumbled, dumping the saddlebags onto the floor of the cave at her feet. “If you’re hungry. I’ve got to go see to the horses. Be right back.” He didn’t wait for her reply, but lunged for the mouth of the cave and out into the cool starry night like a suffocating man craving air.

Down on the floor of the canyon, he unsaddled Red and rubbed him down, then took off his bridle and turned him loose to graze. But instead of immediately testing his freedom, the stallion turned his head and nibbled at Bronco’s shoulder, then gave a low-pitched nicker of concern.

Can he feel it? Bronco wondered. There was a strange vibration in his muscles, a quivering down deep in his insides, but whether of fear, excitement or some kind of warning he couldn’t have said. He’d never felt such a thing before.

“Go on, boy,” he murmured, sending the horse off with a wave. “You’ve earned a good roll…” He hoped ol’ Red wouldn’t go too far away. He’d probably have to go looking for him in the morning, but this was cougar country. A healthy horse could outrun a lion, but not when he was hobbled or tied.

He carried the saddle to a rock pile and heaved it onto a good-size boulder. Then, taking the bridle with him, he climbed back up to the cave.

Even before he went inside he could hear the soft even sound of her breathing. “Lauren?” he called in a whisper, already sure that she was asleep. A wave of emotion rippled through him, almost like a shudder. Again he wasn’t sure what name to give it-relief or disappointment.

The moon was just lifting above the clouds when Bronco settled himself with his back against the wall near the mouth of the cave. The cool gray light reached into the cave and across the floor to touch the head of the woman who slept there with her head pillowed on saddlebags. Like a spotlight, it shone on the fall of hair that cascaded over dark leather to pool on the sandy floor, and turned it into a river of silver.

Bronco stared at that pale hair until his vision blurred, and when he closed his eyes the image remained, as though it had been branded on his retinas.