The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

Chapter 11

He might have let the stallion have his head, anyway, just for the hell of it, here where the upper canyon opened onto a highland plateau, like a grassy blanket thrown across the shoulders of the Scared Mountain, shimmering in a haze of sunlight beyond the screen of timber. But Bronco’s heart was black and heavy, his thoughts as turbulent as the thunderheads piled up around him on all horizons. Instead of riding for the enjoyment of the speed and power of the great animal under him and the unexpected and forbidden pleasure of a lithe and slender woman pressed against his back, he raced to keep the demons of his own thoughts at bay.

I understand…why would you…why…

But he held them off, those thoughts, fought them as if his life depended on it. And maybe it did. Self-doubt had always been his mortal enemy; early in his life it had nearly destroyed him. Now, at the first hint of its return, he was determined to vanquish it with any means at hand.

He blamed that self-doubt, along with its distractions-the confusion in his mind and the fear in his heart-for what happened next. So focused was he on outrunning the anger and the fear that he didn’t see trouble coming until it was almost too late. Until he felt the powerful body between his thighs tense and gather itself and a moment later felt the shuddering expulsion of a stallion’s battle scream.

Like an echo the reply came, and then Bronco saw them, too. Wild horses!

Damn. This was trouble. Trouble he should have been able to avoid. He’d known the herd was apt to still be in the area. He should have been on the lookout for them.

“Uh-oh,” he said under his breath, and then to Lauren, “Hang on!” as the two mares galloped by in helter-skelter confusion, ears pricked and eyes wild, and Cochise Red flattened his ears and lowered his head to charge. He heard her sharp gasp, felt her hands clutch at his belt, then almost convulsively wrap themselves tightly around him.

Then he was too busy to think of anything except how he was going to bring that crazy horse back under control before he got them all killed. Red was well trained, but instinct was stronger than any training. Right now the stallion was oblivious to the presence of a saddle and two human beings on his back, didn’t know or care that his ability to fight was going to be limited by the steel bit between his teeth. The bloodlust had taken him; adrenaline was pumping, he was spoiling for battle, and nothing Bronco could do was going to stop him.

He could only hope the wild stallion had more sense.

Bronco could see him now, up ahead and off to the left, a rusty battle-scarred black just emerging from the dust cloud thrown up by his fleeing herd. As the stallion came racing out, head down and ears flattened, to meet this threat to his dominion, Bronco braced his thighs against the pommel of the saddle, rose high in the stirrups and gave forth with a bloodcurdling yell, at the same time waving both arms wildly, like someone hell-bent on flagging down a bus. The black veered suddenly, slowing his charge, then circled around, shaking his head uncertainly. Bronco yelled again and waved his arms, and the black wheeled and went galloping off after his herd.

After that, it took only some gentle words and strong hands to bring Cochise Red back under control. Bronco elected to let the big bay run himself out, burn off his unspent adrenaline, before he pulled him up, blowing and trembling and drenched with sweat, in the shade of some pines at the meadow’s edge. A moment later the mares joined them-to be met with an angry squeal, lashing hooves and flashing teeth. Bronco laughed out loud, full of a strange kind of euphoria, now that the crisis was over. He bent to stroke the stallion’s sweat-slick neck, murmuring reassurances as he prepared to dismount, but halted, body tensed and half-turned in the saddle, when he heard a faint sound.

Lauren. His heart leaped guiltily into his throat. In the excitement he’d all but forgotten her. Recovering, he inquired with no more than understandable gruffness, “You okay back there?”

Instead of answering, she asked in a high angry voice, “Why did he do that?”

“Red? You mean, just now, with the mares?” Bronco chuckled, pretending nonchalance. “Aw, he was just chastising them, keeping them in line-reminding them who’s their lord and master.” He swung his leg over the saddle horn and dropped to the ground, then turned to offer Lauren a hand.

That was when he saw how set and pale her face was, and the fear and confusion in her eyes. The euphoria left him, and he felt chastened and ashamed. “Come on,” he urged gently as he reached for her and eased his arm around her waist.

For a moment more she resisted, refusing to look at him and clinging obstinately to the saddle skirt. He gave her an encouraging tug; she made a small sound-a furious whim per. Then suddenly she changed her mind, transferring her hands from the saddle to his shoulders, and allowed him to ease her down and into his arms.

He pulled her into a one-armed hug-taking no chances, he still kept a firm grip on the stallion’s reins-and she laid her head against his shoulder and hid her face in the curve of his neck and jaw. For a long time they just stood like that, he with his cheek resting on her hair and his heart beating like a jackhammer, Lauren breathing unevenly and trying not to tremble. He wanted to stroke her, pet her, comfort her with soft words and hard kisses. But he couldn’t. Didn’t dare.

After a minute, calling up all the reinforcements he could muster of will, responsibility and honor, he gave her sweat-damp head a nudge with his chin. “Hey, what’d you do with my hat?”

She gave a sharp sniffly laugh and pulled away from him, briefly swiping her nose with the back of her hand. She didn’t say anything-didn’t have to; the tears shimmering in her eyes were punishment enough. Then, since he felt lousy and sorry and full of yearnings he couldn’t assuage, and because he didn’t know what else to do about them, he got angry.

“I don’t know what you’re so upset about,” he muttered, irrationally wounded. He turned his back on the woman and her accusing eyes and began to walk the stallion into the trees. Behind him he heard the crashing noises the mares made as they followed at a discreet distance and, after a suspenseful interval, the sound he’d been straining his ears for-the crunch of human footsteps in pine needles, hurrying to catch up.

“I’m not upset,” Lauren said as she stumbled into step beside him. But her voice was breathless, tense and trembling. “Try terrified. As in, scared out of my wits.”

Bronco glanced at her. His heart began to beat faster. “What for? You weren’t in any danger.” It was a bald faced lie and he knew it. Nevertheless he felt entirely justified in adding bitterly, “I’d think you could trust me just a little.”

Her bark of laughter made him wince. “Trust you? This from the man who kidnapped me?”

He swung around to face her, blocking her way. “I’m also the man who saved your life,” he retorted. “Don’t forget that.”

As she was staring at him, eyes wide and incredulous, cheeks flushed, seething, it occurred to him that it was probably the dumbest, most asinine conversation he’d ever had with a woman in his life. That it was making him feel-and act-about eleven years old. And that he didn’t have any idea in the world how to fix it.

All he seemed able to do was stare back at her, with his heart thumping and his breath like fire in his lungs, while thunder rumbled way off in the distance and the muggy monsoon heat rolled in around him.

And then, as he stared at her, it came to him gradually that the anger inside him had gone, and in its place was a great quietness. It was the quietness, the peace, that comes with certainty. Suddenly he knew, absolutely knew, what was going to happen-what had to happen-if he didn’t find some way to stop himself from kissing her.

Stop himself? It would have been easier to stop his own beating heart.

In the instant when he knew for certain what he was going to do, he sucked in a breath-and panic knifed through him like an Arctic blast. It was something like the way he’d felt-oh, long long years ago-the very first time he’d prepared to hurl his warm body into water deeper than he was tall. When he reached for Lauren, when he felt her body, lithe and resistant in the curve of his arm, he knew the same moment of utter certainty that he’d just done something incredibly foolish and possibly fatal. When he looked into her shocked eyes, felt her breath flow hot across his lips, he knew he was going to drown.

But then, as it had happened to him all those years before, just when things seemed farthest beyond recall, he knew an almost overwhelming sense of relief, redemption and joy.

Forgive me, he prayed, to no one, to everyone. And then he kissed her.

She did resist a little at first, breath gusting in a small shocked gasp, hands fisting against his chest, spine arching backward in the automatic but futile attempt to postpone the moment of contact with that unyielding body. But he must have known it was only instinctive, a reflex, like a horse shying away from the first touch of the saddle. Because he ignored it and, instead, pulled her lower body hard against him and swooped forward to claim her with a swift and fluid grace, like a cougar springing.

She felt the heat of his body, the coiled tension in his muscles, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. She felt the strength ebbing from her own muscles, and instead of pushing against his chest, found herself clutching his arms, his shoulders, his neck, sure they were all that kept her from falling. She had one stunning glimpse of his warrior’s eyes, fierce and hot and black as coals, before his mouth came down and covered hers, and then, like a patient slipping under anesthetic, her mind simply left her.

Off it drifted, with its questions and confusion, its troubled doubts and self-disgust, leaving her in a state of utter peace and profound relief, where the only thing that mattered was what she felt, right now, this minute. No more asking herself, why? How could she feel this way about this man? The very last man she should feel anything for at all! For some reason she would probably never understand, her heart had chosen him. That was enough. In that single moment when his mouth claimed hers, she knew it was exactly what she’d wanted-had been wanting, des perately wanting-for a very long time. Probably from the first moment he’d touched her, there on the dance floor in Smoky Joe’s Bar and Grill.

With his mouth like a brand on hers and his tongue slashing across her lips like liquid fire, her gasp of shock became a whimper of need. Her lips opened; giddy and intoxicated, she sipped, savored, drank him in like a fine fiery brandy, with a little gasp at the first heady taste of him, then a deep-throated moan, a primitive sound of pleasure.

He growled in response and withdrew-but only for a moment, and only to search for a better fit, a truer melding. His lips returned to nip and tease. His tongue tormented her with gentle mastery. She heard her own voice whisper-not words, just sounds, sounds of encouragement and pleading-and his voice, guttural in response, soothing, promising.

She felt his hand, so gentle in her hair, so warm on her throat. Felt its moist heat seeping through the fabric of her T-shirt, its palm perfectly nesting her breast. She felt her knees begin to buckle, felt his arm there supporting her as they both began to sink, in a wholly natural way, toward the pine-needle carpet at their feet.

And then-just then-she heard another voice, a husky whicker. As if it was a signal bringing him out of a trance, Bronco drew a shuddering breath and turned away from her. The man who a moment ago had held her in an embrace the likes of which she’d never known and kissed her as she’d never been kissed before, kissed her and made her believe in heaven, the promised land, El Dorado, leaned now across the saddle skirt and supported his bowed head. He muttered something she couldn’t understand, until he gave his head a violent shake and repeated it in a louder harsher voice: “I can’t…do this.”

“No!” Lauren cried in shocked and trembling protest. “You can’t…you can’t undo it.”

He threw her one fierce black look, then gripped the reins and, ignoring a strident little whinny of protest, began to walk the stallion deeper into the timber. Tense and fighting for control, she hurried after him. “Don’t you dare walk away!” She sounded like a jilted schoolgirl and didn’t care. “You can’t do something like that and just…pretend it never happened.”

Without looking at her he mumbled thickly, “Yeah, well, it never should have happened.”

“Yeah, well, here’s a news flash for you-it did happen.” Oh, she was furious-breathless with fury. And frightened. Terrified that he meant it and that what had just happened to her might never happen again. “So what now, huh? What now?”

He stopped and turned his face to her, and it was like an effigy carved in stone. “I should never have let it happen. It’s my responsibility to see that it doesn’t happen again.”

For a few moments Lauren was speechless. Not even when he’d first kidnapped her had she felt such rage; she wanted to fly at him, scratch his eyes out, rip at that impassive face with her fingernails-until she looked again, more closely, at his eyes. For once unshielded, she could see reflected in them everything she was feeling and more-pain and passion, frustration, sorrow and bitter regret.

“Because of them?” she asked, her voice still high and taut, but with ebbing anger, the beginning of understanding. “Because of Gil? The cause? The…whatever you call ’em of Liberty? They barely exist anymore! Why should it matter?”

Why should it matter. Gazing at her, Bronco felt all but swallowed up in heaviness and turmoil. The storms in his soul were as violent as any he’d ever faced; he felt himself becoming lost in them, desperately in need of a compass. What had he done? He’d sworn to protect this woman, and instead, he’d done her grievous harm. Now she stood before him wanting to know why, and he couldn’t even offer her an answer. Not one that would make sense to her.

Still, he felt compelled to try, with as much of the truth as he could possibly give her. “It matters to me,” he said stiffly. “It’s personal-a matter of honor. I took you away from your family. I’ll see you’re returned to them in the same condition as when you were taken.”

“Too late,” she said softly, her smile small and crooked.

Too late. He returned her gaze in silence, while the turmoil inside him grew. Somewhere in the distance thunder rumbled, and he felt its echoes deep in his own belly.

She spoke, suddenly, in a voice too loud, too harsh. “Do you think this makes any sense to me?” Her eyes glistened dangerously. He watched them in dread, desperately afraid of what it was going to do to his heart when the first tear fell. “It makes no sense to me at all! Everything logical and reasonable in me tells me I shouldn’t feel what I feel for you. By all rights you should be the last man I’d ever find myself mixed up with. And believe me,” she added with a strange note of bitterness in her voice, “if ever there was a one for doing what she’s supposed to do, it’s Lauren Brown. Which doesn’t alter one bit the fact that I do feel…something for you-God, don’t ask me what!” She threw her hands up as her voice broke finally with a choked helpless sound. After a moment she drew a ragged breath and whispered, “All I know is…I don’t know how I’m going to get back on that horse with you.”

A growl came from deep in Bronco’s chest, barely audible even to him. But Cochise Red turned his head toward him and bumped his shoulder with his muzzle, then nibbled and snuffled his hair in mute sympathy. Something shivered through him-part laughter, part physical desire-and holding the breath that would have betrayed those things to her, he silently took Lauren’s hand and began to walk, bringing her along with him.

Presently he jerked his head toward the horse ambling beside him and said gruffly, “You can ride-I’ll walk.”

A high liquid sound of pure frustration made him glance at her in alarm, his heart thudding hard and fast against his ribs. But she had her head down and he couldn’t see much of her face, just the warm pink stain of sunburn, and the strands of blond hair that had worked loose from her ponytail, sweat-darkened and sticking to her neck and temples and the sides of her cheeks. He jerked his eyes away from her and held his breath while desire rumbled again in his belly and the turmoil inside him grew.

“Tonight…when we stop, wherever we stop, what then?” she asked softly, and without looking he knew her eyes were on him again. He didn’t answer, and she went on in a gentle musing tone, almost as if she was singing to him, a sad sweet song. “Will you do what you did last night-leave me your blanket and go off somewhere? I hardly think to sleep, so…what? To stand watch? Keep your lonely vigil? Only tonight, there won’t be any sleep for me, either-do you seriously think I could? Do you think I won’t lie awake counting my own heartbeats, straining my ears for your footsteps, every nerve jumping at the slightest sound? Will you do that to me?”

She finished in a choked whisper, and he realized then that he was no longer walking, that he had stopped and was facing her, still holding her hand. He realized, too, that although desire still boiled inside him, the turmoil had left his mind, and in its place, like an old familiar friend, had come that inner peace, the quietness he’d felt just before he kissed her.

In that quiet he heard the splash and chuckle of water, and knew he was very near the place where the stream that flowed down through the canyon began, cascading over boulders from springs high on the shoulders of the Sacred Mountain to pool temporarily here in natural basins. It was a place he knew well, a place to which he’d come many times before in search of refuge and healing for his soul. What he didn’t know was whether it was fate or purpose that had brought him to this place, at this time. It didn’t seem important for him to know.

He lifted his hand to her face and felt the warm velvet of her skin against his fingertips, the moist flow of her breath across his thumb. “No,” he said softly, “I won’t do that to you.” And silently added, Or to me.

He drew his hand down the side of her face to her neck and gazed deeply into her eyes, and saw in them the same storms that raged inside him. Taking her hand once more, he made a soft wordless sound and a slight head movement of encouragement, and they walked on together in silence, leading the stallion.

When they came near to the bottommost of the series of basins, Bronco secured Cochise Red to a fallen tree with a short lead rope. He untied the saddlebags, the poncho and bedroll and hitched them under one arm, then turned again to Lauren and silently held out his hand. She reached for it without a word or a moment’s hesitation, eyes clinging to his as if it wasn’t just her hand but her life she was giving into his keeping.

Her eyes were large and dark-and yes, there was fear in them, but the fear didn’t trouble him now that he understood what it was she was afraid of. And because along with fear, he also saw hope. And trust. Somehow, against all logic and reason, she trusted him, this woman he’d taken and held by force and against her will. That knowledge both exalted and humbled him.

How can I trust him? This makes no sense to me! Confusion was an aching mass inside her; she wanted to weep with it.

The truth was, she placed her hand in Johnny Bronco’s only partly because she did trust him, because at the center of the storm of confusion within her was a tiny core of certainty that he, and only he, could make the confusion go away. But the honesty in her forced her to admit the truth-she went with him mostly because there was a fire inside her, a pounding in her belly and a melting in her knees, a wanting so fierce she’d have given him her hand whether she trusted him or not and walked into hell with him, if that was where he chose to take her.

But it wasn’t hell he led her to. It was Eden.

Farther up the side of the mountain, sunlight shimmered on rocky cliffs and a hawk soared and screamed against a backdrop of billowing thunderheads. But here on the lowest level of the cascade, virgin forest crowded against the cliffs, creating a moist and shady bower where new young pine trees fought the decaying carcasses of their fallen elders for growing space between the moss-covered boulders, and ferns and wildflowers sprang from every crack and crevice.

Bronco led her through the rocks and fallen logs, following a trail he obviously knew well, then out onto a rocky apron where, over countless eons, water falling from a ledge above had worn away the rock to form a natural basin. Here he paused to lay the saddlebags and blanket down, then slowly turned her toward him.

Gently, so gently it hardly seemed as though he touched her at all, he took her face between his hands. Slowly, so slowly it seemed as if it would take her entire lifetime, he lowered his mouth to hers. His lips were soft, so soft on hers, his tongue sweet as sun-warmed honey. Her breathing stopped; her breath backed up in her lungs, and her body rocked with the force of her heartbeat. And then he pulled away.

Left suddenly bereft, she opened her eyes-and her wordless whimper of protest died. His black and glowing eyes were locked on her face while his fingers worked their way down through the buttons on the front of his shirt. Like one in a trance she watched him pull the shirttails from the waistband of his jeans, unbutton the cuffs and let the shirt drop to the ground in a pile of soft sky-blue. His chest glistened with sweat; she swallowed, certain she would experience the salt-slick taste of him on her tongue, and was surprised to find her throat as dry as dust.

One by one, never taking his eyes from her face, he removed his boots, his belt, his jeans, until he stood splendidly naked before her. Then he turned and walked to the edge of the basin. When he was ankle-deep in the water, he lifted his hands and pulled away the band that held his hair in its neat tight knot.

Utterly motionless, Lauren stood and watched him stride deeper into the pool. He walked without a trace of self-consciousness, his body so straight and strong, buttocks hard as rocks and all the muscles in his back glistening in the sun, and long hair streaming over his shoulders like strands of black silk. He’s beautiful, she thought, with no sense of surprise. So beautiful. She felt her legs trembling, and for reasons she couldn’t begin to understand, the sting of tears in her eyes.

He seemed to glide through the water to where the cascade fell from the rock overhang far above and then, standing with feet braced apart, lifted his face to the sky and flung his arms wide. Lauren caught her breath in awe as crystalline water drummed and splashed over his head and shoulders to ripple and foam away from his powerfully muscled thighs. It seemed a long time that he stood there, with the water streaming over his face and body like a veil, holding himself absolutely still, as though, she thought, he were making of himself some kind of holy offering. Then he turned to her and silently held out his hand.

She stayed where she was, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and feet rooted solidly to the ground-not because of fear, although he’d never looked more fierce, emerging from the water in all his manly splendor, like some ancient river god, with his hair slicked back and plastered to his neck and shoulders like seaweed, exotic features etched in bold relief by sunlight and deep shadows. She stood motionless because she had lost faith in the capability of her legs to support her body, and silent because of her tongue’s inability to form words. She kept her eyes glued to his unsmiling face and was relieved beyond all reason when she felt his hands lightly touch her shoulders.

The air had become molten, too thick and heavy to be drawn into something as frail as lungs. And her heart, surely it would do itself an injury, banging so violently against the confines of her chest!

Somehow she held herself erect, not reaching for him, understanding that it wasn’t yet the time for touching, even though her body felt his magnetism like a planet feels the pull of the sun. She held herself still, proud that her trembling was only inside, as he slowly drew her T-shirt over her head and dropped it on the rocks beside her. The air felt oven-hot on her skin, but at its touch her nipples drew hard and tight.

Dropping to one knee, he drew off her boots, then her jeans, her underpants, her socks, and when she was as naked as he, rose in one swift fluid motion and took her hands. Smoldering eyes and swelling manhood betrayed the passion raging inside him, but his hands were gentle and cool as he led her, moving backward step by step, into the pool.

The water felt like ice to her heated body, but she didn’t gasp or shiver or cringe. She’d already sensed that there was something more spiritual than sensual about what was happening between them, and she would have stopped her own breath rather than disappoint him. Now, with the water’s cold scalpel slicing at her skin, stripping away the dust and sweat, the tiredness and anger and fear, she thought she understood the symbolism in that simple ritual of cleansing.

For herself, she felt as if an old skin had been scoured from her body, leaving her a shiny new one, pure and unscarred, vulnerable and untouched. Might it be possible- it seemed as though it could be-for them to cast off at the same time the trappings and encumbrances of their too-divergent worlds and become, at least for a time, just two human beings, stripped to their most elemental state: male and female-Man and Woman? And to come together as such, fresh and clean and new.

What his thoughts and purpose were she could only wonder, because he spoke not a word to her as he guided her under the falling water. Maybe she should have wondered, as well, why she went with him so trustingly-but she didn’t. Nor did she think it strange any longer that she should trust so implicitly the same man who had kidnapped and held her prisoner; it seemed to go with her new skin, that childlike sense of innocence.

She stood quiescent and utterly still beneath the water, with eyes closed and the drumming of the cascade drowning all senses, save that of touch. Oh, yes, touch. She felt the cold glide of water and Bronco’s hands. So gently, so surely, they touched her, pouring pure clean water over her, beginning with the top of her head and flowing downward over brow and temples, eyelids, cheeks, nose and lips. She felt them glissade along her jaw, slide on under and down her neck and throat, across her chest to her breasts, and smooth the water around them so sweetly that even though her nipples drew tight and hard as diamonds and her skin seemed showered with goose bumps, she didn’t shiver. She felt his hands skim the ticklish sides of her ribs and underarms, stroke down her arms, down, down to the very tips of her fingers, then back up again to the rounds of her shoulders, flatten across her back and briefly cup the nape of her neck before plunging down the long sensitive curve of her spine.

Beneath the surface of the water now, she felt his hands, felt one slide between her buttocks, the other across her belly and deep between her thighs. Fingers introduced cool pure water into all her body’s secret places-so subtly, so gently, she neither gasped nor moaned, but only melted.

“Open your eyes-look at me.” The command was harsh and guttural, and carried to her ears even above the drum and splash of the waterfall. Dumbstruck, she obeyed, though desire coiled and writhed in her belly and she couldn’t feel her legs at all.

She saw his face through a rainbow shimmer-a warrior’s face, fierce and dark with its angry slash of brows and bright obsidian eyes. And she wondered how it was that the same man could have a face so fierce and hands so gentle. Then his features grew blurry, and she felt his hands on the sides of her neck just below her ears, and his thumbs framing her face, holding it upturned and still. Her world darkened. Her eyes closed. And she fell, trembling at last, into his kiss…