The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

Chapter 14

A long way. And to Bronco, not nearly long enough.

Can’t believe it’s over, she’d said. But for him, it wouldn’t really be over until Dallas, until he’d found a way to hand Lauren Brown over to her father or, at the very least, someone in authority who could get word to her father that she was safe, preferably in time to prevent the breakdown of the American political system. And then, if all went well, he’d never see her again. He’d slip away, reunite with SOL and continue his job of monitoring the country’s underground militia and forget he’d ever been so stupid as to fall in love with the daughter of the next president of the United States.

The president’s daughter! Even in his mind the words sounded incredible. The problem was, the words didn’t seem to be getting through to his heart. All his heart remembered was the way she’d looked at him, standing in the spring, eyes drenched and dark with trust…the lush scent of her body, the warm ripe feel of her in his arms, her sobs of passion and joy.

John Bracco had always believed he’d never know the joys of home, family and a lifelong mate. Loving a woman had seemed too great a risk. But now, all he could think about were this woman’s arms around him, the pounding of her heart against his ear, drowning out the rush and roar of the flood, and her voice, like a mantra of hope, I won’t leave you, Johnny. I won’t leave you.

“How far is it to Dallas?” Lauren asked.

Bronco’s heart gave a guilty leap as he glanced at her, though he knew there was no way she could know what he’d been thinking. His runaway pulse and singing senses would be invisible to her, safely hidden behind the impassive mask he’d carefully cultivated and conveniently blamed on his Apache heritage. “About a thousand miles,” he replied.

“I suppose flying’s out of the question.” Her tone was dry, and he answered her the same way.

“Without money, credit cards and picture ID, yeah, I’d say so.” And, he silently added, without the federal ID and ATF contact codes he’d kept safely hidden in a secret compartment in his electric shaver, now lost to the flood.

There was a long pause while the pickup rattled over a section of corduroy. When the road’s surface evened out enough to allow conversation again, Lauren said without conviction, “You could drop me off at the nearest police station.”

Bronco glanced at her. “Yeah, and you’d tell ’em what?” he asked quietly. “Some crazy story about being Rhett Brown’s daughter, and you were kidnapped recently by a secret militant antigovernment organization named SOL, but now you’ve managed to escape and survive a flash flood? You think they’re going to believe you? Unless this has leaked to the news media, which I doubt, how often has your picture been in the papers or on national TV recently? Even Gil didn’t know who you were until he ran a routine check to see if that check of yours was good.”

She made a soft sound and muttered, “So that was it.”

“You’d probably convince somebody eventually, but no telling how long that might take. In case you’ve lost track of what day it is, time is something we don’t have much of.”

He didn’t tell her that it might be worse for her if her story was believed. She had no idea, and neither did he, how many of these local law-enforcement people were either sympathetic to or outright members of SOL. He knew for a fact some were, and he wasn’t willing to take the risk. He hadn’t brought her this far only to dump her out of the frying pan and into the fire. She was his responsibility. He’d see her safely home-all the way home.

All that was true. But only his heart knew about the cold little shiver of rejection that had gone through him at the thought of giving her up into someone else’s keeping. Once he did that, it was truly over. He’d never see her again, unless it was on the evening news. Whether it was wise or not, he wanted to postpone that inevitable moment as long as possible.

He looks so bitter, so disappointed, Lauren thought. Because he’d failed in his purpose, the cause he believed in had been defeated, at least for the moment, and his compatriots were either dead, captured or scattered to the four winds.

But looking at him now it was so hard-impossible-to believe he could have been part of the paramilitary conspiracy to kidnap her and blackmail her father into giving up the presidential nomination. Oh, his warrior’s features were hard enough, his glittering black eyes fierce enough to make him seem capable of almost any kind of cruelty or violence. But she no longer saw him only with her eyes. And what her heart saw was the incredible gentleness of his hands, the soul-stirring sweetness of his smile, the passion of self-sacrifice in the voice that shouted from the flood to leave him there and go.

Her heart was pounding as she cleared her throat and asked hesitantly, “What about a phone?”

He gave a shrug and his huff of laughter. “You can try.”

Bronco leaned against the fender in the lengthening shade of his uncle’s pickup truck and glugged a grape soda while he watched Lauren feed quarters into a pay phone that teetered like a small forlorn tree on the edge of the dirt parking lot. The grape soda made him think of the past, the rare sweet indulgences of his childhood-the early years, the happy years, before. Watching Lauren made him think of the future, and how he was going to learn to survive all the bleak years…after.

He saw her cradle the receiver yet again and knew from the way she stood without moving and the dejected slump of her shoulders that she’d run out of options. He wasn’t surprised; at this point her whole family was probably holed up in a hotel room somewhere in Dallas, ready to share Rhett Brown’s big night. Or ready to rally around when he dropped the bombshell.

He’d tried to think who he might call, but without his ID numbers and contact codes, he’d never get through the security net to his contact at ATF. He felt a frustrating sense of failure at his own helplessness, cursed himself for not memorizing those damn codes. He’d had them memorized once upon a time, but they’d gotten more and more complex over the years, and he’d been undercover a long time.

As she approached, he observed with pangs of guilt and regret how gaunt and heat-frazzled she looked in Rachel’s borrowed clothes, jeans that were too big for her and a faded flowered cotton blouse. Uncle Frank’s pickup truck wasn’t equipped with air-conditioning.

“Any luck?” he asked gruffly, handing her a grape soda.

She shook her head. “Everybody’s in Dallas.” She took the bottle from him, gave it a funny little “Huh!” look and tilted it to her lips. After the first gulp she lowered it with a surprised laugh. “I haven’t had one of these since I was a kid.”

“Me, either.” He raised his bottle to her and she clinked hers against it. Then they both stood there while the sun went down behind the pickup truck, drinking grape soda and smiling at each other with their eyes. As far as Bronco was concerned, that grape soda was wasted money, because his mouth was bone-dry.

“So,” Lauren said, “I guess we should just keep driving.” Her eyes were closed, face lifted to the dying wind, and she was moving the moisture-beaded bottle across her forehead, down the side of her face, into the V of her blouse…

Bronco found that his throat had closed. He forced his voice through, but it was a hoarse and ragged remnant of the one he was used to. “Ah, I’ve been thinking about that. It’s late, it’s been a long day and we’re both tired.” He jerked his head toward the strip of blacktop highway and the forlorn row of tiny whitewashed cabins strung out along the other side under a faded sign that read Broken Arrow Motel. “I was thinking maybe we should get some rest-get an early start tomorrow morning.”

She glanced at the motel, a relic of the days before interstates, then brought her eyes slowly back to him, a droll sideways look shielded by demurely lowered lashes. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “Do you think they’d have a vacancy?”

Bronco laughed, then grew serious again. “More important, can we afford it?” He reached into the pocket of his jeans-also too big for him, borrowed from his cousin Roger-and drew out the fistful of cash Grandmother Rose had given him from her cookie-jar stash. A quick tally told him he had forty-seven dollars and change left after filling the truck’s gas tank and buying the grape sodas. He held up the bills, fanned like a hand of cards. “We get a choice. What do you want to do-eat or sleep?”

It might have been the blood pounding in his own head, but Lauren’s voice sounded oddly slurred and thickened as she replied, “A bed sounds awfully good.” And it seemed to him she swayed toward him just slightly.

He said softly, “We can probably afford…one.”

She nodded slowly, never taking her eyes from his face.

After a moment he said brusquely, “Well. Okay.” He stuffed the cash back in his pocket and went into the gas station’s hot dim little convenience store, where he spent five of their meager dollars on a box of graham crackers, a quart of milk, a disposable razor, a pocket comb and an Albuquerque newspaper.

Ten minutes later he had the key to the Broken Arrow Motel’s cabin number four in his hand.

“I can’t believe he didn’t ask for any ID,” Lauren said in a low voice as she waited for Bronco to unlock the door. She smiled for the benefit of the manager, who was standing in the office doorway in his undershirt and overalls, watching them through black horn-rimmed glasses and rubbing dubiously at his quarter inch of gray beard stubble.

Bronco gave a sardonic grunt as the key turned at last in the ancient lock. He gave a thumbs-up to the manager, who turned and went back to his grainy black-and-white TV and Wheel of Fortune.

“He’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Bronco said dryly as he pushed the door open and waved her ahead of him.

The room was dark, with the curtains drawn and the only light coming from the open doorway. But it didn’t matter- Lauren wasn’t really aware of her surroundings, anyway. Dimly she registered the worn rust-colored carpet, flowered bedspread and curtains in seventies colors-orange, yellow and avocado green. Then the door closed behind her and she heard the rustle of plastic as Bronco set the bag of groceries he’d just bought on the small wooden table near the door. She felt for the lamp on the nightstand and discovered that she was trembling.

She couldn’t bring herself to turn around; uncertainty had made her too vulnerable. Yesterday-last night-seemed an age ago, the mountain spring and monsoon storm very far away. There’d been catastrophic events in her life since then, and life-altering revelations…

Bronco stood with the key in his hand and stared at the back of her bowed head. Even with her body hidden in shapeless borrowed clothes and her winter-grass hair clumsily braided, dull and in need of washing, he still thought her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. So beautiful it made his eyes smart and his throat ache to look at her.

He ached because things were so complicated now between them, so impossible. He ached for the way it had been for a brief time, there on the Sacred Mountain, reduced to the most primitive elements-man and woman, earth and sky and water, and the fire inside. How simple it had all been then. No pain, just joy. Pleasure in each other. A need and a fulfillment. But now he knew it wasn’t simple at all, that there was a reckoning, a cost to be counted. Once he’d been afraid of hurting her, he remembered, doing her damage. Now, though he couldn’t see how he might have avoided it, he knew the damage to himself was just as great-maybe even greater. His heart would never be the same.

One of us has to end this, Lauren thought, or begin… It took every ounce of strength she had just to turn and face him.

And she saw his eyes. Saw them as she’d never seen them before, beneath the sweep of warrior’s brows, glowing deep and dark with pain, with vulnerability, with all that she’d ever hoped to see in a man’s eyes gazing back into hers.

She uttered a small cry-like a sob, except that she was smiling. Smiling through tears. And then somehow, without either of them seeming to move, she was in his arms and he was holding her-and she him-as if they’d never, either of them, let go. Then he was plunging his fingers into her hair, setting it free, filling his hands with it while his mouth scorched her eyelids, her mouth, the sides of her neck, her throat. And she was laughing and whispering his name, tugging and pulling at his shirt, wanting to feel his beautiful satiny skin and hard body against hers.

She pulled away from him, gasping and desperate, suddenly filled with panic. “You won’t…you can’t…” she sobbed, dashing tears from her cheeks. “Please don’t deny me this time. I don’t care-I want to feel you inside me. Please let me feel you inside me. Just once. Please, Johnny…”

He frowned-and how endearingly silly it looked with eyes so soft and gentle. “Just once?” he murmured, and she heard something hit the bedspread with a faint plop-plop. She tore her eyes from his face to stare at the two small packages lying on the bed. “There was a machine in the men’s room at the gas station,” he said in his warm bear-rug voice, stirring shivers over her whole body. “Wasn’t sure I should spend our food money on con-” Her kiss stopped him there.

She felt his muscles tense and his back bow as he lowered her onto the bed and followed her down. Once again they tore at each other’s clothes. And thank heaven for the snaps on his borrowed Western-style shirt, because she was far too impatient for the intricacies of buttons. Wrenching his shirt apart and lifting herself into its folds, she scored his chest with her teeth and laved it with her tongue like one famished. Yes, famished. They were like starving survivors, half-mad with hunger, desperate to fill and be filled, caring nothing for taste and texture, smell and touch.

All they wanted then was the quickest avenue, the swiftest access to that complete coupling they’d denied themselves thus far. And clothing was a frail and incon sequential barrier. Bracing himself on one hand, Bronco raked Lauren’s jeans over her hips, then left her struggling to free her legs while he yanked at his own stubborn jeans fastening. Barely freed of that restriction, barely sheathed, he felt her legs come around him and her body open to him, and then he was fitting himself to her yielding softness and at long last driving himself home. Too suddenly, too violently for her, he knew it must be-yet he heard her cry blend with his, felt it wrenched, as his was, from deep inside, and knew it for a groan of pure relief, of primitive triumph and savage joy.

It was an explosion-noisy, shocking, devastating, and quickly over. Over in a few thunderous heartbeats, and yet it seemed to John Bracco that in the space of those heartbeats his old life had passed and a new one begun. So this is what it feels like, he thought, awed and humbled, quaking inside.

“That’s once,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss Lauren’s tear-drenched eyes, the tip of her nose, her quivering lips. “For number two we’ve got all night.” Rolling onto his side, he gathered her into his arms and held her tightly against his heart, and felt neither wonder nor concern when she began to sob as if her heart was breaking.

Oh, yes, her heart was breaking, she was sure of it. How could it not be? No heart could possibly hold together when it was filled to bursting with overwhelming joy…and utter despair.

Morning came, incredibly, in spite of all Lauren’s efforts to convince herself the night could last forever. But, she wondered, which was the fantasy-last night or this?

This was Bronco, sitting at the little wooden table, naked except for a motel towel knotted around his hips, long hair streaming down his back, casually reading the newspaper and eating graham crackers dipped in milk. She watched him from the bathroom doorway as she toweled her hair dry, quivering inside with wonder as she thought about the Bronco she’d danced with that long-ago night, barely a week ago now, in Smoky Joe’s. That lying, beer-drinking, brawling charmer in the red shirt. Who is the real Johnny Bronco?

Confusion and anger welled up inside her-then broke apart like a wave on a rock in a breathtaking burst of revelation. The real Johnny Bronco? But wait-hadn’t she been with this man day and night for days? She’d seen him angry and joyful, tired and teasing, tough and tender, vulnerable and strong-and not once had she seen even a glimpse of that other Bronco. Suddenly she knew beyond any doubt that this man, the Bronco here with her now, the man who’d saved her life, made her angry, made her cry, made her fall in hopeless love with him, was the real one. The other Bronco-that, it seemed to her now, had been artificial, unreal. Almost like an actor playing a role.

In the folds of the towel she caught her breath in a gasp of shock, as with that realization so many others fell into place, like a toppling trail of dominoes. Beer-drinking? But he hadn’t smelled of beer! She remembered thinking how wonderful he smelled-of herbal soap and horses and leather and man. And his room at the ranch-almost military in its neatness. She’d thought then-no, she’d felt-nothing so tidy as thought-that there was something about Johnny Bronco that didn’t fit.

Something, a lot of things. Like the way he talked, sometimes like an educated man, sometimes like a cop or a soldier, almost never like a roughshod cowboy who’d been kicked out of just about everywhere, including the U.S. Army!

And what about that shaver? This morning she’d stood and watched him scrape away a week’s worth of beard with bar soap and a throwaway razor, and had teased him about maybe needing tweezers, instead. Why would a man with almost no beard carry an electric shaver with him in his saddlebag to a wilderness camp? What could that possibly mean? Her mind, nurtured on spy novels and James Bond movies, instantly conjured up intriguing possibilities. She hadn’t found a gun-maybe the shaver had actually been a weapon of some kind!

Oh, all right, that was another of her romantic notions. But it didn’t change the fact that there were things about John Bracco that didn’t add up.

In the space of a few moments her suspicion had hardened into certainty: the man she loved was not who he seemed to be.

He looked up just then and saw her watching him, and his eyebrows dipped low in a frown. As if to compensate for that, his voice was low, almost gentle, as he asked, “Just about ready to go?”

“Just about.” She nodded toward the paper, which he’d quickly folded away, as if, she thought, to shield it from her eyes. “Is that the article on the raid? I read it while you were in the shower.” She paused, looking into his eyes, straining to see beyond their glittering black surface. “You must be relieved to hear Gil McCullough managed to get away.” But, she thought, he doesn’t look relieved, or angry, or triumphant. Instead, he looked worried.

For a long moment he stared at her, a moment filled with silence and suspicion. Then, “Yeah,” he said, and sweeping the folded newspaper from the table, dropped it into the wastebasket near his feet. He picked up the carton of milk and offered it to her, and when she shook her head, drank the last few swallows and dropped it on top of the newspaper. “We’d best be going,” he said softly. “It’s a long way to Dallas.”

The Dallas Convention Center was a circus of activity, simmering in the heat of late afternoon. Flags and banners and red-white-and-blue bunting floated in the sunshine like streamers at a carnival. In the crowd milling about the com plex was an atmosphere of celebration, but of anticlimax, too. The job they’d come to do had been done; the party had chosen its candidate and now it was party time.

Bronco and Lauren sat in Frank’s dusty pickup, parked in a passenger-loading zone just outside the ring of security that surrounded the convention center. And security was heavy, no doubt about it. Bronco was glad to see that nobody seemed to be taking any chances, and he wondered how much of that had to do with the fact that Gil McCullough was still out there somewhere and now carrying a serious grudge.

“This is as far as I go,” he said to Lauren, though his eyes were fixed on the gleaming bronze statues of longhorn steers that marched across a landscaped area near the main entrance. He couldn’t look at her. For his sake and for hers, he couldn’t let her see the desperation in his eyes. He knew she had feelings for him. Maybe even thought she was in love with him, which was probably natural enough after all they’d been through together. But she’d get over it, now that she was back where she belonged. Of that he had no doubt whatsoever.

He couldn’t let himself doubt that. If he did, he’d never be able to let her go.

“Then I guess it’s time to say goodbye,” Lauren said. Though she didn’t look at him when she did, fixing her gaze, instead, on some big bronze statues of cattle. She couldn’t let him see her eyes, knowing they’d surely reflect her new determination and resolve. She knew what was on his mind, knew perfectly well he planned to drop her off and then slip away to rejoin his precious SOL. Well, he might not know it, but he hadn’t seen the last of Lauren Elizabeth Brown-no way, José.

Protected and fortified by that conviction, she moved in a strange sort of unreality, feeling nothing at all, not even the door handle in her hand. “So long. Thank you for everything…” She left the words floating behind her as she slipped from the truck, aware that she’d closed the door, but not hearing it slam. Weightless as a balloon, she drifted across the street, not feeling the pavement under her feet. People moved around her, but she didn’t really see them. They were like shadows, flitting on the edges of a dream.

Bronco watched her cross the concourse on a wavering track that would take her inevitably out of his life. Forever. His eyes were fixed on her with such intensity that they burned in their sockets-as her image was burned on his retinas and on his heart. Forever.

So focused was his attention on the woman that he failed to notice immediately the two figures moving in a purposeful diagonal intended to cut her off before she could reach the net of security around the convention center. When he did, alerted by some sixth sense-whether instinct or training he’d never know-he wasn’t even conscious of surprise. Somehow it seemed natural, even expected, that they should all wash up together in this same place, like debris from the same flood.

But even before those thoughts had formed in his mind, he was moving to intercept them-the man he’d called his friend and commander, Gil McCullough, and his lieutenant, Ron Masters.

He couldn’t help but notice they were dressed in Dallas camouflage now-brand-new Western-style suits, boots and cowboy hats. He didn’t think Lauren had noticed them at all.

“Hey, Gil. Ron,” he said, and watched the two men jerk, halt and spin toward him, and Ron’s hand reach inside his jacket. A few yards away he saw Lauren stop and turn a dazed look toward him, as if she’d been sleepwalking and awoken too suddenly.

“Johnny!” In fractions of seconds, McCullough’s gaunt face registered shock, then gladness…dimmed with suspicion as he took in the significance of Bronco’s presence there…and finally dissolved into grief-stricken rage. His lips pulled back from clenched teeth and tears glittered in his eyes as he grated out hoarsely, “I trusted you, boy. I gave you a chance.”

“I know,” Bronco said quietly. “I know.” He was motioning to Lauren-Go! Run! But he could see her frozen there, eyes staring, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

Then he looked at Ron Masters. Ron’s teeth were bared, too-in a smile. And the glitter in his eyes wasn’t tears, but the cold madness of a killer. And the gun he’d pulled from his jacket was in his hand now and pointed straight at Lauren.

Despite the flood of adrenaline raging inside him, Bronco’s voice was calm. “Give it up, Ron. You can’t win this one. It’s all over.” And he was moving swiftly toward Lauren, knowing he couldn’t move swiftly enough, even if he’d had wings.

He saw Ron’s eyes flare with a cold deadly light and felt himself hurling through the air. He prayed he’d get to Lauren in time to stop the bullet.

He heard Gil’s voice scream, “No!” and an instant later the deafening sound of the gunshot. His arms closed around Lauren and they went down hard together, the impact with the ground so stunning it was a second or two before he knew they hadn’t been hit. His whole body braced for a second shot, and when it didn’t come, he looked over his shoulder just in time to see Gil McCullough, hands still clutching Ron Masters’s arms, crumple slowly to the ground.

Dimly, Bronco heard shouts, footsteps running from all directions. Ron Masters stared down at the body at his feet, then looked quickly from side to side, assessing his position. He jammed the gun back inside his jacket and took off running.

“You okay?” Bronco said to Lauren as he eased away from her. When she nodded, he pulled himself to his feet and took off after Ron. Took him out with a flying tackle and a couple of the moves he’d learned in ranger school. Seconds later he was on his knees in a pool of blood, and Gil McCullough’s head was in his lap.

Gil was trying to speak to him. “Take it easy,” Bronco growled. “You’re gonna be okay. Just take it easy.”

“You…were like a son to me, Johnny.”

“I know,” Bronco whispered. “I know.” After a moment he put his hand over Gil McCullough’s eyes and gently closed them.

Lauren pulled herself slowly and painfully to a sitting position. She felt hollow. Cold. As if they belonged to someone else, she held up her scraped hands and stared at them, then gaped in surprise at the torn knees of her jeans. Her chin was throbbing-she touched it absently with a finger.

All around her people were running, shouting. People were reaching down to help her to her feet, asking questions. A short distance away she could see Bronco, crouched over Gil McCullough, who wasn’t moving. She called to him, shaking off the hands that were trying to help her. “Bronco-Johnny!”

Then at last he was there beside her, holding her by the arms, but not gently. His face was that of a stranger as he thrust her into the hands of a man in a dark suit with the words, “This is Rhett Brown’s daughter. Get her to him-now!”

With a startled exclamation, the man in the suit pulled a photograph out of his jacket pocket and stared at it, then at Lauren, then at the photo again. The next thing she knew she was surrounded by men in suits and she was being hurried along, hurried away from the scene faster even than she could walk. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t catch even one more glimpse of the man known as Johnny Bronco.

In a hotel room somewhere in Texas, Agent John Bracco was watching television. The evening news was on, with a recap of the convention that had just wrapped up in Dallas. The sound was turned low on the presidential candidate’s acceptance speech, and Bronco’s eyes were fixed on the people standing behind him on the podium. Rhett’s entire family were there, it looked like. His brother and sister and their spouses, his dark-haired wife, Dixie, and his two blond children-tall good-looking Ethan, tall beautiful Lauren, with a scrape on her chin.

He was staring at that scrape and his heart was knocking against his ribs when he heard a knocking at the door. The maid, he supposed, with the extra towels he’d asked for. Just to make sure, though, he looked through the peephole. He growled, “What the hell?” and yanked open the door. He caught a whiff of green apples as Lauren walked calmly past him and into the room.

He carefully closed the door. Then, for a minute or two he didn’t say anything. He was too busy fighting the joy that threatened to engulf him, and afraid his voice might squeak like a boy’s if he tried to speak. When he was sure he could do it calmly-but not looking at her, walking away from her, stalling for time-he said, “How did you find me?”

Her voice was soft and ironic, without a tremor. “I may not be the president’s daughter yet. But I am the daughter of the former attorney general. I have my resources.”

He gave his short dry huff of laughter. “I knew I shouldn’t have underestimated you.”

There was a moment of silence. When she spoke again it was in a whisper, and now her voice did tremble. “Why couldn’t you just have told me?”

He turned and looked at her then. Her eyes were brimming with tears and her chin was jutted out at a belligerent angle. The scrape on her chin made her expression seem unbearably poignant to him. He shrugged and said in a voice that was gravelly with guilt, “Ah, you know-thou shalt not blow thy cover.” Knowing it was a cop-out. Knowing it was nowhere near enough.

“I knew something about you wasn’t right.” She was suddenly fierce and angry. “I told you, remember? It just took me a while to figure out what it was.”

He’d always been more comfortable with her temper than her tears. Smiling, he said, “What gave me away?”

“You smelled good,” she said with a grudging sniff, and couldn’t resist smiling back-with triumph. “No booze.”

Bronco made a tsking sound with his tongue. “Never should have danced with you,” he murmured, reaching out a hand to touch her chin. And then his fingers just naturally curved on around her jaw to the back of her neck, under the wild-grass ripple of her hair.

“That’s my line,” she protested, resisting him. But only very briefly.

It was much later when she was finally able to pull herself away from him again. She didn’t want to-she’d come prepared to stay, unless, of course, he’d thrown her out the door. But she was back firmly rooted in reality now, and there were things she had to know.

“So what happens now?” she asked him, her heart trembling inside her. “Do you go back? Undercover?” And if you do, how will I ever live until you surface again?

He shook his head. His voice sounded dry as dust. “Can’t-not after my picture was splashed all over the evening news. Not with SOL, anyway.” He paused, then took a breath and said brusquely, “I’m sort of thinking about local law enforcement. Thought maybe it’s time I gave something back to my father’s people. My people.” He coughed. Made a small gesture with his hand, but didn’t touch her. “What about you? You ready to go back to being the good little girl?” His smile was crooked. “After all, you’re gonna be the president’s daughter.”

Her face hurt when she tried to smile. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see about that.” Then she shrugged and looked away. I won’t ask, she thought. I can’t ask. Some things were just impossible for a woman with an ounce of pride. “I don’t know,” she said dully. “Go back to being a lawyer, I guess. It’s what I know, what I’m good at.”

There was a long, long pause. Pulses pounded and hopes and fears sang in the air between them like the whine of locusts on a summer evening.

Then Bronco spoke softly, “Apaches need lawyers too.”

Lauren’s eyes snapped to his face, his fierce and beautiful warrior’s face. And in his glowing black eyes she saw it at last-the look of love and longing she’d hoped for, prayed for, risked so much for and come so far to find.