The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

Chapter 7

He waited for her, pacing in the dappled shade in front of the tent where he could keep an eye on the blanketed enclosure, and using every ounce of willpower he could muster to keep himself from thinking about what was going on inside it.

He tried, instead, to think about what might be happening right now down there at the ranch, where the full forces of the federal government had one feisty little Irish lady holed up and surrounded, but that wasn’t much better. Thinking about that made him feel stirred up inside-nothing he could quite pin down, just out of sorts. Like a horse with cockleburrs in his tail. He tried telling himself it was the FBI that was making him so edgy-couldn’t trust those guys not to make a mess of things. But in his heart he knew he didn’t really trust his own people any better, and besides, what was bothering him went a whole lot deeper and was a lot more complicated than interagency rivalry. It had more to do with things like honor, loyalty and duty. The problem was, it wasn’t all that clear to him just now exactly where his lay, and whether in fact a couple of those might be coming into direct conflict with each other.

About one duty, though, he had no doubts whatsoever. He watched, outwardly relaxed, inwardly alert as she came toward him, picking her way barefoot across the pine-needle carpet, mindful, this time, of those lurking cones. She had her winter-grass hair twisted and tucked into a loose knot of some sort that clung to the nape of her neck in defiance of gravity, and her skin looked rosy and wholesome as a child’s.

And again he knew that peculiar sensation inside, that unfamiliar sense of awe.

“Feelin’ better?” he asked without expression.

Lauren grumpily muttered something about “freezing to death” as she brushed past him and into the tent. But there was sparkle in her eyes and an uncertain tilt about her lips, a kind of wariness, he thought, as if she was trying hard not to let on how good she felt.

He chuckled, because he knew firsthand how exhilarating a wash in ice-cold spring water could be. And then, of course, there was the way her cold-hardened nipples poked out sharp and clear against the material of her T-shirt, leaving him to imagine the firm round breast-shape underneath, and to think again those forbidden thoughts about how nicely they’d fill up his hands. He’d caught a whiff of the green-apple shampoo she’d used, and for just a moment, like a gust of a freshening breeze blowing through him, he felt what it would be like to hold her in his arms at that moment, with her body cool and soft and sweet as rain upon his skin. And then…to feel her grow soft and warm and pliant beneath him, like fine leather in the sun…

After she’d recovered from her bath and gotten herself dressed and her sores doctored and bandaged, Bronco took her with him down to the corral to see to the horses. He chose to take her there the long way around, through the timber and over the saddleback ridge, avoiding the cabin and the clearing, as well as the woods nearby where the men had their bivouacs. The way he saw it, the less those guys saw of his “prisoner,” the better.

Walking along with her through the woods, stepping in and out of sunshine, stirring up hot summery smells of pine sap and pollen dust, he couldn’t help but think again how enjoyable it might be to be doing so under different circumstances. Very different circumstances.

Ah, but it was only in his mind. And only for a moment. John Bracco was well aware that he had a job to do, one that to anyone other than an ex-army ranger might have seemed on the edge of impossible. His job was to keep this woman safe-keep her alive, if it came down to that-and somehow do that without letting her or anyone else know he was on her side. He couldn’t even let himself be too nice to her, lest she or McCullough start getting ideas.

Getting ideas. That was something he’d better not do, either. Because the truth was, even if things had been different, even if there had been no Sons of Liberty, no kidnapping, no cover to protect at all costs, the likes of Lauren Brown were not for him. A yellow-haired, pale-skinned, freckle-faced white woman, well-educated and from a nice well-to-do family, would never steal his heart away.

No, sir. For Bronco knew from hard experience that if he ever was foolish enough to give his heart to such a woman, she would surely break it.

He was aware of her, though, there was no denying that, in all the ways he was usually aware in the presence of an exceptionally beautiful woman, plus a few that were new to him.

He was aware, for example, of her quietness-which he’d noticed yesterday, too, on the ride from McCullough’s ranch. This was new to him because in his experience, beautiful women were seldom quiet. Even when they weren’t actually speaking, there was just something about them, something in the way they moved, the way they held themselves, a certain electrical current that seemed to telegraph, Look! Look at me! He was well aware that Lauren’s silence might have had something to do with the fact that she was mad at him again, but he didn’t think so. In Bronco’s experience, there were few things louder in this world than the silent treatment from a beautiful woman.

No. This woman’s quietness was different. Bronco had been raised among a people who appreciate the beauty and purpose of silence, and who see no reason to fill it with speech unless there is something that needs to be said. In adulthood he’d learned that most white people are afraid of silence. In the presence of others they try to vanquish it with meaningless conversation; alone they use almost any means to hold it at bay. Radio, TV, stereo headphones and if nothing else is available, their own bodies-tapping toes, cracking knuckles, clearing throats, whistling.

But not this woman; she seemed perfectly at ease with her own silence and his. He found that most interesting.

Lauren’s thoughts were anything but quiet. So many were crowding her mind, demanding attention, that she had to be very still and devote all her concentration just to listening if she wanted to sort them out.

She thought how good it felt to be clean again. And warm. And she thought how odd it was to feel good about anything at all, under the circumstances.

But she did feel good, amazingly good-with soothing ointment and gauze pads protecting her sore places, the sun hot between her shoulder blades, the fragrant crunch of pine needles under her feet and the breeze drying her hair in soft wisps that tickled her cheeks and forehead. It was beautiful here on this wooded ridge, looking down on a meadow dotted with wildflowers and threaded by a creek that reflected the sky like a bit of blue ribbon dropped on the lawn and forgotten.

It was hard to remember that she was where she was because she’d been abducted by violent and dangerous men bent on political blackmail, at the very least. Hard to remember that she was a prisoner of the man walking so companionably beside her, and that things could easily turn very bad for her if all didn’t go as her captors wished.

But she didn’t feel like a prisoner, at least not right now. She didn’t feel endangered. And that, she realized, was probably because her jailer wasn’t acting at all like a jailer. He wasn’t holding her or restricting her in any way, wasn’t touching her at all, or even looking at her. He just seemed relaxed and easy in her company-as he’d been yesterday, she remembered, on the ride up here.

But then, of course, he could afford to feel easy. He knew she wouldn’t attempt to run or fight him. She’d have to be an idiot to try when she knew he’d only catch and overpower her with humiliating dispatch.

She thought about that. The reminder of her powerlessness should have made her angry all over again, but confusingly it didn’t. Instead, she found herself thinking about his quietness, the fact that he didn’t talk unless he had something he needed to say. It was oddly comfortable, she found, to be with someone who didn’t seem to mind silence.

She slid her eyes sideways under the cover of her lashes to look at her companion without being observed doing so. Her heart gave a lurch and immediately she thought, What, are you out of your mind? Comfortable? Johnny Bronco?

She suddenly saw herself walking beside some exotic untamed creature-a black panther, perhaps, or a mustang stallion-something sleek, dangerous and in no way hers to control. His body moved with the fluid grace and oiled-spring precision of a wild predator. His long black hair hung loose on his back and lifted lazily in the breeze, caught the sun and struck it back in sparks of blue fire, like the wings of a blackbird in flight. Beneath the brim of his Stetson, flawless skin gleamed like the hide of a healthy animal.

Comfortable? Johnny Bronco was about as comfortable as a summer monsoon-and, she thought, as predictable.

“Something on your mind?” Between the high hard wedges of cheekbones and the angry sweep of eyebrows, black eyes glittered at her with the uncompromising fierceness of Genghis Khan.

Lauren’s runaway heart stumbled. “N-no!” And she was stammering like a schoolgirl. “Of course not.” It was not a lie; her mind was completely blank. For the moment she could think of nothing but the hypnotic fire of those eyes. And heat-as though she’d ventured too close to an inferno.

Bronco shrugged and looked away. And she could once again feel the air moving through her lungs, sweat welling up in her pores, a cooling breath of wind on her cheeks. Her heartbeat steadied and her brain cleared, and she cursed herself ten different ways for being such an idiot.

Something on your mind? What a question-as if there weren’t at least a dozen things she’d wanted to ask him!

She didn’t know what on earth had gotten into her, to freeze up, fumble around like a tongue-tied child. Especially since even as a child Lauren had never been one to find herself at a loss for words. It was Ethan who had been the shy one-though her little brother had proven to have unexpected reservoirs of courage…

At the very least, she thought with regret, I could have asked him about his mother.

Bronco said no more for a time. He held his head high as he walked and gazed with narrow-eyed intensity across the meadow, but there was a heavy feeling inside him-like a lead weight lying in the pit of his belly. He’d seen the look of fear in her eyes-couldn’t mistake that for anything else.

Seeing that look had shocked him, first because he couldn’t think what he’d done to deserve it. Strange as it might have seemed under the circumstances, he felt un justly accused, not to mention tried and convicted. After he’d bent over backward to go easy on the woman, to help her out, make her as comfortable as he possibly could, given his own impossible situation. What had he done to make her suddenly look at him as if he’d turned into a witch before her eyes?

That was the first reason for the shock Bronco felt when he saw the fear in Lauren Brown’s eyes. The second was the realization that he didn’t like it.

For the rest of the way down the slope to the corrals, he tried to think of something to say to her, some casual conversational tidbit that would restore the broken thread of communication between them. He no longer felt comfortable with her silence. Now it gnawed at him, like a mouse hidden away somewhere inside the walls of his consciousness, doing untold damage while he was helpless to do anything to stop it. But making small talk-if you didn’t count flirting with pretty women-had never been one of Bronco’s talents.

Cochise Red bugled a greeting-or a challenge-as they drew near. The stallion and both mares were standing at the old split-log corral fence in its sun-dappled clearing, like eager children waiting in line at an amusement-park ride, tossing their heads and muttering their impatience at being kept waiting.

Lauren gave a glad little cry when she saw the horses and made a beeline for them, while Bronco went to get the feed bags out of the log storehouse nearby. He watched her without seeming to while he dipped grain from the barrels, pocketed brush and currycomb, looped lead ropes over his shoulder, approving of the quiet way she went to them, her hands reaching through the fence to find the favorite scratching places under their jaws. He liked the gentle way she slid her hands along their necks, massaging beneath the heavy fall of manes-no slapping, he noticed. He liked the way she laughed, unperturbed when the stallion nipped im patiently at her shirtsleeve. Watching all this, Bronco felt the tensions inside him ease, the knots of regret and confusion loosen.

“Here-make yourself useful,” he said, tossing her the brush and currycomb while he went to untie the gate. And he didn’t miss the tiny catch in her breathing when she bent to pick them up out of the dust.

Then he was angry with himself for forgetting about her sores, and angry with himself even more for being angry. What was the big deal? Saddle sores were common as dirt in this part of the country. What was she to him, after all, but a job and a responsibility and an unwanted pain in the neck, one that was threatening the cover it had taken him years to establish? Nobody ever said he had to be so tuned in to her needs that he noticed every little thing. From now on, he promised himself, he was going to quit doing so much thinking about her. He’d try to tune her out-well, at least turn down the volume. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything else on his mind.

To Lauren’s way of thinking, there was nothing in this world quite as soothing as grooming horses. She loved the sun burning hot on her shoulders, the busy crunchcrunch-crunch from muzzles buried deep in feed bags, the lazy swish of tails, the feel of firm muscle and warm hide, dust and burrs disappearing and coats turning glossy beneath her fingers, her mind free to wander. Normally she was quite content to go wherever it wanted to take her, and often under those circumstances, problems that had perplexed her found solutions, complicated events got planned, scheduling difficulties ironed themselves out.

Today, though, with all the usual relaxing elements in place, for some reason that liberation didn’t come. Her mind stuck with her with the annoying tenacity of a shy child clinging to its mother’s legs. She blamed this on Bronco.

Of course it was his fault. Impossible to ignore him when he was right there with her every minute, moving around, sometimes within her range of vision, sometimes just beyond it. But in or out of range, she was always aware of him. She could feel him there, sense his every movement. Her body could sense it, too, and responded, whenever he came too close, with all the usual preparations for flight or defense: quickened heartbeat, skin prickles, dry mouth and shallow breathing. Why? It did no good to tell herself there was no danger, that by his own assurances she was safe as houses with Johnny Bronco; her body wouldn’t listen.

Furious at what she considered a double betrayal-a mind that wouldn’t take flight and a body that wouldn’t listen to reason-Lauren worked with even fiercer concentration than usual, brushing the hide of the little gray mare until it gleamed like pewter.

She started on the rangy chestnut mare and was acutely aware when Bronco picked up the currycomb and began working on the animal, too, on the opposite side. To cover her edginess, she scolded the mare roundly for rolling in the dirt, and to her confusion, was both warmed and annoyed when she heard Bronco chuckle. But she wouldn’t meet his eyes across the mare’s sunbaked back. Instead, she leaned over and worked her way down the flanks and across the belly, while her overzealous heart pumped more heat into her cheeks.

Then only the stallion remained. Lauren moved cautiously to the beautiful bay horse’s side, her heart thumping wildly against the walls of her chest. Cochise Red-what a magnificent animal he was. So much power, that incredible vitality. She could feel it surging just beneath that sleek red hide of his. She began to brush it with long smooth strokes, while the stallion whickered his appreciation and turned his head to nibble at her shoulder.

Ever notice how horses do with each other? They just nuzzle with their lips real gently, like this…

The voice was no more than a murmur in her mind, like the lazy hum of a hot summer day, but it seemed to fill her up, blotting out everything else. She was unaware that she’d leaned closer to the stallion’s body until she felt his heat and vitality envelop her. Eyes closed, she moved her hands along his neck, under the fall of mane, and beneath her fingers the warm hide became human skin, copper-brown and slick with sweat, and the coarse black mane cascading over her arms was human hair, a man’s hair, sun-warmed and fragrant with the smell of green herbal soap.

“You about done there?” Bronco stood at the stallion’s shoulder, holding a coil of rope in one hand as he gently scratched under the horse’s jaw with the other.

Lauren nodded, too dazed and dry in the mouth for speech. Keeping her face averted so he wouldn’t see and wonder about her scarlet cheeks, she turned away from the stallion and let the brush drop to the ground beside the corral fence. When she dared to look at the man and horse again, Bronco had tied the lead around the stallion’s neck. He handed her the rope and nudged the gate open with his hip, motioning with his head for her to take the horse on through.

Though he knew it probably wasn’t necessary, Bronco put leads on the two mares, as well. When he came up even with Lauren just as they reached the edge of the meadow, she gave him a quick edgy look. But at least this time he didn’t see any fear in her eyes.

He looked at the sky where the day’s thunderheads were already beginning to gather into billowing white mounds.

“We’ll get ’em watered,” he said, “then turn ’em loose. Let ’em graze awhile.”

He could feel Lauren’s eyes turn toward him. “Won’t they run away?”

He met her glance and smiled. “They’ll run, but how they gonna get away? This whole place is fenced.” All five thousand acres of it. Which had always seemed a shame to Bronco.

“What if you want to catch them?”

He shrugged. “They’ll come to me.” He could feel Lauren looking at him like she found that unbelievable, but it was the simple truth, not bragging. Horses came to him-it was a fact. They always had.

“Gil told me you were the best horse wrangler there ever was,” she said after a moment as if she’d heard his thoughts. “Is that true?”

Again he shrugged. He didn’t consider it a question that needed answering.

They walked a ways in silence, listening to the swish of grass against the legs of their jeans, watching grasshoppers jump up out of their way and go skimming across the meadow ahead of them. Then Lauren said in a musing tone, “Gil told me he hired you after you got…discharged from the service.”

Bronco acknowledged that with a wry snort. This was his cover, well rehearsed and often repeated-safe enough ground. “Kicked out, you mean.”

“He said you’d had some bad breaks.”

“Yeah, well-” his smile was easy, even a little bit cocky “-Gil talks too much.”

Again he could feel her eyes on him, for what seemed a long measuring time. Then she said, “Is that why you’re doing this?”

“Doing what?” And now he felt a quietness inside himself, and the first vibrations of warning.

“This-” she kicked with sudden anger at a hummock of meadow grass “-this crazy revolutionary start-your-own-country militia stuff. Or whatever you call it. Is it because you think you owe something to Gil McCullough?”

He looked at her, but she was glaring at her boots. He could see the bright flush in her cheeks. He said, “What makes you think I don’t believe in the cause as much as he does?”

She lifted her head then and met his eyes in open chal lenge-and, oh, he wished she hadn’t. He was reminded of the leaden blue of monsoon rain clouds, with flashes and flickers of lightning hidden in their depths. “Do you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I sure do.” But he knew even as he said it that it was too quick, too glib. And he watched her eyes turn silvery bright with speculation as she considered whether to believe him or not.

Having reached her own conclusions, she shook her head and said softly, “If you say so.” She looked away again and after a moment went on in that musing tone, as if she was trying to figure it out in her own head, “You’re not the type. I don’t know why, but there’s something about you. You just don’t…fit.”

This time his snort was mildly derisive. “Fit? Fit what-some romantic idea you have of what a revolutionary’s supposed to be like?”

Her eyes lashed at him, and he felt their sting like a summer squall. “I don’t find anything the least bit romantic about people who go around blowing up government buildings.”

“Who?” He felt genuinely outraged. “We haven’t done any such thing!”

“Well,” she snapped, “it’s probably only a matter of time. Anyway, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Guns, bombs, violence, fear, intimidation-the usual weapons of power and control-that’s what it’s always about.” She paused for a beat or two, then played her ace, making her point with it. “You don’t even carry a gun.” She glanced at him, waiting for him to deny it. He didn’t. For lots of reasons, but mostly because it was one of those clashes between conviction and duty that he’d have had a hard time explaining, even to himself.

They’d come to the creek at a natural ford, a place where the water was wide and shallow, with a rippled sandy bottom and sloping banks, and quiet eddies where dragonflies darted and hovered among the cattails. The grass here was trampled, and patches of muddy earth showed the imprint of deer hooves. The mares forgot their manners and forged ahead, pulling against the limits of their leads as they waded into the stream and began sucking greedily at the clear cold water.

Bronco waited until they’d taken the edge off their thirst, then clucked to the mares, bringing them close to the bank so he could remove their lead ropes without getting his boots wet. Meanwhile, Cochise Red, who’d patiently stood watch while his mares drank their fill, tossed his head and danced impatiently. Bronco took the lead from Lauren’s hands, murmured, “Easy,” as he slipped the rope from the stallion’s neck, then waved him away with a soft laugh. “Go get ’em, boy.”

He turned, coiling rope, to find Lauren watching him. She was standing on the creek bank with her arms loosely folded across her breasts and the wind blowing back her hair, and he thought suddenly of the stories his grandmother Rose used to tell him, of Changing Woman and how the People came to be. And though the sun was hot on his shoulders, he felt a shiver go through him.

Maybe, he thought, it was because her eyes had that silvery speculative look again. Still trying to figure him out. What made him uneasy was the thought that she might just be smart enough to do it.

“Something on your mind?” he asked, and the uneasiness made him gruff and snappish. The last time he’d asked her that, he remembered, she’d looked at him like he’d just sprouted devil’s horns.

This time, though, he saw no fear in her eyes, but only a certain wariness, as if she had herself cocked and ready to deflect anything he might send back at her.

“I was just wondering,” she said, jutting her chin at him. “What do you believe in, Johnny Bronco? Do you believe in anything-besides horses, I mean?”

He laughed out loud.

He laughed to cover his discomfort because she’d gotten way too close to the truth-the truth of who he used to be, anyway. It had been a long time since he’d thought about that Johnny Bronco, the one who hadn’t believed in anything-least of all himself. Why was it that today he seemed unable to think of anything else?

Why was it that, just when he was faced with his most crushing responsibility, his greatest professional challenge and personal danger, for the first time in recent memory his perceptions of his own reality were blurring and wavering, in a way that was most alarming for a man working under deep cover. Who was he? What did he believe in? Those were questions he couldn’t afford to think about, lest they get in the way of who he pretended to be, what he pretended to believe in. If he started having difficulty remembering which was which, he was in big trouble.

So it was for his own sake, as much as to satisfy his prisoner’s curiosity, that he decided it might be a good idea to let her in on some of his personal history. While he was at it he’d remind himself of things he couldn’t afford to forget.

“What do I believe in?” He took off his hat and slapped it against his pant leg while he pretended to think about it.

And Lauren, watching him, thought suddenly, Why am I even asking? I can’t believe anything he tells me, anyway. She turned and took a few steps away from him in utter frustration.

But she halted when she heard him say-and she could have sworn it had the ring of truth-“I don’t know, but you’re right about this much. I do owe Gil McCullough a lot. He gave me a chance when nobody else would.” She turned slowly back to him and saw that he’d taken his hat off and was squatting on the creek bank, dipping his handkerchief in the stream. He rose, twisting the square of red cloth into a rope. “It’s for damn sure I owe more to him than I do to a government that’s been cheating, killing, starving, stealing and lying to my people for the last couple hundred years.” He met her eyes with dark defiance as he tied the rolled bandanna around his forehead.

Her breath caught. Faint as the sound was, he heard it and jerked his chin toward her. “You tell me-why should I owe any allegiance to the United States government after what they’ve done to us-the Apaches, all of us Indians?”

She shook her head; she had no answer for him. And even if she’d had one, how could she have spoken when her heart was a hot pulsating lump in her chest?

He came slowly toward her and it took every ounce of courage she possessed to stand her ground and not take a step backward. “My Apache ancestors were some of the last holdouts against the U.S. Army-you probably knew that, right? Did you know they used to hide out in these mountains? Right around here, where we are now. That was when they were being hunted to the last man…”

The last man? Then how was it that one of those men was standing before her now, with the fierce proud look of the warrior and his long black hair blowing in the wind?

“So there’s something fitting, me being here, I guess.”

He’d halted a short distance away from her, close enough to touch, if she’d dared to reach out her hand. Close enough that she could feel his heat, smell his sweat, see the gold-dust shine of it on his skin. A flesh-and-blood man, not a ghost. A modern-day man with a wry little half smile on his lips and the anger fading from his eyes, only to be superceded by something that stirred her awareness like a hand brushed lightly the wrong way over her skin. Instead of fear, she felt a vague uneasiness, and at the same time a familiar melting in her heart that could only be sympathy.

But she didn’t want to feel sympathy! She should not feel sympathy. Not for her abductor-her jailer! She could not-must not-allow herself to fall victim to hostage syndrome.

“You should have worn your hat,” Bronco surprised her by saying, still regarding her with his head slightly tilted and that crooked smile on his lips. “That fair skin-” he reached out and touched her nose with one finger, so lightly it tickled “-you’re gonna get burned. Better take mine.”

She didn’t look down at the dusty white Stetson he offered, but kept her head high and her chin up as she raked her hair back from her forehead with one hand and replied unevenly, “Then you’ll get burned.”

He laughed; it was his easygoing charmer’s laugh. “Naw, I don’t burn. We ‘redskins’ just turn darker. You take it.” He placed his hat on her head with a careless gesture and turned away before she could object. Though she couldn’t have, anyway-words of any kind would have stuck in her throat.

Resigned but still vaguely upset, she resettled the hat with clumsy hands. When she dared to look at Bronco again, she saw that he’d moved a short distance down the creek and was seating himself cross-legged on the grassy bank. After a moment, since it seemed awkward to do anything else, she walked over and, much more slowly and carefully than he, also settled cross-legged in the meadow grass.

Bronco lifted an arm to shade his eyes and looked up at the sky. “Getting on toward noon,” he said. “You hungry?”

Lauren was beginning to feel the first pangs, but she hated to think about going back to the tent-or to the cabin, which was worse. Here in the open meadow she had at least the illusion of freedom. She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the cabin, which was out of sight behind a rock formation that jutted into the meadow like the prow of a ship. Far in the distance and barely audible above the insect hum and the chuckle of running water, she could hear an occasional shout, vague thumps and rumbles of activity that filled her with unease.

She turned back to Bronco. “When do they…when do these people eat?”

He shrugged as if it wasn’t something that concerned him much. “Couldn’t tell you. I don’t spend much time here, if you want to know the truth. Not since Gil quit running cattle on the open range. That’s what this used to be, you know-a cow camp. Ranchers used to graze cattle up here in the high country on federal permits-that was before the environmentalists put a stop to it. We’d come up here in the summertime for the roundup and branding.” He looked at her sideways, one eye squinted shut, his smile wry. “Not much use for a horse wrangler up here now.”

Lauren listened and nodded, but inside she felt restless, edgy. She didn’t want to be interested in this man. But she was. She told herself it was just her way. She was interested in people. She couldn’t help it.

The sun was high and hot and she was getting hungry and thirsty, but she still didn’t want to go back to the camp. She got stiffly to her feet and moved to the edge of the creek bank. The water slid by like liquid glass, so clear and clean she could see tiny tadpoles darting about in the shallows. She lowered herself gingerly, balanced on the balls of her feet, and let her fingers trail in the water. She shook them, then touched the cool moisture to her lips.

“Thirsty?” Bronco’s voice seemed very close.

She nodded. “Is it safe to drink?”

He gave a short laugh. “Is it polluted, you mean? Who knows? It’s never bothered me. I guess you take your chances.”

Lauren didn’t bother to answer. To her the water looked clean and she was thirsty. She cupped her hand and brought it to her lips, but got only a sip-most of the water wound up on her shirtfront.

“There’s two ways to do that,” came a lazy drawl from behind her. “You can stretch out on your belly and scoop one-handed, or you can use two hands-like this.”

Though the stubborn and childish part of her didn’t want to, she turned her head and watched him demonstrate, keeping her eyes on this hands. When he lifted them to his face, her eyes followed and she said seriously, “I thought I’d use your hat.”

Bronco’s laugh was short and sharp; she couldn’t account for the little sting of pleasure it gave her. “You do and you owe me a new hat.”

Her heart fluttered as she pretended surprise. “Come on-they do it in the movies all the time.”

“There’s a lot of things in the movies you won’t catch me doing,” he said dryly. “Jumping on a horse from the top of a building, for one. That’s just plain stupid-and the horse doesn’t like it much, either.”

He watched the smile that hovered over her lips as she turned away to hide it from him, just enough of one to make him think about how long it had been since he’d seen her really smile. And how beautiful she was when she did.

Regrets filled him-and then were forgotten as it occurred to him that she was pondering a small dilemma: How was she going to get herself a drink without showing him her backside? Basically, as he’d told her, she had two choices-she could stretch out flat on her belly, which was going to involve some complex maneuvering and result in her being altogether vulnerable; or she could lean way over from her present position on her knees and give him a view that made his mouth go dry just thinking about it.

To his undeniable delight, she chose the latter option. He knew he ought to look away-for the sake of common courtesy, as well as his own peace of mind-but he didn’t. Pretending complete lack of interest, he stretched himself out on his side with his elbow planted in the grass and his head resting on his hand and watched from under his eyelashes as blue denim stretched over her round firm bottom. The day suddenly got humid as a sweat lodge, and thunder grumbled in the pit of his stomach.

“Better not let my hat fall in that creek,” he drawled in a voice that sounded like a big daddy bullfrog.

She straightened up and sailed the hat back to him, then went back to dipping her hands in the creek. And this time there was almost defiance in the way she poked that bottom up in the air, as if she knew well and good what kind of effect it was likely to have on him, and was doing it to make him suffer.

Damn her. What he ought to do, he decided, was turn her over his knee and- Oh, Lord. Funny, he thought, how her boldness was just as much a turn-on to him now as her shyness had been earlier. Then again, maybe it wasn’t so strange, and the two were only different sides of the same thing-her awareness of him as a man. It was a dangerous notion. Intoxicating as peyote.

He was thinking he might need to take a quick dip in that creek, just to cool himself off.