The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

grave danger if we do. SOL’s instructions were very emphatic on that point. You must proceed with the campaign schedule as if nothing’s wrong, right up till the convention.”

Rhett expelled a breath. “Where I will regretfully decline the nomination for president.”

Pat nodded. “Once you’ve done that, your daughter will be released unharmed. So they say.”

Pacing, Rhett uttered a profanity. “They can’t be al lowed to get away with this,” he growled. “Think what it would mean-hell, it amounts to a coup! The end of our political system as we know it, the rule of law, the will of the majority-”

“Rhett.” Dixie caught his hand and held on to it.

He halted and passed a shaking hand over his eyes. “She’s my child, my little girl. I don’t know what I’d do if…” He sought Dixie’s eyes, like chips of an autumn sky, and clung to them as if they were the light of hope.

“We’re going to get your daughter back,” the attorney general said with quiet conviction.

Rhett threw her an angry look. “Seems to me you’ve got to find her first. Is Vernon certain she’s not at McCullough’s?”

She hesitated a beat too long. “Not absolutely certain, no. And there’s no way they can be until they get in there. But rest assured, he and Henry will take no overt action until they know your daughter is out of harm’s way.”

“Pat, this isn’t a damn press conference,” he snapped, then immediately followed that with a heavy, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, breathing deeply.

Only once before in his life had the future seemed so black, so terrifying, ironically also a time when he’d feared his children might be lost to him forever. Sixteen years ago, and it seemed like yesterday. Back then, too, it had looked as if he might be forced to make an unthinkable choice. Back then the choice had been between his children and Dixie, the woman who had become as essential to him as the air he breathed. Now, as then, the stubbornness inherent in his nature insisted there had to be another possibility. A third choice.

“This man Henry’s got on the inside-the one he says is going to keep my daughter safe. What have you heard from him? Seems to me if anybody’d know where Lauren is being held…” He paused at something in the attorney general’s eyes. “What?”

The woman’s face was a study in mute sympathy. “I wish I knew. At last report he hadn’t checked in since the night before Lauren was taken. Henry hasn’t heard from him in almost forty-eight hours. We don’t even know if he’s-”

“Alive?” Rhett finished for her.

Pat shrugged and looked away.

They arrived at the entrance to the camp around midnight, by the light of a full moon. Bronco suspected Lauren had been dozing in the saddle for the past hour or so, but she came wide awake when he spoke to the sentry. As they rode close together through the barbed-wire gates, she murmured in a voice slurred with exhaustion, “Where are we?”

He allowed himself a wry smile, knowing she couldn’t see it in the moonlight. “Welcome to Liberty.”

“Liberty?” Though her face was turned toward him, its expression was hidden from him by shadows. He could only hear her confusion in her voice.

He didn’t even try to keep the irony out of his. “That’s the sovereign and independent nation of Liberty. The laws of the oppressive and totalitarian regime known as the United States of America have no dominion here.”

“You people have your own country?” She had missed the irony. No longer sounding the least bit sleepy, her voice cracked on the last word.

He gave it some thought, debating whether to point out to her that, as a matter of fact, his people were indeed a sovereign nation. “Well, now, I’m not sure whether you could call Liberty a country, at least not yet, but we have declared our independence from the U.S. of A., yes, ma’am.”

“Why?”

He intoned, “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights-”’

“You’re quoting me the Declaration of Independence?” Lauren squeaked, edging toward outrage before adding sourly, “And, anyway, it’s ‘inalienable rights.’ At least get it right!”

“You sure about that?” Bronco pretended surprise.

“Yes, I’m sure. It’s ‘inalienable’-everybody knows that.”

Her tone-huffily superior-amused him. “Well, now,” he said somberly, “maybe you ought to look it up before you go and bet the farm on that.”

“Bet! Who said anything about a bet?”

“So, you’re not sure.”

“Of course I’m sure-I’m a lawyer, dammit! Don’t you think I know the Declaration of Independence?”

“And I’m a revolutionary,” Bronco countered in an even tone. “We take our creeds pretty seriously. And by the way, it goes on to say that ‘whenever any form of government becomes destructive to those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…as shall seem to them most likely to effect their safety and happiness.’ End of quote. That’s all we’re doing here-exercising our rights as set forth by our founding fathers.”

“Your founding fathers! You just said you people declared yourself independent of the ‘U.S. of A.’ What, you get to pick and choose what parts you want to keep?” She was wide awake now and becoming more and more incensed by the minute. So incensed, in fact, that Bronco wondered if maybe it was some kind of protective mechanism kicking in, so she wouldn’t have to think about the position she was in and how scared she was.

He, on the other hand, was enjoying himself more than he had all day. More, in fact, than since he’d had the in credibly bad judgment to dance with the woman at Smoky Joe’s.

He watched the dark shapes of rabbits bounding through the silvery meadow like fish jumping in a moonlit ocean, and said serenely, “That’s about the size of it. Throw away the stuff that doesn’t work, keep what does. What’s wrong with that?”

“Well…sure.” Her tone was grudging. “But you don’t do it with violence!”

“Who said anything about violence?”

“Oh, I suppose I’m here because you asked me nicely to please come and help you blackmail my father out of the presidential race! And what about that guard back there? You think I didn’t notice he had a gun? A very big gun.”

The shadow of a hunting owl brushed silently past them and the rabbits vanished. But an instant later Bronco heard a high-pitched squeal, cut ominously short. “He has a gun,” he said mildly. “He’s exercising his constitutional right to bear arms.”

Apparently too preoccupied to have noticed either the owl or the rabbits, Lauren turned her face toward him. In the moonlight her eyes looked like soot smudges on blue marble. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” she said in a cold contemptuous voice. “That’s all you militia types care about. Guns. You know what my father stands for.” Swearing angrily under her breath, she shifted around to face forward again.

A moment later the gray mare broke into a gallop. Not as if the woman was seriously trying to escape, Bronco realized. More likely her horse had picked up on some unconscious need to blow off steam. It was a condition he more than understood, but even so he wasted no time catching up with her. He’d hate for the sentries tracking their progress across the meadow with infrared cameras, high- powered binoculars and night-vision scopes to get the wrong idea.

“Lady, it’s too damn late and too damn dark to be doin’ that,” he scolded as he took hold of the mare’s bridle and slowed them back to a walk. “It’s a rough trail. Take it easy. You may’ve been napping in the saddle since dark, but the horses are dog tired and so am I.”

She glanced at him and didn’t say anything, and he was glad he couldn’t see the look in her eyes.

Actually, he decided he rather liked having her mad at him. He’d a lot rather have her riled up than the way she’d been this morning when he’d found her hanging on to the gray mare’s saddle, looking about one good gulp of air away from breaking down.

Bronco wasn’t exactly known for his tender heart, except where horses were concerned, and it had surprised