The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

him more than he cared to admit how close he’d come to gathering her into his arms right then and there. How much he’d wanted to stroke his fingers through that hair of hers that reminded him of a high-country meadow in the wintertime and tell her if she’d just trust him, everything was going to come out all right.

He’d thought about telling her the truth right then, just to keep her from trying anything stupid, if nothing else. Thing was, he didn’t know whether he could trust her. In the end he’d decided he couldn’t take the chance that she might, in some small way, maybe with a look or a gesture, give him away. He’d been under a long time-too long. The number-one commandment of the undercover operative-Thou shalt not blow thy cover-was so ingrained in him it was a natural part of who he was. He wasn’t even sure there was still the capacity for truth in his soul.

They crossed the rest of the meadow in silence. Lauren kept her eyes fixed on the road-no more than a track, really, gravel or trampled grass in places, marshy in low spots where water had collected from a recent thunder shower-and tried not to think about what lay ahead. Liberty. She shuddered and wished she could find something amusing in the irony of that. But her sense of humor had deserted her. Everything she could recall reading about militia organizations involved well-publicized acts of violence, and her circumstances seemed far too perilous for levity.

It occurred to her, though, that under different circumstances the night might have held a certain magic. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine it, a moonlight ride through a high-country meadow with a man who stirred her senses and ignited the romantic fires in her soul-fires she thought she’d snuffed out long ago, but that, it now appeared, had only been temporarily banked.

A pine-scented breeze stirred her hair, and she opened her eyes to find that the man riding beside her, prudently close enough to grab her mount’s bridle if she tried to run away, was still Johnny Bronco-a charming lying renegade Apache with nothing less than the violent overthrow of the U.S. government on his agenda. The last man on earth she’d have chosen to be alone with on a lovely moonlit night.

But the instant the thought formed in her mind, she knew there was something wrong with it, something that didn’t fit, something she’d overlooked. But as she chased it through the chaos in her mind, trying her best to pin it down, the stallion, Cochise Red, suddenly bugled a warning. Beneath her she felt the gray mare tense and tremble with her own shrill reply. A moment later, dark shapes emerged silently from the trees to surround them with guns at the ready. Welcome to Liberty.

The armed guard escorted them through a forest of tall pines, a ghostly landscape of deep shadows and slanting streaks of moonlight that seemed eerily busy in spite of the quiet, as if unseen beings lay watching, listening, marking their passing. Overhead the trees made soft swishing sounds in the breeze. The nighttime chill seeped through the sweatshirt Bronco had given her and into her bones, and deep inside she began to shiver.

The forest ended at a wide, upward-sloping stretch of bare ground that gleamed like a snowfield in the moonlight. At the far end of the clearing, tucked under the overhang of a looming escarpment and probably almost invisible from above, stood a house-just a cabin, really-made of logs. Incongruously charming, it had a wide porch that extended across the front, a stone chimney at one end and, opposite that, a long extension that looked as though it might once have been an open-sided shed, enclosed now with walls of rough-cut logs.

The cabin door stood open, and Lauren could see the man who waited silently on the porch outlined against the soft glow of light from inside. Gil McCullough. She knew him at once, even from a distance, by his faintly military stance-feet apart and firmly planted, arms confidently folded across his chest-and by the pewter shine of his crewcut hair.

The militia leader started down the steps as Bronco brought all three horses to a halt just below the porch and slid lightly from the saddle. Lauren noticed that only one of their armed escort was still with them; the others had melted soundlessly away. The remaining guard waited a short distance away, eyes watchful in his blackened face, automatic weapon cradled in his arms, while Bronco spoke briefly in an undertone to McCullough.

Then Bronco slipped past the gray mare’s head, clucking to her as he slid his hand along her neck. He gathered the reins from Lauren’s slack fingers and, with one arm resting on the pommel of her saddle, said in the same gentle tone he’d used with the horse, “Are you gonna get down offa there or not?”

But Lauren sat frozen in the saddle, glued to it by pride and the steadfast resolve that she would sooner die where she was than ever let him know-let any of them know-how stiff and saddle sore she was. She was accustomed to riding, but she’d never spent nearly eighteen solid hours in the saddle before.

“Need a hand?”

“No, I don’t need a hand.” Her voice matched the bone-chilling cold in her heart; if she’d never fully understood the term “cold-blooded murder” before, she did now. “If you would, please, get out of my way?”

Bronco instantly stepped back with a gesture of mocking gallantry. Summoning every ounce of willpower she had, Lauren gripped the saddlehorn, swung her leg around, disengaged her boot from the stirrup and eased herself to the ground.

When she did, it seemed as though every muscle from her waist on down screamed in agony. A groan pushed against her clenched jaws and a gasp lay locked inside her chest as she let go of the saddle and slowly turned.

“A little stiff?” Bronco inquired.

“A little.” She said it lightly, striving to keep her breathing inaudible.

She was also trying, under the guise of brushing herself off and setting her clothing to rights, to stretch the stiffness out of her legs. With three men watching her, she would not walk up that hill bow-legged and rump-sprung. She wouldn’t.

But the minute her clothing shifted and the air hit the four spots on her body-two on the insides of her knees and two more on her backside-that had been rubbed raw by the friction of the saddle, they began to burn like fire. Exhausted tears sprang to her eyes. She was sure she’d never been more miserable, or in more pain, in her life.

The next thing she knew, Bronco was taking her arm, guiding her up the slope to the foot of the steps with such gentleness, such subtle solicitude, that she felt bewildered, almost undone.

What was this? Compassion? Sympathy? Kindness? From her jailer? Perversely, instead of gratitude, now it was anger that made her eyes sting with helpless tears. To feel beholden to her kidnapper seemed the final insult-salt on her wounded pride.

Furious and seething, she jerked her arm from Bronco’s grip just as he was presenting her to Gil McCullough like the spoils of some great conquest.

McCullough chuckled; she could see the arrogant gleam of his teeth in the moonlight. “Well, Lauren. Welcome to Liberty. I guess you’re probably tired and hungry after your long ride. Come on inside-there’s a pot of stew keepin’ warm on the stove. After you’ve had something to eat, we’ll talk about living arrangements.” And as he spoke in warm cordial tones, he was taking her arm, moving her along beside him as if, Lauren thought, she was an honored guest being invited in for dinner.

It was an illusion that was shattered a moment later when the armed guard in his camouflage clothes and blackened face moved in on her other side.

Suddenly irrationally frightened, she looked for Bronco and just caught a glimpse of him as he was leading the three horses across the cleared slope and into the trees. Of course, she told herself, he’d see to the horses before his own needs-any good wrangler would. She had no idea why she suddenly felt so bereft without him when a moment ago she’d bitterly resented so much as the man’s helping hand on her arm.

“We’re primitive here, as you can see,” Gil was saying in an apologetic tone. “This is a wilderness survival training camp, so we’re a little bit lacking in the amenities, but we’ll do our best to see you’re comfortable. Since you’re apt to be with us for a while, we’d like for you to feel at home.”

Speechless, Lauren could only stare at him. He gazed blandly back at her and motioned for her to precede him.

She entered the cabin cautiously, walking as if the floor under her feet might vanish; nothing seemed real to her. The cabin and its contents were so incongruous that for a moment she felt as though she was dreaming in weird double exposure, or had somehow fallen into overlapping worlds. Modern military juxtaposed against a backdrop of the Old West-steel folding tables and chairs, a laptop computer, ham radio outfit, battery packs, charts and maps and miscellaneous equipment, the purposes of which Lauren could only guess, occupied most of the space in a room constructed of rough wood planks, old and weathered to a silvery gray. A modern stainless-steel kettle shared space on a cast-iron wood-burning cookstove with an old-fashioned enameled coffeepot. The light in