The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

dark and lethal rage at the moment he’d seen the woman’s terror-stricken face, those liquid beseeching eyes, and Ron Masters’s fingers pressing into the flesh of her arms. He wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on the cause. What mat tered was that the anger did not control him any longer. These days it was his to control.

Gil finally broke the silence. “You’re just in time. Masters was about to show our guest to her quarters. That her gear? Ron’ll take it-go on over and help yourself to some stew.” He spoke in a clipped voice, and Bronco had an idea it was guilt that was mostly responsible for the brusqueness. Whatever else he might be, Gil McCullough was not a cruel man.

Instead of handing over the saddlebags, Bronco casually hefted them back onto his shoulder. “That’s okay, I got it,” he drawled. His eyes slid past the woman and settled on Masters.

Masters, now, that one was mean-mean as a snake. And Bronco had heard stories about his track record with women. His eyes flicked to the steel bracelets dangling from Ron’s hand. “What’re those for?” He kept his voice quiet, but with an edge of steel as hard as what those cuffs were made of.

Ron’s lip curled, showing a glare of white teeth in his blackened face. But before he could answer, Gil broke in, speaking too quickly and with that hint of beligerence.

“I was just explaining to Lauren-they’re as much for her safety as anything else. There’s a big ol’ wilderness out there. Hate to think what might happen if she decided to make a run for it…” He jerked his head toward the moonlit vista beyond the open door and left his thought unfinished.

But Bronco knew what was on his mind. Out there somewhere, tucked away in all those trees, were four or five dozen men he wouldn’t turn his own back on, much less entrust with the safety of a female hostage. A young beautiful female hostage.

He reached over and plucked the cuffs from Ron Masters’s hands. “I don’t think they’re gonna be necessary,” he said easily, “but just in case…” He tucked them into his hip pocket and grinned. And for the first time, allowed himself to look closely at his prisoner.

He’d braced himself for it, but even so, the look on her face hit him like a fist to the midsection. Fear, exhaustion, gratitude, hope, anger, resentment and pride-it was a lot to contain in one pair of eyes. It looked to him as if hers were about to spill over, and, he thought if that happened, the shame might be more than a woman with her pride could take.

Meanwhile, Gil was blustering, “Well, now…” while Ron made a sound something like a growl. From the woman sandwiched between them came only a soft intake of breath.

Bronco aimed a look at Gil and raised his eyebrows. “You did put me in charge of the prisoner, Commander. Are you relieving me of that duty, sir?”

McCullough snorted and shook his head. His eyes narrowed the way they did when he was mulling something over, weighing options. The air sang with unvoiced emotions, silent battles.

Through it all Bronco waited, relaxed and confident. He knew McCullough. And knew who he trusted.

He knew he was right when Gil finally drew himself up and thrust out his chin. “Okay, Johnny-” he gripped Lauren’s arm and thrust her at Bronco with uncharacteristic roughness “-she’s your responsibility. Anything happens to her, I’ll have your ass-understood?”

“Understood, sir.” He curved his fingers around her arm and felt her tremble the way a wild mare trembles when she’s fresh-caught and snugged up on a short lead, with nowhere to go and no way of knowing what’s going to happen to her next.

“I had the men pitch her tent up by the spring,” Gil said dismissively, already back among his maps and plans. “Rigged her a latrine, too. You’ll see it when you get up there.”

Bronco nodded; he could feel Masters’s seething anger as he guided Lauren past him. He felt it follow him out the door, across the thick plank porch and down the steps. He knew he’d made an enemy tonight, but that didn’t particularly bother him. One more reason to watch his back. Another reminder that he couldn’t afford to let his guard down-ever.

At the bottom of the steps he let go of Lauren’s arm long enough to pick up his bedroll and gear. When he had them tucked under his arm and went to reach for her again, she shook him off and pulled her arm away like a child in a sulk.

He paused and looked at her in surprise; he found the defiance a little hard to figure out, considering a few moments ago she’d been scared out of her wits and on the verge of tears. “You know where you’re going?” he asked mildly.

She glared back at him in stony silence. He shook his head and gave his bedroll a hitch; he was starting to think maybe those handcuffs weren’t such a bad idea, after all.

“Look,” he said, keeping his voice low so the two men in the cabin doorway couldn’t hear it, “since you don’t know where we’re going, you can’t very well lead. And I’m sure as hell not going to let you at my back. Now, you can walk along beside me like we’re out for a nice stroll in the moonlight and I can take your arm as a common courtesy, or I can tow you along on a lead rope like a balky mule. Which is it gonna be?”

Lauren, who had fixed her gaze on a spot about a foot to the left of his shoulder, didn’t reply. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, didn’t trust herself to speak; she felt too fragile, too frightened, too confused. Every reasoning part of her had rebelled against her heart’s appalling response to Bronco’s just-in-the-nick-of-time return-that surge of hope and joy, the trembling, weak-kneed relief. What was that all about?

Oh, this was dangerous-dangerous and wrong. He was one of them, her captor, the enemy! She’d read about such things-hostages becoming dependent on, even forming emotional attachments to their captors. She’d only been a captive for a day! Was her character so weak, her courage so lacking? She felt profoundly disappointed in herself.

A sound from the cabin jerked her glance upward. Adrenaline surged through her like an electrical charge. Reason be damned; survival instincts took over, forcing a breath from her body along with a whispered “Okay.”

Bronco’s fingers wrapped around her arm. He jerked her out of the way as Ron Masters brushed past them, so close Lauren could feel his body heat…smell his scent, something feral and indefinably menacing.

“Smart choice,” Bronco muttered dryly. He gestured with the saddlebags toward the side of the cabin. “It’s this way.”

A stroll in the moonlight. The moon was in the west, just beginning its downward arc, so brilliant it cast their fore-shortened shadows before them as they climbed. Beyond the cabin the ground rose sharply to skirt the rock formation, alternately bare rock and a thick spongy carpet of pine needles. The air was cool and smelled of pine and damp earth. Overhead a breeze was a constant sound in the treetops. It was a sound Lauren had read about, but never actually heard before. She found it indescribably lonely.

She tried focusing on the sound as a way to mask the discomfort of her sore legs. But she was too tired, and the pain was too intense. And in the end the pain created its own kind of anesthesia, blocking out everything else- the fear, the anger, the bewilderment and humiliation, the powerlessness and frustration. She plodded numbly along, conscious only of pain.

And of Bronco’s fingers on her arm. Yes, maybe that most of all.

Once she slipped on some loose gravel, and his fingers tightened as he held her upright. “Almost there,” he murmured. She pressed her lips together and nodded; she’d heard him use the same tone when soothing horses.

But his words brought her back to full awareness, and she saw that they were following a pipe, wrapped with insulation and laid across the surface of a granite slope. From somewhere up ahead she could hear the happy sound of water trickling over stone. A few steps more and the pipe ended in a natural spring, and below it the overflow made a glimmering trail across rock made spongy with moss and lichen. Bronco muttered, “Watch your step,” as he steadied her across the treacherous slope, which ended in a level grassy area, a tiny meadow ringed with pines.

She could almost have touched the tent before she saw it, since it was made of camouflage material and tucked in the deep shadows just at the edge of the trees. She waited, numb and silent, while Bronco dumped the saddlebags and bedroll on the ground and unzipped the flap, then ducked his head and shoulders into the tent. A moment later the cool light of a battery lantern spilled through the opening. He picked up her saddlebags and tossed them into the tent, gestured with his hand and said, “In you go.”