The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

Enfolded in numbness, a curious calm that seemed to have no connection to her rapidly beating heart, Lauren moved through the opening. Inside, she straightened and drew a deep breath.

Okay, it wasn’t so bad-big enough to sleep four comfortably, she imagined. And it appeared that efforts had been made in consideration of her needs. A puffy sleeping bag had been spread out at the far end. Next to it was a plastic storage bin with a lid-she supposed that was for whatever belongings she’d brought with her.

There was a small folding table and a folding canvas stool, a large plastic bucket and a plastic jug-for water, she assumed. The lantern hung from something overhead. Perhaps it was because she was so tired, weary in every muscle and bone, but the tent seemed a welcoming comforting place to her, almost cozy. She was conscious of a treacherous sense of safety, almost of relief.

Until she realized that behind her, Bronco had come into the tent and brought his saddlebags and bedroll with him.

“You…” Her voice was gravelly from prolonged disuse. And now also from shock. She cleared it and began again. “What’re you doing? You’re not sleeping in here, are you? With me.”

He paused to give her a long silent look. Then he dropped the saddlebags to the floor and reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out the handcuffs. He faced her, casually balancing his bedroll on one hip, the cuffs dangling from one finger of the other hand as he jerked his head, indicating each in turn, and said softly, “Which is it gonna be?”

Lauren closed her eyes. Of all the things that had happened to her in the past couple of days, this seemed the most unbelievable. The most untenable. That she could be sharing sleeping quarters-a tent-with this man. Johnny Bronco.

“Let’s get something straight, Laurie Brown.” His voice was quiet, but not the soothing one she’d heard before. Now it had sharp edges and uneven facets, like hand-hewn obsidian.

Opening her eyes, she saw that he’d knelt and was spreading his bedroll on the floor in front of the tent’s opening. When he paused to look at her, one forearm resting on his knee, the same hardness, the same multitude of facets were in his eyes.

He spoke slowly and deliberately, as if to a misbehaving child. “You are safe with me. And that is the only place you are safe. While you are here in this camp, you will stay with me at all times. You do not step one foot outside this tent unless I am with you. Do I make myself clear?” When she didn’t answer he repeated it slowly, with emphasis. “Do you understand?”

She heard the note of urgency in his voice, but pride made her ignore it. She even, in some remote part of her consciousness, recognized that the concern was for her, but fatigue kept her from wondering about why that should be. Instead, though it took all the strength she had left, she held herself straight and steadied her voice with a crusting of frost. “Perfectly. And if I should wake in the night and need to use the latrine?”

“Wake me.” The words were sharp and unequivocal as gunshots. His task completed, he rose, flashlight in hand, and held back the tent flap. “And speaking of which, I expect you want to make use of it before you turn in. If you’re ready, I’ll take you now.” He stared at her, stone-faced, waiting.

To be taken to the toilet like a child. Lauren no longer knew whether it was exhaustion or anger that was making her tremble so. Layer upon layer of humiliation, and each new layer sapped her strength a little more, eroded a little further her will to resist. Tomorrow, she thought as she muttered a stiff thank-you and took a step toward him. When I’m not so tired…

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

She halted in weary confusion. What now? It seemed a peculiar thing to constitute a last straw, but suddenly tears long postponed seemed only one quick breath away.

Bronco nodded toward the covered plastic bin. “You’ll probably find paper in there. Might want to take it with you.” His voice was gentle again, with an edge of gruffness that might have been embarassment, or sympathy. But if any such emotion had softened his hard unyielding features and black obsidian eyes, she would never know, because on the last words he stepped through the opening and left her alone.

Alone. It occurred to her that was the first time she’d been alone since she’d awoken before dawn in the saddle house on McCullough’s ranch. Until this moment she hadn’t realized how desperately she wanted to be alone-really alone, with the privacy to give in to overwhelming emotions, to react to incredible events, to cry if she felt like it. It seemed privacy, like freedom, was a commodity not fully appreciated until it was taken away.

Sniffling, feeling incredibly sorry for herself, she located several rolls of utilitarian-looking toilet paper in the plastic bin. She selected one and joined Bronco outside.

It was quite dark there in the shadows of the pines. He used the flashlight’s beam as a pointer, jabbing it into the grove behind the tent. “It’s over there. Watch your step.”

“I see it.” Impatiently she struck out for the spotlighted swath of camouflage without waiting for him to take her arm. She drew comfort from that small defiance.

And although walking brought renewed discomfort from the raw places on her legs and buttocks, oddly enough she found in the pain a restorative to her battered spirit. It seemed to act as a stimulant, like a slap or a dash of cold water in the face, helping to clear her mind and sharpen her focus.

The latrine was a three-sided enclosure consisting of blankets hung on ropes strung at head-height between small trees. Bronco pulled back the blanket and looked everything over thoroughly before he stepped back and waved her in.

“Checking for rattlers?” she asked tartly. He merely grunted and handed her the flashlight.

Inside the enclosure she was surprised-and relieved-to discover a portable chemical toilet similar to those found in boats and RVs. Compared to what she’d been expecting, it seemed a luxury, right up there among the comforts of home.

It occurred to her to wonder what Bronco would do when he felt the need to answer nature’s call. With bitter irony she wondered, since she was supposed to stay with him at all times, if she would accompany him to the latrine? Would he leave her tethered to a tree like a dog in front of a supermarket?

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask, but since it seemed bad form to test the goodwill of the one person charged with her health and safety, she limited herself to a muttered, “This has got to be a violation of the Geneva Convention.”

From somewhere on the other side of the blanket she heard something that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Rhett Brown’s voice had gone quiet and deadly. He felt his wife’s hand on his arm, stroking it gently. She knew he hadn’t slept for two days and nights, and that, strong as he was, his control was wearing thin. He listened to the voice on the telephone, then snapped, “Well, get a warrant, get in there and find out if she’s there, dammit!” Again he listened to the voice telling him things he didn’t want to hear. “I don’t care how many weapons they’ve got stashed away down there. Just find my daughter!”

He slammed the receiver down and turned just slightly. Dixie came into his arms and he held on to her as if she were the only thing keeping him from blowing apart into a million pieces.

“They don’t even know where she is,” he whispered raggedly. “ATF hasn’t heard from their agent since she was taken. They don’t know if he has her or not, and they don’t want to go in on their warrant until they know for sure she’s safe. The whole thing could blow up in their faces any minute.”

“Rhett, the convention opens day after tomorrow in Dallas. What if they don’t find her? What if-”

“Hell, I don’t care about the convention! You think the nomination means anything to me if it costs me my…if anything happens to…oh, God.”

“We’re gonna get her back,” Dixie whispered in her soft Texas accent, holding him as tightly as he held her. “I know we will.” After a moment she sighed, and he felt her head beneath his chin. “I just wish we could tell the others-Wood, Lucy. You need them, Rhett. They should be with you right now.”

“I have you. Thank God I have you.”

“We’re gonna get through this. We’ll get through it somehow. And Lauren’s gonna be okay. She’s strong and she’s smart,” Dixie said. “She’s gonna be okay, I just know it.”