The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

on her hands and let her legs fall naturally apart, feet almost together, knees slightly bent. Without any reluctance at all. Completely relaxed, or so it seemed to him.

And what had become of that awareness, that shyness he’d found so erotic such a short time ago? It shamed him to admit there was a part of him that now missed it and wanted it back.

As for him, he felt like an adolescent boy confronting his first nude female body. His pulse pounded in his ears, his tongue felt too big for his mouth, and his breath seemed composed of cotton wool. The musky scent of her woman’s body made his head swim.

Though the sweatshirt she wore-his sweatshirt-was long on her and covered her to below her hips, the feminine secrets just beneath its edge seemed the more tantalizing for being hidden from his view. He could only imagine the drape of velvety skin over pelvic bones, soft mound delicately cushioned with curls…

What he could see was more than enough to overload his senses. The skin on her inner thighs was pearl-white, almost translucent, like the insides of some shells; the faint dusting of pale hair along their tops was like a furring of gold dust. He could imagine how soft they must be, what they would feel like brushing against his cheek, sliding like warm silk over his lips, like oil melting on his tongue…

He leaned toward her, and his long hair fell forward over his shoulder and brushed against her thigh. He stared at it-black on white.

Her fingers closed around his wrist.

The effect that had on him was nothing at all like what it should have been, would have been if any other prisoner in his charge had done such a thing. Under similar circumstances, any other prisoner would, in the blink of an eye, have found himself facedown on the floor of the tent with his wrist pinned between his shoulder blades and Bronco’s knee in the small of his back. Instead, Bronco felt as though he’d just taken a jolt from a high-voltage electrical prod-tingly all over and weak as a baby.

He stared down at her fingers-her strong horsewoman’s fingers, her somewhat grubby, not at all delicate but some how altogether feminine fingers-wrapped around his bony olive-toned masculine wrist. His throat closed; he couldn’t speak.

“Wait.” Obviously she wasn’t similarly handicapped, although her voice did sound breathless, as if she’d had to run to catch him. And as if the voice had issued them a direct order, his eyes snapped to her face.

“What?” he barked, angry with himself, angry with her.

“I was just thinking…before you do that, what I’d really like to do-and I guess this comes under the heading of sanitary facilities-what I really need to do, is bathe.”

“Bathe?” He uttered it like a word in an alien tongue. All his powers of reason were focused on her eyes, which were so bright they seemed colorless to him, like light reflecting on deep water.

“As in wash? Shower? I assume you must have some sort of provision for cleanliness in this camp?” Her voice was dry, sardonic.

But Bronco noticed that her fingers were still wrapped around his wrist. Now that the initial shock had passed, they felt warm, incredibly good. A sweet forbidden pleasure.

Regret and self-discipline made a knot in his chest as he shook himself free of her-literally and figuratively. “The men bathe in the creek-the one in the meadow. That’s if they bathe at all. This is a survival training camp, not Club Med.” He jerked his head toward the five-gallon plastic bucket. “For you, there’s plenty of water in the spring.”

“Uh-huh.” He could see her putting it together, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Her shoulders rose, then fell as she drew and exhaled a breath. “I don’t suppose you could warm-”

“Not a chance. You bathe cold or not at all.”

“But,” she protested, “that water must be like ice!” The resentful glare she gave him filled him with a prickly sense of relief. He was comfortable with her anger.

Once more in control, he said placidly, “I suppose if you want, you could draw a bucketful now and set it in the sun. It’d probably be warm enough by tonight.”

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered scathingly. She managed to stand up with surprising grace, considering the location of her sore spots and the fact that she was trying to keep the sweatshirt pulled down over the parts of herself she didn’t want him to see. He was starting to wonder about that on-again off-again modesty of hers.

“I am not putting clothes on this body until I’ve had a bath. I haven’t had a bath in two days. I’m dirty, I’m itchy, and I stink.” As she said that she was stomping angrily, if a bit stiffly, across the tent to where she’d left her things. She scooped up her saddlebags and the bucket and turned to face him, standing very straight, chin up and head high. There was a patch of bright pink on each cheek, and her eyes blazed fire.

It struck Bronco then-even with raw sores on her legs, his baggy sweatshirt hanging halfway to her knees and her hair all over the place the way she’d slept on it-that Lauren Brown was probably the most magnificent-looking woman he’d ever seen.

“Well?” she said, imperious as the queen of Sheba. “Since I’m not allowed to ‘set one foot outside this tent’ without you, would you be so kind as to accompany me to the latrine?”

“Sarcasm isn’t becoming in a woman,” Bronco said conversationally. “Did you know that?” He held the tent flap open and made an exaggerated gesture, waving her through. “After you, Your Highness.” She stalked past him, head high, and he decided it wouldn’t be wise to chuckle.

He did, however, comment on the fact that she was barefooted. That got him a dirty look-an unwise move on her part, since in that one moment when she wasn’t watching where she was putting her feet, she stepped down hard on a pinecone.

“Want me to carry you?” Bronco inquired helpfully over Lauren’s hiss of pain.

Her reply was a furious mutter that included, among the more repeatable words, “Over my dead body!” This time he did allow himself the gut-relaxing luxury of laughter.

Outside the blanket-enclosed latrine, she halted and shoved the bucket at him, narrowly missing hitting him in the chest with it. “If it’s not too much to ask,” she simpered with nauseating sweetness.

“Ma’am,” Bronco responded earnestly, “I’d be happy to go and get you some water, but if I do, I’m gonna have to ask you for your clothes.”

“What?”

“I’ll just take that off your hands right now.” And he lifted her saddlebags from her arm and transferred them to his own shoulder. “You can go on inside and take off your shirt and toss it out to me. Soon as I have it, I’ll be on my way.”

She was staring at him openmouthed, and from the looks of her eyes, she was about ready to self-combust. He gazed placidly back at her. She whispered, “That’s outrageous.”

He shrugged. “Up to you. It’s either that or we take a hike up there together. I just figured you’d rather not do that, with your sore butt and bare feet, but if you’d rather…”

She gave him a look that would have killed him dead where he stood, if she’d had any witching powers in her at all. Then she lifted the blanket and with an angry flounce disappeared behind it. A moment later his sweatshirt came sailing over the top of the enclosure.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said as he reached up and snagged it. “I’ll be back quick as I can.”

He truly meant that. Because he knew it wasn’t going to take her long to figure out-if she hadn’t already-that all she really needed to do if she wanted to make a run for it was wrap one of those blankets around her, go on back to the tent and help herself to some of his clothes. He was gambling on her being too smart to try it, but with women, you never knew.

Inside the latrine, Lauren crouched in her underpants, shivering in the shady early-morning chill and seething with fury. Boiling mad on the inside, goose bumps on the outside. I hope he dies, she thought with much grinding of teeth. I hope he falls in the damn spring and drowns.

She didn’t mean it. Even the thought made her feel panicky-lonely and frightened. Arrogant and odious as Bronco was, without him where would she be? A picture flashed into her mind, of Ron Masters’s cold eyes and cruel smile; she could still feel his fingers pressing into the flesh of her upper arm. She looked down and her stomach turned as she saw the bluish-purple marks those fingers had left on her skin. She shivered again, and this time the cold went clear through to her heart.

She began to feel terribly alone, there in the shade of tall pine trees. It was quiet. Too quiet… The kind of quiet that made what sounds there were-the occasional bird’s call or squirrel’s chatter-stand out with crystal clarity by