The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

But not this woman; she seemed perfectly at ease with her own silence and his. He found that most interesting.

Lauren’s thoughts were anything but quiet. So many were crowding her mind, demanding attention, that she had to be very still and devote all her concentration just to listening if she wanted to sort them out.

She thought how good it felt to be clean again. And warm. And she thought how odd it was to feel good about anything at all, under the circumstances.

But she did feel good, amazingly good-with soothing ointment and gauze pads protecting her sore places, the sun hot between her shoulder blades, the fragrant crunch of pine needles under her feet and the breeze drying her hair in soft wisps that tickled her cheeks and forehead. It was beautiful here on this wooded ridge, looking down on a meadow dotted with wildflowers and threaded by a creek that reflected the sky like a bit of blue ribbon dropped on the lawn and forgotten.

It was hard to remember that she was where she was because she’d been abducted by violent and dangerous men bent on political blackmail, at the very least. Hard to remember that she was a prisoner of the man walking so companionably beside her, and that things could easily turn very bad for her if all didn’t go as her captors wished.

But she didn’t feel like a prisoner, at least not right now. She didn’t feel endangered. And that, she realized, was probably because her jailer wasn’t acting at all like a jailer. He wasn’t holding her or restricting her in any way, wasn’t touching her at all, or even looking at her. He just seemed relaxed and easy in her company-as he’d been yesterday, she remembered, on the ride up here.

But then, of course, he could afford to feel easy. He knew she wouldn’t attempt to run or fight him. She’d have to be an idiot to try when she knew he’d only catch and overpower her with humiliating dispatch.

She thought about that. The reminder of her powerlessness should have made her angry all over again, but confusingly it didn’t. Instead, she found herself thinking about his quietness, the fact that he didn’t talk unless he had something he needed to say. It was oddly comfortable, she found, to be with someone who didn’t seem to mind silence.

She slid her eyes sideways under the cover of her lashes to look at her companion without being observed doing so. Her heart gave a lurch and immediately she thought, What, are you out of your mind? Comfortable? Johnny Bronco?

She suddenly saw herself walking beside some exotic untamed creature-a black panther, perhaps, or a mustang stallion-something sleek, dangerous and in no way hers to control. His body moved with the fluid grace and oiled- spring precision of a wild predator. His long black hair hung loose on his back and lifted lazily in the breeze, caught the sun and struck it back in sparks of blue fire, like the wings of a blackbird in flight. Beneath the brim of his Stetson, flawless skin gleamed like the hide of a healthy animal.

Comfortable? Johnny Bronco was about as comfortable as a summer monsoon-and, she thought, as predictable.

“Something on your mind?” Between the high hard wedges of cheekbones and the angry sweep of eyebrows, black eyes glittered at her with the uncompromising fierceness of Genghis Khan.

Lauren’s runaway heart stumbled. “N-no!” And she was stammering like a schoolgirl. “Of course not.” It was not a lie; her mind was completely blank. For the moment she could think of nothing but the hypnotic fire of those eyes. And heat-as though she’d ventured too close to an inferno.

Bronco shrugged and looked away. And she could once again feel the air moving through her lungs, sweat welling up in her pores, a cooling breath of wind on her cheeks. Her heartbeat steadied and her brain cleared, and she cursed herself ten different ways for being such an idiot.

Something on your mind? What a question-as if there weren’t at least a dozen things she’d wanted to ask him!

She didn’t know what on earth had gotten into her, to freeze up, fumble around like a tongue-tied child. Especially since even as a child Lauren had never been one to find herself at a loss for words. It was Ethan who had been the shy one-though her little brother had proven to have unexpected reservoirs of courage…

At the very least, she thought with regret, I could have asked him about his mother.

Bronco said no more for a time. He held his head high as he walked and gazed with narrow-eyed intensity across the meadow, but there was a heavy feeling inside him-like a lead weight lying in the pit of his belly. He’d seen the look of fear in her eyes-couldn’t mistake that for anything else.

Seeing that look had shocked him, first because he couldn’t think what he’d done to deserve it. Strange as it might have seemed under the circumstances, he felt un justly accused, not to mention tried and convicted. After he’d bent over backward to go easy on the woman, to help her out, make her as comfortable as he possibly could, given his own impossible situation. What had he done to make her suddenly look at him as if he’d turned into a witch before her eyes?

That was the first reason for the shock Bronco felt when he saw the fear in Lauren Brown’s eyes. The second was the realization that he didn’t like it.

For the rest of the way down the slope to the corrals, he tried to think of something to say to her, some casual conversational tidbit that would restore the broken thread of communication between them. He no longer felt comfortable with her silence. Now it gnawed at him, like a mouse hidden away somewhere inside the walls of his consciousness, doing untold damage while he was helpless to do anything to stop it. But making small talk-if you didn’t count flirting with pretty women-had never been one of Bronco’s talents.

Cochise Red bugled a greeting-or a challenge-as they drew near. The stallion and both mares were standing at the old split-log corral fence in its sun-dappled clearing, like eager children waiting in line at an amusement-park ride, tossing their heads and muttering their impatience at being kept waiting.

Lauren gave a glad little cry when she saw the horses and made a beeline for them, while Bronco went to get the feed bags out of the log storehouse nearby. He watched her without seeming to while he dipped grain from the barrels, pocketed brush and currycomb, looped lead ropes over his shoulder, approving of the quiet way she went to them, her hands reaching through the fence to find the favorite scratching places under their jaws. He liked the gentle way she slid her hands along their necks, massaging beneath the heavy fall of manes-no slapping, he noticed. He liked the way she laughed, unperturbed when the stallion nipped im patiently at her shirtsleeve. Watching all this, Bronco felt the tensions inside him ease, the knots of regret and confusion loosen.

“Here-make yourself useful,” he said, tossing her the brush and currycomb while he went to untie the gate. And he didn’t miss the tiny catch in her breathing when she bent to pick them up out of the dust.

Then he was angry with himself for forgetting about her sores, and angry with himself even more for being angry. What was the big deal? Saddle sores were common as dirt in this part of the country. What was she to him, after all, but a job and a responsibility and an unwanted pain in the neck, one that was threatening the cover it had taken him years to establish? Nobody ever said he had to be so tuned in to her needs that he noticed every little thing. From now on, he promised himself, he was going to quit doing so much thinking about her. He’d try to tune her out-well, at least turn down the volume. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything else on his mind.

To Lauren’s way of thinking, there was nothing in this world quite as soothing as grooming horses. She loved the sun burning hot on her shoulders, the busy crunchcrunch-crunch from muzzles buried deep in feed bags, the lazy swish of tails, the feel of firm muscle and warm hide, dust and burrs disappearing and coats turning glossy beneath her fingers, her mind free to wander. Normally she was quite content to go wherever it wanted to take her, and often under those circumstances, problems that had perplexed her found solutions, complicated events got planned, scheduling difficulties ironed themselves out.

Today, though, with all the usual relaxing elements in place, for some reason that liberation didn’t come. Her mind stuck with her with the annoying tenacity of a shy child clinging to its mother’s legs. She blamed this on Bronco.

Of course it was his fault. Impossible to ignore him when he was right there with her every minute, moving around, sometimes within her range of vision, sometimes just beyond it. But in or out of range, she was always aware of him. She could feel him there, sense his every movement. Her body could sense it, too, and responded, whenever he came too close, with all the usual preparations for flight or defense: quickened heartbeat, skin prickles, dry mouth and shallow breathing. Why? It did no good to tell herself there was no danger, that by his own assurances she was safe as houses with Johnny Bronco; her body wouldn’t listen.