The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

He laughed out loud.

He laughed to cover his discomfort because she’d gotten way too close to the truth-the truth of who he used to be, anyway. It had been a long time since he’d thought about that Johnny Bronco, the one who hadn’t believed in anything-least of all himself. Why was it that today he seemed unable to think of anything else?

Why was it that, just when he was faced with his most crushing responsibility, his greatest professional challenge and personal danger, for the first time in recent memory his perceptions of his own reality were blurring and wavering, in a way that was most alarming for a man working under deep cover. Who was he? What did he believe in? Those were questions he couldn’t afford to think about, lest they get in the way of who he pretended to be, what he pretended to believe in. If he started having difficulty remembering which was which, he was in big trouble.

So it was for his own sake, as much as to satisfy his prisoner’s curiosity, that he decided it might be a good idea to let her in on some of his personal history. While he was at it he’d remind himself of things he couldn’t afford to forget.

“What do I believe in?” He took off his hat and slapped it against his pant leg while he pretended to think about it.

And Lauren, watching him, thought suddenly, Why am I even asking? I can’t believe anything he tells me, anyway. She turned and took a few steps away from him in utter frustration.

But she halted when she heard him say-and she could have sworn it had the ring of truth-“I don’t know, but you’re right about this much. I do owe Gil McCullough a lot. He gave me a chance when nobody else would.” She turned slowly back to him and saw that he’d taken his hat off and was squatting on the creek bank, dipping his handkerchief in the stream. He rose, twisting the square of red cloth into a rope. “It’s for damn sure I owe more to him than I do to a government that’s been cheating, killing, starving, stealing and lying to my people for the last couple hundred years.” He met her eyes with dark defiance as he tied the rolled bandanna around his forehead.

Her breath caught. Faint as the sound was, he heard it and jerked his chin toward her. “You tell me-why should I owe any allegiance to the United States government after what they’ve done to us-the Apaches, all of us Indians?”

She shook her head; she had no answer for him. And even if she’d had one, how could she have spoken when her heart was a hot pulsating lump in her chest?

He came slowly toward her and it took every ounce of courage she possessed to stand her ground and not take a step backward. “My Apache ancestors were some of the last holdouts against the U.S. Army-you probably knew that, right? Did you know they used to hide out in these mountains? Right around here, where we are now. That was when they were being hunted to the last man…”

The last man? Then how was it that one of those men was standing before her now, with the fierce proud look of the warrior and his long black hair blowing in the wind?

“So there’s something fitting, me being here, I guess.”

He’d halted a short distance away from her, close enough to touch, if she’d dared to reach out her hand. Close enough that she could feel his heat, smell his sweat, see the gold-dust shine of it on his skin. A flesh-and-blood man, not a ghost. A modern-day man with a wry little half smile on his lips and the anger fading from his eyes, only to be superceded by something that stirred her awareness like a hand brushed lightly the wrong way over her skin. Instead of fear, she felt a vague uneasiness, and at the same time a familiar melting in her heart that could only be sympathy.

But she didn’t want to feel sympathy! She should not feel sympathy. Not for her abductor-her jailer! She could not-must not-allow herself to fall victim to hostage syndrome.

“You should have worn your hat,” Bronco surprised her by saying, still regarding her with his head slightly tilted and that crooked smile on his lips. “That fair skin-” he reached out and touched her nose with one finger, so lightly it tickled “-you’re gonna get burned. Better take mine.”

She didn’t look down at the dusty white Stetson he offered, but kept her head high and her chin up as she raked her hair back from her forehead with one hand and replied unevenly, “Then you’ll get burned.”

He laughed; it was his easygoing charmer’s laugh. “Naw, I don’t burn. We ‘redskins’ just turn darker. You take it.” He placed his hat on her head with a careless gesture and turned away before she could object. Though she couldn’t have, anyway-words of any kind would have stuck in her throat.

Resigned but still vaguely upset, she resettled the hat with clumsy hands. When she dared to look at Bronco again, she saw that he’d moved a short distance down the creek and was seating himself cross-legged on the grassy bank. After a moment, since it seemed awkward to do anything else, she walked over and, much more slowly and carefully than he, also settled cross-legged in the meadow grass.

Bronco lifted an arm to shade his eyes and looked up at the sky. “Getting on toward noon,” he said. “You hungry?”

Lauren was beginning to feel the first pangs, but she hated to think about going back to the tent-or to the cabin, which was worse. Here in the open meadow she had at least the illusion of freedom. She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the cabin, which was out of sight behind a rock formation that jutted into the meadow like the prow of a ship. Far in the distance and barely audible above the insect hum and the chuckle of running water, she could hear an occasional shout, vague thumps and rumbles of activity that filled her with unease.

She turned back to Bronco. “When do they…when do these people eat?”

He shrugged as if it wasn’t something that concerned him much. “Couldn’t tell you. I don’t spend much time here, if you want to know the truth. Not since Gil quit running cattle on the open range. That’s what this used to be, you know-a cow camp. Ranchers used to graze cattle up here in the high country on federal permits-that was before the environmentalists put a stop to it. We’d come up here in the summertime for the roundup and branding.” He looked at her sideways, one eye squinted shut, his smile wry. “Not much use for a horse wrangler up here now.”

Lauren listened and nodded, but inside she felt restless, edgy. She didn’t want to be interested in this man. But she was. She told herself it was just her way. She was interested in people. She couldn’t help it.

The sun was high and hot and she was getting hungry and thirsty, but she still didn’t want to go back to the camp. She got stiffly to her feet and moved to the edge of the creek bank. The water slid by like liquid glass, so clear and clean she could see tiny tadpoles darting about in the shallows. She lowered herself gingerly, balanced on the balls of her feet, and let her fingers trail in the water. She shook them, then touched the cool moisture to her lips.

“Thirsty?” Bronco’s voice seemed very close.

She nodded. “Is it safe to drink?”

He gave a short laugh. “Is it polluted, you mean? Who knows? It’s never bothered me. I guess you take your chances.”

Lauren didn’t bother to answer. To her the water looked clean and she was thirsty. She cupped her hand and brought it to her lips, but got only a sip-most of the water wound up on her shirtfront.

“There’s two ways to do that,” came a lazy drawl from behind her. “You can stretch out on your belly and scoop one-handed, or you can use two hands-like this.”

Though the stubborn and childish part of her didn’t want to, she turned her head and watched him demonstrate, keeping her eyes on this hands. When he lifted them to his face, her eyes followed and she said seriously, “I thought I’d use your hat.”

Bronco’s laugh was short and sharp; she couldn’t account for the little sting of pleasure it gave her. “You do and you owe me a new hat.”

Her heart fluttered as she pretended surprise. “Come on-they do it in the movies all the time.”

“There’s a lot of things in the movies you won’t catch me doing,” he said dryly. “Jumping on a horse from the top of a building, for one. That’s just plain stupid-and the horse doesn’t like it much, either.”

He watched the smile that hovered over her lips as she turned away to hide it from him, just enough of one to make him think about how long it had been since he’d seen her really smile. And how beautiful she was when she did.

Regrets filled him-and then were forgotten as it occurred to him that she was pondering a small dilemma: How was she going to get herself a drink without showing him her backside? Basically, as he’d told her, she had two choices-she could stretch out flat on her belly, which was going to involve some complex maneuvering and result in