The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

What’s wrong with me? Who am I, really?

She remembered, suddenly, sitting in her pickup truck in the parking lot outside Smoky Joe’s, feeling frightened and confused and so alienated from the person she’d always believed herself to be. Wondering how on earth she could be attracted to a bad hombre like Johnny Bronco, while even then her skin was growing hot and her heart beginning to pound and her breath quickening at just the memory of the way his hard supple body had felt lined up against hers.

And she remembered, suddenly, the way he’d looked this morning, standing in the meadow tying a rolled red bandanna around his forehead, with his long raven-black hair blowing in the wind and his eyes burning fierce and angry as a warrior’s. And the way she’d felt then-the strange violent lurch inside her, as if her heart had turned upside down.

Yes, Lauren thought, that was it exactly. She-or her whole world-had turned upside down. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.

The crackle of footsteps in the pine needles outside the tent sent her heart into her throat. Confusingly, it stayed there, hammering away, even after she heard Bronco’s voice growl, “My hands are full. Could you open up please?”

“Said the guard to the prisoner,” Lauren remarked sarcastically as she zipped open the tent flap. The surge of joy she felt at his return was so powerful the only thing she knew to do with it was to bury it in annoyance. “About time you got back. What took you so long? I’m starving.”

He stepped into the tent in one quick tense motion, bringing with him the smells of chili and of danger-Lauren wasn’t sure which it was that made her stomach churn and growl.

“Didn’t know if you like salsa or not,” was his only comment as he handed her a metal container of the pungent mixture of chopped tomatoes, peppers and cilantro, along with a foil-wrapped package that was warm to the touch.

She opened the foil. Burritos again-shredded beef, beans, rice and cheese this time. She sniffed and said sourly, “Since it looks like it’s the only veggies I’m going to get, I guess I don’t have much choice, do I?” She bit into a burrito, which was so delicious she had to fight to keep from moaning.

She stopped in midchew when Bronco pushed aside the tent flap and ducked down, preparatory to going out. “Where are you going?”

He paused and looked at her without straightening. He was wearing his hat again, with his hair vanished into a tight club tucked close to the nape of his neck, all but hidden inside his shirt collar. To Lauren he looked lean and lethal, like a panther on the prowl. “There’s a lot goin’ on in camp right now,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’ve got things to do.”

“And I’m just supposed to stay here?” The trembling fear and bitter disappointment she felt appalled her, and she chose once again to hide her humiliating emotions beneath a crackling crust of anger.

He straightened slowly, then came toward her.

Her breathing stopped; she swallowed the bite of burrito and it felt like a brick.

Crazy impulses went through her mind-and, oh, how glad she was that she was able to control them! What on earth would he have thought of her, and how would she have lived with the humiliation, if she’d followed the dictates of those impulses and thrown herself against his broad chest and begged him to stay?

But instead, she stood rock still and faced him, while her heart hammered against the base of her throat.

“You’re an intelligent woman,” he said softly. “I think you’ll stay here.”

And then he was gone.

As his footsteps rustled away into silence, Lauren’s legs buckled and she sank onto her sleeping bag with a sharp exhalation. She stared down at the food she still held in her hands-the bowl of salsa in one, and in the other, the foil wrappings in which nested three fat burritos, one with a bite out of it. Her stomach turned over. She would eat-she had to. She was hungry, and who knew when they’d feed her again? But how on earth would she swallow with this lump in her throat?

You’re an intelligent woman. Oh, sure. If she was so intelligent, how could she have forgotten for one minute the danger she was in or how truly alone she was? How could she have allowed herself to become emotionally dependent on the very man whose job it was to keep her prisoner? Stupid, Lauren, stupid. And weak.

Since the scolding seemed to be helping reduce the lump in her throat to manageable proportions, she ventured another bite of burrito and chewed mechanically while she thought about what Bronco had told her. There’s a lot going on, he’d said. What did that mean? Did it have anything to do with her? Probably, or why would Bronco be acting so…intense?

Something’s going on. I wonder…when will they come for me?

When they did come for her, she thought, it would almost certainly mean the end of this ordeal-one way or the other.

She took a small taste of the salsa. It was hot-very hot. She dipped the burrito in the salsa and bit into it. Tears sprang to her eyes. She sniffed and took another bite. She sat and ate burritos and salsa and thought about all the people she loved that she might never see again, while tears ran down her cheeks and dripped off her chin.

The evening news was on when Lucy Rosewood Brown Lanagan took her great-aunt Gwen her dinner tray.

“Anything interesting going on in the world?” Lucy inquired as she always did, placing the tray on the piano bench, which had been pulled up close beside the old lady’s wheelchair to serve as a table.

Gwen arched back as though it was a surprise to see Lucy there-as she always did. She gave her musical grace note of laughter when Lucy dropped a kiss on the top of her head, on curls as white and soft as dandelion fluff.

“The FBI shot somebody again,” she said loudly. At nearly a hundred, Gwen wasn’t a bit deaf, but for some reason seemed to think everyone else was.

Busy arranging the tray and utensils so her aunt’s cramped and gnarled fingers could grasp them easily, Lucy murmured, “Oh, dear. Who was it?”

“They said some rancher’s wife. Out in Arizona. Said it was supposed to be one of those militia groups holed up in there, but then all it turned out to be was this fellow’s wife.” She hitched herself up a little so Lucy could slip a pillow behind her back.

“That’s a shame,” Lucy said. She made a mental note to ask her husband, Mike, for details when he got back from his weekly trip to his office at the Chicagoan, the daily newspaper from which his nationally syndicated column originated. “Is she dead?”

“I don’t think so-not yet.” Gwen was busy refocusing her still-sharp eyes on the TV screen, where a commercial break had just ended. Now the correspondent was talking about the presidential race, working up to the national convention, which was due to begin tomorrow in Dallas. “Anyway, they said she shot first. Hush-” she interrupted herself “-look, there’s Rhett.”

Silently the two women watched the familiar dark head-which was beginning to silver a bit, Lucy noticed- work its way through a crowd at a fund-raising rally somewhere in the South-Mississippi, was it?-while the correspondent gave the figures from the latest polls.

Gwen arched her eyebrows at Lucy. “What do you think about your brother being president?”

Lucy shrugged. There was an ache in her throat. “I just keep thinking…I wish Mama and Daddy could have lived to see it. Well, I wonder who that is,” she said as the phone rang. It was the wrong time of day to be Mike or any of the children.

“Salesman, probably,” said Gwen. Another commercial had come on, and she concentrated her efforts on the task of picking up her soup spoon while Lucy went to answer the telephone.

It didn’t take her long. And when she returned to the parlor her heart was pounding, though she couldn’t have explained exactly why. “Guess who that was?” she said to Gwen, and went on to answer herself. “Speak of the devil-that was Rhett.” She gave a small huff of bemused laughter. “He wants us-Mike and me-to join him and Dixie down at the Parish ranch.”

“That’s in Texas!” the old lady exclaimed in the same tone she might have used to respond to a proposed jaunt to Mars. “What does he want you down there for?”