“Miss,” the barrel-chested man said again, in a firm but deferent tone that identified him unmistakably as officialdom-even before Lauren noticed the red ribbon emblazoned with “Official” attached to the pocket of his white Western-style shirt. “I’m gonna have to ask you to move away from the fence, if you would. We don’t want to see anybody get hurt. If you’ll take a seat in the bleachers…”
“Sorry,” Lauren said cheerfully, dusting her hands as she yielded to the guiding hand on her elbow. “Actually-” and she flashed a smile at the official “-I’m looking for someone. Gil McCullough. You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find him, would you? I’m supposed to talk to him about a horse.”
“Gil?” The official’s eyes and body language registered surprise. Clearly he’d pegged her as a flatlander and a tourist in spite of her scuffed boots, well-worn jeans and light- blue long-sleeved shirt, Western-style but plain- working ranch-hand clothes. Probably her blond hair, she thought, and wished she’d thought to stuff it all up inside her hat and out of the way. In this crowd she stood out like a sore thumb-which, come to think of it, probably explained why the bronc rider had noticed her. So much for the notion of kindred souls.
“Well,” the official said affably, “he’s got a’ plenty of ’em.” He jerked his head in the direction of the campers and horse trailers parked in rows behind the arena. “That’s his outfit over there-white trailers with the big ol’ orange sun on ’em? Just go on over there and ask around. Somebody’ll know where he’s at.”
Lauren murmured her thanks, but instead of looking toward the trailer, her eyes were searching the hard-baked landscape and the clumps of cottonwoods that skirted it for some sign of the cowboy known as Bronco. But he appeared to have vanished into the crowds milling around the bucking chutes and refreshment stands. Or maybe, she thought, he’d simply been swallowed up in the shimmering heat waves, like a desert mirage.
A collective gasp rose suddenly from the crowd in the bleachers as a rider bit the dust-hard. The official headed for the arena fence as the announcer’s voice provided reassurance-“He’s okay, ladies and gentlemen, he’s okay. Let’s give the man a big hand-that’s all the reward he’s gonna get today.”
While the crowd cheerfully applauded the hapless rider, Lauren went off to find the man she’d come all the way to Arizona to see. With any luck, if she could manage to talk McCullough down enough on his asking price, tomorrow she’d be heading home to West Texas with one of the best quarter horse studs east of the continental divide for company.
“…expecting company-”
“What?” Lauren interrupted, and gave her head a shake, momentarily confused at hearing the word in her mind spoken out loud and panicked to realize she hadn’t any idea of the context.
Bronco’s eyes gave her no clue. “We’d just as soon you not be here when it arrives.” He glanced at his wrist. “Your ten minutes are now eight. If you plan on breakfast before we mount up, I’d suggest you get to it.” He thumbed the latch and pushed open the heavy wood-plank door.
The chilled air made Lauren gasp, lending a note of panic to the question she’d meant to ask with more dignity and calm:
“Are you going to kill me?”
Bronco halted as if she’d thrown something at him, one foot still on the plank step, the other already on the ground. Then he pivoted slowly back to face her. With his arms braced, one on the door, the other on the frame, he appeared to bar the way as if he actually thought she might try a break for freedom.
In contrast to the tension and the unspoken dominance in his posture, his chuckle sounded almost friendly. “Kill you? Why would we do that? You’re worth too much to us alive.”
“Worth
But the door had closed between them, and her only answer was the heavy
Lauren stood and stared at the rough boards while her heart bumped painfully against her breastbone and her eyes burned in their sockets. Silent sobs scoured her throat. But though her jaws cramped and her body trembled with the strain, she held them back. She would
Besides, something told her that once she gave in to the fear she was beaten. She didn’t know who these people were or why they’d taken her prisoner, or why they thought she’d be of value to them, but as long as she was alive and kept her wits about her, they hadn’t won. No sir. It would take a lot more than being locked up in a saddle house to defeat Lauren Elizabeth Brown! Hadn’t her aunt Lucy told her once that she was descended from a woman who’d survived an Indian attack by setting fire to her own homestead, then tying her baby up in her apron and climbing down into a well? And come to think of it, hadn’t Aunt Lucy herself, all of five feet tall and a hundred pounds soaking wet, once thwarted her own kidnappers by setting fire to the Chicago high-rise they were holding her in?
She could almost hear Aunt Lucy’s funny rusty-nail voice saying, “Just don’t lose your head, Lolly Brown. Keep your wits about you, and you’ll be all right.”
Lolly. She hadn’t thought of that childhood nickname in years. Her brother Ethan had begun calling her that because when he was little he couldn’t pronounce the name Lauren. She remembered how she’d hated it when he’d learned that stupid song: “Lollypop, Lollypop, oh, Lolly Lollypop…” She’d punched him good for singing it, too, more than once. But nobody had called her that since…oh, Lord, it must have been since she was ten or eleven years old. Yes, it had been-the year her parents divorced, the year she’d gotten her first horse, Star. The year Dixie had come to live with them. The year…
Then the memories were tumbling in on her, memories of the one time before in her life when she’d known fear like this. When she’d felt as utterly and desperately alone. This wasn’t the first time she’d been taken and held against her will.
That other time, of course, she hadn’t been alone. Even now, sixteen years later, she could feel Ethan’s small hand creeping into hers, feel his warm body snuggling against her for warmth and comfort, hear his quivering voice whispering, “Lolly? Will you sing me a song?” even though he knew she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Ethan-her baby brother-twenty-two years old now, and a premed junior at UCLA. But she could still remember as if it were yesterday the overwhelming burden of responsibility that had made her feel even more alone. This time, at least, she had only herself to think about.
No, it wasn’t true at all. Because suddenly she knew why she was here, locked in this saddle house on an Arizona horse ranch. She knew why she was worth something to these people, even if she didn’t know exactly who
It was because they knew who
“Hi, I’m Lauren Brown-we spoke on the phone? About that bay stud you have for sale?”
Gil McCullough’s vivid blue gaze narrowed as it swept over her in openly masculine appraisal, producing a charming fan of creases in the tanned skin at the corners of his eyes. He held the hand she’d offered just a beat longer than necessary, while his smile broadened to reveal strong vaguely predatory teeth.
“Well, hello, Lauren Brown. I sure do remember our phone conversation, but tell you the truth, I wasn’t expecting to see you till tomorrow.” And yet his tone said plainly he didn’t mind all that much that she’d come early. It was a ploy Lauren recognized, designed to disarm her and at the same time put her on the defensive.
In fact, the man McCullough was himself a type she recognized, and about what she might have expected from the brief conversation she’d had with him on the phone. He was big, lean and weathered, with a full head of silver- gray hair worn in a crewcut, a cowboy’s squint and a strong clean-shaven jaw. A handsome man, which she also could have guessed, given his supreme self-confidence and slightly seductive tone on the telephone. The only surprise was an almost military bearing that set him well apart from the ranchers she’d come to know back in Texas. Most of them, neighbors of the Tipsy Pee, were rump-sprung, stove-up and gimpy-legged by the time they were fifty, from too much time spent either on top of or getting thrown off some four-legged beast or other. She’d have to peg Gil McCullough as more the executive type, one who’d come to ranching as a hobby after acquiring his wealth in some other more dependable line of work. The type who patrolled his lands and herds from four-wheel- drive vehicles and sleek single-engine airplanes. In any case, an alpha male through and through, absolutely certain of his dominance over men and women alike.
Fortunately Lauren wasn’t intimidated by such men. Or attracted to them, either. She couldn’t be and have
