The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

exhale a long slow breath and for a moment close her eyes.

It must be relief, relief that he wasn’t there to see her while her cheeks still burned, her body’s secret places still throbbed and every nerve felt supersensitized by the dream-caresses of a lover whose face she couldn’t quite remember. But-oh, be honest-there was something else, too, a vague sense of disappointment, of longing, of need.

She sat up and saw sunlight pouring into the mouth of the cave. Wobbly as a toddler woken too soon from a nap, she started to throw aside the blanket she’d slept in- Bronco’s blanket, the same one he’d placed around her last night just before he’d wrapped her in his arms. Then she paused, moving her fingers slowly in the blanket’s folds, feeling its coarse weave, the slight scratchiness of wool. She almost-almost-lifted it to her face; the impulse was there, in her nerves and muscles, ligaments and tendons. But she stopped herself in time. There was no need to do such a thing, when his scent was all around her, permeating the very source of her warmth and comfort.

When the stallion’s scream came again, she scrambled to her feet and lurched to the cave entrance. Dazzled by the sun’s brightness, it was a moment before she saw Bronco. He was climbing toward her up the trail, wearing just his jeans and white Stetson, with his hair tightly clubbed at the nape of his neck. A sheen of moisture gave his skin the look of oiled wood and made of his body a classic sculpture rendered in mahogany.

Her heart gave a terrifying lurch and she uttered a small but distinct gasp, which Bronco heard and mistook for alarm. He shook his head in reassurance as he offered her a succinct explanation. “Wild horses.”

This time Lauren’s gasp was of excitement and delight. “Really? Oh, my God. I didn’t know there were wild horses around here. Where? Are they…?” She was about to go plunging headlong down the trail to see for herself when he stopped her with another shake of his head.

“Can’t see ’em, but they’re out there somewhere. Red knows. He’s invaded another stallion’s territory.” Bronco grinned, which Lauren thought made him look rather endearingly like a proud father. “He’s ready to challenge the local chief for his brood mares. Did you hear him?”

“Woke me up.” She smiled back at him. And then felt vaguely foolish, standing there with the sun in her eyes, overheated and inexplicably breathless. She’d almost forgotten how potent that smile of his could be.

“I tied him up-the mares, too,” he said as he joined her on the ledge, which suddenly seemed too small and very crowded. “Don’t want to take a chance they might run off with the wild herd. It’s a long walk out of here on foot.” He offered her the canteen, cool and dripping, freshly filled from the stream on the canyon floor.

She took it from him, opened it and drank deeply. When she paused to catch the dribbles that had escaped down her chin, she discovered that Bronco was watching her narrowly. In response, her heart lurched…and quickened.

He frowned as he turned away. “I expect you’re hungry.”

She followed him into the cave, where he knelt and scooped up the saddlebags that had been her pillow. She wondered, as she watched him open one of the pouches, where he had slept-or if he’d slept at all. She wondered other things as she watched the elegant ripple and flow of muscle beneath glistening skin, such as what his skin would taste like, how it might feel on her tongue.

He glanced up as he handed her a vacuum-sealed pouch filled with some sort of liquid and, misinterpreting her expression, smiled wryly. “Doesn’t look like much, but it’ll fill your belly. It’s a protein drink designed for armies on the move.”

She nodded and took it from him, not trusting herself to speak even a single word. Her stomach growled as if mocking her; she didn’t feel as though she’d be capable of swallowing.

Bronco, meanwhile, was tearing open a package of tortillas with his teeth. He offered it to her and she took one, then ripped off a piece of the flat unleavened bread and put it in her mouth. Chewed mechanically and swallowed hard. Following Bronco’s example, she twisted off the seal on the plastic pouch and took a tentative drink. It tasted rather like a tepid vanilla malt.

“I’ve always wanted to try one of those milk shake diet plans,” she muttered. He laughed, and she felt incomprehensibly pleased.

But while he made himself comfortable, half leaning, half sitting on a sloping boulder, Lauren found herself suddenly a bundle of nerves, self-conscious and ill at ease in a way that brought back painful memories of her first boy-girl party.

Turning away from the disturbing sight of Bronco’s smooth chest and broad shoulders gleaming in reflected sunlight, she wandered slowly, nibbling tortilla and sipping protein drink with feigned nonchalance, exploring the cave’s cool shadows.

Though there wasn’t a lot to explore-the portion of the cave with a ceiling high enough to allow her to stand extended no more than eight feet from the entrance. Beyond that, smooth stone sloped unevenly down to meet the boulder-strewn floor, although there seemed to be narrow fissures that extended deeply into the canyon wall. It was while she was crouched down to investigate one of these fissures that Lauren made a wondrous discovery.

“Bronco,” she cried, “come look at this! Is this what I think it is?” Getting no immediate response, she turned and saw that he was sitting where she’d left him, silhouetted against the sunlit opening. He’d taken off his hat and turned his head to watch her.

“The paintings,” he said with an offhand shrug. “Yeah, I guess they are.”

She sat back on her heels and stared at him, both hunger and self-consciousness forgotten. “You knew they were here? You’ve been here before.” The last wasn’t a question, but feeding himself a remnant of tortilla, he nodded yes to both. She uttered an impatient and wondering “Huh!” as she crouched again to examine the sloping ceiling and trace the faint but unmistakable designs with fingers that didn’t quite touch the surface. Parallel wavy lines in smoky black, an orangy-red sun with rays, something that might have been a bird or an arrow or a streak of lightning.

“Oh,” she breathed, exasperated, “I wish I had more light.” She threw Bronco a look over her shoulder. “Are they really…”

She paused and he finished her question for her. “Indian? I guess so. They’ve been there a long time, anyway.” And he added almost nonchalantly, “We’re on reservation land here.”

There was something in his voice, something that calmed her excitement and replaced it with the wary quietness of curiosity. After a moment she turned away from the petroglyphs and moved unhurriedly back toward the front of the cave, saying with what she hoped sounded like no more than casual interest, “So you used to come here when you were a boy?”

Bronco’s smile was crooked. “I spent some time here.”

Lauren tilted her head, squinting in the brilliant sunlight as she settled against the cave wall opposite him. “Camping?”

He gave a soft ironic snort-a sound that was becoming familiar to her. “I guess you could call it that. Mostly I was running away.”

“What from?”

“I don’t know, from my life-myself, I guess. It was after my dad died. I was angry and didn’t know who to be angry at, so I decided to be angry at everybody. My grandmother Rose, she told me about this place. Said it was a good place for thinking.” He gave a laugh so sharp that it made her wince, then shrugged. “Don’t know how much of that I did here, but I guess it probably saved me from a fistfight or two. Who knows-reckless as I was, it may have even saved my life.” He rose restlessly and faced the sunlight, one hand braced on the rock above his head.

Gazing at his smooth and gleaming back, broad-shouldered and sculpted in boldly masculine lines-no sign of weakness there-Lauren felt a spreading softness inside, a gentle aching in her heart. Could it be…why would it be tenderness?

She cleared her throat, ending a perilous silence. “Have you always been Bronco?” she lightly asked. “Has anyone ever called you Johnny?”

He laughed as if the question had taken him by surprise and glanced at her over one shoulder. “My dad’s the one that started calling me Bronco when I was just a little baby-can’t tell you why. And I guess the name just stuck. My grandmother Rose, she calls me Johnny.” His smile faded and he closed himself away again, his voice growing distant. “Gil does sometimes. I think my mom probably did, too. I was too young to remember.”

Lauren opened her mouth, then closed it and looked away without asking any of the thousand questions that trembled on her tongue. She knew she couldn’t look any longer at that powerful male body while, bewilderingly, her