The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

their way across the plateau-taking a long slow time of it, it seemed to Lauren. What had appeared from above to be flat terrain had turned out to consist of undulating ridges separated by gulleys and washes and thickly dotted with cacti and numerous other species of inhospitable plant life. Though her impatience with their progress probably had more to do with the words Bronco had spoken to her just before they’d started out than their actual rate of travel.

Home. He was taking her home. He’d said so, and he had no reason to lie to her. Though where that home was or how he planned to get her there, she didn’t know; she couldn’t see him driving her up to her father’s doorstep, wherever he might be at the moment. The local police station seemed equally unlikely. On the other hand she couldn’t believe he planned to drop her off at the nearest phone booth or bus depot, either.

Home. The images in her mind and the longing in her heart evoked by that word had more to do with people’s faces than any particular place. She couldn’t wait to see them again-her father and Dixie, her brother and, yes, her mother, too. When this was all over, she told herself, just as soon as she could get to a telephone, she’d call. Yes, and tell her what? It had been such a long time; they were practically strangers. One phone call wasn’t going to mend sixteen years of anger and hurt, she knew that, but it was a start. It wasn’t too late. Now that this nightmare was all but over, once she got her life back, things would be different.

Different? Oh, everything was different now-for her. But what about Bronco? What was to become of him, this strange and contradictory man who’d kidnapped her, then saved her from almost certain death? Would he be in prison? Or assuming he was able to avoid capture, would he be off in some godforsaken wilderness camp planning further mayhem with another anti-government militia group? Or would he somehow manage to just go back to being John Bracco, half-Apache horse trainer with a driver’s license, credit cards and a drinking problem? And how could any of those scenarios possibly fit into her life?

The answer was simple and unarguable. They couldn’t. He couldn’t. No way. End of story.

The end. Lauren’s stomach turned over and tears stung her eyes. The pain in her heart was so sharp and terrible she gave an involuntary gasp.

That got her a soft, “You okay back there?” from Bronco. Concerned about her lack of a hat, he’d insisted she wear the poncho over her head like a burnoose as protection against the broiling sun. As a consequence, she was in imminent danger of death by steam-cooking.

She gulped two quick breaths and was able to reply in a grumpy tone, “I’m fine. If you don’t count suffocation.”

“Leave that thing on. Can’t have you getting sunburned.”

“What difference does it make? Oh, I forgot,” she jokingly said, “I’m so valuable.”

He gave his dry ironic snort and muttered, “Not anymore,” as Red, responding to an unseen signal, broke into a gallop.

Lauren laughed, a sudden sunburst of joy. No, not anymore. She was no longer a hostage. He was taking her home.

In disobedience of orders, she let the poncho slip below her shoulders and lifted her head to give the cooling wind access to her sweat-damp hair. She watched Bronco’s long black hair, loose on his back, gently lifting and falling against the soft cotton fabric of his shirt with the rocking rhythm of the stallion’s gait. And she couldn’t resist the impulse to lay her face against it and breathe in the warm masculine scent of him one more time. Oh, please-not the last time. She loved the smell of him-clean salt-sweat, human and horse; sun and earth and pine needles and a hint of herbal soap. She would remember that smell for the rest of her life.

The two mares cantered by, tails lifted to the wind, feeling their oats. Their belated arrival earned them barely a whicker from a subdued Cochise Red; the long trek through mountains and storms had taken its toll on the stallion.

“They’re still with us,” Lauren said, raising her voice above the rush of the wind, the horses’ grunts, the thump of hooves and the squeak of saddle leather. She’d feared they might have run off with the wild horses, though to her intense disappointment she’d seen no sign of the herd since sunrise. They’d be going back to the high country where the good grazing was, Bronco had told her, now that the storm had passed.

“Horses are herd animals,” he said now. “And we’re their herd. They’ll stay with Ol’ Red here-unless a better deal comes along.” He grinned at her over his shoulder. “They’re not a lot different from humans in that respect.”

Lauren punched him on the back. She was unprepared when he swore and brought the stallion to a shuddering bone-crunching halt. “What?” she gasped, blinking away tears of pain from a bitten tongue and a bruised pubic bone. Then, in the sudden quiet she heard a new noise-a rushing roaring noise.

Bronco had lifted himself high in the stirrups in order to see farther ahead. Now he settled back in the saddle, still swearing and shaking his head. “Damn,” he said. “Damn, damn, damn.”

“What is it?” Her breasts had shivered hard and tight, brushing against a body suddenly taut and twitchy with ill-contained frustration.

“Flood,” he replied succinctly as he urged Cochise Red forward at a cautious walk.

A few paces farther on she could see it for herself. See that the earth ahead of them ended abruptly at the edge of a deep gulley. The bank on which they stood was higher than the one on the far side, and at least twenty feet below, a torrent of yellow-brown water boiled and churned and roared by with the speed and noise of a runaway freight train.

“Flash flood,” Bronco said, his voice distant and tired. “All that rain yesterday-last night. I told you it was a male rain-no good to anybody. The soil’s baked dry-the rain comes too hard and fast to soak in. So it just runs off- from every slope and down every little ravine-until it all winds up here. A few miles farther down it’ll spread out and either soak into the sand or stand on the hardpan until it eventually evaporates. But that won’t do us any good.”

“We have to cross that?” Lauren asked in a small voice.

“Yeah,” he replied on an rusty exhalation, “we have to cross that. Except we can’t. So we’ll have to go around it-one way or the other.” He turned to look at her and she saw the bleak set of his features, the furious black glitter of his eyes. “It’s going to take time…”

Time they didn’t have. Though neither of them said so, the knowledge that they were running out of that precious commodity lay like a chasm between them. What day was it? She’d lost track and couldn’t bring herself to ask him. The convention-it must have started by now. The acceptance speeches would be on the final day. How would they possibly still get there in time? Oh, Daddy, I’m so sorry.

New sounds intruded on that vibrant space-a squeal of surprise, a frightened whicker.

Bronco jerked around in the saddle. He muttered, “Oh, hell,” and an instant later was on the ground and running toward the edge of the wash. Still clutching the back of the empty saddle, Lauren watched in frozen fascination as the hindquarters of the gray mare, Linda, sank from sight, while her front hooves still lunged and scrabbled futilely at the edge of the ravine. Then all at once, undercut by the flood waters, the entire section of bank gave way. With a terrified scream, the mare disappeared. And right behind her was Bronco, plunging feet-first down the slide, into the raging torrent.

Just that quickly it happens. The unthinkable. Lauren felt the searing pain of a scream rip through her throat, heard the echoes of her own voice hanging in the hot shimmering sunlight, crying out his name.

Then, somehow, she was in the saddle and the reins were in her hands, and the big red stallion was thundering along the edge of the wash while she strained to catch a glimpse of one black head in all that water. She could see the mare thrashing, struggling to stay upright-if she started rolling, she was as good as lost. But where was Bronco? She screamed his name over and over. “Johnny! Johnny!”

There he was! Yes-she could see him, churning through the water, arms reaching for the frantic mare. But then, before he could grab hold of her mane, the current caught him, tore him away and rolled him under.

“Bronco!” Searching frantically for a glimpse of him, Lauren raced Cochise Red flat out along the edge of the gully, racing the torrent, refusing to accept that Bronco could be gone. Gone so completely, so suddenly. Just that quickly the unthinkable happens.