McCullough chuckled; she could see the arrogant gleam of his teeth in the moonlight. “Well, Lauren. Welcome to Liberty. I guess you’re probably tired and hungry after your long ride. Come on inside-there’s a pot of stew keepin’ warm on the stove. After you’ve had something to eat, we’ll talk about living arrangements.” And as he spoke in warm cordial tones, he was taking her arm, moving her along beside him as if, Lauren thought, she was an honored guest being invited in for dinner.
It was an illusion that was shattered a moment later when the armed guard in his camouflage clothes and blackened face moved in on her other side.
Suddenly irrationally frightened, she looked for Bronco and just caught a glimpse of him as he was leading the three horses across the cleared slope and into the trees. Of course, she told herself, he’d see to the horses before his own needs-any good wrangler would. She had no idea why she suddenly felt so bereft without him when a moment ago she’d bitterly resented so much as the man’s helping hand on her arm.
“We’re primitive here, as you can see,” Gil was saying in an apologetic tone. “This is a wilderness survival training camp, so we’re a little bit lacking in the amenities, but we’ll do our best to see you’re comfortable. Since you’re apt to be with us for a while, we’d like for you to feel at home.”
Speechless, Lauren could only stare at him. He gazed blandly back at her and motioned for her to precede him.
She entered the cabin cautiously, walking as if the floor under her feet might vanish; nothing seemed real to her. The cabin and its contents were so incongruous that for a moment she felt as though she was dreaming in weird double exposure, or had somehow fallen into overlapping worlds. Modern military juxtaposed against a backdrop of the Old West-steel folding tables and chairs, a laptop computer, ham radio outfit, battery packs, charts and maps and miscellaneous equipment, the purposes of which Lauren could only guess, occupied most of the space in a room constructed of rough wood planks, old and weathered to a silvery gray. A modern stainless-steel kettle shared space on a cast-iron wood-burning cookstove with an old-fashioned enameled coffeepot. The light in the room was the cold blue of modern Coleman lanterns, but the smells that permeated the cabin were the pungent down-home aromas of grass-fed beef and simmering coffee.
“I expect you’d like to wash up before you eat.” Gil motioned toward the back wall of the cabin opposite the door, where an enameled pot and basin sat atop a wooden dry sink in front of the room’s only window. As he spoke he was moving among the steel tables and chairs, his attention already returning to whatever it was he’d been involved in when interrupted by her arrival. He seemed completely relaxed and unconcerned by her presence.
And why not? He’d know she posed no danger or flight risk. What could she do, where could she go, one woman in the middle of a camp filled with men, in the middle of a wilderness, in the middle of the night? And that was even assuming she could somehow get past the armed guard planted like a medium-size tree in front of the doorway.
Burning with resentment and trembling with fatigue and helpless fury, Lauren crossed the plank floor on legs she feared might buckle at any minute. The water in the pot was warm. She dipped some into the basin with a large ladle that was hanging on the side of the pot and lowered her hands into it, trying not to weep with the sudden longing for a whole tubful in which to immerse her aching body. In spite of her efforts a few tears mingled with the water in her cupped hands as she leaned over the basin to wash her face. And what a blessed relief it was-both the lovely warm water and the tears. Safe tears, camouflaged by the process of washing.
Feeling somewhat restored, she dried her hands and face on a towel she found hanging on a nail beside the window. A glance at Gil told her he was engrossed in his laptop, so she wandered over to the cookstove and lifted the lid from the stew pot. She’d already decided, childishly perhaps, that she would not speak to her captors unless asked a direct question. A small defiance, but it seemed important to her to retain even the tiniest measure of self-determination and control.
A rough wooden cupboard beside the stove yielded stainless-steel bowls, mugs and eating utensils. Lauren ladled a hefty helping of stew, thick and rich with chunks of beef, potatoes, onions and green peppers, into a bowl, filled a mug with coffee that looked almost as thick as the stew and went back to the sink. Leaning her backside against it, she took a sip of the coffee and thought wistfully of cream and sugar, then set the mug on the sink behind her and dug her spoon into the stew.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Gil said, glancing up from his computer and pulling out a folding chair next to him. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Lauren thought of the places on her body that were burning like fire, two of which were located exactly where that metal chair would meet her bottom. “I’m fine,” she said distantly.
Gil aimed a glance at her over the tops of rimless glasses, then shrugged and muttered, “Suit yourself,” as he went back to his laptop. A moment later, though, he looked up again. This time he took off the glasses and placed them on the table, then sat and regarded her thoughtfully.
Lauren did her best to ignore the silent scrutiny, forcing herself to think, instead, about how unexpectedly good the stew was, trying to identify the seasonings, wondering who’d made it. But in spite of her efforts, her heartbeat quickened when Gil got up from his chair, picked up a lantern and went down two steps into the long shed that was attached to the cabin.
Splashes of illumination revealed a long wooden table and benches, as well as shadowy piles of boxes and cartons of varying shapes and sizes-presumably the shed served the camp as both mess hall and storage facility. Lauren kept spooning stew into her mouth as she watched Gil pause, then bend over to open a wooden crate. She saw him take something out of the crate, and when she saw what it was, the stew turned to ashes in her mouth.
No. Oh, please, no-not that. Anything but handcuffs!
She didn’t think she’d spoken aloud, but McCullough must have seen the horror on her face, because on the way back into the cabin he set the lantern on the table and held up a hand. In a tone that was part testy, part soothing, he said, “Now, don’t get excited. Doggone it, I hadn’t intended on doing this.” Halfway between her and the guard at the door, he paused and regarded her with his head tilted to one side. After a moment he made an impatient gesture, as if she’d just asked him a troubling question, one he couldn’t answer.
He cleared his throat in an embarrassed sort of way, which Lauren might have enjoyed if she’d been in a frame of mind to think about anything except her fear. “As you can see, we’re not exactly set up here for prisoners of war. We haven’t got a, um…any kind of stockade or anything like that. This cabin is about as secure a location as we’ve got, and it’s not going to be practical to keep you here for…obvious reasons. What I was gonna do was put you in a tent, post a guard, and that would be that.” His perplexed look darkened to a frown. “But now, doggone it, I’m thinking I might have underestimated you. Truth is, you know, I just don’t believe I can trust you.”
Yes! Lauren cravenly thought. Yes, you can-you can trust me. Please don’t handcuff me. Please… But except for a disdainful snort, pride kept her silent.
“I know you’re a smart girl,” Gil went on with a wry little half smile. “What I’m afraid is, you might be just smart enough to think you can figure a way out of here.” His smile changed to a fatherly frown. “I don’t even want to think about what might happen if you were to do that. The last thing we want is for anything bad to happen to you. So I guess you could look at this as a safety precaution-that’s your safety I’m talking about, you understand? At night, mainly. Just to make sure you don’t try anything smart. Okay? You understand?” As if, Lauren thought, he really did want her to.
She thought of the cot in the saddle house, the comforting smell of horses and leather. How relieved she’d been that they hadn’t tied her up.
From a distance she could hear Gil’s voice explainin
g. “As soon as you’re done eating, Ron here is going to take you to your quarters, get you settled in.” And he was handing the cuffs to the man silently standing at the door.
It was then that Lauren caught the glitter of blue eyes and just managed to hold back a gasp of recognition. She hadn’t known him before with his face blackened, but now she realized that the guard was the same man she’d last seen in McCullough’s living room, when Gil had handed him the keys to her truck. The man with the ice-cold eyes. The man whose look had made her shiver.
She wasn’t shivering now. She just felt frozen. Numb.
Then all at once her mind filled with the image of Bronco’s face-his fierce warlike eyebrows and strangely alluring smile. Without stopping to wonder why, she found herself focusing on that face and that smile with all her energy, all her will. For reasons she could not fathom, she could hear his warm bear-rug voice in her mind, saying, “Rise and shine, Laurie Brown.”
Gil’s hand was gripping her arm; the bowl was being taken from her useless fingers. She felt herself being led like a lamb to where Ron Masters waited-waited with cold eyes gleaming in his sooty face like a hungry wolf’s. Terror-mindless, unreasoning, no doubt a product of exhaustion and all that had happened to her-rose in her throat.
Fingers bit into the flesh of her arms. Though she knew it was futile, she dug in her heels and pulled against them with all her strength as she sucked in a breath for a scream.
At that instant, when she was only a heartbeat away from hysteria, from complete humiliation, the cabin door opened and there was Bronco, with her saddlebags slung over one shoulder.
For a long moment he stood motionless in the doorway, framed against a backdrop of moonlight, casually blocking their exit. No one spoke, but Lauren saw his eyes glitter, then turn hard. And deadly.
Chapter 5
He didn’t say anything; it was not his way.
There was a strangely vibrant silence as Bronco slowly eased the saddlebags from his shoulder. It was a deliberate motion, planned as a distraction, a focus for his concentration. Standing with his feet planted a little apart but keeping his body relaxed and his features impassive, he weighed the saddlebags in one hand while his mind surrounded and confined his anger, condensed it into a pinpoint and then stored it safely away in a remote corner of his consciousness.
This was an exercise he’d learned long ago during his turbulent times, when he’d been hell-bent on self-destruction. It had been a long time since he’d had to resort to it. He wasn’t sure what had called up in him that dark and lethal rage at the moment he’d seen the woman’s terror-stricken face, those liquid beseeching eyes, and Ron Masters’s fingers pressing into the flesh of her arms. He wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on the cause. What mat tered was that the anger did not control him any longer. These days it was his to control.
Gil finally broke the silence. “You’re just in time. Masters was about to show our guest to her quarters. That her gear? Ron’ll take it-go on over and help yourself to some stew.” He spoke in a clipped voice, and Bronco had an idea it was guilt that was mostly responsible for the brusqueness. Whatever else he might be, Gil McCullough was not a cruel man.
Instead of handing over the saddlebags, Bronco casually hefted them back onto his shoulder. “That’s okay, I got it,” he drawled. His eyes slid past the woman and settled on Masters.
Masters, now, that one was mean-mean as a snake. And Bronco had heard stories about his track record with women. His eyes flicked to the steel bracelets dangling from Ron’s hand. “What’re those for?” He kept his voice quiet, but with an edge of steel as hard as what those cuffs were made of.
Ron’s lip curled, showing a glare of white teeth in his blackened face. But before he could answer, Gil broke in, speaking too quickly and with that hint of beligerence.
“I was just explaining to Lauren-they’re as much for her safety as anything else. There’s a big ol’ wilderness out there. Hate to think what might happen if she decided to make a run for it…” He jerked his head toward the moonlit vista beyond the open door and left his thought unfinished.
But Bronco knew what was on his mind. Out there somewhere, tucked away in all those trees, were four or five dozen men he wouldn’t turn his own back on, much less entrust with the safety of a female hostage. A young beautiful female hostage.
He reached over and plucked the cuffs from Ron Masters’s hands. “I don’t think they’re gonna be necessary,” he said easily, “but just in case…” He tucked them into his hip pocket and grinned. And for the first time, allowed himself to look closely at his prisoner.
He’d braced himself for it, but even so, the look on her face hit him like a fist to the midsection. Fear, exhaustion, gratitude, hope, anger, resentment and pride-it was a lot to contain in one pair of eyes. It looked to him as if hers were about to spill over, and, he thought if that happened, the shame might be more than a woman with her pride could take.
Meanwhile, Gil was blustering, “Well, now…” while Ron made a sound something like a growl. From the woman sandwiched between them came only a soft intake of breath.
Bronco aimed a look at Gil and raised his eyebrows. “You did put me in charge of the prisoner, Commander. Are you relieving me of that duty, sir?”
McCullough snorted and shook his head. His eyes narrowed the way they did when he was mulling something over, weighing options. The air sang with unvoiced emotions, silent battles.
Through it all Bronco waited, relaxed and confident. He knew McCullough. And knew who he trusted.
He knew he was right when Gil finally drew himself up and thrust out his chin. “Okay, Johnny-” he gripped Lauren’s arm and thrust her at Bronco with uncharacteristic roughness “-she’s your responsibility. Anything happens to her, I’ll have your ass-understood?”
“Understood, sir.” He curved his fingers around her arm and felt her tremble the way a wild mare trembles when she’s fresh-caught and snugged up on a short lead, with nowhere to go and no way of knowing what’s going to happen to her next.
“I had the men pitch her tent up by the spring,” Gil said dismissively, already back among his maps and plans. “Rigged her a latrine, too. You’ll see it when you get up there.”
Bronco nodded; he could feel Masters’s seething anger as he guided Lauren past him. He felt it follow him out the door, across the thick plank porch and down the steps. He knew he’d made an enemy tonight, but that didn’t particularly bother him. One more reason to watch his back. Another reminder that he couldn’t afford to let his guard down-ever.
At the bottom of the steps he let go of Lauren’s arm long enough to pick up his bedroll and gear. When he had them tucked under his arm and went to reach for her again, she shook him off and pulled her arm away like a child in a sulk.
He paused and looked at her in surprise; he found the defiance a little hard to figure out, considering a few moments ago she’d been scared out of her wits and on the verge of tears. “You know where you’re going?” he asked mildly.
She glared back at him in stony silence. He shook his head and gave his bedroll a hitch; he was starting to think maybe those handcuffs weren’t such a bad idea, after all.
“Look,” he said, keeping his voice low so the two men in the cabin doorway couldn’t hear it, “since you don’t know where we’re going, you can’t very well lead. And I’m sure as hell not going to let you at my back. Now, you can walk along beside me like we’re out for a nice stroll in the moonlight and I can take your arm as a common courtesy, or I can tow you along on a lead rope like a balky mule. Which is it gonna be?”
Lauren, who had fixed her gaze on a spot about a foot to the left of his shoulder, didn’t reply. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, didn’t trust herself to speak; she felt too fragile, too frightened, too confused. Every reasoning part of her had rebelled against her heart’s appalling response to Bronco’s just-in-the-nick-of-time return-that surge of hope and joy, the trembling, weak-kneed relief. What was
that all about?
Oh, this was dangerous-dangerous and wrong. He was one of them, her captor, the enemy! She’d read about such things-hostages becoming dependent on, even forming emotional attachments to their captors. She’d only been a captive for a day! Was her character so weak, her courage so lacking? She felt profoundly disappointed in herself.
A sound from the cabin jerked her glance upward. Adrenaline surged through her like an electrical charge. Reason be damned; survival instincts took over, forcing a breath from her body along with a whispered “Okay.”
Bronco’s fingers wrapped around her arm. He jerked her out of the way as Ron Masters brushed past them, so close Lauren could feel his body heat…smell his scent, something feral and indefinably menacing.
“Smart choice,” Bronco muttered dryly. He gestured with the saddlebags toward the side of the cabin. “It’s this way.”
A stroll in the moonlight. The moon was in the west, just beginning its downward arc, so brilliant it cast their fore-shortened shadows before them as they climbed. Beyond the cabin the ground rose sharply to skirt the rock formation, alternately bare rock and a thick spongy carpet of pine needles. The air was cool and smelled of pine and damp earth. Overhead a breeze was a constant sound in the treetops. It was a sound Lauren had read about, but never actually heard before. She found it indescribably lonely.
She tried focusing on the sound as a way to mask the discomfort of her sore legs. But she was too tired, and the pain was too intense. And in the end the pain created its own kind of anesthesia, blocking out everything else-the fear, the anger, the bewilderment and humiliation, the powerlessness and frustration. She plodded numbly along, conscious only of pain.
And of Bronco’s fingers on her arm. Yes, maybe that most of all.
Once she slipped on some loose gravel, and his fingers tightened as he held her upright. “Almost there,” he murmured. She pressed her lips together and nodded; she’d heard him use the same tone when soothing horses.
The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda Page 7
