Kathleen Creighton - The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda

There was a moment of silence. When she spoke again it was in a whisper, and now her voice did tremble. “Why couldn’t you just have told me?”

He turned and looked at her then. Her eyes were brimming with tears and her chin was jutted out at a belligerent angle. The scrape on her chin made her expression seem unbearably poignant to him. He shrugged and said in a voice that was gravelly with guilt, “Ah, you know-thou shalt not blow thy cover.” Knowing it was a cop-out. Knowing it was nowhere near enough.

“I knew something about you wasn’t right.” She was suddenly fierce and angry. “I told you, remember? It just took me a while to figure out what it was.”

He’d always been more comfortable with her temper than her tears. Smiling, he said, “What gave me away?”

“You smelled good,” she said with a grudging sniff, and couldn’t resist smiling back-with triumph. “No booze.”

Bronco made a tsk ing sound with his tongue. “Never should have danced with you,” he murmured, reaching out a hand to touch her chin. And then his fingers just naturally curved on around her jaw to the back of her neck, under the wild-grass ripple of her hair.

“That’s my line,” she protested, resisting him. But only very briefly.

It was much later when she was finally able to pull herself away from him again. She didn’t want to-she’d come prepared to stay, unless, of course, he’d thrown her out the door. But she was back firmly rooted in reality now, and there were things she had to know.

“So what happens now?” she asked him, her heart trembling inside her. “Do you go back? Undercover?” And if you do, how will I ever live until you surface again?

He shook his head. His voice sounded dry as dust. “Can’t-not after my picture was splashed all over the evening news. Not with SOL, anyway.” He paused, then took a breath and said brusquely, “I’m sort of thinking about local law enforcement. Thought maybe it’s time I gave something back to my father’s people. My people.” He coughed. Made a small gesture with his hand, but didn’t touch her. “What about you? You ready to go back to being the good little girl?” His smile was crooked. “After all, you’re gonna be the president’s daughter.”

Her face hurt when she tried to smile. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see about that.” Then she shrugged and looked away. I won’t ask, she thought. I can’t ask. Some things were just impossible for a woman with an ounce of pride. “I don’t know,” she said dully. “Go back to being a lawyer, I guess. It’s what I know, what I’m good at.”

There was a long, long pause. Pulses pounded and hopes and fears sang in the air between them like the whine of locusts on a summer evening.

Then Bronco spoke softly, “Apaches need lawyers too.”

Lauren’s eyes snapped to his face, his fierce and beautiful warrior’s face. And in his glowing black eyes she saw it at last-the look of love and longing she’d hoped for, prayed for, risked so much for and come so far to find.

has roots deep in the California soil, but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today, she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history-but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines her two loves in romance novels.