Книга - Montana Secrets

Montana Secrets
Charlotte Douglas


BITTERSWEET REUNIONFive years ago, Catherine Erickson's world shattered the day she learned her fiancé, Lieutenant Ryan Christopher, had been killed in an embassy explosion. She'd lost the man she loved–and the father of her unborn child. And it wasn't until the mysterious Trace Gallagher showed up on her ranch with his hauntingly familiar eyes and gentle touch, that she even dared to think about long-forgotten desires….Seeing Cat again was like coming home. And learning he had a daughter made hiding his identity pure torture. But as a soldier he had a job to do: protect the Ericksons from a man hell-bent on revenge–at all costs.That meant keeping his feelings locked away, no matter how much they begged for release. Or how badly he ached to love Cat once again….









He had a daughter!


He couldn’t remember the bomb that had almost killed him, but he doubted its impact had been greater than the news he’s just assimilated.

He was a father. Catherine Erickson had borne his child.

Stunned by the knowledge, overwhelmed by a myriad of emotions—joy, surprise, pride—he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

You have to think like Trace Gallagher, damn you, or you’ll ruin everything!

His daughter. Damn, he couldn’t keep the tears from his eyes.

Hot anger flooded him suddenly and seared the tears away, and he crushed the fate that kept him from acknowledging his identity to the woman he loved more than life and to the daughter he hadn’t known existed.


Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

The summer is here and we’ve got plenty of scorching suspense and smoldering romance for your reading pleasure. Starting with a couple of your favorite Harlequin Intrigue veterans…

Patricia Rosemoor winds up the reprisal of THE MCKENNA LEGACY with Cowboy Protector. Yet another of Moira McKenna’s kin feels the force of what real love can do if you’re open to it. And not to be outdone, Rebecca York celebrates a silver anniversary with the twenty-fifth title in her popular 43 LIGHT STREET series. From the Shadows is one more fabulous mystery coupled with a steamy romance. Prepare yourself for a super surprise ending with this one!

THE CARRADIGNES come to Harlequin Intrigue this month. The Duke’s Covert Mission by Julie Miller is a souped-up Cinderella story that will leave you breathless for sure. This brawny duke doesn’t pull up in a horse-drawn carriage. He relies on a nondescript sedan with unmarked plates instead. But I assure you he’s got all the breeding of the most regal royalty when it counts.

Finally, Charlotte Douglas brings you Montana Secrets, an emotional secret-baby story set in the Big Sky state. I dare you not to fall head over heels in love with this hidden-identity hero.

So grab the sunblock and stuff all four titles into your beach bag.

Happy reading!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue




Montana Secrets

Charlotte Douglas





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Charlotte Douglas has loved a good story since learning to read at the age of three. After years of teaching that love of books to her students, she now enjoys creating stories of her own. Often her books are set in one of her three favorite places: Montana, where she and her husband spent their honeymoon; the mountains of North Carolina, where they’re building a summer home; or Florida, near the Gulf of Mexico on Florida’s west coast, where she’s lived most of her life.










CAST OF CHARACTERS


Ryan Christopher—A handsome and courageous marine lieutenant working undercover to fight terrorism, who loses more than his memory.

Trace Gallagher—Ryan Christopher’s alter ego…and determined to protect the Eriksons at any cost.

Catherine Erickson—A pretty schoolteacher and the love of Ryan’s life.

Megan Erickson—Catherine’s four-year-old daughter.

Gabriel Erickson—Catherine’s father.

Marc Erickson—Catherine’s brother, a marine who’s Ryan’s best friend.

Colonel Wentworth—Head of counterterrorism at the Pentagon.

Snake Larson—Town bully and troublemaker. This time he may have committed a much more serious crime.

Derrick Hutton—Head of the terrorist group Righteous Sword, and the man responsible for too many deaths.


Dear Reader,

Montana Secrets was completed in August 2001, one month before the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. While the story is total fiction, some elements of it are eerie predictors of what was to come—Middle Eastern terrorists launching an attack against the United States.

In addition to those sinister elements, however, this story of U.S. Marine Lieutenant Ryan Christopher and his fiancée, Catherine Erickson, contains examples of all that is best in America. When their country is threatened, both Ryan and Catherine place the safety of the nation and the protection of its freedoms above their personal safety and desires. In the end, good triumphs over evil, and, in the best Harlequin tradition, Ryan and Catherine find happiness together.

Montana Secrets is dedicated to those who lost their lives on September 11, to those at home and abroad who deter and fight terrorists who attempt to cripple our nation and destroy our freedoms, and to the courage, tenacity and union of the American people.

Sincerely,









Contents


Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue




Prologue


Lieutenant Ryan Christopher closed the file on his desk, rubbed his tired eyes with the heels of his palms and swiveled his chair toward the third-floor picture window of his embassy office.

Below him stretched Bahira, capital of the Middle Eastern Emirate of Tabari, white and sparkling beneath the merciless desert sun. Minarets of ancient buildings mixed with pleasant symmetry among the gleaming glass of modern skyscrapers, towering date palms and the colorful blossoms of oleander. Even in the scorching heat, the narrow cobbled streets of the bazaar teemed with traffic and pedestrians.

North of the city shimmered the endless desert, its monotonous, undulating sands dotted with oil wells that provided the tiny country’s immense wealth. To the south stretched the Arabian Sea, its surface presently as calm as a single-faceted aquamarine, exactly the rich blue hue of Catherine Erickson’s eyes.

Ryan smiled at the memory of the devilish sparkle in those baby blues, a quality he’d noted the first time he’d met her six years ago. Marc, his college roommate and Catherine’s older brother, had invited twenty-year-old Ryan to spend the summer on their Montana ranch, and Cat, as her family called her, had been only sixteen. Like Marc, Ryan had considered the gangly teenager with a dusting of freckles across her nose and flyaway blond hair barely tamed by braids a major pest.

Young Cat had been interested in only two things—horses and spending every possible minute with her older brother, for whom she had a bad case of hero worship. Believing themselves sophisticated college men above socializing with a mere child, he and Marc had avoided her. Cat had retaliated by making Ryan’s life miserable every chance she found, from leaving pebbles in his boots to short sheeting his bed.

Over the following years, Ryan had visited the ranch several times, but not until after he and Marc had graduated from officers’ candidate school, received their commissions in the Marines and were on leave before their first assignment had he noticed Cat Erickson’s amazing metamorphosis. The skinny teenager had been replaced by a tall, willowy young woman with luxurious blond hair, endless legs and a perfectly sculpted face whose high cheekbones recalled her Scandinavian bloodline. The only trace of the pesky kid sister remaining was the teasing gleam in her unforgettable blue eyes.

Blindsided by Cat’s amazing transformation, Ryan had fallen instantly in love, aware not only of her beauty but also her wonderful qualities, which he’d either ignored or taken for granted. He’d learned to treasure her warm personality, her sense of humor, her sharp intellect and her loyalty to her family. And he’d stopped referring to her as the Pest, Marc’s nickname for his sister. Instead, he had dubbed her Kalila, an Arabic name meaning “dearly beloved.”

Now, two years after being struck by that thunderbolt, he didn’t have to consult his calendar to know that in ten months, three weeks and four days his current tour of duty would end and he’d see his Kalila again. Not only see her, but marry her, too. When that day arrived, he’d gladly shuck the military spit-and-polish, the chain of command and the taut nerves and constant vigilance of his covert assignment to the United States Embassy in Tabari.

Ever since his childhood as an orphan running wild on the rough streets of Chicago, he’d longed for a home, yearned for a family of his own. Until a few years ago, he’d thought the Marine Corps could take the place of that family. He’d joined up with high hopes of a stellar career with a meteoric rise to the upper echelons of command.

On his last leave, however, after having fallen hard for Cat, he’d realized the military was a poor substitute for fulfilling his dreams of a home of his own. He wanted to make a life with Cat, to have a real family, a wife and children. Now he dreamed of his upcoming marriage and a peaceful life with Cat, running her family’s ranch with his best friend and current undercover operative, Marc Erickson.

Ryan turned from the window as Marc stepped into the office from the adjoining bathroom.

Ostensibly, Ryan and Marc were assigned as translators to the contingent of Marines who guarded the embassy. In reality, they were a crack duo of counterterrorists under orders from the Pentagon to locate and identify the antinationalist terrorists who’d threatened not only the American embassy but Prince Asim Barakuh Ben Yaman, the sovereign leader of Tabari.

The translators’ office, in a corner of the top floor of the embassy appeared as a simple clerical operation to anyone who entered. Only Ryan, Marc and their commanding officer, Major Barker, knew of the high-tech equipment hidden behind panels and the secret passage that allowed them unobserved and unfettered entrance to and exit from the building.

Marc had changed from his Marine uniform to the flowing robes and burnoose worn by the men of Tabari. With his skin darkly tanned by the desert sun, only his eyes, the same color as his sister’s, pegged him as a foreigner. Once he’d navigated the dark tunnel to reach the street below, sunglasses would hide that flaw.

“Sneaking out to see that belly dancer you met last weekend, cowboy?” Ryan asked. “What was her name? Fatima?”

“Faridah. What a woman,” Marc said with a rueful grin and lustful sigh. “And I’m tempted. But duty calls. Our suspect’s on the move.”

“Derrick Hutton?” Ryan raised his eyebrows in sudden interest. “How do you know?”

“Heard him telling his buddies in the cafeteria he has the afternoon off and plans to spend it shopping in the bazaar. I’m tailing him in hopes he meets his terrorist contact. If he does, we’ll know for sure that Hutton’s our man.”

“I’ll come with you and watch your back,” Ryan offered.

“No, thanks. This is just routine surveillance. I’ll leave you here to finish the dirty work. Your Arabic is better than mine.” Marc nodded to the documents awaiting translation on Ryan’s desk.

Ryan grimaced at the stack of papers, then turned to his friend. “Call me if you need me.”

“Shouldn’t be any problems, but I’ll stay in touch.” Marc grabbed his cell phone from his desk drawer, shoved it into a pocket beneath his robes and slipped through the cleverly hidden doorway.

Ryan returned to the papers on his desk. Although the embassy had a full office of translators on the second floor, he and Marc were responsible for interpreting all sensitive documents related to military or classified matters. The work before him would take the rest of the afternoon. Resigned to the drudgery, he grabbed the top sheet, an arms agreement between the United States and the Tabarian governments, and began typing an Arabic translation into his computer.

Less than an hour later, he stood and stretched, rolled the cramped muscles of his back and thought longingly of the fresh coffee always brewing in the embassy cafeteria. If he was lucky, they’d have some of those special almond cakes, too. He was halfway to his office door when the phone rang. With a curse of regret, he returned to his desk and grabbed the receiver.

“There’s a bomb in the embassy!” Marc’s winded voice shouted in his ear.

“You’re certain?” An attack was what he and Marc had feared, had worked to prevent, but Ryan still couldn’t believe their suspicions had actually materialized.

“Our suspect told his contact the explosives are in place. They’ll blow any minute. Prince Asim is visiting the ambassador. Get them both to safety.”

Ryan didn’t argue. He and Marc had been fully briefed—the death or injury of Prince Asim would create an international crisis and strain the United States’ relations with the other Arab states. “I’m on it.”

“I’ll call Major Barker to implement the emergency evacuation plan. I’m on my way back to the embassy now.” From the jolting of Marc’s voice, Ryan could tell he was on the run.

Ryan slammed the receiver into its cradle. Years of training and discipline enabled him to shove terror and visions of carnage and destruction aside. Adrenaline pumping, he sprinted for the door. He raced past the elevator into the stairwell and descended the steps three at a time.

On the ground level, he burst out of the stairway and dashed along the marble-floored hallway toward the ambassador’s office. Outside the massive double doors, two uniformed Marines snapped to attention and saluted at his approach. Two strangers in dark suits and native head coverings, Asim’s bodyguards, stirred uneasily at his advance.

Ryan ignored them all and slammed through the doors without knocking. The ambassador, a tall, scholarly-looking man, glanced up from behind his desk in surprise.

“Code Red, sir,” Ryan announced.

The ambassador’s face paled, and he shoved quickly to his feet. “Has the rest of the embassy been notified?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is happening?” Asim, obviously annoyed at the intrusion, glared at Ryan.

“No time to explain.” Ryan grabbed Asim by the elbow and jerked the sovereign of Tabari from his seat. “We have to get you back to your palace immediately, Your Highness. The embassy is not safe.”

With an imperious gesture, Asim shook his arm free. The prince, however, was no fool. When the ambassador rounded his desk and motioned for the prince to follow, Asim didn’t hesitate. He fell immediately into step behind the ambassador, who was hurrying for the double doors.

Ryan dogged the prince’s footsteps. As an afterthought, he pulled the solid wooden doors closed behind him as they left the office. If he could get the prince to his car and away from the embassy, then he could concentrate on conducting a search for the—

A massive concussion shook the building.

In the same instant, Ryan flung himself on the prince’s back, forced him to the floor and covered the sovereign’s body with his own.

The huge marble tiles lifted beneath him, and the corridor exploded around him. A flash of phosphorescent fire blinded him, and collapsing rubble crashed into his back. A heavy object grazed his forehead, and the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. Dust and smoke saturated the air, and he couldn’t breathe. He attempted to rise, but a falling beam caught him between his shoulder blades and knocked him flat once more.

Won’t have to look for the bomb, he thought woozily and would have laughed if his lungs hadn’t hurt so badly and had held enough air. Looks like the bomb found me.

With every nerve ending screaming with pain, he drifted into merciful darkness.




Chapter One


Five years later

Buttoning her suede jacket against the early evening chill, Catherine Erickson stepped onto the broad front porch of the ranch house and stared at the snow-capped peaks along the Montana-Canada border.

Although the air was cool, the angle of the sun hanging high above the western mountains even this late in the evening heralded the approach of summer. Wrapping her hands around a mug of hot coffee, she settled into one of the rough bark chairs, propped her boots on the porch rail and, lost in memories, gazed across the rolling upper pastures of High Valley Ranch.

She missed Ryan.

Catherine always missed Ryan, but somehow in summer she missed him more, when the dull, ever-present pain transformed into a sharp, unbearable ache.

Instead of focusing on the cattle feeding on the tall lush grass or, beyond them, the river swollen with melted snow, she saw in her mind’s eye a tall, muscular figure striding toward her up the front walk, his mahogany-colored hair and khaki-brown eyes glinting in the sun, his broad grin accentuating the cleft in his strong, square chin, his arms open wide in greeting. His nose, broken once in a boyhood brawl, was his handsome face’s only imperfection, but even that flaw added to his rakish appeal, and she had never been happier than when those strong arms closed around her and lifted her off her feet and his deep, smooth baritone voice sounded her name.

Her smile at the recollection grew wistful. He hadn’t always been so glad to see her.

When Marc brought his college roommate home for the summer the year she was sixteen, Ryan had followed her brother’s lead, yanked playfully at her braids and called her the Pest. Cat, on the other hand, had immediately been smitten. She’d always thought Marc hung the moon, but his handsome young friend from Chicago had been the perfect manifestation of all her adolescent fantasies. Ryan, however, seemed unaware that she existed most of the time.

Not that he was ever inconsiderate or rude. His innate good manners made him the perfect guest. He arrived with books or candy for her and a bottle of fine whiskey or a box of hand-rolled cigars for her father. And unlike Marc and her dad, who considered the kitchen women’s territory, Ryan insisted on helping her with the washing up after meals.

“You don’t have to do this,” she’d protested that first night when he’d entered the kitchen, picked up a dish towel and begun drying the skillet she’d just scrubbed. “Marc and Dad wouldn’t be caught dead in here.”

“Everybody pitched in where I grew up,” Ryan had said with an easy grin. “Made the work go faster.”

His hand grazed hers when she passed him a pan, and the unexpected contact had sent her teenage heart into a wild flutter. She pivoted quickly toward the sink to hide her blushing cheeks.

Ryan chatted constantly as they worked, but always about the ranch. His curiosity about their way of life had seemed insatiable.

“What’s a quarter horse?” he would ask, or, “How did your dad choose which breed of cattle to raise?” or, “How many head can your acreage support?”

He’d posed plenty of questions about the ranch and Montana, all right, but never any about her. Cat had soon accepted that Ryan didn’t even think of her as a girl, much less a woman. When he wasn’t teasing her or helping out in the kitchen, he’d treated her as if she were a fence post. Which wasn’t surprising. Why should he notice her? A fence post was the ideal description of her feminine attributes. She’d never bothered with how she looked. And she’d been too tongue-tied with awe to converse wittily with their handsome visitor.

Until the summer she’d turned twenty.

Before Ryan and Marc arrived to spend their leave prior to their first overseas posting, she’d carefully planned her campaign and laid her trap like the best military strategist. Ryan hadn’t visited the ranch in over a year, and in that interval, Cat had learned to show off her best features. Choosing well-cut and properly fitted clothes instead of wearing Marc’s cast-offs made even her usual jeans and plaid shirts alluring.

With an art close to magic, Madge Kennedy down at the Kut ’n Kurl in town had trimmed Cat’s untamed hair into an attractive shoulder-length style that showed off her heart-shaped face to best advantage. Adding subtle makeup, a killer sky-blue dress that emphasized her shapely figure and matched her eyes and sporting strappy heels that showed off long legs formerly hidden beneath denim and boots, Cat had paced nervously in her bedroom until Ryan’s arrival.

She usually waited for her brother and Ryan on the front porch, then ran flying down the path into Marc’s arms for a bear hug upon their arrival, but that day she delayed, holding back until she heard them enter the spacious living room. Then she made her entrance.

When Marc spotted her, his jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “Who are you, and what have you done with the Pest?” he demanded, circling her for a closer inspection and shaking his head in amazement.

Her attention darted immediately to Ryan, who had dropped his bag, crossed his arms over his chest and leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb, his expression serious but his eyes shining. “Looks like your little sister is all grown up now, cowboy.”

She reveled in the obvious approval in Ryan’s voice but said nothing, afraid she’d spoil the effect she’d worked so hard to create.

“Man, oh, man.” Marc blinked in disbelief. “If I’d known you’d turned into such a hot number, Pest, I’d never have brought this ladykiller into the house.”

“Ladykiller?” Cat experienced a moment of panic. Somehow she’d neglected to consider the possibility that Ryan already had a girlfriend. Marc had never mentioned one. Fixing her anxious gaze on Ryan, she was glad he couldn’t hear her heart pounding beneath the scooped neckline of her dress. He met her glance, but his expression remained inscrutable.

“Yeah, the women are wild about him,” Marc explained with the fraternal grin that made her tingle with happiness to have her brother home again. “Everywhere we go, women are always throwing themselves at him. Many a time I’ve had to sacrifice and place myself between him and harm’s way.”

“Sacrifice?” Ryan said with a wry laugh. “So that’s what you call it.”

Marc shrugged. “You’ve never seemed interested in any of the female attention. I was just trying to save you the aggravation.”

Ryan stared at Cat with a laser look that heated her from head to toe. “I think,” he said in a deliciously languid tone, “my interest has just been piqued.”

Inwardly savoring the possibility of victory, Cat remained outwardly cool. “I’m sure plenty of girls will be happy to hear that at the dance tonight.”

“What dance?” Marc asked.

“You’ve been away too long, brother dear,” Cat said. “How could you forget the annual Territorial Celebration at the town hall?”

Marc turned to Ryan. “The music’s kind of hokey, but the food’s always good. Want to go?”

“If you guys are too tired,” Cat said quickly, “I have a casserole I can heat for your supper before I leave.”

She held her breath, waiting for their reply. She’d dreamed for months of dancing with Ryan, wondering how his arms would feel around her, dying to talk with him alone without Marc claiming all his attention.

“I don’t know about you, cowboy,” Ryan said, “but I think you’ll be taking a chance letting Cat go alone looking like that. She’ll need the Marines to keep the locals at bay.”

“You could be right,” Marc agreed.

Ryan nodded. “We’ll have to volunteer.”

Yes!

Cat called on every ounce of self-control to keep from pumping her fist in victory. Ryan had noticed her at last, but she’d have to take care not to appear too interested. If he guessed how strongly she felt about him, he’d hit the Libby highway running and never look back. The last thing she wanted was to scare him off by seeming too eager.

“Do you have a date?” Ryan asked, catching her by surprise.

Her earlier panic returned. Would he think nobody else found her interesting?

Marc jumped to her rescue. “Nobody brings a date to the Territorial Celebration. Everyone just shows up and has a good time.”

Less than an hour later, Cat was sandwiched between Marc and Ryan on the front seat of Marc’s truck, headed for town. She and Ryan each balanced one of her homemade huckleberry pies, her contribution toward the evening’s covered dish dinner, on their laps. Occasionally, when the road curved, she slid toward Ryan, grazing his thigh with her own, relishing the warmth of the contact and making her even more aware of his clean, rugged, masculine scent and the attractiveness of his profile.

Telling stories of his and Marc’s adventures at the Defense Language Institute where they’d studied Arabic and other Middle Eastern languages in preparation for their posting to Kuwait, Ryan kept her laughing, but her thoughts constantly strayed to the dancing that would follow supper and her hopes for spending time alone with him.

When they arrived, the town hall was bustling with people. In the adjacent tree-shaded park, tables had been erected from sawhorses and planks and covered with cloths, and tiny white lights had been strung through the trees. The tables were already loaded with food.

Cat spied her father, Gabriel, among the men circling the smoking barbecue pit. He’d left the ranch with his side of beef and gallon of secret barbecue sauce long before Marc and Ryan had arrived and was helping with the cooking. The succulent odors drifting on the breeze made her mouth water, and she was surprised to discover she was hungry. She had expected to be too excited to eat, but being near Ryan seemed to activate all her senses, even her appetite.

While Marc and Ryan crossed the park to greet her father, Cat peeked inside the open doors of the town hall, decorated with red, white and blue streamers, and watched the band setting up on the stage at the far end of the room that had been cleared for dancing. When the mayor rang the bell in the hall’s squat tower, the signal for supper to begin, she returned to the park to join her family and Ryan.

Ryan sat beside her at supper, but Marc and her father monopolized the conversation with talk of the ranch and the problems created by the dry spring they’d had. Later, however, when the band in the hall began playing their first slow song, Ryan asked her to dance. Feeling as if she were walking on clouds, she accompanied him into the building and slid happily into his arms.

Even though he was dressed casually in jeans and a chambray shirt, Ryan carried himself with an unmistakable military bearing that turned the heads of every woman in the room. The charismatic confidence of a man accustomed to command blended with the fluid grace of a body trained and coordinated like a perfectly tuned machine, and he danced like a dream. Cat had to struggle to keep her mind off the delicious pressure of his hand at the small of her back. That, combined with the dangerous warmth in his eyes, made concentrating on their conversation difficult.

“Marc tells me you graduate from college next June,” Ryan said. “What will you do then?”

“Teach. I’ll be interning in the fall.”

“Will you stay in Montana?”

“I hope to get a job at the high school here in town.”

“That’s a surprise.”

“Why?” She drew back and gazed at him.

“I figured you had the wanderlust, like Marc. The only reason he joined the Marines was to travel.”

“But as soon as he’s seen the world,” Cat explained, “he’s heading back to help Dad run the ranch. For Marc, Montana will always be home.”

“And you don’t want to travel?”

“I’m a homebody. I have everything I need right here.”

Except you, she thought.

“What will you teach? Elementary school?”

She shook her head, pleased at his interest. “High school history.”

Ryan groaned. “I hated history in high school.”

“Then you didn’t have the right teacher.”

His killer grin returned. “If my teacher had looked anything like you, I’m sure I would have enjoyed the class a whole lot more.”

Her cheeks heated at his compliment, a reaction she couldn’t control, one that she’d inherited from her mother and that caused her endless embarrassment.

“My old history teacher made us memorize long lists of people, places and dates,” Ryan said. “Why did you choose such a boring subject?”

“But it isn’t!”

He cocked an eyebrow skeptically. “I’ll need evidence before I’ll believe that claim.”

She studied his face, wondering if he’d reverted to teasing her, but his expression seemed serious.

“History is much more than people, places and dates,” she said. “I think the most important lesson we can learn from history is how choices always have consequences, whether those choices are made by nations or individuals.”

“The old ‘those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it’ theory?”

“Something like that.” She glanced at him sharply, still concerned that he was making fun of her, but his eyes revealed nothing but interest. “Students need to understand the importance of cause and effect, to realize people have control over their lives, that history isn’t events that happened at random. It’s the result of previous decisions.”

Ryan chuckled, and her heart sank. He was making fun of her.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded.

“Not funny. Amazing. All this time I thought you didn’t care about anything but horses. And here you are, a philosopher.”

She scowled. “You make me sound ancient and stuffy.”

He leaned back and considered her with a look that made her pulse race. His magnificent hazel eyes deepened to a hue more green than brown. “Not stuffy or ancient. Something much, much better.”

Flustered by the innuendo in his words, she sought escape from his intense scrutiny. “Well, this room is definitely stuffy. Can we get some fresh air?”

“Sure.”

He twirled her slowly toward the door where a cool breeze entered and alleviated the stifling heat that smothered the dance floor. When he released her, she felt suddenly bereft, until he placed his hand at the small of her back again. He steered her through the crowd that edged the dance floor and out the wide front doors.

The covered dishes had been cleared and the tables disassembled in the park, and the sun had set, leaving the area in darkness except for the faint twinkle from strings of tiny white lights.

Ryan threaded his fingers through hers and led her to a park bench in the shadow of the trees. She sat on one end, and he settled beside her.

Her plan for being alone with him had worked perfectly. She’d had her dance with Ryan, and she should be happy that they were together in this cozy, secluded spot, but all she could think of was his departure in a few days for the other side of the world.

“Why did you join the Marines?” she asked.

He leaned against the back of the bench and stretched his long legs in front of him. “I have no family. The Corps gave me a place to belong.”

“No family, not even aunts or uncles?” She couldn’t imagine life without her brother and father, and she was only now adjusting to her mother’s death. Even though Ingrid had been gone for several years, Cat still missed her every day.

Ryan shook his head. “No family that I know. I was abandoned on the steps of a Chicago church shortly after I was born. Father Ryan at Saint Christopher’s found me. That’s how I got my name.”

He’d never talked about his childhood before, and his story fascinated her. “You were raised by a priest?”

Ryan laughed, a pleasant, throaty sound that echoed in the emptiness of the park. “I’d probably have turned out better if I had been. I spent the first ten years of my life in an orphanage, then bounced from one foster home to another—when I wasn’t in juvenile detention.”

Her heart went out to the child he’d been, orphaned, abandoned and alone. “Somehow I can’t picture you as a juvenile delinquent.”

“I was one tough, angry little kid, and I took out my frustrations and unhappiness on everyone and everything around me.”

“But you’re not like that now. What changed you?”

“Margaret Sweeney.”

Cat’s heart sank. There was another woman in his life after all. “How did she change you?”

“When I was twelve and already had a rap sheet as long as my arm, I went along with some older boys when they stole a car. They wrecked the car, and the cops caught us. When I went before the juvenile judge, she gave me a choice. I could go to live with Margaret Sweeney as my foster mother or be sent to the strictest, most dreaded juvenile facility in Chicago.”

Cat was relieved to learn the woman was no rival for her. “And you opted for Margaret Sweeney?”

He nodded. “I’m a walking example of your choices-and-consequences theory. If I hadn’t made that choice, I’d either be a lifer or dead by now. Instead, I have my whole life and a great career ahead of me.”

“What was so special about Margaret Sweeney?”

Ryan laced his fingers behind his head and gazed into the darkness as if remembering. “She only took in the toughest cases, the boys and girls on the verge of ruining their lives forever.”

“She must have been a very strong person.”

Ryan grinned. “That’s the irony. She was a small, almost birdlike woman that a puff of wind could have blown away.”

Cat frowned. “Then how did she handle such tough kids?”

“She loved us and believed in us with her whole heart. Most of us would rather have died than disappoint her. I lived with her for the next six years, until I went away to college—on scholarship, thanks to her.”

“She sounds like a wonderful woman. I guess you could consider her your family.”

Ryan sighed, and when he spoke again, his voice was heavy with sadness. “If she were still alive. She died of cancer the year before I graduated. I always wished she could have seen how I turned out. More than anything, I wanted Margaret Sweeney to be proud of me.”

“I have a feeling she knows what you’ve done,” Cat said softly, “and she is proud.”

Ryan draped his arm around her shoulder and drew her closer. “You’re a good listener. How come I’ve never noticed that before?”

“You’ve never really talked to me like this before.” Cat’s breath caught in her throat as he dipped his head toward hers, and she closed her eyes in anticipation of his kiss.

“There you are, Catherine Erickson,” a coarse, slurring voice called. “I been looking all over for you.”

Startled, Cat opened her eyes. Ryan withdrew his arm and glanced at the tall figure gazing down at them. The long neck of an empty beer bottle dangled between his meaty fingers. Her heart sank when she recognized Snake Larson, an old classmate of Marc’s who had graduated from class bully to town menace. Tall, muscle-bound, with no neck, beady eyes and a constantly flickering tongue that had earned him his nickname, Snake was trouble personified.

“Why were you looking for me?” Cat asked, unable to keep the irritation from her voice.

“I was watching you inside,” Snake said with a leer that was evident even in the darkness. “For a skinny kid, you filled out good. Come back and dance with me.”

“I’ve had enough dancing, thank you.” Cat hoped he’d take the hint and leave.

“Not until you’ve danced with me.”

“She said no.” Ryan’s voice was soft but deadly. Only a fool or a drunk would have missed the threat in his tone.

Snake was both.

“Oh, yeah?” Snake said with a snarl. “We’ll see about that.” He lunged toward Cat.

With a move so rapid, if she’d blinked she’d have missed it, Ryan sprang off the bench and twisted Snake’s arm behind his back, effectively immobilizing him.

The bully winced in pain. “Lemme go and I’ll beat your ass.”

“You’re drunk.” Ryan released the big man and pushed him away. “Go home and sleep it off.”

“Nobody tells me what to do.” With a fierce swing, Snake shattered the beer bottle against the nearest tree and retained the jagged top as a weapon.

Cat stifled a scream and jumped to her feet. Her first instinct was to run for help, but Snake Larson stood between her and the town hall.

“Don’t worry, Cat.” Ryan’s voice was calm. “Stay out of the way. I’ll take care of this.”

Cat’s heart caught in her throat. Ryan was tall, but Snake towered several inches above him and outweighed him by almost a hundred pounds. From all accounts Cat remembered, Snake also fought dirty. Plenty of men in the area bore the scars of Snake’s wrath.

With a howl of rage, Snake charged Ryan. The Marine stepped deftly aside, and the bully plowed headfirst into the trunk of an ancient maple. He straightened for a moment, shook his head as if to clear it, then crumpled into a heap at the foot of the tree.

“We’d better call the paramedics,” Ryan said. “He probably gave himself a concussion.”

Ryan had won the fight without throwing a punch.

Cat moved to his side. While she was grateful for his physical prowess, she was sick with disappointment over the way the night had ended. She’d planned for every contingency.

Except Snake Larson.

Ryan seemed to know her thoughts. “Don’t let that drunk spoil your fun. I’ve had a great time.”

“Me, too.”

Before she realized what was happening, she had found herself in Ryan’s arms. His fleeting kiss had been swift and gentle but filled with promises of much more to come.

Before his leave was over, he’d made good on those promises. Later, when he’d returned from Kuwait, he’d asked her to marry him. She hadn’t hesitated to agree. And although Ryan hadn’t lived long enough to know it, during that last blissful leave, their daughter, Megan, had been conceived.

Cat closed her eyes and issued a silent prayer of thanks for her beautiful daughter, the unexpected blessing that had given Cat and her father a reason to endure after Ryan and Marc had died. More than a reason to endure, Cat thought. Megan was her whole life. Cat couldn’t think of anything she wouldn’t do for her daughter.

Ryan’s daughter.

Stiff from sitting so long on the porch, Cat set aside her cold coffee and tugged her jacket closer. She’d never forget those special weeks over five years ago that she and Ryan had spent together before he left for Tabari, especially the first time they’d made love—

The whine of an engine straining on a steep grade and the clash of changing gears jerked her from her recollections, and anger flashed through her. Besides Megan, memories of Ryan were all she had, and she resented anything that interrupted her reminiscence. Pushing to her feet, she watched the unfamiliar vehicle approach.

The battered pickup pulled to a stop before the front gate, and the driver stepped out. Even in the gloom of the gathering twilight, Cat immediately recognized the huge man’s threatening silhouette.

Snake Larson.

She shivered with the unearthly awareness that her trip down memory lane had conjured up the last person in the world she wanted to see.

“Hello, Snake,” she called as he swaggered toward the porch. “What are you doing back from Billings? I heard you’ve been working a construction job down there the last few years.”

He grinned, teeth gleaming yellow in the dim light. “Job’s finally finished. I’ve come home to work trails for the Forest Service this summer.”

At the bottom of the steps, he stopped and removed his hat. His eyes, small and unpleasant, at least looked clear. He didn’t act drunk, either, but with Snake, the difference between sobriety and inebriation was hard to discern. He was infamous for his volatile moods, unpredictable escapades and an amazing capacity for holding his liquor.

“Good to see you again, Cat.”

“If you’ve come to visit Dad, I’ll get him.” She started toward the door.

“Don’t bother,” Snake called. “It’s you I’m looking for.”

“Why?” A sudden chill enveloped her.

“It’s been five years since your fiancé was killed. Figured you might be ready to get out a bit.”

She suppressed a shudder. “I don’t think so.”

“We can drive over to Bonner’s Ferry. Have us some steaks and a few beers. Dance a bit. Kick up your heels. Surely you’re ready to quit moping by now. And your daddy can baby-sit that bastard brat of yours.”

His attitude was the same surly mix of arrogance, conceit and insensitivity for which he’d always been famous, and Cat struggled to rein in her flaring temper at the man’s deliberate crudeness.

She forced a smile. “You’ve made a wasted trip. I’ve had supper already, and I have to work tomorrow.”

Snake’s fleshy face twisted in a snarl, and his tongue flicked across his thick lips. “So, the rumors are true.”

“What rumors?”

“That you’re going to marry that weakling of a high school principal, Todd Brewster.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, Snake, nor half of what you see, as my daddy always told me.”

He started up the porch steps. “Well, if you’re not marrying Brewster, there’s no harm in your riding over to Bonner’s Ferry with me. We’ll skip the steaks and cut straight to the beers and dancing.”

In spite of her attempts to contain it, her anger ignited. “What part of no don’t you understand? I’m not going anywhere with you. I have classes to teach tomorrow and papers to grade tonight.”

“Damn, Cat, what’s the fun of being a teacher if you can’t break the rules?”

Snake lumbered across the porch toward her, and she was struck by two distinctly opposite reactions. The first was a sense of déjà vu so clear and indelible she expected Ryan to appear at any second, wrench Snake’s arm behind his back and send him flying headlong off the porch. The second was the terrible realization that this time she was on her own, with her back to the porch wall and Snake Larson bearing down on her like the Great Northern Express whose tracks ran through High Valley’s lower forty.

He was so close, she could smell his whiskey-laced breath. The man, unpredictable at best when sober, meaner than his deadliest namesake when drinking, apparently already had several shots under his belt. Claustrophobia closed in on her, clamping down on her lungs, making her struggle for air. She gauged her chances of making a break inside before he could grab her, and they weren’t good.

Suddenly, the screen door slammed. Snake glanced toward the noise, then stopped his advance and took a few awkward steps backward.

“Evening, Mr. Erickson,” Snake mumbled, with a look on his face like a kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Hello, Snake.”

Her father stood in front of the door, his Winchester rifle cradled casually in the crook of his arm. Gabe’s reputation for handling the weapon with extraordinary speed and accuracy was legendary throughout the county. From the suddenly respectful expression on Snake’s face, Cat knew her tormentor was aware of her father’s skill. Even though the tragic events of the past had left Gabriel sunken and prematurely aged, nothing had affected his proficiency with a gun.

“What do you want here, Snake?” Gabriel demanded.

Snake turned the brim of his hat in his hands, mangling its shape. “Came to ask Cat dancing.”

“And what did she say?”

“Said she can’t.”

“Guess you’ll be leaving then, won’t you?”

One-handed, Gabriel cocked the lever of the rifle and pointed it toward Snake.

Snake rammed on his battered Stetson, lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender and eased off the porch and down the steps. He took the path at a trot without a backward glance, but at the gate, either his courage or his liquor kicked in, because he turned and shouted, “You ain’t seen the last of me.”

“Get out of here, Snake,” her father warned, “before I fill your truck—and your worthless hide—full of holes.”

Muttering a string of foul curses, Snake wrenched open the door of his pickup, climbed inside and started the engine. Grinding the gears, he circled the truck in the road in front of the house, knocking a section of picket fence flat in the process. With his engine screaming in protest and his tires spewing dust, he gunned down the road toward town.

Cat couldn’t stop shaking, more from anger than from fright. Her father put his arm around her and led her inside.

“I made some fresh coffee,” he said. “How ’bout I pour us both a cup?”

“You think he meant it?” Cat asked, following her father into the kitchen.

“About coming back?” Gabriel shook his head. “We’re forty miles from town. Why would he waste his time?”

Pure, unadulterated meanness, Cat thought, but she kept her opinion to herself.

Under the bright lights of the kitchen, the heavy toll on Gabe of working the ranch alone the last five years was even more pronounced. His thick, golden hair had turned white soon after her mother died, but since the embassy bombing, her father had seemed to shrink and waste away before her eyes. The only times he laughed were when he played with his granddaughter. Cat didn’t want to cause him more worry by voicing her concerns about Snake Larson.

She had no doubt that Snake would make good on his promise to return, and she intended to stay ready and remain on guard. Marc had taught her to shoot years ago. Tomorrow, she’d start target practice again.

She couldn’t count on Ryan to protect her this time. A sob threatened to break loose from her throat. Ryan, unlike Snake Larson, would never be coming back to High Valley Ranch. The terrorist bomb in Tabari five years ago had made sure of that.

They hadn’t even found enough of Ryan to send home to bury.




Chapter Two


At the same time Cat Erickson was having coffee in the ranch kitchen with her father, halfway around the world an infuriated Ryan Christopher burst into Colonel Barker’s office at the reconstructed Tabarian embassy. He slammed the door behind him and stormed the commanding officer’s desk.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Ryan shouted.

Cool under fire, the colonel, every inch the military man with his buzz haircut, freshly pressed uniform, lean physique and unflappable calm, motioned his unexpected visitor toward a chair. “Have a seat, Trace, and calm down.”

Ryan gripped the front edge of the desk and leaned toward the colonel, eyes flashing, face flushed with rage. “My name’s not Trace, and you know it, dammit,” he yelled.

“Stand down, soldier,” Barker snapped with authority. “You’re way out of line.”

“You can’t give me orders.” The veins pulsed at Ryan’s temples, and his knuckles turned white where they clutched the desk. “My enlistment expired four years ago. I don’t have to answer to you or the Marines. But you damn well owe me an explanation.”

Barker stood and drew himself to his full height, still several inches shorter than Ryan, but what he lacked in stature, he made up for in severity. He riveted steely gray eyes on the younger man without blinking.

“Here’s the way it is,” he said with ruthless calm, one hand poised above the button on his intercom. “You can either sit down and talk this out quietly, or I’ll have you escorted to the brig. Which is it going to be?”

Ryan struggled for self-control. His entire world had been thrown off-kilter just moments before, and he hadn’t yet regained his balance. After what had just happened, he doubted he ever would. Taking a deep breath, he eased himself into the chair in front of Colonel Barker’s desk.

Barker resumed his seat, but the stiffness didn’t leave his posture. He eyed Ryan warily, as if his visitor were a bomb with a short fuse.

“When did your memory return?” Barker asked.

“This morning at the palace,” Ryan said. “I’d just finished dressing when I banged my head against an open cabinet door. My memories came back in a rush.”

Until that moment, Ryan had believed he was Trace Gallagher, an American who’d been working for over five years as a bodyguard to Prince Asim. A man who’d lost his memory when a bomb exploded while he was guarding the prince, who was visiting the American embassy.

“And everything came back?” Barker asked. “All your memories?”

Barker’s tension had heightened visibly with his question, like a spring coiled too tight, and Ryan couldn’t help wondering why his sudden cure from five years of amnesia would place his usually ice-cool commanding officer in such an apprehensive state.

The colonel leaned forward, seeming to hold his breath for Ryan’s answer.

“No, sir, not everything. I can’t remember the last few days before the bombing.”

“Damn!” Barker slammed his fist on his desk.

Since threats hadn’t gained him the response he wanted, Ryan decided on a new tack. Politeness.

“May I use an embassy phone, sir? When I told Prince Asim my memory had returned, he refused to let me place a call and demanded I report to you first. I have to call my fiancée.”

Barker shook his head. “Sorry, Trace, you’ll have to be debriefed before you can contact anyone.”

“But Catherine—”

“No calls. That’s final.”

Ryan slumped in his chair in exasperation. Earlier, when his memory had returned, his first thought had been of Catherine Erickson, his beautiful and endearing Cat, his Kalila with eyes the color of Montana’s big sky, hair the hue of aspen leaves in autumn and contagious laughter that made his heart sing. He’d had no contact with her since before the bombing, and he couldn’t wait to hear her voice again.

Abandoned at birth, shifted from one stranger’s home to another throughout his childhood, Ryan had never felt he truly belonged anywhere—until he fell in love with Cat. Her acceptance of him with all his flaws, her unfailing ability to make him laugh, the dreams and goals they had shared together made him realize that wherever Cat was, was home.

At this minute, he’d never been so homesick in his life.

“If she’s waited five years,” the colonel said gruffly, “she can wait a few more hours.”

“If she’s waited?” Ryan glanced sharply at the officer. “Doesn’t Cat know I’m alive?”

Baxter leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers across his barrel chest. “You’re not going to like what I have to say, but if you’ll hear me out, you’ll understand.”

A premonition shivered down Ryan’s backbone. He’d already suffered one severe shock this morning, learning he wasn’t the man he’d thought he’d been for the past five years. What if something had happened to Cat?

“Cat’s okay, isn’t she?”

“As far as we know,” Barker replied, “but we’ll get to her later. First, tell me exactly how much you remember from before the bombing.”

Ryan sat back in his chair, took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. Among his recovered memories was his awareness that Colonel Barker had his own way of operating. Ryan would have to allow events to unfold at his commanding officer’s pace. As much as he wanted to know about Cat, to place that call and hear her voice, to reassure himself that she was all right, he’d have to answer Barker’s questions first.

Ryan closed his eyes and tried to remember. “My last clear memory before the bombing was the day you met with Marc Erickson and me to alert us to a possible terrorist attack. You feared someone inside the embassy was in league with the terrorists and you wanted us to identify them.”

“As it turned out, I was right. The attack was an inside job.” Barker rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That meeting was about ten days prior to the bombing. You don’t remember anything after that?”

“There’s a huge gap, sir. My next memories are of hospitals and doctors. But Marc can tell you everything about those missing days before the attack. You know how closely we worked together.”

Barker grew ominously still. “I’m afraid Marc can’t help us.”

A sudden foreboding filled Ryan with dread. “Why not?”

“Erickson’s dead.”

Pierced with grief for his friend, Ryan sank deeper in his chair and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t block out the pain. He forced himself to meet Barker’s sympathetic gaze. “Killed in the bombing?”

Barker shook his head. “Assassinated.”

“What?” The officer’s response took Ryan by surprise, and he jerked upright.

The colonel rose from his chair with obvious effort, as if the world lay heavily on his shoulders. He circled his desk and perched on its edge in front of Ryan. “The day of the bombing Erickson was in the bazaar. He called on his cell phone to alert me to clear the building. Said he’d fill me in on the details later.”

His expression grim, Barker stared past Ryan toward the windows that overlooked the desert. “We began the evacuation instantly, but we didn’t have enough time to get everyone out before the bomb, already planted in the embassy, blew. It undoubtedly was an inside job. Those closest to the ambassador’s office suffered the highest casualties.”

Ryan nodded. He couldn’t remember the event, but he’d read the news reports. Ninety-eight people had died that day, and scores had been seriously wounded.

“In the chaos that followed,” Barker continued, “I temporarily forgot about Erickson, but three Marines who’d been off duty when the bomb exploded stumbled across him as they were rushing to the embassy. He was lying in a deserted alley, and he’d been shot in the back.”

“So he never had a chance to tell you what he’d learned about the terrorists or how he knew about the bomb?”

“He spoke briefly to the men who found him before he lost consciousness.” Barker fixed Ryan with a probing stare. “His last words were, ‘Ask Ryan. He knows who did this.’”

Ryan fought to speak past the lump in his throat. “He never regained consciousness?”

“He slipped into a coma, and even though he hung on for over a year, he was never able to tell us anything more.”

“And I’d lost my memory and couldn’t name the traitor, either.”

Barker nodded. “That’s why we forged you a new identity as Trace Gallagher. Prince Asim gave you a home and a job as a bodyguard in the palace. We wanted to keep you safe until your memory returned.”

“But that’s crazy,” Ryan said with a laugh. “I’ve been living openly in Bahira and wandering freely throughout the city ever since my rehabilitation from my injuries. Anyone from the embassy would recognize me immediately.”

Barker’s keen eyes filled with sadness. “Have you looked in the mirror since your memory returned?”

Ryan shook his head. “I haven’t had time to do anything since I told Asim I’d remembered. His bodyguards rushed me here.”

Barker pointed to a door off his office. “There’s a mirror in the bathroom. You’d better take a look.”

With trepidation, Ryan shoved to his feet and entered the bathroom. Bracing himself for an appearance maimed from injuries, he faced the mirror head-on.

A stranger stared back at him.

Not a horribly disfigured stranger as he’d feared, but definitely not the face of Ryan Christopher.

This man’s cheekbones were higher and more pronounced, almost as if he had Native American ancestry. His once-broken nose had lost its characteristic bump and was straight and movie star perfect. The cleft in his chin had disappeared. Even his hair, once short and wavy, had grown out straight, fine and thick. The only familiar feature in the face was his eyes, the same greenish-brown that he remembered.

The face gazing back at him didn’t belong to Ryan Christopher. It was Trace Gallagher’s, the man he’d thought he was the last five years.

Shaken, he stepped into Barker’s office. “What the hell happened to me?”

“Sit down.” Barker’s usual rough tone was filled with compassion. “You’ve had quite a shock.”

Gratefully, Ryan sank into the chair he’d occupied earlier and ran his hands over his unfamiliar face as if searching for his old self. “Was this change on purpose?”

“Not exactly.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Barker sighed and scrubbed a rough hand over his short-cropped hair. “Immediately after the bombing, the triage team had given you up for dead. That’s when Prince Asim stepped in and took over.”

“Asim? Why?”

“You saved his life. He said if you hadn’t rushed him and the ambassador from the office and closed those heavy doors behind you, he would have been killed. You were between the prince and the blast, and your body took the brunt of the explosion that otherwise would have struck Asim.”

As hard as Ryan tried, he couldn’t remember any of what Barker described.

“Within minutes after the bombing,” the colonel continued, “the prince’s driver rushed you to the trauma unit at the local hospital. Asim refused to accept the opinion of the trauma team there that you were beyond help. He flew you, attended by his personal physician, in his private jet to the best hospital in Cairo, where a crack team of emergency doctors managed to stabilize you.”

“That still doesn’t explain my face.”

“The force of the explosion smashed you facedown onto the marble floor. To put it bluntly, the bones of your skull cracked like the shell of an egg thrown onto a sidewalk.”

Ryan winced. “I don’t recall the Egyptian hospital.”

“You wouldn’t. You were in and out of consciousness and pumped full of painkillers. Once your condition improved, Asim had you moved to Switzerland.”

Ryan grunted with remembered discomfort. “Switzerland I remember all too well.”

“Asim hired the best reconstructive surgeons in the world to rebuild your face.”

Ryan’s frustration flared. “If they were such experts, why don’t I look like myself?”

“With a few more operations, you can have your old face back. But once we realized your memories were gone, we decided to leave you with a different appearance and new identity for your own protection. You’re probably not aware of it, but even your voice is different, caused when your vocal cords were seared by the heat of the blast.”

“We decided to give me a new identity?” Ryan said. “Who’s we?”

“The head of counterterrorism at the Pentagon. He wants to nail the traitor and his terrorist friends responsible for the bombing. You’re our best hope.”

Ryan felt a sudden icy chill. “What did you tell Catherine Erickson?”

As if reluctant to face him, Barker walked to the window and stood gazing at the desert glare with his hands clasped behind his back. “We told her you were dead.”

Ryan leaped to his feet. “You had no right to do that!”

Barker pivoted to face him, gray eyes flashing. “If she hadn’t believed you dead, she would have been in terrible danger. The terrorists could have tried to trace you through her. Then they would have killed her, fearful you’d told her their identities.”

Ryan’s already shattered world broke again. For five years, Cat had believed him dead. Had she gone on mourning, or had she managed to pick up the pieces and go on with her life? For all he knew she was married now, had children.

With someone else.

His anger at the terrorists blossomed and swelled. Losing his identity had been one thing. Losing Marc had been a horrible tragedy. Losing Cat, as well, was too high a price.

The colonel’s expression softened. “I’m sorry, Trace. Telling her you died in the blast was the only way to keep both of you safe.”

“Why do you keep calling me Trace? My name’s Ryan.”

“Ryan Christopher’s a dead man.”

“But I’m not—” Barker’s implication suddenly hit him. “You think the terrorists are still looking for me?”

Barker shook his head. “Ryan Christopher’s death was officially reported. He received several honors and commendations posthumously. There’s no reason for anyone to doubt that Ryan Christopher’s dead—as long as you remain Trace Gallagher.”

Stunned, Ryan said nothing.

“As Trace Gallagher with Ryan Christopher’s memories,” Barker added, “you can be of tremendous service to your country.”

“How’s that, sir?”

“I’ve said too much already.” Barker reached for his phone. “I’m booking you a seat on the next transport back to the States. There’s someone at the Pentagon who wants to talk to you.”



DERRICK HUTTON gazed at the crowded intersection in New York City’s Little Italy, but he saw nothing of the traffic and crowds bustling below and ignored the delicious aromas of tomatoes, olive oil and cheeses drifting from the pizzerias and the street vendors. The wheels spinning in his brain took all his attention as he tried to put the pieces of the latest puzzle together. His contact in the American Embassy in Bahira had just called with an interesting and possibly disturbing tidbit of information.

Trace Gallagher, an American who’d worked for years as Prince Asim’s bodyguard, who’d also been injured in the successful embassy bombing five years ago, a man Hutton had never heard of during his tenure in the embassy, had been secreted out of the country on a military transport yesterday headed for Washington, D.C.

This morning, Hutton had received a call from his Pentagon informant. Trace had been taken directly to the Pentagon upon arrival in Washington and was undergoing a series of tests and debriefings. The informant had promised to call back when he had more details.

Questions nagged at Hutton like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Why the sudden Pentagon interest in a civilian like Gallagher? Was it coincidence that the man had been in the embassy when the bomb, intended to kill the prince, had detonated? According to local gossip, the prince had spared no expense to keep the man alive.

What was so special about one bodyguard out of dozens?

Why the sudden rush to return Gallagher to the States?

Hutton didn’t have the answers, and not knowing placed him at loose ends.

He hated loose ends.

Odds were Gallagher’s return had nothing to do with the Pentagon’s ongoing attempt to locate Hutton’s terrorist cell, but Hutton couldn’t afford to be careless. Diligence and attention to seemingly unimportant or unrelated details had kept him alive so far. He couldn’t slip up now, not with plans for the next attack almost ready for fruition.

When his informant reported in again, Hutton would learn all he could about Gallagher. If the man was a threat, Hutton would simply have him eliminated.

He allowed himself a rare smile. Death was always the best way to tie up loose ends.



THREE WEEKS after Snake Larson’s unwelcome visit, Catherine Erickson gazed across the empty desks of her classroom to the windows that framed the towering Cabinet Mountains. Snow still crowned their peaks, but carpets of wild daisies edged the roadsides, and on the lower mountain slopes choke cherries, serviceberries and huckleberries were beginning to ripen.

June would be arriving in a few days. June, the time for brides and weddings, the month she would have married Ryan if he’d lived. In the last few years, summer had become a season she struggled to get through, fighting anew the pain of loss. Only her adorable Megan, Ryan’s child, helped her to survive her grief.

Remembering, she glanced to the back row by the window. The old wooden desk she’d occupied as a student, where she had carved her initials with Ryan’s and circled them with a heart, had been replaced a few years ago with more modern furniture with unyielding mica surfaces, but Cat felt the same ache, the same undeniable longing she’d experienced as a sixteen-year-old with her first crush.

No matter how hard she tried to convince herself, she couldn’t come to grips with Ryan’s death. Losing her brother had devastated her, but at least with Marc she’d had some closure.

God, how she hated that word.

After nursing Marc for nearly a year, watching him waste away in a coma, she’d been almost relieved when he’d died, freed of his suffering. When he’d regained consciousness briefly before his death, she’d been thankful for the opportunity she’d had to tell him she loved him, to show him baby Megan, to say goodbye.

She’d had no such time with Ryan. The first she’d heard of the catastrophe had been the arrival of the Marine officers and the chaplain to inform her and her father of Ryan’s death and Marc’s injuries. Maybe if she could have said goodbye, could have at least laid Ryan’s body to rest in the family cemetery on the hill above the ranch, she could accept that he was gone.

As things stood now, five years after his dying, she still felt connected to him by some slim, tenuous but indestructible thread that wouldn’t let go. Her stubborn heart insisted on waiting for a man her head told her would never return. But her heart refused to listen.

Like a broken video recorder, her life was stuck on pause. She couldn’t move forward until she could free herself from the past. But the past wouldn’t let her go.

“Catherine? Got a minute?”

She glanced up with a start to find Todd Brewster standing in front of her desk. “Sure.”

The principal of Athens High was a good-looking man with the build of a college wrestling champion who had managed to keep in shape into middle age. The cuffs of his dress shirt rolled to his elbows, his loosened tie and open collar and his tousled blond hair indicated he’d had another busy day.

Smiling blue eyes in his boyish face looked at her. “You were lost in thought.”

She patted a stack of papers piled neatly on the corner of her desk. “End-of-school burnout. The last exam is marked, the last grade averaged. I’m ready for vacation.”

“That seems to be the general consensus around here,” he said with a warm grin, reminding her how much she liked him, how well-respected he was by both students and faculty. In the three years since he’d arrived at Athens High, he’d won the admiration of the entire community—and her undying friendship.

The only problem, she thought with a sigh, was that he wanted to be more than friends.

“How about having dinner with me tonight?” he said. “We can celebrate another successful year.”

“I doubt I’d be good company. I’m really tired.”

He didn’t press her, one of the many attributes she liked about him. “Another time then. But I want us to talk seriously soon. And I don’t want Snake Larson causing you any more problems.”

“How did you know about that?”

“I saw Gabriel at the café a couple weeks ago. He filled me in and asked me to keep an eye out in case Snake showed up here at school.”

Cat nodded with understanding. Ever since Todd had revealed an interest in her, her usually reserved and unassuming father had decided to play match-maker, and Todd had been his willing accomplice. Her dad had loved Ryan like a son, but with Ryan and Marc both gone and Gabe not getting any younger, he worried about leaving Cat and Megan alone.

“Dad put the fear in Snake,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “He’s nothing but a bully. All hot air and no action.”

Todd shook his head, his eyes worried. “Rumor has it he saw plenty of action in Billings. He’d have come home earlier if he hadn’t been serving time for assault. Got into a brawl over a woman.”

“I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.”

“You know it’s more than worry.”

The warmth in his voice was unmistakable, and for the first time, Cat felt tempted to accept Todd’s standing proposal of marriage. Alone, overwhelmed with responsibilities for the ranch and family, she realized Todd Brewster would make an ideal husband, a man she could always rely on, a man she could trust, a man whose company she enjoyed. Most compelling of all, he’d make a wonderful father for Megan.

But was he a man she could love?

Not as long as her heart belonged to Ryan Christopher.

“You still miss him, don’t you?” Todd had an uncanny ability to read her thoughts.

Cat nodded, unable to speak past the threat of tears that often caught her unawares at the mention of Ryan.

Todd reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. “He was your first love. You’ll always miss him. But you have to move on.”

“I know.” She blinked back the tears and forced a smile. “Can I take a rain check on that dinner?”

“You bet. Just name the date. I’ll see you tomorrow night at graduation.”

He gave her hand another gentle squeeze and left the room.

With the same nostalgia she experienced at the end of every school year, especially when she thought of her seniors, who wouldn’t be returning in the fall, Cat went through her checklist. She’d marked her students’ final grades on the standard computer forms, completed her textbook inventory and supplies requisitions for the fall semester, cleaned the ancient slate blackboards with lemon oil and cleared the top of her desk. All that remained was to straighten the rows of desks and close the tall windows.

Starting at the back of the classroom, she had shut half of them when she heard footsteps at her door. At first, she thought Todd had returned, but the figure backlit by the hall windows was too tall for the principal. Her pulse stuttered when she feared for an instant the tall man might be Snake Larson.

Then she recognized the broad shoulders and slender hips of the dark silhouette, a figure etched indelibly on her mind and heart, and she grabbed the nearest desk to keep her knees from buckling beneath her.

Dizzy with hope, joy and disbelief, she finally found her voice.

“Ryan? Is that you?”




Chapter Three


Kalila.

Ryan gritted his teeth to keep from speaking his special name for her aloud and stepped into the artificial brightness of the classroom’s fluorescent fixtures.

As he did, the hope and joy lighting Cat’s face dulled suddenly to disappointment. When she’d called his name in recognition, relief had flooded through him. She had known who he was, so keeping his identity secret was out of his hands. As he saw it, he had no choice but to let her know he was really Ryan.

His own mirror, however, should have made him realize what her face told him now.

She was looking at a total stranger.

Struggling to hide his emotion, he felt ripped between duty and desire. He couldn’t react, couldn’t show her how wildly happy he was to see her again, couldn’t sweep her into his arms and tell her how much he still loved her, how much he’d missed her, how sorry he was about Marc’s death. How concerned he was for her safety.

No, he had to think of himself as Trace Gallagher or he’d blunder and give everything away. One slip could prove fatal not only to him but to Catherine, as well. He had to be Trace Gallagher in every respect, act the part to the nth degree for his mission to succeed. Having to treat the woman he loved with remote politeness galled him, but he had no choice. Failure was unacceptable, because failure meant Marc Erickson’s killer and the terrorists who had murdered ninety-eight others would go unpunished, and he would be placing Cat’s life in danger.

Drawing on all his military discipline to tamp down the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him, resisting with every fiber of his being the desire to rush to her and hold her close, assuming a detachment he didn’t feel, he stepped into the classroom.

“Miss Erickson?”

Confusion replaced the disappointment in her summery blue eyes, but even wearing a puzzled expression, she was more breathtakingly attractive than ever. She’d matured in the last five years, at twenty-seven looking less like the ponytailed teenager he’d first met and even more like a woman than the person he’d last seen at twenty-two. An irresistibly alluring woman. Her underlying air of sadness and loss etched her face with character and lent her an aura of mystery and gravity that made her even more desirable.

He silently cursed his fate. She should have been his wife, and he had to treat her like a stranger.

“I’m Catherine Erickson.” She sank onto the nearest desk and clasped trembling hands in front of her. “Forgive me if I seem a bit shaken. I mistook you for someone else. A trick of the light, I guess.”

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks to keep from reaching for her, Trace moved closer. “Sorry if I startled you. I passed your principal in the hall, and he told me which room was yours.”

Cat took a deep breath in an obvious attempt to regain her self-control and peered at him, a bloom of pale rose slowly returning to her cheeks after the pallor of her initial scare. Curiosity sparked in her remarkable eyes. “Who are you and why are you looking for me?”

Trace suppressed a smile. Cat was so like he remembered her, direct and to the point. He’d always known exactly where he stood with her because she’d never played the coy games some women seemed so fond of. And she’d never been afraid to ask straightforward questions.

“I’m Trace Gallagher. I just returned to the States a few weeks ago from an extended tour of duty in Tabari.”

Her face paled again when he named the Middle Eastern nation, so he hastened the rest of his explanation. “I was good friends with Marc and Ryan.”

Cat’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t remember either of them mentioning you.”

“They wouldn’t have. I was on assignment for military intelligence, working as a bodyguard for Prince Asim. Since Marc and Ryan were working undercover, too—”

“No one was supposed to know that.” Her eyes had widened with alarm, and he hastened to reassure her.

“As members of the intelligence community, we shared information. I kept them informed of what happened at the palace. They kept me abreast of what went on in the embassy.”

Skepticism was evident in the slant of her lips, the glint in her eyes.

“Look, I don’t expect you to take my word for this.” He dug into his pocket, pulled out an envelope and handed it to her. “Here’s a letter of introduction from Colonel Barker at the embassy—”

“Colonel?” Cat took the envelope and pulled out the letter written on official embassy stationery. Her dubious expression disappeared. “So the major’s been promoted. I’m glad. Marc and Ryan both thought a lot of him, and he was especially kind to Dad and me…after.”

She read the letter quickly, inserted it in its envelope and handed it back to him. “Looks like you’re who you say you are, Mr. Gallagher.”

He repressed a flinch at the ironic error of her words. “Call me Trace.”

At that instant, Cat gazed past him to the door, and Trace turned to find the principal he’d met earlier in the hall standing in the doorway.

“Everything okay in here, Catherine?” the man asked.

“I’m fine,” Cat said.

“You’re sure?” the principal persisted with a proprietary air that told Trace the boss considered Cat more than just another teacher.

“Trace is an old friend of Marc’s,” Cat explained. “He’s stopped in for a visit.”

The principal looked wary. “I’ll be around for a while. Buzz me on the intercom if you need me.”

Catherine smiled warmly at the man. “Thanks for looking out for me, Todd. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Good friend?” Trace fought back a pang of jealousy.

“The best,” Cat admitted. “I don’t know what I’d have done without him the last few years.”

Trace crushed his irrational anger against a man who had been there when he couldn’t be and tried to be grateful that Cat had had friends looking after her.

Cat’s expression sobered. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here in Athens.”

“Intelligence work is a stressful job, so my handlers decided I’m due for R&R. Marc and Ryan always talked about this corner of Montana as if it were God’s country. Since I’ve never been West, I decided to see for myself.”

“You’re on vacation?”

“A much-needed holiday,” he said with feeling.

His statement wasn’t intended as a deception. A vacation was exactly what the Pentagon had dubbed his Montana trip, even though he was on assignment.

Shortly after he had confronted Colonel Barker at the embassy, Ryan had been hustled out of Tabari aboard a military transport. Upon his arrival in the United States, a Pentagon limousine whisked him away from Andrews Air Force Base and delivered him into the hands of Colonel David Wentworth, head of counterterrorism.





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