It never occurred to him not to hold her. She was wet, cold, trembling…probably in shock. He muttered something-he didn’t know what-as he reached one-handed to untie the blanket roll behind the saddle, somehow got it shaken out and wrapped around her. It was when he folded her back against him that she began to cry. Not quietly, either, but with sobs and wails, like a little child.

Bronco hadn’t had much experience with weeping women, but for some reason he wasn’t surprised or even all that upset to find one in his arms. He thought he should have been-especially this woman. What did surprise him was how altogether natural it felt to hold her, to stroke her hair, weave his fingers through it and cradle her head against his shoulder. To exhale soothing wordless whispers into its silky dampness and inhale its sweet green-apple scent.

The storm was only a squall and it passed quickly. To Bronco it seemed all too short a time before she quieted, then began to stir in the restless way that let him know she was already sorry she’d let herself cut loose like that. Regret was a heaviness in his muscles as he eased her away from him.

She quickly bowed her head and he could see her brush at her eyes and nose with jerky embarrassed movements, then give up and begin to yank on her T-shirt, trying to haul it out of the waistband of her jeans.

“Here,” he scolded, “don’t do that.” He untied his bandanna, pulled it off his neck and passed it to her. She croaked something he took for a thank-you and turned away self-consciously to blow her nose, though as dark as it was he couldn’t have seen much, anyway. He stood and waited while she mopped up, uncomfortable himself now, and the damp place she’d left on the front of his shirt a cold reminder of her warmth.

“You okay?” he asked when it sounded as though she was about done.

She nodded, and he could see her shift about, looking for someplace to put the bandanna. Before he could take it from her, she shoved it in her pocket and cleared her throat. “Sorry. Reaction, I guess.”

“Natural.” His voice was diffident, remote. “Don’t worry about it.”

Suddenly bereft, Lauren fought an urge to reach out and touch him, to feel again the strong hard body and warm arms that had so recently sheltered her. Her eyes strained against the darkness, but she could make out only a faceless shape topped by the pale blur of a white Stetson.

His voice came quietly from the shadows. “Think you can go on a ways?”

“Sure,” said Lauren. It didn’t occur to her then what an odd thing it was for a terrorist to ask his hostage.

“I’d feel better if we could put more distance between us and those choppers.”

She didn’t know what to say to that when she knew that in all probability those helicopters had come to rescue her. Of course, they might just as easily have killed her, instead, and that made no sense. Surely her father would never have allowed such an all-out assault, knowing she was still being held hostage. He’d never risk her safety that way. He wouldn’t.

A chill shook her as Gil’s awful words played again in her mind: He’d throw your life away to save his political career.

No. He wouldn’t. Not the Rhett Brown she knew. Not in a million years.

She drew a breath and said firmly, “I’m fine. Let’s go.” But in the next instant fear stabbed through her like a spear of ice, pinning her to the spot. Something-and it sounded like a herd of buffalo-was tramping, crashing through the brush, coming straight for them!

Her lungs filled with air and her jaw went rigid, but before she could give in to the instinct to run or scream, she felt Bronco’s hand on her arm, heard him murmuring to Cochise Red without any trace of alarm. Next she heard a low excited whinny, and two large dark shapes bulldozed through the darkness, stamping and snorting and whickering in joyful reunion.

“The mares!” Lauren gasped in astonishment. “How-”

“I turned ’em out when I saddled up Red.” Bronco’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Figured they’d have a fighting chance that way.” His body brushed against hers and she heard a soft grunt as he half leaped, half pulled himself into the saddle. His hand touched her shoulder, reaching for her. “Better if you ride behind now. Moon won’t be out of the clouds for a while yet, and we’re gonna need to take it easy in the dark.”

She said nothing until she was seated behind Bronco astride the stallion’s back with the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and the ends clutched firmly together in the middle of her chest. Inexplicably, her teeth had begun to chatter.

“Y-you knew this was c-coming?” she said in a low voice, as Bronco clucked to Cochise Red and they began to move at an easy walk through the dark forest. “You were prepared?” She felt him shrug.

“I had a good idea. Enough I thought it might be a good idea to get ready for Plan B.”

“Plan B… And that’s?”

He gave a little huff of mirthless laughter. “To get you out in one piece.”

Lauren said nothing for a time, though there were all sorts of confusing things tumbling around in her mind. Then she drew a shaken breath and whispered, “Why? I mean, your friends are being attacked, and instead of helping them, you save my life. Why would you do that?”

This time his whole body jerked with his snort of laughter. “Like I told you down at the ranch, Laurie Brown-you’re worth way too much to take a chance on gettin’ you killed.”

“But,” she cried, “Gil was going to kill me-or have me killed. He was ready to do it. I know he was. I could see it in his eyes.”

“He’d just found out his wife had been shot-what did you expect?” He paused for a moment, then went on in a voice soft with disgust. “You met Katie McCullough-nice lady. A real nice lady. Sweet as they come. And they shot her down.”

“I’m sorry,” Lauren whispered.

“What for? You’re not the one who did it.”

“No, and neither is my father.”

He acknowledged that with a grunt. They rode a distance in silence, and after a while the horse’s steady rocking gait began to soothe her, ease the tension from her muscles and the turmoil from her mind. “Well, anyway,” she murmured, swallowing a yawn, “for what it’s worth, I’m very grateful for Plan B.”

“You’re welcome.”

The words felt like pebbles in Bronco’s throat. Because he knew he didn’t deserve her thanks. The truth was, he’d come near blowing everything. He’d cut it too damn close.

From the beginning, ever since Gil had first told him about his plan to kidnap the candidate’s daughter, he’d been trying to walk a tightrope. Trying somehow to keep himself balanced between two opposing objectives: one, to keep his cover intact, and two, to keep Lauren Brown alive and healthy. To do one or the other would have been simple enough. To do both was proving to be a whole lot harder than he’d expected, thanks to those trigger-happy idiots-and he’d be willing to bet it was the FBI who was at fault-down at the ranch. His stomach burned when he thought about them shooting down Katie McCullough like that. They’d had a reason, of course-they always had a reason. Mistaken identity. She might have drawn on them, might even have shot first. Still didn’t make it right. And just one of the many reasons he didn’t carry a gun unless he had to.

Behind him, Lauren’s head had begun to bob with the rhythm of the horse’s gait. As they started down a steep slope, her face bumped against his shoulder. She abruptly jerked upright and said, “Sorry,” in a slurred voice.

“Almost there,” Bronco said as he reined the stallion in. He swung his leg over the saddle horn and slid to the ground, and instantly the mares were right there, bumping and jostling. Looking for their feed bags, he thought, el bowing them good-naturedly out of the way as he said to Lauren, “I’m gonna walk a ways-trail’s a little steep here. You be okay?”

“Sure.” And obviously she was trying to sound wide awake and chipper.

“You can move into the saddle if you want.”

She did so, and he took the reins and they started down the trail. Though it had been many years since he’d been over it, it was a trail he knew well.

They’d been going steadily downhill and had long since left the pine forest behind. Now a clearing sky bright with stars shed just enough light to hint at shadowy shapes of bull pines and piñons, and provide a glittery backdrop for the denser blackness of canyon walls. A brisk little wind blew down from the higher peaks, cool and fresh from the earlier rain, bringing with it the scent of damp earth and sage, juniper and pine. The smells of Bronco’s boyhood.

Up ahead he could hear the trickling sounds of running water-the stream that ran along the canyon floor, dry for most of the year, brought to life by the recent rain. Just before he reached it, the ground leveled out and became sandy grassy patches interspersed with thickets of young willows and piles of rocks and gravel washed there by flash floods. Not recently, though-the ground here was dry. The monsoon clouds had dumped their burden elsewhere tonight.

After pausing to fill his canteen and let the horses drink, Bronco led Cochise Red across the stream and up the bank on the other side. Here, where the ground was rockier and rose sharply once more to become sloping foothills splayed out at the base of steep canyon walls, he halted.

“We’ll leave the horses here,” he said, moving to the stallion’s side in case Lauren wanted help getting off. It came as no surprise to him that she didn’t. He unbuckled the saddlebags and slung them across his shoulder, then went to work on the girth. “We have a little bit of a climb.”

“Can I carry something?” Her voice was still slurred, groggy. Exhausted, he thought, and no wonder.

He was careful to be all brusqueness and business, though, when he told her to bring the canteen and to keep the blanket out of the weeds. Sympathy makes you weak, not strong, he told himself.