Licensed to Marry Page 5

  Court shook his head. “Joshua Neely failed, but obviously the Black Order had a backup plan.”

  Tension crackled around the table. All remembered Court’s undercover mission with the Sons and Daughters of Montana militia group. The agents had had Neely, the militia leader, under surveillance. Maybe if they’d been able to track down Neely’s men who’d blown Court’s cover and stolen the explosives, they would have led the agents to the Black Order and its disastrous plot.

  “So now we definitely know who,” Frank said, “the Black Order, but do we know why?”

  Kyle shook his head. “The bombing was possibly a diversion from the Quinlan lab robbery, but the two sites are so far apart, that motive seems a bit of a stretch. From the placement of the bomb and the deliberate attempt to keep the governor in his office, we can assume Harry Haskel was the target.”

  “Not Josiah Quinlan?” Daniel asked.

  Kyle shook his head. “If Quinlan had been the target, he’d have been easier to take out at the Institute. From what the governor told me, Quinlan’s appointment was scheduled at the last minute. The terrorists couldn’t have known Quinlan would be in the capitol.”

  “Now we’re back to why again,” Court said.

  Whitney cleared her throat and looked to Daniel for permission to speak.

  “If you can shed any light on this mess,” he said, “be my guest.”

  “A few months before the bombing,” Whitney said, “I set up a dinner party for Senator Ross Weston when he and Haskel had just returned from a trip to the Emirate of Agar. Hasn’t that Middle Eastern country been identified as the home base for the Black Order?”

  Kyle smiled. Months ago, Whitney, who had worked for Senator Weston, had been the subject of a scandal after the press got hold of reports that Ross had been plying his beautiful and flirtatious assistant with gifts. Horrified, the MacNairs, her very proper, very upper-class and highly influential parents, had temporarily banished Whitney to Daniel’s care at the isolated ranch until the press brouhaha blew over. Whitney, however, had managed to keep informed on Washington events.

  “You’re right, Whitney,” Kyle said. “Agar is their base. But are you suggesting Haskel is in collusion with the terrorists?”

  Court shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense. If he is, why kill him? More likely he and Weston stumbled onto secrets while in Agar that the Order doesn’t want them to know. Either that or the Black Order wants to embarrass Weston. After all, he’s running for president on an antiterrorist platform.”

  Kyle nodded. “Looks bad for Weston when terrorists bomb the capitol and almost kill the governor of Weston’s home state.”

  “I’ll check with the FBI,” Court said, “and see if any threats have been made against Weston.”

  Daniel appeared thoughtful. “Court’s already reported that a joint FBI/ATF raid has captured three of the Order who impersonated capitol police the day of the bombing. But none of the prisoners is talking, which brings our bombing investigation to a stalemate. What about the lab theft, Kyle?”

  “The sheriff’s office handled the investigation. It appears the intruders rappelled down the canyon wall above the complex, cut the chain-link fence and entered the lab. Once inside, they went straight to storage and took the entire contents of that specific refrigerator. The other test tubes were harmless—sample vaccines, suspension agents—but they did steal enough D-5 to pose a serious threat.”

  Frank tugged at his ear. “We’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. When and where will they use it?”

  Court grinned. “At least we’ve abandoned why.”

  “We know why,” Daniel said with a grimace, leaning forward and locking his strong hands together on the gleaming tabletop. “The Order hates the United States. Anything they can do to create chaos and destruction here furthers their goals.” He glanced around the table. “Our investigation is deadlocked. We have no leads on the Order’s whereabouts, the prisoners aren’t talking and the trail is getting colder as we speak. Any suggestions?”

  “I have an idea,” Kyle said. “From the results of the sheriff’s investigation at the Quinlan lab, it appears the Order may have had inside support—”

  “God help us,” Daniel blurted, and straightened in his chair. “That lab works on vaccines and antidotes for biological warfare, but they also store samples of the biological weapons themselves for testing. If there’s an Order member on-site, we’ve got a much bigger problem than a missing vial of D-5.”

  Kyle nodded. “That’s where my idea comes in. Send me to the lab undercover as a research scientist. With my background in chemistry, not only can I play the part, but I can ferret out any clues that might lead us to the Order’s contact at Quinlan’s.”

  Daniel rubbed his chin, thinking. “It might work. But we’d need Laura Quinlan’s complete cooperation. She’s calling all the shots at the lab now that her father’s gone.”

  “What if she’s the one involved with the Order?” Court asked.

  “No way,” Kyle insisted hotly.

  The others stared at him. Frank was nodding in agreement, Court appeared skeptical and Daniel’s expression was noncommittal. Whitney, however, was grinning widely, as if she’d just picked up a delicious morsel of D.C. gossip.

  Embarrassed by his heated response, Kyle breathed deeply to calm his emotions. “The woman was devastated by her father’s death—and almost died herself in that building. She wouldn’t have taken part in bombing it.”

  Frank came to his rescue. “I think Kyle’s right. From everything that C.J.’s told me, Laura is devoted to her father’s work. The last thing she’d want would be handing over to terrorists the biological weapons her father vowed to stop.”

  “We’ll have to talk to her before we send Kyle in,” Daniel said. “And I tend to agree with Kyle and Frank about her innocence. However—” he raised his head and caught Kyle’s gaze along the length of the table “—men have been fooled by beautiful women more times than history can count. Kyle, you’ll have to be damn careful under the circumstances, not just to keep from blowing your cover, but to keep yourself alive.”

  Daniel’s warning threw a definite chill in the air, and Kyle suppressed the urge to shiver. From what he knew of Laura Quinlan, he’d trust her with his life. However, he had to admit there was a lot about her he didn’t know. And that he was looking forward to finding out.

  “It’s agreed, then,” Daniel said. “Kyle, you’ll contact Miss Quinlan—”

  “Daniel?” Dale McMurty’s raspy voice sounded over the intercom. “Sorry to interrupt, but Kyle’s got a visitor. What should I tell ’em?”

  “Who is it?” Daniel asked.

  “Laura Quinlan. She’s waiting in the front room.”

  “Tell her Kyle will be right there.” Daniel looked to Kyle with a slow grin. “Looks like that undercover work will start a bit sooner than you’d expected.”

  Chapter Four

  In the foyer of the main house of the Lonesome Pony Ranch, Laura watched as the housekeeper left in search of Kyle Foster. Settling on a rustic bench, she renewed the debate she’d been having with herself all morning. She shouldn’t have come. There was no real point in seeing the man again. She could have easily had C.J. deliver her packages, she reminded herself. She didn’t need to get involved.

  But she wanted to thank her rescuer again in person. And, just as important, she was curious to see if Kyle was as handsome as she remembered, or if the danger and emotion of that awful day had created his Greek-god effect in her mind, a figment that now haunted her imagination.

  Once her curiosity was satisfied, she could return home and wipe him from her thoughts forever. She didn’t have time for a handsome man. As she’d learned with Curt, they were nothing but trouble. Besides, keeping her father’s lab running was a twenty-four-hour job.

  C.J. had told her the Lonesome Pony had previously been a resort ranch. While Laura waited, she glanced around the cavernous, two-story room that must have served a
s a lobby and lounge for guests. The room’s decorations were authentically Western, but in better taste than she’d expected of a former dude ranch. Lights from an elkhorn chandelier, suspended from the cathedral ceiling, banished the morning gloom. A fire crackling cheerfully in the massive fireplace constructed of local river rock provided a welcome buffer against the chill of the October day. High above the mantel, a moose head stared at her with woeful glass eyes, making her shiver and glance away. Scattered groupings of club chairs and deep, welcoming sofas, upholstered in either leather or a Navajo pattern, were arranged throughout the room in conversational clusters.

  A grouping of framed pictures on the opposite wall caught her attention, and she crossed the room to examine them more closely. The sepia tones of the early twentieth-century photographs chronicled the area’s history of railroads, cattle drives, rodeos and roundups.

  “The days of the Wild, Wild West,” a rich baritone voice spoke behind her.

  Startled, she turned.

  “It’s still wild enough, from what I’ve seen the short year I’ve been here,” Laura said.

  Hands tucked in the back pockets of his jeans, Kyle Foster stood in the door to the hall, looking more appealing than she’d remembered. His tight, faded jeans accentuated slender hips, a plaid shirt deepened the forest green in his incredible eyes and a suede vest hung open over his powerful chest. Thick hair, a sandy brown, fell across his high forehead, and her fingers itched with the urge to push it off his face.

  His sudden and attractive appearance blew everything else from her thoughts.

  Her mind went blank, and she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  The killer grin she had recalled, vividly and accurately, after all, spread across his handsome face. “You wanted to see me?”

  She nodded, returned to the bench where she’d left her packages and gathered them up. Overwhelming gratitude, she assured herself, was the reason for her kick-in-the-gut reaction to him.

  Kyle stepped into the lounge and waved her toward the nearest group of club chairs. “Want some coffee? Dale always keeps a pot ready.”

  His welcome seemed genuinely friendly, but she found herself wanting to squirm under the intense scrutiny of those green eyes. She was certain he missed nothing about her, from the expensive cut of her gray wool slacks and the fine Irish stitches of her burgundy fisherman’s sweater, to the flush of involuntary color that burned her cheeks.

  She should have let C.J. run her errands. She was on the verge of making a fool of herself.

  “No, thank you. I can’t stay.” She perched on the edge of a deep leather chair, ready for a quick getaway after she’d given him what she came for.

  With a gracefulness unusual for a large man, Kyle dropped his tall frame easily into a chair angled beside hers.

  “I’m glad you came.” He leaned toward her, clasping his large, strong hands in front of him. Their cuts and scratches from the capitol wreckage had healed. “I’ve been wondering how you are.”

  She raised her head, looked into his sympathetic eyes, and saw more than courteous interest. His obvious concern flustered her more than his laser gaze. Mentally kicking herself, she wondered anew why she hadn’t saved herself this emotional turmoil by letting C.J. run her errand.

  “I’m doing…better.” She sucked in a calming breath. “I miss Daddy terribly, but I have my memories and his work. They help.”

  Kyle nodded, the clean-shaven, square lines of his jaw set in a compassionate expression, a look that mirrored her own suffering, and she sensed that he understood the pain she’d endured since her father’s murder. Judging from the anguish evident in his eyes, sometime in his past, Kyle Foster had apparently suffered, too.

  His green gaze held hers for a long instant, until she realized she’d been staring. Lowering her glance to her lap, she remembered her packages. She picked up the one wrapped in brown paper and handed it to him.

  “For me?” He raised his eyebrows in question. A crescent-shaped scar intersected his left eyebrow, and she wondered what had caused it. Not the capitol bombing. The crescent was an old wound, long healed.

  At her nod, he ripped open the paper.

  “It’s your jacket. The denim one you gave me in the capitol.”

  She could still recall the warmth of the fabric as she’d slipped on the jacket that day, the inundation of pleasing fragrances of meadow grasses, leather and saddle soap that had engulfed her as if he’d wrapped his arms around her. With regret, she had laundered away the scent, because every time she had lifted the garment to her nose, it had brought back vivid images of the man who had risked his life to save hers.

  Those vivid images had frequented her dreams, a bright oasis in the nightmare of her life the past few weeks.

  She raised her eyes and found him looking at her so intently, she was certain he could read her thoughts. The heat increased in her cheeks.

  “I should have returned it sooner,” she said.

  He shook his head. “You’ve had plenty to deal with.”

  She fought to keep alarm from showing on her face. Did he know about the break-in? The sheriff’s department had insisted she tell no one about the theft of D-5 from the lab. They feared a statewide panic if the public got wind of the fact that a lethal biological weapon was in unknown hands.

  “Settling an estate,” he explained, almost is if he’d read her mind and was trying to ease her panic, “is never easy. Not only hard on the emotions, but it takes a devil of a lot of time.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. The secret of the D-5 theft was safe. Then she remembered her other package. “I wanted to thank you for saving my life.”

  “You already did. That night in the hospital.”

  She’d been so full of tranquilizers, she could barely remember his visit. She also had no idea what she’d said to him that night. “I don’t remember.”

  “I remember.” His voice was strong, rock steady.

  “I wanted to show my gratitude for all you did.” She thrust the wicker basket covered with a red-checkered napkin toward him. “But this is only a token. I couldn’t think of anything to repay you adequately for risking your life for mine.”

  He lifted the napkin and peered beneath it. His face lit up with a warm smile so stunning it almost took her breath away. “Homemade cookies?”

  “Chocolate-macadamia nut. They were Daddy’s favorite.”

  He picked up a cookie and took a generous bite. A smile of pure pleasure wreathed his face. “Mmm. My mama would call these sin on a plate. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” His delight in her gift generated a warm spot beneath her breastbone, dispelling some of the ice that had encased her heart since her father died. “I made extra, for Molly.”

  He had finished the cookie and was brushing crumbs from his hands. “You know about Molly?”

  When he spoke his daughter’s name, the tenderness in his expression and the affection in his voice left no doubt how smitten the man was with his daughter. He loved her and wasn’t ashamed to show it.

  “C.J. told me about Molly. She’s crazy about her. Seems your little girl has quite an admiration society here at the ranch.” And if the child was as charming as her father, Laura could well understand why.

  “Would you like to meet her?”

  Now was the time to make her getaway. She stood, opened her mouth to say she had to leave.

  “I’d like that very much,” came out instead.

  WEARING THE FRESHLY laundered jacket Laura had just returned to him, Kyle stepped onto the broad front porch of the ranch with Laura beside him. It was one of those perfect autumn days with the sky an endless bowl of deep blue, broken only by the occasional chevron of geese, heading south for the winter. The cool air, mercifully unlike the L.A. smog, had the refreshing tang of a clear, crisp vintage Chardonnay. Along Crooked Creek, the leaves of aspen and cottonwood quivered golden in the light breeze, and the pasture that stretched before them was a crazy quilt of grasses,
painted varying shades of brown and gold by a killing frost.

  A perfect day.

  Except for the fact that Laura’s father was dead and the Black Order, armed with biological weapons, was still on the loose.

  “Molly’s around back, riding her pony.” He gestured toward the porch steps, and Laura descended beside him. “You like horses?”

  Laura nodded. “When I was a little girl, Daddy sent me to a boarding school back East. Horseback riding was part of the curriculum. But I haven’t ridden since.”

  They followed the gravel driveway around the main house to the corral beside the barn. Inside the fenced circle, Molly sat astride Ribbons, clutching the reins tightly in her petite hands, her tiny mouth set in concentration. Jewel rode beside her, ready to spring to the rescue if needed. Blond curls peeked from the bottom of the safety helmet he’d insisted Molly wear, despite the derision of Jewel, who thought helmets were for sissies, greenhorns and old ladies. Kyle didn’t care if every hand on the ranch made fun of the helmet. Keeping Molly safe was his main concern.

  Laura climbed the bottom railing of the corral and hooked her elbows over the top one. The breeze lifted her thick black hair away from the slender column of her throat, and the sunlight sparkled in the periwinkle blue of her eyes. At the sight of her, Kyle felt the stirrings of desire.

  “She’s adorable.” Laura’s face broke into a delighted smile as Molly walked her pony by.

  “You won’t get any argument from me,” Kyle said. “She has me wrapped around her little finger.”

  As he watched the enjoyment spread across Laura’s lovely features and the cold air deepen the color in her cheeks, he was glad he’d brought her to meet his daughter. He doubted she had smiled much in the past few weeks.

  Molly completed the circuit and tugged on the reins, halting her pony in front of them. Jewel reined in her horse a distance away, ready to respond if Ribbons bolted.

  “That’s some fancy riding, doodlebug,” Kyle said. “You’re almost qualified for the rodeo.”