Kitabı oku: «Licensed To Marry»

Chapter One

On a bright September morning, Kyle Foster raced toward his worst nightmare.

Kicking gravel in his wake, he crossed the driveway, Stetson clutched to his head with one hand, in his other his toolkit banged against his thigh. With natural fluid grace and impressive strength from tough physical conditioning, he sprinted toward the waiting helicopter in the pasture. Determination glinted in his jade-green eyes and hardened the set of his square jaw.

He ducked beneath the spinning rotors and grasped the strong hand of Daniel Austin, who pulled him aboard just as the craft lifted into the air. Kyle removed his hat, stowed his kit beneath his seat, settled his headset over his ears and looked down at the Lonesome Pony Ranch, shrinking below him as the chopper gained altitude.

Molly, his three-year-old daughter, waved to him from the arms of Dale McMurty, the ranch’s cook and Molly’s surrogate grandmother. His gut cramped with fear when he thought of Molly with her mischievous eyes, green like his own, and masses of white-blond curls, whose plump face dimpled when she laughed, making even the toughest ranch hand smile. Deserted by her mother, she depended on Kyle for everything. There was no way he could botch this job and not come home to her.

Home.

Their snug cabin at the Lonesome Pony Ranch was home now. He and Molly had left the rush and turmoil of Los Angeles for the peace and quiet of Montana Yellowstone country, but the Lonesome Pony was not as serene as it appeared on the surface. The helicopter banked toward the western mountain range and Helena, and Kyle gazed at the deceptive landscape beneath him. Still resembling its former incarnation as a dude resort, the main house overlooked the pasture they had taken off from.

Beyond the pasture ran Crooked Creek, teeming with life, a fly fisherman’s paradise. On the other side of the ranch house glistened the turquoise blue of the swimming pool, ringed with cabins, including the one where he and Molly lived. Farther from the house sat the massive barn and corrals, and behind them, archery and shooting ranges and a rodeo corral.

A casual, even a close-at-hand observer could not discern the secret operations room, deep beneath the main house. Ostensibly a retirement and breeding ranch for horses, the ranch served as a cover and headquarters for the covert agents of Montana Confidential, founded by Daniel Austin.

Kyle glanced at Daniel, sitting grim-faced in the seat beside him. In his mid-forties with sun-bleached blond hair and brown eyes framed with laugh lines, Daniel had the rugged good looks of a film star who becomes more handsome with age. But his boss was far more than an attractive face. A Texas Confidential agent for more than fifteen years, Daniel had put together the secret Montana group at the request of the Department of Public Safety. Their main purpose was to ferret out international terrorists believed operating in the state.

Daniel returned Kyle’s gaze. “Got everything you need?” his boss’s rich voice asked through the headset.

Swallowing the panic that threatened to well into his throat, Kyle nodded and tapped his kit with the heel of his boot. “Got all my tools. I’ll have to borrow body gear from the local bomb squad.”

“You’ll do fine.” Daniel nodded in encouragement, and the compassion in his deep brown eyes spoke volumes.

More than the other agents, Daniel understood the crossroads at which Kyle found himself, because Daniel knew the whole story. While the others regarded Kyle as the hero who had saved the Beverly Hills Hotel from destruction three years ago, Daniel knew the darker side of Kyle’s past: today would be the first bomb Kyle would face since his partner on the L.A. bomb squad had been blown to bits before his eyes.

In a habitual gesture, Kyle rubbed the crescent-shaped scar that intersected his left eyebrow and felt the old wounds tighten across his chest. If he lived to be a thousand, he’d never forget that horrific day—or expunge his own guilt. His hands shook slightly, and he gripped his knees to hide his nervousness. Now others were counting on him.

Including Daniel and his two new partners, sitting in the seats in front of him.

Frank Connolly handled the chopper with the steady confidence and skill of a career military pilot. He still suffered twinges from the injury to his right knee, but if he experienced any qualms about flying after being shot down over Bosnia, Kyle couldn’t tell it from the skillful way Frank flew the helicopter. Only the slight tightening and flexing of his hands on the controls betrayed his tension. The chopper, supposedly at the ranch for patrolling fences and herding livestock, had its true purpose activated today: rapid deployment of the agents in emergency situations.

“What’s our ETA?” Daniel asked.

Frank spoke into his mike without taking his eyes from the terrain below. “Fifteen minutes to Helena.”

“Cutting it close.” Daniel looked to Kyle.

Kyle shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “From what the capitol police told us, they can’t read the timer on the bomb. We don’t know how long we have.”

“Let’s hope we arrive in time for you to do your stuff, hotshot,” Court Brody spoke from the copilot’s chair.

A few weeks earlier, Kyle would have taken Court’s comment as sarcasm. An FBI agent who had been assigned to the Montana Confidentials against his wishes, immediately upon his arrival Court had made clear his reluctance to be there. But after recently discovering he was a father and reuniting with his child’s mother, he had decided to stay in Montana and quit the FBI and join the Confidential team. Like Frank, Court appeared unflappable, but Kyle knew better. The tiny muscle ticking in Court’s jaw telegraphed his raw nerves. None of them knew what they were walking into.

Or if they’d walk out of it alive.

“Yeah,” Frank chimed in, his voice calm, steady. “If anyone can keep that monster from blowing the capitol to smithereens, you can do it, Kyle, old buddy.”

Court turned and grinned. “Hope you handle a bomb better than you do a horse, greenhorn.”

“Maybe I should give you bomb duty, cowboy,” Kyle joked back. “You could just lasso the damn thing. That’s how they do it in Montana, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.” Court’s eyes twinkled. “Or I could just shoot it.”

Their exchange of gallows humor helped, and Kyle settled back in his seat and tried to ease his residual anxiety by deep, steady breathing. He wished he felt the confidence the other members of the team had in him, but he couldn’t stop blaming himself for Buzz Williams’s death. Every second of that horrible day was etched indelibly in his brain. The memories made his gut cramp and his hands shake, a fatal problem for a bomb-disposal expert.

He and Buzz had answered the call at the Hollywood Bowl hours before a rock concert. A groundskeeper had discovered the explosive device only minutes before, and while the uniformed officers cleared and cordoned off the area, Kyle and Buzz had studied the bomb.

“It’s sophisticated,” Buzz said. “Nothing I ever saw before.”

Kyle nodded in agreement. “Better back off and let me handle this one, kid.”

“It’s my turn.”

“This is something new. I’d better do it.”

Buzz shook his head. “It’s as new to you as it is to me. Besides, how will I ever get experience if I don’t take a shot at it?”

At the earnest pleading in Buzz’s boyish face, Kyle relented. “Just take it by the book, okay? And holler if you need me.”

Kyle moved a safe distance away, but not so far he couldn’t observe Buzz’s work. Seconds ticked away like anxiety-filled hours, and Buzz lifted his head and caught Kyle’s eye. From that one look, Kyle knew the young man was in trouble, and he trundled toward him as fast as he could move in the cumbersome bodysuit.

He had covered only a few yards when the bomb blew.

Mercifully, the concussion of the blast knocked him unconscious, and he was carried away to a hospital before he ever regained his senses. He never saw what the bomb had done to young Buzz Williams.

But he could imagine.

And he could never forget the panic in Buzz’s eyes seconds before the blast. In that instant, his young partner had known he was a dead man.

Kyle shook his head, trying to jostle the memories loose. If anyone died today, it would be him. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to Helena. He prayed silently they would make it in time. Daniel had already advised the Helena bomb squad to back off. Kyle was the most experienced professional available, and if he couldn’t defuse the terrorist bomb, no one could. He was damn good at demolition, he reminded himself.

If he could stop his hands from shaking.

IN THE ANTEROOM to the Montana governor’s office in the capitol building, Laura Quinlan reached toward her father on the sofa beside her and flicked a speck of lint from the lapel of his best suit.

Josiah Quinlan, still vigorous and handsome at age seventy, thanked her with a loving smile. “Your mother, God rest her soul, used to do that whenever I’d get all gussied up for an important meeting. She always wanted me to look my best.”

Laura hooked her arm through his with an affectionate squeeze. “You look terrific, Dad.” She nodded toward the portfolio on his other side. “And with the test results you’ve brought to show him, the governor will have a hard time turning down your request.”

Josiah eased a finger beneath his collar. “I’m a scientist, not a fund-raiser. I wish things like this didn’t keep me from my work.”

Noting the hint of shadows beneath his eyes, Laura felt her heart clench with concern. “You work too hard. It’s about time you took a day off.”

“A day off.” He snorted with good humor. “I’d rather work forty hours straight in the lab than face someone, hat in hand, asking for financial support.”

Laura nodded, sharing her father’s frustration. “With the threat of terrorists with biological weapons, you’d think the federal government would provide all the funding you need, without us having to beg, borrow or steal to keep our vaccine research—”

“Dr. Quinlan, Miss Quinlan,” the secretary interrupted. “The governor will see you now.”

Josiah pushed to his feet, straightened his coat and gave Laura a look as if he were off to face a firing squad. “Here goes.”

“Relax, Daddy.” She rose and handed him his portfolio. “You’ll do fine.”

He squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you’ll be in there pitching with me, sugar. We make a good team.”

She preceded her father into the adjoining office. Governor Harry Haskel stood behind his massive mahogany desk to greet them.

“Josiah, you old dog,” the handsome politician said with a grin the media cameras loved and an approving glance at Laura. “You never told me what a beauty your daughter is.”

Haskel skirted his desk and offered Laura a chair with old-fashioned gallantry. Determined not to spoil her father’s chances, she forced a polite smile of her own and perched on the edge of the leather club chair.

Haskel leaned closer, and his expensive cologne clogged her nostrils, making her stifle a sneeze. “What are you, Miss Quinlan? A model? A movie star?”

Even for a consummate politician, Haskel was laying it on thick, but, remembering the purpose of her father’s visit, Laura tolerated the man’s line of bull and tried to appear flattered.

“I’m director of public relations at the Quinlan Research Institute,” she explained with more civility than she felt. “I enjoy working with my father.”

“And well you should.” Haskel shook her father’s hand and waved Josiah into the seat beside her. “He’s the foremost scientist in biological weapons research.”

Her father leaned forward in his chair. “Thank you for meeting with us today, Harry. We’re at a breakthrough point at the lab, and it’s imperative we have more funding.”

“You don’t beat around the bush, do you, Josiah?” The governor’s smile was warm but only touched the surface. Laura wondered what unknown depths his affable veneer concealed.

“I don’t want to waste your time,” Josiah said. “I know you’re a busy man.”

Harry rubbed his hands together. “Then let’s get to it.” He hesitated and glanced toward Laura. “Uh, this your first visit to the capitol, Miss Quinlan?”

Laura blinked at the sudden shift in conversation. “Yes, it is.”

Harry reached down, gripped her elbow and lifted her from her seat. “Then why don’t you take the tour while your father and I talk? I’m sure you don’t want to bother that pretty head with dry financial business.”

At the pleading look on her father’s face, Laura bit back a sharp reply. A chauvinistic male like Haskel was oblivious to the fact that Laura knew more about finances than her father, but setting the governor straight wouldn’t help their cause. She smiled her brightest smile. “That’s a great idea. I’ll leave you two to talk.”

Struck by a sudden impulse, she bent down and planted a quick kiss on her father’s cheek. “I’ll be waiting on the front steps when you’re finished here.”

“I won’t be long,” her father promised.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Governor Haskel.” She turned and fled the office before the politician could shower her with more patronizing platitudes.

She left the governor’s anteroom with a worried frown. Her father was the typical absentminded professor, totally absorbed in his work. Without her reminders, he wouldn’t rest, would forget to eat and probably rarely change his clothes. She hoped he would remember now to refer to the request they’d worked up together for more state grant money. He also needed to persuade the governor to use his influence with ranking members of his party in Congress to cough up more federal funds. Josiah’s research team was on the brink of a breakthrough, a safe vaccine against a particularly virulent and nasty biological weapon, but they’d need money to push the project to completion.

With a shake of her head, she shrugged off her concerns. Her father’s passion for his work spoke for itself. If the governor didn’t respond to that, nothing else Josiah could say would convince the man. She checked her watch. In the meantime, she had about a half hour to kill before meeting her father for the drive back to Livingston and the nearby research center.

Haskel had suggested she tour the capitol building, but neither architecture nor government had ever been one of Laura’s interests. She was much more fascinated by people. Finding a comfortable chair in an alcove where two main hallways intersected, she settled in to engage in people watching, one of her favorite pastimes.

The first person to pass by was a young woman in a FedEx uniform, who sprinted past with a package and an electronic clipboard tucked beneath her arm. Another woman, clutching a stack of overflowing file folders, tottered by in too-high heels. Following close behind the secretary, two men, apparently legislators, argued loudly over an upcoming increase in the gasoline tax.

A billowing noise floated up the hallway like the chattering of dozens of tiny birds. Laura glanced to her left to see a beleaguered teacher leading a line of children toward her. The students, who looked about first-grade age, walked in pairs, hand in hand.

Laura’s heart melted at the sight. She adored children. Just five years ago, she’d wanted children of her own more than anything. A blond-headed boy and girl with big blue eyes, just like their father, babies to cuddle and love. While most of her friends avidly pursued high-powered careers, she had wanted nothing more than to stay home and bake cookies, welcome her children when they returned home from school, drive them to soccer games, help with their homework and attend PTA meetings. She had wanted to be a mother. Her career could wait until the nest was empty.

But Curt, blast his cheating heart, had smashed her dreams of motherhood—and marriage. He had played the ardent husband so skillfully, his affair with his old college flame had caught her completely by surprise. And worst of all, when she’d confronted him, he’d shown no remorse. Her faith in men shattered, she had filed for divorce. After that, she had devoted herself to her father and his work, the two things in life she knew would never let her down.

With a longing heart, she watched the children pass in front of her, many waving with shy smiles and giggles. She waggled her fingers at them. But their smiles suddenly vanished when an alarm blared through the halls. Several clapped their hands over their ears to block out the screeching signal. At the head of the line, the teacher stopped, panic in her eyes, and took a quick head count.

“What’s that noise, Miss Walker?” a small boy near the front of the line asked.

Before the teacher could answer, a member of the capitol police force rounded the corner and announced in a booming voice, “It’s just a routine fire drill, folks. Please proceed to the nearest exit as quickly as possible and keep moving away from the building.”

He continued at a run down the hallway. Laura pushed to her feet and thought immediately of her father, then dismissed her concern. Josiah was in the governor’s office, probably the first place the police would evacuate in case of trouble.

The teacher completed her count and whipped her head from side to side, craning up and down the hall.

Laura approached the troubled woman. “Something wrong?”

Miss Walker’s eyes were wide with fear. “I’m three students short. My aide’s taken a sick child to the bus, and I can’t leave the rest of the class to look for the missing ones.”

Laura patted her arm. “Take your class outside. I’ll find the other students and bring them to you.”

The teacher practically wilted with relief before anxiety filled her eyes again. “It is just a drill, isn’t it?”

“That’s what the man said,” Laura assured her, but she’d seen the sweat on the policeman’s forehead and the tight white line around his lips. Something was up.

Miss Walker clapped her hands. “Let’s do what the nice policeman said, class. Just like a fire drill at school. Follow me, and no talking.”

The teacher and her class headed toward the exit. Laura turned the opposite way to retrace their steps, hoping to find the stragglers quickly and shoo them out of the building behind their teacher.

No such luck.

She sprinted down corridor upon corridor in the warren of offices, moving against the tide of evacuees, but found no sign of the missing children. She had almost decided to abandon this portion of the capitol and move to another area when she heard a young boy’s shrill voice.

“I know you’re in there. You can’t fool me.”

She raced around the corner to find a little boy with shaggy brown hair standing with his hands on his hips in front of a door that read Women.

“Come out of there right now, Jennifer and Tiffany. Miss Walker’s gonna be mad.”

Giggles sounded behind the rest-room door. “You can’t come in here, Jeremy. This is for girls only.”

“Need some help?” Laura asked Jeremy.

He nodded solemnly. “Miss Walker’s gonna be mad, but they won’t come out.”

Laura walked to the rest-room door and pushed it wide. Two little girls with impish grins hovered just beyond the threshold. “You hear that noise?” Laura asked.

Their grins dissolved. Both nodded.

“That’s a fire alarm. It means we have to leave the building.”

“Told you,” Jeremy taunted his classmates behind her back.

“Miss Walker has already taken the rest of the class outside. Everyone else in the building has left. You’d better come with me.”

The girl with a halo of red hair and a rash of freckles folded her arms across her chest and shook her head. “No way. My mama says I can’t go anywhere with strangers.”

“You dumbheads!” Jeremy screamed. “C’mon. It’s a fire drill.”

“You have to go,” Laura said calmly. “The police have ordered everyone out of the building. Once we’re outside, we’ll find Miss Walker and the rest of your class.”

The second girl, her blond hair plaited in a long pigtail, looked at her companion dubiously. “Maybe we better do what she says, Tiffany.”

“Un-uh. Mama says bad people always make up stories to get you to come with them.”

Jennifer glanced up at Laura, then back to her friend. “But that is the fire alarm.”

“I won’t touch you,” Laura pleaded. Her heart pounded, remembering the apprehensive look on the policeman’s face. She hadn’t smelled smoke. Not yet. But something was wrong, and she had to get these children to safety. “Just follow me out of the building. When you see Miss Walker, you can run to her.”

“Well—”

She could tell Tiffany was wavering. “Come on, hurry now. We don’t have much time.”

Tiffany looked to Jennifer, who nodded her consent. In the hallway, Jeremy hopped from one boot to the other. “Hurry up, you dumb girls.”

Laura motioned the girls past her. Just as they crossed the threshold, the floor heaved beneath them, throwing them off their feet.

A concussive blast pierced Laura’s ears.

The world around her turned black.

“FOUR MINUTES to the capitol,” Frank announced over the chopper’s intercom. The suburbs of Helena were visible below them through the helicopter’s Plexiglas bubble.

Kyle sank back in his seat and willed his tensed muscles to relax. It looked as if he would have a shot at that bomb after all. He focused his concentration on the details the Helena bomb squad had provided about the device, keeping his mind on the intricacies of its construction, the sequence of contacts to disconnect, the possible permutations of design that could trap the unsuspecting.

With bombs, he was in his element, for the first time since coming to Montana. Not that he wasn’t an outdoorsman. He’d grown up on his parents’ farm in southern California, working the citrus groves that provided their livelihood. But when he’d arrived at the Lonesome Pony last month, he hadn’t known a damn thing about ranches or horses. Hadn’t known an Appaloosa from a lalapalooza. Had never settled his butt in a saddle, much less spent the day in one. He’d had to work hard to master enough knowledge to pull his share of the load, but Daniel and Court had been good teachers—

A strong current buffeted the chopper, interrupting his thoughts.

“What the hell was that?” Frank fought to maintain control of the whirlybird.

“God help us!” Court’s awe-filled prayer echoed through his headset, and he pointed straight ahead.

Kyle leaned forward between the two front seats for a better view, and his heart stuttered at the sight. A cloud of smoke and dust rose from Helena, precisely over the spot where the capitol building stood.

“Damn,” Kyle swore. “If we’d moved a few minutes faster, I might have prevented that.”

Court turned in his seat to face Kyle. “Or been blown up with the rest of the building.”

Kyle shuddered at that possibility and glanced back over at Daniel. “I’m sorry. We’re too late.”

The older man’s face had gone pale beneath its weathered tan, and he seemed to fight to regain his composure. “Not too late to help. Frank, put us down as close as you can. We have to make sure everyone’s out of there.”

Like the pro he was, Frank set the helicopter down smoothly on a swath of capitol parking lot that had evidently been cleared before the explosion. One side of the building was in ruins, office walls blown away, furniture hanging from the floors slanting at precarious angles. In stark contrast to the devastation, the other side of the building appeared unscathed. Police cars, fire trucks and ambulances, sirens wailing, were converging on the scene. In a far corner of the lot, paramedics were setting up a triage station.

Kyle was first off the chopper. The stench of cordite and burning electrical wires filled his nose, and plaster dust choked his lungs. Despite the clamor of emergency sirens, he could hear the shouts and screams of onlookers. A quick survey of the area revealed shock and disbelief on everyone’s faces.

Roger Jordan, head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ Helena office, strode across the debris-littered pavement toward Kyle.

“Everyone out?” Kyle asked.

Jordan shook his head. “We’ve got a hysterical teacher over there.” He wagged his head toward the capitol mall. “Claims she lost three kids inside. Some woman volunteered to look for them before the blast. They didn’t make it out.”

Daniel approached. “The governor?”