Montana Secrets. Charlotte Douglas

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ