“You mentioned terms. What did you have in mind?”

Laura lifted her chin and gave Kyle a shy smile. “I need an administrator.”

Kyle shook his head. “Undercover means inconspicuous. If I come in as head honcho, every person at the institute will scrutinize the daylights out of me.”

Laura sank down, shoulders slumped. “It seemed like the solution to both our problems.”

Kyle settled beside her, longing to pull her into his arms and comfort her. He kept his distance. His reassuring hug might turn into something deeper. Wilder. “Just hire me as a simple researcher and let me start right away.”

Laura turned to face him again, her expression calm and resolute. “There’s one way to both get what we want.”

Kyle smiled at her earnestness. “If you’ve thought of a solution, you’re a miracle worker.”

“It will work, all right.” Her solemn eyes sought and held his gaze. “You’ll have to marry me.”

Dear Reader,

This holiday season, deck the halls with some of the most exciting names in romantic suspense: Anne Stuart and Gayle Wilson. These two award-winning authors have returned together to Harlequin Intrigue to reprise their much loved miniseries—CATSPAW and MEN OF MYSTERY—in a special 2-in-1 collection. Night and Day is a guaranteed keeper and the best stocking stuffer around!

Find out what happens when a single-dad secret agent has to protect a beautiful scientist as our MONTANA CONFIDENTIAL series continues with Licensed To Marry by Charlotte Douglas.

The stork is coming down the chimney this year, as Joanna Wayne begins a brand-new series of books set in the sultry South. Look for Another Woman’s Baby this month and more HIDDEN PASSIONS books to come in the near future.

Also available from Harlequin Intrigue is the second title in Susan Kearney’s HIDE AND SEEK trilogy. The search goes on in Hidden Hearts.

Happy holidays from all of us at Harlequin Intrigue.

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

P.S.—Next month you can find another special holiday title—A Woman with a Mystery by B.J. Daniels

Licensed To Marry

Charlotte Douglas

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; and Florida, near the Gulf of Mexico on Florida’s West Coast, where she’s lived most of her life.

Books by Charlotte Douglas

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

380—DREAM MAKER

434—BEN’S WIFE

482—FIRST-CLASS FATHER

515—A WOMAN OF MYSTERY

536—UNDERCOVER DAD

611—STRANGER IN HIS ARMS*

638—LICENSED TO MARRY

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

591—IT’S ABOUT TIME

623—BRINGING UP BABY

868—MONTANA MAIL-ORDER WIFE*

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Laura Quinlan—She’s determined to expose the terrorists who have threatened her father’s work, but is she willing to risk her heart as well as her life?

Kyle Foster—As a bomb demolition expert, he’ll do whatever it takes to stop the Black Order from killing others, even if it means marrying a woman he has no intention of loving.

Molly Foster—Kyle’s adorable three-year-old daughter.

Josiah Quinlan—Laura’s father has developed the Quinlan Research Institute for the purpose of finding vaccines and antidotes against biological weapons.

Montana Confidential Covert Operations Group—Headed by Daniel Austin. Frank Connolly and Court Brady work with Kyle from their headquarters at the Lonesome Pony Ranch in their fight against the Black Order terrorists.

The Quinlan Research Institute Staff—When biological weapons end up in the hands of the Black Order, doctors Lawrence Tyson, Melinda Kwan and Robert Potter are all suspects, along with lab assistants Wayne Pritchard and Gary Bowen. Only Dr. C. J. Connolly, Frank’s wife, is in the clear.

U.S. Senator Ross Weston—A presidential candidate running on an antiterrorism platform, he becomes a chief target of the Black Order.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

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?”

Jordan set his mouth in a grim line. “Haskel and his secretary are unaccounted for.”

Daniel turned to his agents. “Looks like our work’s cut out for us. Let’s find those folks.”

“We’ve got extra hard hats with headlamps at our command post.” Jordan jerked his thumb behind him. “You’re welcome to them.”

Kyle and his fellow agents followed the ATF leader and soon were fitted with headgear and additional flashlights.

“Tread carefully in there,” Daniel warned them. “What’s left of the building is unstable. I don’t want to lose any of you.”

With grim determination, the agents headed toward the devastated section of the building. Dust and smoke still billowed and swirled. Firefighters sprayed high-pressure hoses where flames continued to rage. Taking a deep breath, Kyle stepped into the ruins.

It was like plunging into hell.

LAURA STRUGGLED to her feet, coughing and choking on dust and smoke. Her first thoughts were of her father, and she prayed he had been safely evacuated with the governor. Her head throbbed, and although her ears rang from the concussion of the blast, she could hear the children crying around her. Her eyes ran so thick with tears, she couldn’t see the youngsters in the dim light.

Dear God, if she was this scared, how terrified were they?

“Kids?” she called. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

A pair of tiny arms snaked around her hips. “I’m scared. I want out of here.”

It was Tiffany’s voice. Laura stooped down and hugged the child. “Hear those sirens? The firefighters are coming. They’ll get us out.”

A scrambling noise sounded in the wreckage beside her. “Jennifer?”

The other little girl, her body racked with sobs, threw herself at Laura. “I wanna go home. I want my mommy!”

Laura gathered Jennifer against her side. “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. Jeremy, are you out there?”

A low moan answered her call. It seemed to come from a few feet in front of her.

“Hold on to my skirt, girls, and stick together. We have to find Jeremy.”

Falling to her hands and knees, Laura crawled toward the sound of the moaning with the two girls close beside her. Debris scraped her knees and tore at her stockings, and she was operating almost blind in the suffocating dust. “I’m coming, Jeremy. Hang on.”

Her outstretched hand touched a boot, and she quickly lifted the little boy in her arms. “I’ve got you now. You’ll be okay soon.”

With Jennifer and Tiffany clinging to her for dear life, she headed back the way they’d come until she felt a solid wall ahead of her. She turned, braced her back against the wall as she sat, and settled Jeremy on her lap. The dust was beginning to settle, and she could make out the outlines of his stark white face.

And the nasty, bleeding gash across his forehead.

Wriggling out of her suit jacket, she took off her white silk blouse and tore a strip off the bottom. She tore a second strip, folded it into a pad and placed it against the gash on Jeremy’s head.

“Be a brave boy,” she murmured to him as she pressed the pad against the wound and tied it firmly with the other strip. “This may hurt.”

Jeremy only whimpered, and she prayed he didn’t have more serious internal injuries. She held him in her arms, crooning reassurances to him, and the girls huddled on either side of her. “We’re going to be all right. They’ll come for us soon.”

As the dust settled, she began to comprehend their situation. The explosion—a gas main, perhaps?—had trapped them in the short access corridor to the ladies’ room. The framing of that alcove must have protected them from falling beams and debris, but their approach to the main hall was blocked. There was a hole large enough to lift the children through, but she had no idea what pitfalls lay on the other side. She didn’t dare send them out alone, and she feared the whole structure might tumble if she tried to clear her way out.

She could still smell smoke, but she could also hear the sirens of the fire engines, the distant shouts of firefighters, and the splash of water from their hoses. If Miss Walker and the rest of her class had escaped the building, the teacher would have alerted the authorities that Laura and the children were still trapped inside.

The only thing to do was wait.

And keep the children calm.

Jeremy lay still in her arms, but his pulse was steady and his breathing even. Jennifer and Tiffany sniffled on either side of her, and her hearts went out to the terrified little girls. She’d be crying herself, but she had to keep up a brave front for the children.

“Miss Walker knows we’re in here,” she reassured the girls, “and she’ll have the firefighters looking for us. We’ll have to make some noise to lead them to us.”

Tiffany wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I can scream real loud.”

“Screaming isn’t a good idea,” Laura suggested with more calm than she felt. “We don’t want to frighten anyone.” Or get you more worked up than you already are. “How about a song we could all sing?”

Jennifer gazed up at her through soot-rimmed eyes. “I know ‘This Old Man.’”

“Me, too,” Tiffany said.

“Good,” Laura said.

In the far distance, blending with the noises of sirens, she could hear people moving through the ruins, shouting to one another. “If we sing real loud, the firefighters will hear us and come find us. Ready?”

Their voices were raspy and thin as they began to sing, and little Jeremy lay entirely too quietly in her arms. But as the singing cleared the dust from their throats, their song grew louder and more steady. They continued gamely, verse after verse.

“‘This Old Man, he played eight—’”

“Hello! Where are you?”

Laura and the girls broke off midphrase at the call. The voice that hailed them was rich and deep and coming from where the main hall had been before the blast.

“We’re in here,” Laura called.

She heard the sounds of debris shifting and someone approaching. A beam of light shone through the small opening that led to the main hall.

Laura blinked in the glare and felt Tiffany and Jennifer cling tighter to her.

The light beam withdrew, and another light, more powerful and widespread than the flashlight, filled the crevice. A big man with wide shoulders thrust his head through the small opening.

Laura caught her breath. He looked like an avenging angel with a hard hat for a halo. Even with smoke and dust smearing his face, she could discern the strong lines of his jaw, the classic slope of his nose and the intense green eyes that glowed with compassion and concern. His expression radiated kindness and a virile gentleness, and she realized with a jolt that there was resolution and incredible strength there as well. His smile melted the icy knot of fear in her stomach and hope surged in its place.

“Don’t worry,” he said casually, as if they’d met in an elevator instead of a bombed-out building. “I’m Kyle Foster, and my friends and I will have you out of here in no time.”

Chapter Two

“You’re an answer to a prayer,” Laura tried to shout, but her voice was hoarse from dust and singing.

Her rescuer’s mouth curved in a slow, sensuous smile that would have weakened her knees—if she’d had any strength left and hadn’t been already sitting. She hoped he was as courageous as he appeared. He’d promised to get them out, but she could hear the building falling around them. Only someone with nerves of steel would risk being buried alive to help people he didn’t know.

“Just keep those prayers coming till we’re out of here,” he called in a deep, resonant voice filled with steady reassurance.

Jeremy stirred in Laura’s arms, and her anxiety for the child increased. “I have a little boy who’s hurt,” she called.

Kyle’s smile disappeared, and concern filled his eyes. “How bad?”

“Don’t know,” Laura replied out of honesty and a reluctance to frighten Tiffany and Jennifer any more than they already were.

“Can you bring him to me?” Kyle said with a calmness that eased her racing heart. “We’ll take him out first.”

Laura struggled to her feet with the boy in her arms. “Stay here, girls. I’ll be back for you.”

She picked her way carefully through the wreckage toward the opening to the main corridor. Stumbling once, she almost fell, and chunks of plaster rained down on her. She hunched over Jeremy to shield him with her body and struggled to maintain her balance in that awkward pose.

The boy roused again and looked up at her through unfocused eyes. “Mommy?”

“No, sweetheart, I’m Laura.”

She thought of his mother, of the parents of all three children and how frantic they must be to have their youngsters out of danger and back in their arms.

And she thought of her own father, waiting outside for her rescue, desperate to see her unharmed.

Soon, Daddy, she promised. Don’t worry about me.

“You’re almost here.” Kyle’s encouraging voice echoed through the wreckage. “Keep coming.”

“My arm hurts,” Jeremy whimpered.

She bit back tears at the little boy’s pain. “We’ll have you fixed up real soon.”

When she reached the opening, Kyle was gone, and she panicked, wondering if they’d been deserted. Debris continued to fall in the stillness of the wreckage, and she feared the rest of the building might collapse any moment.

“Hello? Anyone there?” she called.

Kyle’s handsome face reappeared, and she chastised herself for her lack of faith in him. She should have known from the reliable look in his amazing green eyes that the man wouldn’t desert them.

“I’ve sent my partner after the paramedics and a stretcher.” He couldn’t fit his wide shoulders through the narrow hole, but he thrust his arms, clad in a denim jacket, into the opening. She noted the strong, slender fingers and square nails, streaked with dirt and marred with nicks and scratches from clawing through the wreckage.

“Let me have him,” Kyle said. “We’ll take good care of him.”

“Careful,” Laura warned as she transferred Jeremy. “His arm may be broken.”

With a gentleness she hadn’t expected in such a rugged man, Kyle took the boy in his arms as carefully as if the child were made of glass. A tear slid down the man’s face, but Laura couldn’t tell if he cried for the child or if the dust from the wreckage irritated his eyes.

Jeremy opened his eyes and gazed up at Kyle. “Who are you?”

“I’m helping the firefighters, big guy.” The man’s voice was kind and encouraging. “My friends and I will get you out of here and find your mother.”

Jeremy relaxed in his arms. Kyle maneuvered the boy’s body through the narrow aperture, and the two disappeared.

“I’ll be back for the rest of you,” Laura heard Kyle call.

She returned to Jennifer and Tiffany, grabbed each one by a hand and helped them pick their way through the tangle of beams, wires and drywall to the opening, their only route of escape.

“Will he come back?” Jennifer asked, once again sniffling with fear.

“He’ll be back.” Laura placed a supportive arm around the girl’s shoulders. She didn’t have to fake confidence. Something about the man, the assurance in his eyes, the tenor of his voice, told her Kyle Foster was a man who didn’t make empty promises.

A horrific boom reverberated behind them in the rest room, and a major portion of the ceiling gave way and crashed to the floor. The girls screamed, and Laura jumped. If they’d stayed where they’d been earlier, all of them would have been crushed. What remained of the building was deteriorating fast, and if Kyle didn’t return soon, they might be buried alive.

She pulled the girls close to bolster their courage and tried to squelch her own rising panic. “He’ll be here any minute now.”

True to his word, Kyle thrust his face through the opening. Laura had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. How could any man look so damn sexy with so much dirt on him and seem so at ease with a building raining down around his ears?

“Who’s next?” he asked.

Laura felt Tiffany stiffen against her. “You go, Jennifer,” the little redhead insisted. “I’m older. I’ll stay here and look after the lady.”

“You’re not older.” Jennifer sniffed. “We’re both six.”

“I’m six and a half,” Tiffany said in a superior tone.

“You’re both coming,” Kyle said. “I have people with me to carry you out.”

The urgency in the look he threw Laura set her into instant motion. She scooped Jennifer into her arms and handed her to Kyle. He threaded the girl through the opening as if she weighed no more than the dust that swirled around them, a testament to the strength in the well-developed muscles of his arms.

“What’s a good-looking kid like you doing in a mess like this?” he asked Jennifer. She responded to his teasing grin by throwing her arms around his neck and holding tight.

With a tenderness that brought tears to Laura’s eyes, Kyle patted the girl’s back, then handed her off to someone behind him. He immediately shoved his arms through the opening again. “Next?”

Laura picked up Tiffany. The girl leaned back in her arms and looked at her. “Aren’t you coming?”

“In a minute,” Laura said.

“But the hole’s too small.” Tiffany locked gazes with her, eyes filled with worry, as Kyle took the girl from Laura’s arms. “How will you get out?”

“Don’t worry.” Kyle spoke to Tiffany but his eyes met Laura’s. “We won’t leave your friend in there.”

He disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he thrust a hard hat and his own denim jacket through the hole toward Laura. “Put these on and move as far from the opening as you can. We’re going to frame some supports before we tear open this hole.”

Only then did Laura realize she’d been standing there the whole time in only her bra and skirt. She’d thrown aside her jacket, now buried beneath the wreckage behind her, and used her blouse to bind Jeremy’s wounds. But Kyle Foster had acted as if finding a woman only half dressed in the halls of the capitol building was nothing out of the ordinary.

She tugged on his jacket, still warm from his body heat, and was inundated with a melange of scents: sunshine, meadow grasses, saddle soap, leather and a pleasingly masculine musk. As she slid her arms into the sleeves, it was as if Kyle Foster had wrapped his arms around her, a comfortable illusion. The thought and the jacket warmed her. She hadn’t realized how hard she’d been shivering until she stopped. Caring for the children, she hadn’t had time to think about herself. Now, the solitude and vulnerability of her situation hit her full force.

Her distress must have shown in her eyes, because Kyle reached out through the opening, his eyes fierce with emotion, his jaw set with determination, his lips curved in an encouraging smile, and ran his fingers down her cheek in a tender salute. “You’re a hell of a brave lady.”

She didn’t want to move, to break the warm, heartening contact of his touch. She wanted to lean into the cup of his hand, the only place in this hellhole of a building she felt safe.

He patted her cheek and gently shoved her away. “Move. Now,” he ordered.

Jamming the hard hat on, she scurried back against the wall of the access corridor.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Kyle spoke through the opening. “You’ll hear a lot of noise out here, chain saws and jackhammers. We have to clear a path for you. There’ll be some debris shaken loose. Hunch down against the wall and keep that hard hat on.”

“I understand.”

“Hey.” He took off his own hard hat and thrust his head through the opening. His forehead was tanned above the line of plaster dust and his hair a golden brown, a perfect complement to his eyes, the deep green of summer leaves. “You’re going to be fine. I’ll get you out.”

This time he didn’t smile, but there was intensity and solemn promise in his expression.

His confidence was infectious. She nodded and huddled closer to the wall.

He broke into a grin then, an appealing expression that made her wish she’d met this man before in another time and place.

“Better stick your fingers in your ears—Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Laura, Laura Quinlan.”

“Stop up your ears, Laura. The noise will be brutal.”

He pulled back and was gone. True to his word, the scream of chain saws and thunder of jackhammers assaulted her senses and sent a rain of dust and debris around her. She crouched low and raised her arms above her head, praying her rescuers would reach her before the building collapsed on top of her. The bone-jolting racket seemed to go on forever.

Then, suddenly, it was quiet.

Before she could lift her head, she felt someone grip her elbows and lift her to her feet. She glanced up into Kyle Foster’s grimy but handsome face.

“C’mon, Laura.” His face lit with the same killer smile. “We’re busting out of this joint.”

Before she could protest, he swept her off her feet and into his arms.

“I can walk,” she protested.

He gripped her tighter. “You don’t know the way through the wreckage.”

In spite of carrying her, he moved with a swiftness that amazed her, surefooted on the treacherous debris. She twined her arms around his neck and held on tight, her face buried against the broad expanse of his chest.

Dust clouds choked them.

Debris tumbled around them.

Although her rescuer seemed calm, she could feel his urgency in the fierce pounding of his heart beneath her cheek. Her own heartbeat thundered in her ears. What if the building collapsed on top of them?

Suddenly she was blinded by daylight.

Laura heard cheers go up from a group of people in the distance. She lifted her head and saw a band of firefighters, police officers and paramedics gathered in the parking lot, applauding and smiling.

“You can set me down now,” she told Kyle. She preferred to face the crowd of strangers on her own two feet.

“Nope. Not until the paramedics check you out.”

A thundering roar and a blast of dust hit them from behind, and Kyle staggered slightly, still heading for the group in the parking lot. The waiting crowd went silent.

“My God!” Laura said. “What was that?”

“The building.” Kyle’s rich voice was tight with emotion. “The ruins caved in. We got you out just in time.”

“The children?”

“Everybody’s out. We were the last ones.”

She sagged against him in relief.

Ahead of them, the crowd parted, forming a corridor to the triage center the paramedics had set up. Kyle slid her onto a chair beneath the awning strung from the back of the truck. A young woman in paramedic blues took Laura’s blood pressure, checked her pulse, listened to her heart and lungs, and did a quick body scan for injuries.

Kyle remained by her side. “She okay?” he asked the medic.

The woman nodded. “But I want her to stay here for now so we can keep an eye on her, just in case.”

“The little boy,” Laura said, “Jeremy. How is he?”

“Broken arm,” the medic replied. “And a concussion. We’ve already transported him to the hospital. But he should be fine in a few days.”

“His parents?”

“They were waiting for him,” the medic said. “As soon as the explosion hit the news, we’ve had the parents of children in that class pouring in here to learn if their kids were safe. Jeremy’s parents rode in the ambulance with him.”

“And the little girls?” Laura looked around for Jennifer and Tiffany, but didn’t see them. Only then did she notice that Kyle had disappeared.

“They both checked out okay,” the paramedic said. “Their parents took them home. Wanted them away from all this as soon as possible.”

Laura glanced behind her at the awful wreckage and shuddered. “Can’t say that I blame them.”

Kyle Foster reappeared and handed her a bottle of water. “This will clear the dust from your throat.”

She accepted it with thanks and drank. Water had never tasted so good. When she’d finished, she remembered she was wearing his jacket. “If the paramedics will loan me a blanket,” she said, “I can return your coat.”

“Keep it,” he said. “You can return it later.”

“But it’s getting late. And colder.”

His slow grin made her pulse race. “I’ll be too busy for a while to be cold.”

She remembered her father then, dressed only in his best suit. At his age, he chilled easily. She needed to find him quickly and take him away from the destruction that surrounded them, back to the warmth and security of home.

She stood, silently cursing the weakness in her legs. “I have to find my father.”

Kyle apparently noticed her unsteadiness. He grasped her elbow and braced her against him.

“You really should stay quiet,” the medic warned.

Laura cast a pleading glance at Kyle. “Please, I need to know he’s all right.”

Kyle nodded. “There’s a check-in area for evacuees across the lot. I’ll go with you.”

“But you have work—”

“This is part of it.”

He helped her pick her way through snarls of fire hoses, clusters of emergency vehicles and crowds of panicked people, also searching for their relatives. When Laura and Kyle reached the checkpoint, it was mobbed.

“You don’t have to stay,” Laura said. “Looks like I’ll be standing in line a while.”

“Your father wasn’t with you in the building?” Kyle asked.

Laura shook her head. “He was meeting with the governor.”

The sudden careful stillness on Kyle’s face frightened her. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

He was gone only a couple of minutes before he returned. “Come with me. The governor’s in the sheriff’s command center.”

“And my father?”

Kyle didn’t answer. With a protective arm around her shoulders, he threaded them through the teeming, sometimes hysterical crowd to the edge of the lot. He knocked on the door of what looked like a huge recreational vehicle except for the lettering and insignia that clearly marked it as the sheriff’s command center.

An officer opened the door and offered his hand to Laura to guide her up the stairs. Kyle followed. Inside, Governor Haskel, a bandage around his head and his arm in a sling, pushed up from his chair and approached her. For once, his smooth, political smile was absent, his charismatic face grimly set.

Laura whipped her head around, searching for her father.

He wasn’t there.

“Where’s Daddy?” she asked the governor. “Was he hurt? Have they taken him to the hospital?”

Harry Haskel shook his head. “I’m sorry, Laura. Your father…he was killed in the blast.”

“What?” Everything took on a surreal aspect. She saw everything through a muted haze. The handsome, sympathetic face of Kyle Foster, whose strong arms kept her from falling. The silent sheriff’s deputies who manned their posts without looking at her. The pained expression of the governor.

“There must be some mistake,” she pleaded in desperation. “Have you checked the hospitals?”

The governor’s expression didn’t change, and when he spoke, his usually booming, hale-and-hearty voice was gentle. “I’m sorry, Laura. We’ve confirmed it. Your father’s dead.”

The last thing she remembered was Kyle Foster catching her as she fell.

KYLE STOPPED the night-duty nurse as she came out of Laura’s hospital room. “May I see her now?”

The stout woman nodded, but fixed him with a stern stare. “Don’t stay long. She’s had a terrible shock and needs her rest.”

Kyle hesitated before entering, wondering if he was doing the right thing. At the hotel, where he and the other agents had showered and changed after long hours of investigation and conferring with the other authorities, he had debated whether to visit Laura or not. He knew she was grieving, that she probably wanted her privacy, but he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

In the bombed-out building that afternoon, he’d heard her long before he’d met her. He’d caught the clear, pure notes of her soprano voice leading the children in song, guiding the rescuers to them. And when he’d seen her, her long dark hair framing her pale face like a midnight cloud, her startling blue eyes calm and bright, he’d been amazed by her composure. She’d stripped away her blouse to bandage the boy’s wound, but she’d exhibited no false modesty. In fact, she’d been so centered on keeping the children calm, he would swear she’d been totally unaware how provocatively gorgeous she’d looked, clad only in a short skirt that emphasized her slender hips and revealed slim legs, and a wispy piece of lace that did little to hide her small, firm breasts.

She’d been an angel to those children. Without her assistance, he doubted he and the others could have moved them from the building as quickly.

And after all her bravery and help, she’d lost her father.

Damn. Life wasn’t fair.

Encountering no one else in the waiting room and observing no one except the nurses coming and going from Laura’s room, he decided she needed a friend. Taking a deep breath and warning himself not to screw things up and upset her even more, he stepped into the room.

She lay propped against pillows as white as her flawless complexion, eyes closed, with long lashes lying dusky against her cheeks. Someone had brushed the dust from her luxuriant hair, spread like a dark halo on the pillow. And someone had washed the grime from her lovely face, its only shortcoming now the paleness in her cheeks. He’d touched the soft silkiness of her cheek in the corridor of the ruined building, and he was consumed now with a desire to touch her again.

He moved beside the bed, and she opened her eyes.

“I came by to check on you.” He silently cursed himself for his awkwardness. She needed comforting, but he couldn’t find the words.

She curved her lips slightly in a smile of recognition. “I’m not very lucid. I think they’ve pumped me full of tranquilizers.”

“You’ve had a terrible shock. I’m sorry about your father.”

Tears welled in her magnificent blue eyes. “My mother died when I was born. I don’t have brothers or sisters. Daddy’s been my entire family….”

He sat on the side of the bed and gathered her long, slender fingers folded atop the coverlet into his own. Her hands were cold, and he rubbed them gently to warm them. “I wish I could help.”

She blinked away tears. “You did help. You saved my life. Are you a firefighter?”

He shook his head. “Just happened to be in town. I work at the Lonesome Pony Ranch near Livingston.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “With C.J. and Frank Connolly?”

“That’s right. Frank’s gone to get C.J. Figured you’d want her here with you.”

He’d be glad when C.J. arrived to stay with her. C.J. was one of the top researchers at the Quinlan Research Institute owned by Laura’s father. A couple months ago, Frank had saved C.J. from kidnapping by Gilad, a member of the Black Order terrorists anxious to learn what the British scientist knew about biological weapons and how to stop them. Frank had fallen in love with the beautiful researcher and married her.

He remembered C.J. telling him that since assuming her post at the research lab several weeks ago, she had become close friends with Laura Quinlan. Not so close, however, that C.J. had divulged to Laura or anyone else at the facility the true nature of the work at the Lonesome Pony Ranch. As far as the Quinlans and the other scientists were concerned, C.J. had married a cowboy, not an undercover agent.

Laura closed her eyes, and her fingers squeezed his tightly.

Poor kid, he thought, then corrected himself. Not a kid. Laura Quinlan had to be in her late twenties, according to what C.J. had told him.

Laura opened her eyes. “Nobody will talk to me, except to say I’ll be all right. Please, tell me what happened to my father.”

Kyle swallowed hard. He wasn’t about to cause her more anguish by describing the gruesome extent of Josiah Quinlan’s injuries. “He died quickly. I doubt he felt anything or even knew what happened.”

He could tell from her expression she was in total denial of her father’s death, and her next words confirmed his fear. “Everyone else in the building was evacuated. Daddy must have been, too. Maybe he’s lost his memory and is wandering the city somewhere. Has anyone looked for him?”

“Laura, the governor was in the same room.” Kyle was firm but empathetic. “He identified your father’s body.”

Yanking her hands from his grasp, she propped herself on her elbows, eyes blazing like blue fire. “Why?”

With patience he’d learned from dealing with his strong-willed daughter, Molly, Kyle grasped her shoulders and gently pressed her back against the pillows. “Promise you’ll stay calm, and I’ll answer all your questions. Otherwise, Nurse Godzilla will throw me out of here on my ear.”

As if all the strength had gone out of her, Laura sagged against the pillows. “Why didn’t Daddy and the governor evacuate like everybody else?”

Hers was a good question, one Kyle and the other investigators had pressed the governor about. “Governor Haskel said his secretary came in when the alarm sounded. She told him one of the capitol police had just assured her the alarm was simply a malfunction in the system. That there was no need for the governor to interrupt his business to evacuate.”

Groggy with medication, Laura shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Someone wanted to make certain the governor’s office wasn’t empty when the bomb blew.”

“Bomb?” The word seemed to hit her like a blast. “The explosion wasn’t an accident?”

Kyle shook his head.

“I didn’t know,” she murmured. “I thought maybe it was a leak in a natural-gas line…”

For several minutes she remained so still, eyes closed, he thought she’d drifted back to sleep. He started to rise from the side of the bed, but she gripped his hand and opened her eyes. He could see her fighting against confusion and the effects of the drugs she’d been given.

“My father was murdered.”

She’d stated a fact, not asked a question, so Kyle said nothing.

“Did the secretary identify the policeman who told them to stay?” she asked.

“Haskel’s secretary, your father and a policeman doing a final sweep to clear the building were the only fatalities.”

This time she’d didn’t contradict him about her father. She was either in shock or finally coming to grips with his death.

She raised her face and fixed her tear-filled, periwinkle-blue gaze on him. “Why…how could the governor survive and not Daddy?”

Another good question. Even in the depths of grief and the haze of tranquilizers, she exhibited a remarkable grasp of what was important.

“According to the governor’s account,” Kyle explained, “he was leaning down to remove something from the bottom drawer of his desk when the blast occurred. The massive piece of mahogany furniture between him and the direction of the blast absorbed most of the impact.”

Tears overflowed her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. Her full bottom lip quivered. “And Daddy was on the other side of the desk.”

“I’m sorry.”

She swiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “Thank you for telling me. I had to know, no matter how awful…”

He marveled at her poise. Even under the most horrific circumstances, she was thoughtful and kind, considerate of others in spite of her grief. If, as she’d said, Josiah Quinlan had raised her on his own, the man had done a damn good job.

He thought of Molly, abandoned by her mother, with only Kyle to take care of her. Molly would be counting on him for everything. He hoped he could do half as good a job as Josiah had with his daughter.

Laura turned her head on the pillow toward the table where he’d emptied his hands when he’d entered the room. Following her gaze, he picked up the bouquet of pink roses he’d left there. “I’ll have the nurse put these in some water.”

“Thank you.” A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips. “And the science fiction video game?”

“For Jeremy. He’s in the pediatric wing on the next floor. I thought I’d check on him before heading back to the ranch.”

“You are a remarkable man, Kyle.”

Embarrassed by her praise, he shook his head.

“Please, one more question?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Why am I here? I don’t have any injuries, do I?”

“No physical injuries, but you’ve suffered severe emotional trauma. They’re just keeping you for observation.” He didn’t add how Daniel Austin had pulled strings to have her admitted, to make sure she had someone to watch out for her until C.J. arrived. Laura had no relatives, and Daniel had made certain she wasn’t left alone to deal with her father’s death. “You’ll be released in the morning, and C.J. can take you home.”

He heard footsteps and glanced into the hallway to see Frank and C.J. waiting outside the door. “I have to go.”

Laura still reminded him of an angel—a grief-stricken angel. “You’ve been very kind,” she said.

This time he couldn’t resist the impulse to touch her. He cupped the side of her face in his hand. “Get some sleep.”

He wished he could assure her that everything would be all right in the morning, but he couldn’t. With her father dead, it would be a long time before things would feel all right again for Laura Quinlan.

She leaned against his hand and closed her eyes. He waited, cradling her face until he was certain she’d fallen asleep. Then he slipped quietly from the room.

Motioning to Frank and C.J., he led them to the visitors’ lounge at the end of the corridor, thinking as he always did when he saw them together what a handsome couple they made, Frank with his dark hair and military bearing and C.J. with her honey-blond hair and curvaceous figure—and both with minds as sharp as steel traps.

“How is she?” C.J. asked in her clipped British accent.

“Taking it hard, but she’s sleeping now.” Kyle glanced at Frank and noted the tension in his expression. “What’s happened?”

Frank, his exhaustion showing, ran his hand over his short, military-cut hair. “There was a break-in at the Quinlan Research Institute this afternoon.”

“And?” Kyle asked, sensing the worst.

C.J.’s light-brown eyes telegraphed her anxiety. “Someone’s stolen enough D-5 to poison every city water system in Montana.”

Chapter Three

“Finish your breakfast, doodlebug,” Kyle said to Molly. She graced him with an adoring smile, and wonder filled him at how much he could love one tiny human being.

He sat with his daughter in the large, sunny kitchen at the ranch. Daniel and the other agents had eaten earlier, but Kyle had waited to have breakfast with Molly.

He finished the last bite of feather-light pancakes with huckleberry syrup and handed his empty plate to Dale McMurty, the ranch’s cook and housekeeper, who also watched Molly while Kyle was working.

“Excellent breakfast, as always, Mrs. Mac.”

“Better for eatin’ than wearin’.” The plump older woman grinned and nodded toward Molly whose face, round with baby fat, was smeared with purple syrup.

“Can you ride wif me and Jewel?” Molly took another bite of the pancake Kyle had cut into bits for her.

Jewel, granddaughter of Dale and Patrick McMurty who helped Daniel run the ranch, was teaching Molly to ride on Ribbons, the new pony Kyle had bought her. If he’d had his druthers, he’d spend the morning teaching Molly to ride. But with the Black Order terrorists still on the loose almost four weeks after the bombing, catching them had to be his priority. With a guilty conscience, he braced himself for her disappointment.

“I can’t, sweetheart. Daddy has work to do.”

“Wif Frank and Court and Daniel?” Her wide, innocent eyes, green like his own, regarded him with a seriousness too old for her years.

“That’s right.” Her somberness reproached him harder than tears or a temper tantrum would have. She was too young to look so solemn. He reached across the table and tickled her to make her laugh. “But I’ll spend tonight after supper with you. You pick out a favorite book for us to read.”

Still giggling, Molly clapped her plump hands and bounced up and down in her booster seat. “Green Eggs and Ham.”

Kyle suppressed a groan. He knew that book by heart, had read it till its singsong nonsense rhymes made him cross-eyed, but it was Molly’s favorite, and if she wanted to hear it for the umpteenth time, he’d read it again for his favorite girl.

The back door swung open with a bang, and twelve-year-old Jewel McMurty stomped into the kitchen, blond ponytail swinging. “You ready, shrimp?” she called to Molly. “I got the horses saddled.”

“Morning, Jewel.” Kyle said. “Molly will be with you in a minute.”

He cleaned his daughter’s face with a damp paper towel, then helped her into her jacket. “All set?”

Molly jumped up and down with excitement. “I like riding Ribbons.”

“Give Daddy a kiss.”

She threw her chubby arms around his neck, then hurried toward Jewel who waited at the back door.

“Jewel!” Dale called before her granddaughter could slip out.

“Yes’m?” the girl answered, shifting from one booted foot to the other in her eagerness to get away.

“Is your grandpa out there where he can watch you?”

Jewel nodded. “He’s working in the barn.”

“You keep a good eye on that young’un, you hear?” Dale stood with her fists on her wide hips, narrowed eyes blazing. “Anything happens to that child, I’ll skin you alive and tack your hide next to that Navajo blanket on the lobby wall.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And Jewel?” her grandmother added, her features melting into a loving smile that belied the fierceness of her earlier words. “Take care of yourself while you’re at it, girl.”

Jewel nodded, grabbed Molly by the hand, whirled on her heel, and the two disappeared before Dale could say another word.

“Young’uns.” Dale refilled Kyle’s coffee cup. “They’re a blessing and a worry.”

Kyle watched the two girls cross the yard toward the barn, Molly scuffling her feet in the fine gravel of the driveway. Although Molly’s welfare was always foremost in his thoughts, he had no worries about leaving her with Jewel McMurty. The twelve-year-old was a dynamo of energy and gabbiness packed in her less than five-foot frame, but she was also levelheaded and dependable. Molly was in good hands.

He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes until he met with the others in the secret room below the main house that served as headquarters for Montana Confidential. He sipped Dale’s hot coffee and attempted to review his notes, but a single image kept intruding on his thoughts.

Laura Quinlan standing in the misting rain at her father’s funeral.

She hadn’t known Kyle was there, hadn’t known he was watching. Three days after the bombing, security had been tight at the cemetery. Governor Haskel, still wearing bandages on his injuries, had attended, and since the terrorists had apparently tried to kill him once, the worry was that they might strike again.

Kyle and Court had watched the funeral from a surveillance van with darkened windows, parked a dozen yards from the gravesite. Using a special telephoto lens, Kyle had snapped shot after shot of every person who’d attended, but his attention had been riveted on Laura.

Tragically beautiful, she had stood straight and tall by her father’s flower-draped casket. Elegant in a trim black coat, black stockings and shoes, she listened to the priest’s every word without shedding a tear. But Kyle could tell from the close-up the lens gave him that she was all cried out, that she had already shed more tears than any person should have to in a lifetime. Her dark blue eyes glistened with grief, and her generous mouth was firmly set, as if she’d vowed no more sobs would pass her lips.

The cold, misting rain had etched her cheeks with color, but her flawless face was otherwise pale and drawn. Frank and C.J. stood on either side of her, and several couples, later identified as scientists from the lab and their spouses, gathered around her, but Kyle couldn’t help remembering her claim in the hospital that she was all alone.

Numerous times since then, he’d wanted to drive to the Quinlan laboratory and call on her, to let her know she had a friend, but he hadn’t allowed himself that pleasure. He’d been too busy with the investigation of the Black Order, and even if he hadn’t, he had to be careful where he was seen and how, in the event he had to assume an undercover role in the case.

But he couldn’t get his mind off Laura Quinlan and the bravery she’d shown in helping to save those children. An extraordinary woman—

He blinked in surprise at where his thoughts had taken him. Ever since Alicia had deserted him and Molly over a year ago for her wealthy Hollywood producer, he’d found his trust in women shattered and his interest in them gone. Even the most gorgeous, as C.J. definitely was, had held no attraction for him. But Laura was different. When the Black Order terrorists were captured and placed behind bars, he definitely wanted to get to know Laura Quinlan better.

“Kyle?” Whitney MacNair’s melodic voice shattered his daydreams.

He glanced up to find Daniel’s executive assistant, clipboard in hand, standing in the doorway that led to the hall. Unlike everyone else on the ranch who wore jeans as their standard uniform, Whitney definitely dressed to a different drummer. This morning she wore a long, camel-colored wool skirt and an ecru silk blouse, topped by a dark chocolate velvet vest embroidered in a colorful paisley design. Instead of cowboy boots, she sported calf-hugging high-heeled boots of soft Italian leather. On anyone else, the outfit would have looked out of place, but it complemented Whitney’s red-gold hair, gray eyes and peaches-and-cream complexion.

“Morning, Whitney. What’s up?”

“Daniel’s ready to start the meeting.”

Had Kyle really spent the entire fifteen minutes thinking of Laura Quinlan? Flustered, he grabbed his notes and followed in the wake of Whitney’s expensive perfume to the secret room below Daniel’s study.

The rest of the team was waiting, gathered around the sturdy oak conference table in the middle of their operations center. Kyle took a chair opposite Daniel at the other end of the table, and Whitney slid into an empty seat beside her boss, ready to take notes.

Daniel motioned to Kyle. “Since you’re our bomb expert and the one with the chemistry degrees, how about bringing us up to speed?”

Kyle nodded. “Our investigation is two-pronged. Let’s deal with the capitol bombing first. ATF analysis of the bomb shows it’s definitely Black Order. Its specific signature is identical to bombs the Order claimed credit for in London and Athens two years ago.”

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.”

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