Montana Secrets

by Charlotte Douglas

  Shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks to keep from reaching for her, Trace moved closer. “Sorry if I startled you. I passed your principal in the hall, and he told me which room was yours.”

  Cat took a deep breath in an obvious attempt to regain her self-control and peered at him, a bloom of pale rose slowly returning to her cheeks after the pallor of her initial scare. Curiosity sparked in her remarkable eyes. “Who are you and why are you looking for me?”

  Trace suppressed a smile. Cat was so like he remembered her, direct and to the point. He’d always known exactly where he stood with her because she’d never played the coy games some women seemed so fond of. And she’d never been afraid to ask straightforward questions.

  “I’m Trace Gallagher. I just returned to the States a few weeks ago from an extended tour of duty in Tabari.”

  Her face paled again when he named the Middle Eastern nation, so he hastened the rest of his explanation. “I was good friends with Marc and Ryan.”

  Cat’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t remember either of them mentioning you.”

  “They wouldn’t have. I was on assignment for military intelligence, working as a bodyguard for Prince Asim. Since Marc and Ryan were working undercover, too—”

  “No one was supposed to know that.” Her eyes had widened with alarm, and he hastened to reassure her.

  “As members of the intelligence community, we shared information. I kept them informed of what happened at the palace. They kept me abreast of what went on in the embassy.”

  Skepticism was evident in the slant of her lips, the glint in her eyes.

  “Look, I don’t expect you to take my word for this.” He dug into his pocket, pulled out an envelope and handed it to her. “Here’s a letter of introduction from Colonel Barker at the embassy—”

  “Colonel?” Cat took the envelope and pulled out the letter written on official embassy stationery. Her dubious expression disappeared. “So the major’s been promoted. I’m glad. Marc and Ryan both thought a lot of him, and he was especially kind to Dad and me…after.”

  She read the letter quickly, inserted it in its envelope and handed it back to him. “Looks like you’re who you say you are, Mr. Gallagher.”

  He repressed a flinch at the ironic error of her words. “Call me Trace.”

  At that instant, Cat gazed past him to the door, and Trace turned to find the principal he’d met earlier in the hall standing in the doorway.

  “Everything okay in here, Catherine?” the man asked.

  “I’m fine,” Cat said.

  “You’re sure?” the principal persisted with a proprietary air that told Trace the boss considered Cat more than just another teacher.

  “Trace is an old friend of Marc’s,” Cat explained. “He’s stopped in for a visit.”

  The principal looked wary. “I’ll be around for a while. Buzz me on the intercom if you need me.”

  Catherine smiled warmly at the man. “Thanks for looking out for me, Todd. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Good friend?” Trace fought back a pang of jealousy.

  “The best,” Cat admitted. “I don’t know what I’d have done without him the last few years.”

  Trace crushed his irrational anger against a man who had been there when he couldn’t be and tried to be grateful that Cat had had friends looking after her.

  Cat’s expression sobered. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here in Athens.”

  “Intelligence work is a stressful job, so my handlers decided I’m due for R&R. Marc and Ryan always talked about this corner of Montana as if it were God’s country. Since I’ve never been West, I decided to see for myself.”

  “You’re on vacation?”

  “A much-needed holiday,” he said with feeling.

  His statement wasn’t intended as a deception. A vacation was exactly what the Pentagon had dubbed his Montana trip, even though he was on assignment.

  Shortly after he had confronted Colonel Barker at the embassy, Ryan had been hustled out of Tabari aboard a military transport. Upon his arrival in the United States, a Pentagon limousine whisked him away from Andrews Air Force Base and delivered him into the hands of Colonel David Wentworth, head of counterterrorism.

  After Ryan had been poked, prodded and thoroughly examined by every specialist in the medical profession from internists to psychiatrists, he’d been closeted with Colonel Wentworth for debriefing.

  “You can’t hold me here,” Ryan protested. “My enlistment’s up. I want to go home to my fiancée.”

  Wentworth, a heavyset man in his forties with bulldog cheeks and the proverbial fireplug physique, leaned back in his seat, steepled his fingers beneath his chin and stared at Ryan across his desk. “Of the ninety-eight people killed in the Tabarian embassy bombing, twenty-four were Marines. Twenty-five, if you count Lieutenant Erickson.”

  “I’m aware of that, sir.”

  “Are you also aware this same terrorist cell is still active in the Middle East? Or that they’ve recently made threats against targets here on the U.S. mainland?”

  Ryan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “No, sir.”

  “Righteous Sword.”

  “Sir?”

  “That’s what they call themselves, the group that claimed credit for the bombing in Tabari.” Wentworth leaned forward, eyes blazing. “We need you to remember, lieutenant. You’re our best hope of identifying and locating these bastards. In the years since the bombing, every lead has fizzled out. Tracking this group had been like chasing mist, and we’re no closer to rounding them up now than we were then.”

  “I want to remember, sir.” His assertion couldn’t have been more earnest. He wanted Marc’s killers brought to justice and he wanted to put the military behind him and go home to Cat.

  If she’d still have him.

  Flipping through a thick file on his desk, Wentworth nodded. “Your psychiatric evaluations indicate your selective amnesia may be the result of the severe physical and emotional trauma you suffered when the embassy was bombed. Your mind’s not ready yet to relive that horror.”

  “They tried hypnosis. It didn’t help.”

  The colonel nodded. “That’s in the file. The doctors do, however, believe there may be a possible cure.”

  “Surgery?” He’d had his fill of hospitals and didn’t relish more operations, but if surgery would get him home to Cat sooner, he’d jump at the chance.

  For the first time in the interview, Wentworth smiled. “The cure they suggest is much more pleasant. The doctors want you to go home, spend several weeks in familiar and comfortable surroundings. They’re hopeful the experience will unlock your repressed memories.”

  “I have no home to go to. I grew up in foster homes. The Corps has been my family.”

  Wentworth shook his head. “We want you to go to Montana. Visit with the Ericksons. The doctors think being around your fiancée and that ranch you’re so fond of might jog those critical memories loose.”

  Ryan grinned like a condemned man just granted a reprieve. “I wouldn’t object to that, sir.”

  “There are certain conditions, of course,” Wentworth added with a scowl. “You have to maintain your identity as Trace Gallagher.”

  “I can’t tell my own fiancée who I am? You expect me to remember under that kind of stress?”

  “Think, damn you,” Wentworth snapped. “You’re as intelligent an operative as I’ve ever had, but you’re letting your emotions interfere with your brain. Those terrorists are fanatics, killers willing to blow themselves up if their deaths serve their cause. If they catch wind of the fact that Ryan Christopher, the man who knows their identity, is still alive, do you think anything will stop them from tracking you down? If you return to Montana as Ryan Christopher, they’ll find you there. And if they kill you, they’ll think nothing of wiping out the rest of the Erickson family while they’re at it.”

  “Then I shouldn’t go to Montana at all,” Ryan said. “I don’t want to enda
nger Cat or her father.”

  “We need you in Montana,” Wentworth said.

  “Why?” Ryan’s blood suddenly ran cold. “You don’t think the terrorists are after the Ericksons?”

  Wentworth shook his head. “No, but we believe the Ericksons may have information that could help our investigation.”

  “Marc would never have breached security by telling his family classified secrets.”

  “Not the Marc you knew,” Wentworth said, not unkindly. “But when Marc was shot and didn’t resume consciousness, his family had him transferred home to care for him. It’s possible, even though he was in a coma until he died, he may have muttered something—”

  “Something that would have seemed like gibberish to them but that I would understand? That seems highly unlikely.”

  “I know we’re grasping at straws, but we’re desperate. We can’t let these terrorists succeed again. I want to break Righteous Sword across my knee.”

  Reluctantly, Ryan had agreed to Wentworth’s plan.

  The more time Ryan had had to recover from the shock of his five-year amnesia, the more his thoughts and emotions had crystallized. As much as his personal feelings led him in the opposite direction, he realized where his duty lay. In the week following his interview with Wentworth, bringing the terrorists, especially the traitor from within the embassy, to justice had become not just a goal, but an obsession. Their capture would serve three purposes—punishment for the killers, protection at home and abroad from future terrorist attacks and, most appealing of all, freedom to return to Cat as the Ryan she remembered.

  Wentworth had developed a deep background cover for Trace Gallagher, and within a week Trace was on a transport flight to Great Falls. From there, he’d caught a bus to Athens, and upon arriving in the tiny northwest Montana town, he’d come straight to Cat’s school.

  Even now he found it hard to believe she was standing there within arm’s reach.

  “Where are you staying?” Cat asked.

  Trace shrugged. “Haven’t had a chance to look around. Can you recommend a place?”

  “There’s the motel out on the highway. That’s about it, unless you go into Libby or Bonner’s Ferry.”

  “Where can I rent a car?” Unless the town had grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years, he knew the answer, but he had to play the part of the unknowing newcomer.

  “Not in Athens,” Cat said. “Look, I know my father will want to talk with you. He cherishes any memories he can glean of Marc. And Ryan, too. He thought of him as his second son. Why don’t you come home with me, have dinner with us and spend the night? We can rustle you up some lodgings and a vehicle tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to impose.” Trace crushed down his emotions, determined not to appear too eager. “I could always hitchhike into Libby and find a place.”

  “Impose?” Cat laughed, a pleasing sound like silver coins tossed on water. “Dad will be terribly disappointed if I don’t bring you home.”

  Trace returned her smile. Securing an invitation to stay at High Valley Ranch had been too easy.

  And the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  CAT WAS GLAD her hands had steadied enough for her to lock the door of her classroom behind her. As startled as she’d been at Trace Gallagher’s appearance, she was amazed she hadn’t fainted from shock.

  For that first brief instant when he had stood silhouetted in the door of her classroom, she had been positive beyond doubt that he was Ryan, even though the dreadful reality of Ryan’s death contradicted her. For a brief, shining moment, she’d been willing to believe, daring to hope that Ryan had returned from the dead.

  When Trace had stepped into the light, however, she’d immediately realized the absurdity of her expectations. Too much grief had made her crazy. While Trace was about the same height and weight Ryan had been, the similarities ended there. Trace’s cheekbones were higher and more defined, his perfect Roman nose lacked Ryan’s endearing bump, a souvenir from a boyhood rumble, and Trace’s strong, square chin didn’t sport Ryan’s characteristic cleft. No, the stranger was nothing like Ryan.

  Except for his eyes.

  Stunned by the cruel fate that had placed Ryan’s khaki-brown eyes in another man’s face, Cat had barely been able to look at him face-to-face. Even his long, thick lashes the color of soot and the searing intensity of his gaze were the same as Ryan’s had been.

  Silently chastising herself for foolishly believing even for a second that Ryan had been miraculously resurrected, she had at first barely registered Trace’s introduction. Only Todd Brewster’s reassuring appearance at her classroom door had rooted her in reality again. But that calm had been short-lived. She tried to get her breathing back to normal and her nerves composed.

  She looked forward to hearing Trace’s account of Marc and Ryan’s sojourn in Tabari. Any information she could learn about their last days on earth would be treasured, but she was surprised to realize she was also eager to learn more about Trace Gallagher. Perhaps it was his faint resemblance to Ryan that created the electricity between them she couldn’t deny.

  For the first time since Ryan’s death, she was experiencing the stirrings of longing, the genuine flickers of interest in a man. She’d been close friends with Todd Brewster and found his company pleasant, but he was like a kind and gentle older brother. She’d never wondered what his arms would feel like around her, how his lips would taste. Trace’s sudden appearance and faint resemblance to Ryan must have scrambled her brain, because those were exactly the questions roiling in her mind about a perfect stranger.

  She took a deep breath and promised herself she’d be fine as long as she avoided a head-on confrontation with those greenish-brown eyes so like Ryan’s.

  And her daughter’s.

  She attempted to shake off the fluttery feeling the man’s presence triggered. The only other time in her life she’d been so immediately attracted to a man was the first time she’d met Ryan. She doubted lightning would strike twice in her lifetime. She would have to rein in her rebellious senses or she’d make a fool of herself for sure.

  Apparently unaware of the turmoil he’d generated in her, Trace leaned down beside the door and lifted a duffel bag from the floor where he’d left it.

  “Is that all your luggage?” she asked.

  Trace nodded. “I travel light.”

  She eyed the cotton sports shirt, lightweight wind-breaker, casual slacks and deck shoes he was wearing, all a perfect fit and obviously good quality but more suitable for a Cape Cod weekend than a Montana summer. “Did you bring warmer clothes? The weather turns cold here, even in summer.”

  “Didn’t have to worry about keeping warm in Tabari. Just the opposite.” He fell in step beside her, shortening his stride to accommodate hers, the clatter of their shoes echoing on the hardwood floors of the empty halls.

  “We’ve had snow flurries in June before,” Cat explained, “and heat waves from the chinook winds. You never know what to expect.”

  She was babbling, but she couldn’t help it. Her heightened awareness of the handsome man at her side had affected her brain.

  “Is there a place in town that sells clothes?” he asked.

  “Hayes Mercantile. It’s right by the supermarket, and I have to make a stop there anyway.”

  “I’m just a city boy. Maybe you can help me choose what I’ll need—if it’s not too much trouble.” He depressed the panic bar on the large double door and held the door open for her to exit the building.

  “No trouble,” she lied as they crossed the parking lot to her Cherokee SUV. “I used to shop for Ryan and Marc all the time.”

  The last thing she needed was the intimate task of helping the enticing stranger select clothes. She’d point him in the right direction and retreat to the market.

  She unlocked the rear gate of the car, and he swung his bag inside. In a few minutes they were leaving the school for the short drive to downtown, a two-block stretch of road filled with Athens’s
only businesses, the supermarket, Hayes Mercantile, the café, a laundromat, a service station and three saloons.

  Cat, however, wasn’t concentrating on the familiar landscape. All she could think of was Trace Gallagher’s attractive profile and the tantalizing scent of him, uniquely masculine, a musky mix of soap, fresh air and sunshine, that teased her nostrils.

  She tightened her hands on the steering wheel and silently ordered herself to get a grip on her feelings. She was no hormone-driven teenager, but a twenty-seven-year-old woman, a professional who managed crises every day in her teaching position, the mother of an active and intelligent four-year-old. Surely she could handle one handsome stranger without acting like a fool.

  “Not exactly a booming metropolis,” she said as she pulled into a diagonal parking space in front of the market. “It hasn’t changed in my lifetime.”

  “I like it.” Trace glanced up and down the street with interest. “With the boardwalks and the old train station, I feel like I’m really in the Old West.”

  She slid from the car and pointed toward Hayes Mercantile to her left. “You’ll feel a lot more at home once we get you out of those city slicker clothes. I bet you grew up in a big city, didn’t you?”

  He hesitated only a second before answering, but long enough for her to notice and wonder whether he didn’t like talking about his past.

  “Syracuse, New York,” he finally admitted. “Before they died my mother and father were professors at the university there.”

  He was either avoiding her eyes or rubbernecking to take in the few sights of the town. Either way, he evaded her gaze. That suited her just fine. The less personal their conversation, the better.

  “Ever ridden a horse?” she asked.

  “Not until I went to Tabari. The prince had a stable of the most magnificent Arabians in the country. He expected me to ride with him and his other bodyguards, so I had to learn fast.”

  Cat squashed the enchanting image of Trace galloping across the desert sands dressed like an Arab sheikh. She pushed open the door of the department store and entered.