Montana Secrets

by Charlotte Douglas

  Trace suppressed a shudder. As much as he wanted Cat, he couldn’t place her in danger by revealing his true identity.

  “All set?” Cat had loaded her supplies in the bucket and stood watching him with a puzzled look.

  He shook his gloomy thoughts away and forced a smile. “Lead the way.”

  A moment later, he wished he’d taken point instead. Following her up the stairs brought its own special torture. She moved with a grace that managed to appear both efficient and languid, and her unique honeysuckle scent enveloped him in her wake. His best plan was to work up a sweat quickly to provide an excuse for a cold shower.

  As they tackled the debacle in Megan’s room, however, his exertions eased the pain of his desire. With military efficiency, he swept up potting mix scattered from a trailing ivy, then repotted the plant. While he worked, Cat gathered Megan’s toys, which had been strewn around the room and under the bed.

  “Oh, no,” she cried.

  He set the plant on the dresser and turned to her. “What is it?”

  She dangled a bedraggled Pooh Bear between her fingers, its left arm hanging by a thread. “Next to Teddy, this is Megan’s favorite.”

  “Get me a needle and thread. I’ll fix it.”

  She fixed him with an incredulous stare. “You sew?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  She shook her head and studied him with an intense scrutiny that made him shift uneasily beneath her laser gaze. Suddenly her eyes widened and her mouth formed an O. “You’re not Trace Gallagher!”

  Panic seized him as all his good intentions washed down the drain. He should have known that Cat would recognize him, even after all these years, in spite of his altered voice and appearance.

  “I know who you are,” she insisted.

  “Who?” He forced the words through a mouth gone dry with fear and regret.

  A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and mischief flickered in her eyes. “He cooks. He cleans. He sews.” She nodded emphatically. “You’re Martha Stewart in disguise.”

  He laughed to cover the tremendous sigh of relief that whooshed from his lungs. “Marines learn to take care of themselves. It’s a good thing.”

  She laughed, too, and he was glad to see her lovely face lose the pinched, wan look she’d worn all morning.

  “I’ll get the sewing kit,” she said.

  “Where does this plant go?”

  “On the table by Megan’s bed. Next to Ryan’s pictures.”

  Cat left the room, and Trace moved to the bedside where a frame lay facedown on the table. When he picked it up and turned it over, emotion welled in his throat. Inscribed on the mat in big, colorful letters were the words, “Megan’s Daddy.” The frame held not one picture, but a dozen, a collage showing Ryan, either alone or with Marc, Gabe and Cat. But the one picture that touched him most was in the center, a snapshot of Ryan with his arm around Cat and both of them smiling happily at the camera. Someone— Cat, he was certain—had taken Megan’s photo from another picture, trimmed around her and inserted her between her mother and father, just like a family.

  “I want Megan always to remember she had a father who would have loved her.”

  He glanced up to find Cat in the doorway, sewing kit in hand, watching him. With a nonchalance that hid his feelings, he stood the picture on the table beside the bed.

  “Megan’s lucky to have a mother like you.” Glad the bomb’s damage to his vocal cords made his voice husky, he took the sewing kit from her hand.

  “No, I’m lucky to have Megan,” Cat insisted.

  “Even though you have to raise her alone?”

  “Dad makes a terrific grandpa, so I’m not completely alone.”

  Silently cursing the circumstances that kept him from claiming his daughter and the woman who should be his wife, he opened the sewing kit and selected a needle and thread.

  “Anything missing in here?” Trace asked as he stitched Pooh’s arm back to his body.

  Cat shook her head. “They even left the solid gold locket Dad gave Megan for her last birthday, so either they didn’t know it was real gold or they weren’t looking for valuables. That’s why I think Snake was behind this. He and his buddies did this just for spite.”

  Cat had him almost convinced. Ironically, a senseless prank by Snake Larson made the most sense. Once the sheriff had caught the bully and his pals, this ordeal for the Ericksons would be over.

  Trace had finished the last stitch on the stuffed animal and knotted the thread when the ring of a telephone sounded through the house.

  Cat went into her bedroom to answer it. A few minutes later, she returned, her expression a combination of puzzlement and worry.

  “Anything wrong?” Trace asked.

  “That was the sheriff. Last night at nine o’clock, Snake Larson and his buddies were arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct in Bonner’s Ferry. They spent the night in jail.”

  “Then they couldn’t have trashed your house.” Cold dread settled in Trace’s stomach like a poorly digested meal.

  Cat’s questioning gaze met his. “If Snake didn’t do this, who did?”

  Chapter Nine

  “The sheriff’s certain about the time?” Trace settled his face into a neutral expression, but not before Cat glimpsed the apprehension that had scudded across his features like a fast-moving cloud.

  “Positive,” Cat said. “He said there’s no way Snake and his friends could have been here unless they had wings. And he added they were the least likely candidates for wings he’s ever met.”

  Even her attempt at humor didn’t lighten Trace’s serious demeanor, and his gravity frightened her. “Why are you so worried?”

  “I don’t like being in the dark.”

  She shrugged. “The damage is done, and the culprits are gone now.”

  He nodded, but his eyes looked past her, as if his grim thoughts were elsewhere. He was a study in contradictions, this tall, muscular man sitting on Megan’s frilly bed and holding her Pooh Bear gently in his big hands. Trace had been an exemplary guest, congenial and thoughtful, but Cat guessed he could also be a powerful and dangerous adversary if crossed.

  A new and disturbing possibility struck her, almost taking her breath away. “If they weren’t after valuables, maybe they were after you.”

  Trace snapped his attention to her, muscles tensed, hazel eyes veiled. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re in military intelligence. You could have made enemies in your line of work. Maybe somebody decided it’s payback time.”

  To her surprise, a slow, amiable grin spread across the handsome contours of his face, dismissing her fears and kicking in a soft flutter just beneath her breastbone. “If they were after me, they could have grabbed me anytime. I was practically alone in town before the graduation. That would have been a perfect time to catch me—if I’m what they wanted.”

  She lifted her hands in frustration. “So we’re back to square one. Who broke in and why?”

  “There’s always the troublemaking drifters theory.”

  “Then why didn’t they take anything? And don’t tell me we scared them off. They could have grabbed Dad’s wallet in a heartbeat.”

  “They did take something.”

  This time, it was her head that jerked upward in surprise. “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She scowled in confusion. “Then how do you know something was taken?”

  Trace placed Pooh on Megan’s pillow and shoved to his feet. “I heard one of them yell from upstairs that he’d found something. As soon as he said it, they left, as if they had what they’d come for.”

  “That’s a big help,” she grumbled.

  “It could be,” he insisted. “If we can find what’s missing, we might be able to figure out why they were here.”

  “You’re certain whatever they took, they found upstairs?” She couldn’t think of a thing in the five bedrooms and three baths worth turning a house upside down for.


  He placed his hands on her shoulders and gazed at her. The changeable color of his eyes had shifted from a leafy green to smoky brown. “Not certain, but that’s how it sounded. We might as well search as we go along, since we have to clean up the rest of the mess anyway.”

  His eyes sparked with a mesmerizing glint, his breath warmed her cheek, and through the fabric of her blouse, her skin heated at his touch. She found herself remembering every vivid detail of the too-short kiss they’d shared yesterday on the porch. It would be so easy to slide her arms around his neck, stand on tiptoe—

  And do something stupid.

  Why would kissing him be stupid? she argued with herself. As long as I remember his presence in my life is only temporary, why can’t I enjoy a little dalliance? I’ve worked hard. I’m entitled to some fun.

  Because you’re a commitment kind of gal, her conscience argued back. You’ll think you’re engaging in a harmless flirtation, and wham! You’ll find yourself in love. And heartbroken when he leaves for good.

  “Cat?” Trace interrupted her inner debate with a tiny shake of her shoulders. “You okay? You looked like you zoned out for a minute.”

  She could feel the flush ascending to her cheeks, and she grappled for an explanation. “I was just thinking which clothes to take to Megan later this morning. If you’ll start in my room, I’ll gather her things and then come help.”

  He released her, picked up the cleaning supplies and moved to the next room.

  Although he was only a room away, his absence left her feeling deprived and filled with an overwhelming yearning. Weak-kneed, she sank to Megan’s bed and stared at herself in her daughter’s dresser mirror. She had to be losing her mind. How else could she explain that she was falling in love with a man she’d known only a few days?

  AS THE MORNING passed, Trace’s frustration doubled. They’d finished cleaning every room but his, and Cat couldn’t identify a single item that was missing. Adding to his tension was the fact that with him and Cat alone in the house, he was acutely aware of every move she made, every word she spoke, every whisper of her scent that survived above the heavy smell of cleaning solutions. Her proximity was enough to drive him dizzy with desire.

  Keeping his hands to himself was torture when he longed to hold her, and he’d almost given in to his yearning earlier while they were attacking the chaos in her room.

  The intruders had flung clothes from her closet and drawers, and Cat had begun gathering them up. She hung skirts and dresses and tossed her very feminine underwear on the bed. When she began creating stacks of the bits of filmy lace and scraps of silk, the sight of her amidst those intimate garments almost made him lose his resistance to lowering her to the bed and making slow, indolent love to her. He managed to control himself, knowing if he tried, she’d think he’d lost his mind and order him to leave.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as she continued to sort bras and panties. He found his mouth dry with desire.

  “Counting.”

  “Why?” He hoped she hadn’t developed some bizarre obsessive-compulsive disorder centering on undergarments during his long absence.

  She turned to face him, hands on her hips, head cocked alluringly to one side. “You said we have to determine what’s missing, right?”

  He cocked an eyebrow in bewilderment. “You suspect they stole your underwear?”

  “No, but if none’s taken, we can rule out some weird fetish as a reason for the break-in.” She returned to her counting. “Everything’s here,” she announced and replaced the garments in her bureau.

  Disappointment surged through him. Better some testosterone-charged weirdos had invaded the house than fanatical terrorists, he thought, wishing he could find what was taken so he’d know for sure.

  He and Cat had moved to Marc’s and Gabe’s rooms, leaving Trace’s room for last.

  “Looks like you’ve already cleaned up in here,” she observed from the guest room doorway.

  At the sight of her golden-blond curls tied back from her delicately sculpted face with a scarf, intelligent blue eyes that had taken in the room’s condition with a glance and delectable curves that neither the plaid shirt nor faded jeans could hide, he took a deep breath and struggled to regain his equilibrium. “I straightened up some before I went down for breakfast, but the bathroom’s still a mess. Someone upended a bottle of bath salts in there.”

  She crossed the room and entered the adjoining bathroom. “Whew! Smells like a brothel in here.”

  “Really?” he teased. “How would you know?”

  She wrinkled her nose in a fetching grimace, and he noted with heart-stopping clarity the faintest trace of freckles scattered across her cheeks, an endearing remnant of the teenager he used to call the Pest.

  “Because,” she announced in a choking voice, “the stench is cheap, tawdry and overdone.”

  “At the risk of sounding rude—if you feel that way about those bath salts, why were they here?”

  She grinned. “You men don’t get it, do you? Why else? Their color matched the tile. I never expected anyone to actually use them.”

  He joined her in the small room and wielded the broom to sweep the crystals on the floor into a pile while she cleaned the vanity. With the odorous salts captured in a dustpan, he approached the toilet to dump them.

  “Don’t,” Cat warned.

  “Why not?”

  “They’re the foaming kind. I don’t know what they’d do to the plumbing or the septic tank.”

  With a shrug, he dumped the offensive crystals into the wastebasket.

  Cat was studying something on the now-clean vanity. “What’s this?”

  “My shaving kit.”

  “I’ve never seen one like it.”

  “Prince Asim gave it to me. It’s crocodile skin.”

  “Do you mind if I open it? I’ve been trying to think of what to give Dad for his birthday, and something like this might be just the thing.”

  The home invaders had emptied the kit, but he’d reassembled it that morning after he shaved.

  “Here, I’ll open it for you.” He grabbed the kit, unzipped it, and with his back to her discreetly palmed the condoms the prince had so generously provided.

  “This would be perfect,” Cat said. “It has everything. A place for your razor, brush, comb, toothbrush, nail clippers. What goes here?” She pointed to the pocket where the condoms had been.

  “Band-Aids,” he improvised, slipping the condoms into the pocket of his jeans, “for when I cut myself shaving. But I’ve used them all up.”

  “What fits inside this flap with the leather strap across it?”

  “A stainless steel mirror.”

  But the mirror was gone.

  “It was there yesterday.” Trace glanced around the bathroom but saw no sign of the mirror. “I must have missed it when I was cleaning up.”

  He went into the bedroom to search, getting on his hands and knees to look under the furniture, but he couldn’t find the mirror. Irritated at losing what had been a handy item, he intensified his hunt. Cat joined him.

  After they’d turned the guest room upside down, they finally admitted defeat.

  “Looks like we found what’s missing,” Cat said.

  “You think they took the mirror? What would they want with a piece of smudged stainless steel—”

  Smudges.

  Fingerprints.

  If someone wanted to verify Trace Gallagher’s identity, the mirror would be the perfect tool. Trace needed to talk to Wentworth immediately, but he didn’t dare use the Ericksons’ phone. If the terrorists had broken in, they could easily have tapped the line.

  “The mirror’s no great loss.” Not wanting to alarm Cat, he shrugged and attempted to appear indifferent. “I could have remembered wrong. Maybe I misplaced it somewhere along the way on my trip from Tabari.” Before she could raise further questions, he changed the subject. “Can I ride along when you take Megan her clothes? I’d like to see the MacIntosh
dairy.”

  “Sure. Her bag’s all packed. If we go now, we can be back here for a late lunch, then tackle the downstairs rooms.”

  Cat left to get Megan’s things, and Trace made one last desperate search for the mirror.

  It was nowhere to be found.

  LESS THAN THIRTY minutes later, Trace and Cat arrived at the MacIntosh place, a rambling two-story Victorian farmhouse set on a hill and shaded by tall trees. A huge red barn, a long white dairy barn and other outbuildings sprawled behind it. Unable to admit he’d been there many times before with both Cat and Marc, Trace made the appropriate comments of a first-time visitor. As they approached, he listened attentively to Cat’s explanation of the workings of the dairy.

  No sooner had they stepped from the SUV than Megan, followed by another pint-size female, raced to meet them. His throat tightened at the sight of his daughter, a perfect amalgam of him and Cat, barreling down the path. She launched herself against his legs and threw her arms around his knees, almost upsetting him in her enthusiasm.

  “Trace, come see the kittens. You, too, Mommy.”

  “Remember your manners,” Cat warned. “Introduce Trace to Jessica.”

  The other little girl, a negative image of Megan with her dark eyes and hair, hung back shyly, twisting a stray curl around her index finger.

  “Hello, Jessica. I’m Trace.”

  “Hi.” It was the barest whisper.

  “Hey, Jessica,” Cat said. “Why don’t you and Megan wait for us in the barn? We’ll be out to see the kittens after I’ve spoken with your grandmother.”

  With obvious relief, the little girl took off toward the back yard with Megan on her heels. Their giggles floated to Trace on the breeze, and he wished the world were as carefree and innocent as those little ones made it seem.

  After taking Megan’s overnight bag and Pooh Bear from the car, he followed Cat up the walk to the front porch.