Code Name: Cowboy

by Carla Cassidy

  When Jesse left, Cameron turned to Alice, who’d sank onto the sofa, hands tightly clasped in her lap. “We need to talk,” he said.

  “About what? There’s nothing to talk about.” The words came quickly, defensively from her. Her face was pale, her eyes huge.

  “I’ve got something to tell you.” He walked across the room and sat down next to her. “You have a right to know what’s going on. I think I know who the man was who was in town asking questions.”

  “Who?” He felt her tension...or was it fear? It rippled from her in waves. Cameron didn’t know what caused it, couldn’t take the energy to try to figure it out. He knew by telling her about Samuel, he’d only add to whatever burden it was she carried. But she had to know. She had a right to know that she and Rebecca might possibly be in danger.

  “His name is Samuel Blankenship. He was released from prison yesterday and I believe he’ll be coming for me.”

  Some of the tension left her and color slowly filtered back into her cheeks. “Who is he and why would he come after you?”

  He looked toward the staircase. Rebecca’s voice drifted down, barely discernible as she talked to her animals and played a make-believe game. He didn’t want Rebecca to hear him, didn’t want her to realize that there were real people monsters in the world and no magic lasso he threw could keep them away.

  He raked a hand through his hair and chose his words carefully, not wanting to dredge up any more of the past than was necessary. “Samuel and I were partners. We worked together for several years. Samuel began breaking the law, taking payoffs instead of doing his job. I was instrumental in getting him arrested and sent to prison. I think he’s coming after me looking for revenge.”

  “You were more than partners, weren’t you?”

  He looked at her, surprised by her perceptive guess. “Yeah...we were best friends...like brothers. I thought I knew his heart better than anyone. I trusted him like I never trusted anyone in my life...and he betrayed that trust.” His final words rang with bitterness.

  Again his stomach knotted painfully and he stood, unable to sit next to her and speak of Ginny. He didn’t want to talk about Ginny at all, but the emotions he’d tapped pressed hard and tight in his chest, and he had to release them. “There was a woman.

  Her name was Ginny. She was twenty-one when I met her. She was working as a checker in a supermarket. Her parents were dead and she was alone in the world, struggling to get by and trying to save money for college.”

  He paced the length of the room, then back again, remembering Ginny as she had been in those early days of their friendship. She’d been a sweet girl, eager to please and hungry for approval. “I loved her. She reminded me of Elena in a lot of ways. We talked about the future, planned our lives together. Eventually we moved in together.”

  Leaning against the fireplace, he stared at a spot just over Alice’s left shoulder, unable to meet her gaze as his memories swept over him. “The three of us, Ginny, Samuel and I were together all the time. I was working a part-time security job as well as my work with Samuel, and sometimes when I had to work, I encouraged Samuel to take Ginny to the movies or out to eat so she wouldn’t get lonely without me.” He laughed, a bitter expulsion of energy.

  He turned to face the fireplace. “Surely you can guess the rest. It’s such a damned cliché. I came home from work early one day and caught the two of them in bed together.”

  He jumped as Alice’s hand touched his arm. He turned to see her eyes filled with tears...the tears he had never cried, the tears he couldn’t cry. “Oh Cameron, I’m so sorry. You must have been so hurt...felt so betrayed.”

  He stepped away from her, fighting the impulse to clutch her in his arms, lose his memories and himself in her sweet warmth. He’d told her she couldn’t hide in him, and he refused to hide in her.

  “Anyway...that day I stood in the bedroom long enough to tell Samuel he was a dead man, then I left. I walked for hours, trying to get rid of the most enormous rage I’d ever felt. When I finally returned to the apartment Ginny and all her things were gone.”

  “You never saw or heard from her again?” Alice asked softly.

  He shook his head. “Anyway, I got word that Samuel told his bunk mate in prison that he had unfinished business with me. I’m sure he hates me for being responsible for sending him to prison.”

  “You said you and this man worked together. What kind of work did you do?” Alice asked.

  He hesitated before answering, oddly for the first time in his life not proud of what he’d done before. “Bounty hunting.”

  Once again the color seeped from her cheeks. “Bounty hunting?” She repeated the words as if they were foreign to her.

  “Yeah, you know, we hunted fugitives from justice and made sure they faced their day in court.”

  “Mommy, I gave my teddy a bath and now he’s all icky.” Rebecca’s distressed voice drifted down the stairs.

  “I’d better go up to her,” Alice said, her voice high and strained. She turned and raced up the stairs. Cameron stared after her, wondering what the hell he had said that had her looking like a stunned deer in the glare of headlights.

  Chapter 10

  A bounty hunter. Dear God in Heaven, she’d chosen a bounty hunter’s house in which to hide. A bounty hunter...a man who hunted criminals for a living, a man who detained and arrested people for money.

  She and Rebecca had to leave...they had to run, from this house, from this man before he found out that she was probably a fugitive from justice.

  She paced the confines of her bedroom, her mind whirling. After learning his previous occupation, she’d somehow managed to pass the remainder of the evening as if nothing was wrong, as if her nerves weren’t jumping, her adrenaline not pumping. She’d dried Teddy, bathed and tucked Rebecca into bed, then had come to her bedroom to think...and plan.

  Thank God. She moved to the window and stared out into the dark of night. Thank God she hadn’t told Cameron anything about her past...about Broderick and Ruth’s threats.

  Alicia had read enough about bounty hunters, seen enough movies about them that she knew most of them would turn in their own mother if the bounty price was big enough.

  It was obvious from the condition of the ranch that Cameron wasn’t exactly prosperous. How much money would Broderick have placed on her head? Most assuredly a small fortune.

  Would her night of lovemaking with Cameron circumvent any desire Cameron had in turning her in? It was a chance she didn’t want to take.

  They had to leave. She moved to the window and frowned into the dark, moonless sky. They couldn’t leave tonight. She had no car. An hysterical burst of laughter threatened to escape her lips.

  How ironic, that the ranch where she’d chosen to hide was owned by a bounty hunter. Did life get more incongruous than this?

  She left the window and paced the floor of the bedroom. Okay, they couldn’t leave tonight, but Wally said he hoped to have her car ready sometime late tomorrow.

  In the morning when Cameron was outside, she would pack them up. When Wally called to say her car was ready, she’d have Cameron take her to the garage, she’d drive back here and pretend nothing was the matter.

  Then, tomorrow night while he slept, she and Rebecca would leave...disappear from his life. She sank down onto the edge of her bed, her heart aching as she thought of never seeing Cameron again.

  She was precariously close to falling in love with him, had been perilously close to telling him her secrets...secrets that could have yielded him enough money to build an empire, secrets that would have Alicia losing the most precious thing in her life...Rebecca.

  She sighed and bit back hot tears. Rebecca. She’d blossomed in their time here, blossomed beneath Cameron’s gentle care. She would be crushed when Alicia told her they had to leave, that it was once again time to pack up and start anew someplace else.

  Rebecca had begun to think of the Last Hope Ranch as home. Her nightmares came less frequently an
d her smile and laughter more readily. She’d felt safe here, secure in the knowledge that Cameron the cowboy would keep her safe.

  “Dammit.” Alicia swiped at her tears and curled up on the bed. She was tired. So very tired. Exhausted from worry, from looking over her shoulder, tired of being afraid every minute of every day. When would it end? Would it ever end? With a weary sigh, she gave into the sleep that beckoned, knowing that when she awakened it would once again be time to run.

  She awoke just after dawn and pulled herself hurriedly out of bed. She’d forgotten to set the alarm the night before and was later than usual.

  As she dressed, she smiled bitterly at her thoughts. So, she was late? What was Cameron going to do...fire her? She wasn’t staying anyway.

  Still, aware that she needed to keep things as normal as possible, once dressed she hurried to the kitchen, surprised to find Cameron there and the coffee already made.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. I overslept.”

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter this morning. Not much work will get done today.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

  He gestured toward the window. “Haven’t you looked outside?”

  Dread building inside her, she approached the window and peered out. Snow. Mounds of it. It already completely covered the ground and continued to fall from the sky in copious thick flakes.

  Alicia stifled a low moan. She whirled around to face Cameron. “Have you heard the weather forecast?”

  “Yeah. They’re calling for snow,” he said dryly.

  “How much?”

  “A foot has already fallen and there’s no end in sight. I’d say you are getting your first taste of Montana winter in a big gulp.”

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted him to hold her and tell her everything would be all right. Instead she poured herself a cup of coffee and tried to pretend the snow didn’t devastate her, her life wasn’t overwhelming her.

  When Jesse had first shown up the night before and told them about somebody asking questions, her initial thought had been that Broderick had found them. It was only after Cameron had told her about Samuel Blankenship that her nerves had calmed down.

  She hoped he was right. She hoped it was Samuel looking for Cameron and not Broderick seeking her. She’d tried to be so careful, tried so desperately hard not to do anything that would leave a trail, point a finger to their whereabouts.

  She sipped her coffee and sat down at the table across from Cameron. The heat of the coffee found the cold places inside her with soothing warmth. Okay, it was snowing. Surely in the next day or so her car would be fixed and the roads would be cleared. As she relaxed, Cameron’s words from the night before replayed in her mind.

  Last night when he’d told her about Samuel and Ginny, she’d been too distraught about her own problems to consider his. Now the import of his words slammed into her.

  According to Cameron this man, this Samuel Blankenship was coming after him with anger and a need for revenge burning in his heart. Was it possible Samuel Blankenship meant to kill Cameron?

  How could Cameron sit so calmly, sipping his coffee as if he hadn’t a care in the world? How could he speak of revenge and retribution as if it were a natural part of his world? What kind of a man was he?

  “Are you frightened?” The words left her mouth before she was conscious of them forming in her head.

  “Frightened? Of the snow?” One dark eyebrow quirked upward.

  “No...of this Samuel. Aren’t you afraid of confronting him?”

  His features tightened and a muscle throbbed in the side of his neck. For a long moment he stared into his coffee cup, the throb of the muscle increasing with each breath he took. “I don’t go looking for trouble, but if it finds me I’ll deal with it. I guess I’ll just have to deal with Samuel when he appears.”

  “I’m not sure I understand. If you were bounty hunters working together, how was he cheating and betraying you?”

  Cameron waited before answering. He finished the coffee in his cup, then stood and poured himself another. He rubbed a hand across his brow, as if the very act of thinking back to that time in his life made him weary.

  He didn’t answer until he was once again seated across from her. “I don’t even know when his deceptions began. We’d been close as brothers, partners for three years when I noticed our success rate had dropped dramatically. We’d get tips about a criminal’s whereabouts, but it seemed when we got to that particular place, we were too late and he’d already moved on. There were times we missed them by mere hours. Once or twice, I wouldn’t have suspected anything, but it was happening again and again.”

  “Samuel was warning them?”

  He nodded, his eyes dark and hooded. “I didn’t want to believe it at first.” He rubbed his forehead, then raked his hand down and across his jaw. “I suspected, but I couldn’t believe, didn’t want to believe.”

  He sighed and leaned back in the chair. “He was finding them and giving them an opportunity to pay him rather than be hauled in. They’d pay him off and he’d give them twenty-four hours to disappear.”

  “What happened? When you finally figured out what he was doing, what did you do?”

  Again a look of intense weariness swept over his features, making her sorry she’d asked, sorry she’d dug into areas of such apparent pain.

  “For a while, I did nothing. I kept thinking Samuel would stop, would turn around, would realize what a mistake he was making. But, when he didn’t stop, I had to make a decision. It was the most difficult decision I’ve ever made. I had to turn him in.”

  His features tightened, the weariness falling away. “He made a mockery of everything we stood for, he traded money for his honor and assumed I’d cover for him.” His eyes glittered dangerously. “I misjudged him, but he definitely misjudged me.”

  Alice realized now why Cameron was a man who kept to himself, refused to allow anyone close to him. Betrayed by the woman he loved and by his best friend, it was no wonder he was afraid to trust anyone.

  And she was no better than Samuel and Ginny. She’d betrayed Cameron as well, lying to him about her past, about her present. He didn’t even know her real name.

  Remorse swept through her, a deep ache for herself... a mirror ache for him. She longed to confess to him, but fear had become such an integral part of her life and she simply couldn’t overcome it to make a confession to him.

  She poured herself another cup of coffee and sank down at the table. “When do you expect this Samuel to show up?” She suddenly realized if danger approached Cameron, it also came far too close to her and Rebecca.

  “The snow bought me some time. Samuel hates snow.” He laughed, a short, staccato burst that had nothing to do with merriment. “He’s almost phobic in his hatred of snow. He’ll hole up someplace until the storm is over.”

  “And when the storm is over?”

  He raked a hand through his hair and expelled a deep sigh. “Then he’ll come.”

  She fought the impulse to reach out to him. “I’m frightened for you.” He looked at her in surprise. “You should have told Jesse,” she continued. “You should have insisted he put a guard on you or something.”

  Cameron smiled, although the gesture did little to lighten the darkness in his eyes. “Somehow I feel like this confrontation with Samuel has to happen.” His hand tightened around his coffee mug, so tight his knuckles whitened. “We need closure between us.”

  “But you said yourself he’s coming for revenge, not closure. He could kill you.” She finally said the words that sent horror sweeping through her.

  “I intend to do my best to see that doesn’t happen,” he replied dryly. “My concern is for you. I thought about this all night long, about you and Rebecca and Samuel. The man I knew would never do anything to hurt a woman or a child, but I don’t know how much prison time has changed Samuel.”

  It was a perfect opening, a perfect way for her to leave and not have Came
ron suspect her reasons for leaving. She got up and moved to the window. The snow still fell, the wind creating drifts in the snow that had already fallen.

  Time. The snowstorm bought her a little more time with Cameron. When the snow stopped and the roads cleared, Samuel would come for Cameron and Alicia would leave with Rebecca.

  She turned back to Cameron. “If Rebecca and I leave here...you could come with us. We could travel for a while or find someplace to stay until Samuel gets tired of looking for you. Surely he won’t hunt for you forever. Eventually he’ll want to get on with his life.”

  His gaze held hers, sharp and focused. “I’m not willing to run from what chases me. I won’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”

  “Mommy...snow! It’s snowing!” Rebecca’s excited squeals preceded her into the kitchen, halting the conversation between the two adults. “Can we go out and play in it? I want to play in it and build a snowman with a carrot nose and a gumdrop smile. Please...please...I got my fingers crossed.”

  “First things first,” Alicia told her daughter. “And first is breakfast.”

  As she began making the morning meal, despair swept through her. She loved Cameron. She could no longer fool herself, no longer deny the emotion that filled her heart, beat in her veins.

  She loved him with all her heart, all her soul. She had no idea what he felt for her, and in any case it didn’t matter. As long as he refused to run and she refused to stop running, it simply didn’t matter.

  Cameron stood at the window, sipping coffee and watching Rebecca and Alice frolic in the snow. It had snowed hard nearly all day and Alice had insisted Rebecca wait to play outside until it eased up a little. She’d managed to put Rebecca off until after they’d eaten an early supper. By then the flurry of heavy snow had ebbed and gigantic fluffy flakes floated down from the heavy gray clouds.

  The two females were busy rolling balls to form a snowman. The base had already been done and they now worked to roll the middle section.