Licensed to Marry

by Charlotte Douglas

  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.<
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  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.”