Licensed To Marry

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“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.”