Montana Secrets

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She’d had no such time with Ryan. The first she’d heard of the catastrophe had been the arrival of the Marine officers and the chaplain to inform her and her father of Ryan’s death and Marc’s injuries. Maybe if she could have said goodbye, could have at least laid Ryan’s body to rest in the family cemetery on the hill above the ranch, she could accept that he was gone.

As things stood now, five years after his dying, she still felt connected to him by some slim, tenuous but indestructible thread that wouldn’t let go. Her stubborn heart insisted on waiting for a man her head told her would never return. But her heart refused to listen.

Like a broken video recorder, her life was stuck on pause. She couldn’t move forward until she could free herself from the past. But the past wouldn’t let her go.

“Catherine? Got a minute?”

She glanced up with a start to find Todd Brewster standing in front of her desk. “Sure.”

The principal of Athens High was a good-looking man with the build of a college wrestling champion who had managed to keep in shape into middle age. The cuffs of his dress shirt rolled to his elbows, his loosened tie and open collar and his tousled blond hair indicated he’d had another busy day.

Smiling blue eyes in his boyish face looked at her. “You were lost in thought.”

She patted a stack of papers piled neatly on the corner of her desk. “End-of-school burnout. The last exam is marked, the last grade averaged. I’m ready for vacation.”

“That seems to be the general consensus around here,” he said with a warm grin, reminding her how much she liked him, how well-respected he was by both students and faculty. In the three years since he’d arrived at Athens High, he’d won the admiration of the entire community—and her undying friendship.

The only problem, she thought with a sigh, was that he wanted to be more than friends.

“How about having dinner with me tonight?” he said. “We can celebrate another successful year.”

“I doubt I’d be good company. I’m really tired.”

He didn’t press her, one of the many attributes she liked about him. “Another time then. But I want us to talk seriously soon. And I don’t want Snake Larson causing you any more problems.”

“How did you know about that?”

“I saw Gabriel at the café a couple weeks ago. He filled me in and asked me to keep an eye out in case Snake showed up here at school.”

Cat nodded with understanding. Ever since Todd had revealed an interest in her, her usually reserved and unassuming father had decided to play match-maker, and Todd had been his willing accomplice. Her dad had loved Ryan like a son, but with Ryan and Marc both gone and Gabe not getting any younger, he worried about leaving Cat and Megan alone.

“Dad put the fear in Snake,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “He’s nothing but a bully. All hot air and no action.”

Todd shook his head, his eyes worried. “Rumor has it he saw plenty of action in Billings. He’d have come home earlier if he hadn’t been serving time for assault. Got into a brawl over a woman.”

“I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.”

“You know it’s more than worry.”

The warmth in his voice was unmistakable, and for the first time, Cat felt tempted to accept Todd’s standing proposal of marriage. Alone, overwhelmed with responsibilities for the ranch and family, she realized Todd Brewster would make an ideal husband, a man she could always rely on, a man she could trust, a man whose company she enjoyed. Most compelling of all, he’d make a wonderful father for Megan.

But was he a man she could love?

Not as long as her heart belonged to Ryan Christopher.

“You still miss him, don’t you?” Todd had an uncanny ability to read her thoughts.

Cat nodded, unable to speak past the threat of tears that often caught her unawares at the mention of Ryan.

Todd reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. “He was your first love. You’ll always miss him. But you have to move on.”

“I know.” She blinked back the tears and forced a smile. “Can I take a rain check on that dinner?”

“You bet. Just name the date. I’ll see you tomorrow night at graduation.”

He gave her hand another gentle squeeze and left the room.

With the same nostalgia she experienced at the end of every school year, especially when she thought of her seniors, who wouldn’t be returning in the fall, Cat went through her checklist. She’d marked her students’ final grades on the standard computer forms, completed her textbook inventory and supplies requisitions for the fall semester, cleaned the ancient slate blackboards with lemon oil and cleared the top of her desk. All that remained was to straighten the rows of desks and close the tall windows.

Starting at the back of the classroom, she had shut half of them when she heard footsteps at her door. At first, she thought Todd had returned, but the figure backlit by the hall windows was too tall for the principal. Her pulse stuttered when she feared for an instant the tall man might be Snake Larson.

Then she recognized the broad shoulders and slender hips of the dark silhouette, a figure etched indelibly on her mind and heart, and she grabbed the nearest desk to keep her knees from buckling beneath her.

Dizzy with hope, joy and disbelief, she finally found her voice.

“Ryan? Is that you?”

Chapter Three

Kalila.

Ryan gritted his teeth to keep from speaking his special name for her aloud and stepped into the artificial brightness of the classroom’s fluorescent fixtures.

As he did, the hope and joy lighting Cat’s face dulled suddenly to disappointment. When she’d called his name in recognition, relief had flooded through him. She had known who he was, so keeping his identity secret was out of his hands. As he saw it, he had no choice but to let her know he was really Ryan.

His own mirror, however, should have made him realize what her face told him now.

She was looking at a total stranger.

Struggling to hide his emotion, he felt ripped between duty and desire. He couldn’t react, couldn’t show her how wildly happy he was to see her again, couldn’t sweep her into his arms and tell her how much he still loved her, how much he’d missed her, how sorry he was about Marc’s death. How concerned he was for her safety.

No, he had to think of himself as Trace Gallagher or he’d blunder and give everything away. One slip could prove fatal not only to him but to Catherine, as well. He had to be Trace Gallagher in every respect, act the part to the nth degree for his mission to succeed. Having to treat the woman he loved with remote politeness galled him, but he had no choice. Failure was unacceptable, because failure meant Marc Erickson’s killer and the terrorists who had murdered ninety-eight others would go unpunished, and he would be placing Cat’s life in danger.

Drawing on all his military discipline to tamp down the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him, resisting with every fiber of his being the desire to rush to her and hold her close, assuming a detachment he didn’t feel, he stepped into the classroom.

“Miss Erickson?”

Confusion replaced the disappointment in her summery blue eyes, but even wearing a puzzled expression, she was more breathtakingly attractive than ever. She’d matured in the last five years, at twenty-seven looking less like the ponytailed teenager he’d first met and even more like a woman than the person he’d last seen at twenty-two. An irresistibly alluring woman. Her underlying air of sadness and loss etched her face with character and lent her an aura of mystery and gravity that made her even more desirable.

He silently cursed his fate. She should have been his wife, and he had to treat her like a stranger.

“I’m Catherine Erickson.” She sank onto the nearest desk and clasped trembling hands in front of her. “Forgive me if I seem a bit shaken. I mistook you for someone else. A trick of the light, I guess.”

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.