Montana Secrets. Charlotte Douglas

from the pizzerias and the street vendors. The wheels spinning in his brain took all his attention as he tried to put the pieces of the latest puzzle together. His contact in the American Embassy in Bahira had just called with an interesting and possibly disturbing tidbit of information.

      Trace Gallagher, an American who’d worked for years as Prince Asim’s bodyguard, who’d also been injured in the successful embassy bombing five years ago, a man Hutton had never heard of during his tenure in the embassy, had been secreted out of the country on a military transport yesterday headed for Washington, D.C.

      This morning, Hutton had received a call from his Pentagon informant. Trace had been taken directly to the Pentagon upon arrival in Washington and was undergoing a series of tests and debriefings. The informant had promised to call back when he had more details.

      Questions nagged at Hutton like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Why the sudden Pentagon interest in a civilian like Gallagher? Was it coincidence that the man had been in the embassy when the bomb, intended to kill the prince, had detonated? According to local gossip, the prince had spared no expense to keep the man alive.

      What was so special about one bodyguard out of dozens?

      Why the sudden rush to return Gallagher to the States?

      Hutton didn’t have the answers, and not knowing placed him at loose ends.

      He hated loose ends.

      Odds were Gallagher’s return had nothing to do with the Pentagon’s ongoing attempt to locate Hutton’s terrorist cell, but Hutton couldn’t afford to be careless. Diligence and attention to seemingly unimportant or unrelated details had kept him alive so far. He couldn’t slip up now, not with plans for the next attack almost ready for fruition.

      When his informant reported in again, Hutton would learn all he could about Gallagher. If the man was a threat, Hutton would simply have him eliminated.

      He allowed himself a rare smile. Death was always the best way to tie up loose ends.

      THREE WEEKS after Snake Larson’s unwelcome visit, Catherine Erickson gazed across the empty desks of her classroom to the windows that framed the towering Cabinet Mountains. Snow still crowned their peaks, but carpets of wild daisies edged the roadsides, and on the lower mountain slopes choke cherries, serviceberries and huckleberries were beginning to ripen.

      June would be arriving in a few days. June, the time for brides and weddings, the month she would have married Ryan if he’d lived. In the last few years, summer had become a season she struggled to get through, fighting anew the pain of loss. Only her adorable Megan, Ryan’s child, helped her to survive her grief.

      Remembering, she glanced to the back row by the window. The old wooden desk she’d occupied as a student, where she had carved her initials with Ryan’s and circled them with a heart, had been replaced a few years ago with more modern furniture with unyielding mica surfaces, but Cat felt the same ache, the same undeniable longing she’d experienced as a sixteen-year-old with her first crush.

      No matter how hard she tried to convince herself, she couldn’t come to grips with Ryan’s death. Losing her brother had devastated her, but at least with Marc she’d had some closure.

      God, how she hated that word.

      After nursing Marc for nearly a year, watching him waste away in a coma, she’d been almost relieved when he’d died, freed of his suffering. When he’d regained consciousness briefly before his death, she’d been thankful for the opportunity she’d had to tell him she loved him, to show him baby Megan, to say goodbye.

      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