Chapter Five
Bronco pulled his sweat-soaked do-rag off his head and ran his fingers through his hair. God, I need a shower. After a bit more brow beating, Bert had reluctantly approved adding Emma to the team with the proviso that Lucius be looped in on everything—just in case he was needed in an emergency. After wrangling about how that would work, Bert clarified, “Emma can get a message to me, and I can call Lucius.”
Bronco mulled over that little puzzle piece for about a minute, then decided his boss worked in mysterious ways, ones he had yet to discern. Perhaps he and Emma had a similar connection to the one she had with dogs and horses? He shrugged. As long as it worked, who cared?
Lucius came into the kitchen and handed Bronco a room key. “Here you go, pardner. You’re gonna need a place to stay and make plans. No way can you stay at Emma’s place. The Indian telegraph will have you married by the end of the day, if not sooner.”
Emma laughed. “He’s right. Our clan has been yapping at me about getting married, settling down and having babies. You can come home with me long enough to grab your bike and leave. Otherwise, the elders will be planning a wedding feast by sundown tomorrow.”
“I’m confused,” Bronco said scratching his head. “How are we going to make plans if we’re not together?”
“We can’t do anything in the absence of good intelligence, which if I understand how remote viewing works, means you do your best work when you’re rested and in a quiet space. The LaBelle is much quieter than my neighborhood, trust me. While Bert is working on his end, we can get organized. You can head back here and get cleaned up, while I connect with my ranch hand, Hank, to arrange for him to take care of my horses and my dogs. Plus, I’ll be packing a few girl things, since you said that was my secret weapon, and all.”
Mouth working like a fish, Bronco’s face flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel like a beauty contestant. I just know how those groups think. Women are objects to be used, arm candy, baby makers, sex objects, and tools of hatred. Die hard Neo-Nazis need their counterpart females to breed and create the New American Reich.”
She cocked her head and threw a quizzical look at him. “Hey, Lucius, is it just me, or does our friend sound like an encyclopedia of Neo-Nazi harangues? I thought you were an undercover biker, or is this your third alter ego? Who were you before you were with Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives?”
Bronco ducked his head to avoid looking Emma in the eye. Why’d she have to be so damn perceptive? Was she a mind reader? The best cover stories were constructed from truths—and half-truths. He shrugged. “I had some relatives who fell under the spell of a charismatic White Supremacist cult leader. They tried to recruit me, but I didn’t buy their bullshit.”
Her face softened. “I’m sorry to hear that. Where are they now?”
“Last known whereabouts was on a survivalist compound in Idaho. If they kept going down that violent path, my guess now is that they’re six feet under.” He could only hope. The last people he wanted to run into ever again were his abusive father—and his fraternal twin brother, Jack. Even though he’d only been a little kid, he remembered too well his father’s descent into madness and hatred. It was imprinted on Bronco’s soul.
His parents’ marriage had always been tumultuous, but when his father, Terence, aka, Terrible Terry Craig lost his job in a Detroit auto factory, he blamed his boss, the company, and everyone but himself. “The Mexicans took my job!” was his oft-repeated rant. Between drinking bouts, his father began meeting with like-minded men who decided it was time to head out West to the last frontier of White America. His father dragged his mother and the twin boys, Brandon and Jack, and began to home school them on the Neo-Nazi creed, along with survivalist living and paramilitary training. By the age of seven, both boys were able to field strip weapons and hit targets on a par with adults. Jack, the center of his father’s attention for once in his life, loved it.
Brandon hated every minute and prayed for a way out. One day his prayers were answered.
“Boys,” his mother called, “we need to go into town. The state’s been all over my case about getting you your vaccinations. Need to do it today or they’ll make trouble for us.”
Brandon leaped to his feet and ran for the door. Any excuse to get out of the compound, even for a doctor’s appointment, was a good one.
“Does Daddy know?” Jack hung back in the doorway, a suspicious look on his face.
“Yes, of course he knows. Now come on, the doctor said he could see us right away, so we’ve gotta go.” His mother strode for the door, the keys to the pick-up jangling in her hand, a large bag slung over her shoulder. “I’ve got just enough money to buy you boys some ice cream. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Jack?”
“I don’t want no needles.”
His mother hopped into the truck and turned the engine over. Brandon jumped in and shouted to Jack, “Beat you to the truck. I got shotgun.” He held the door open but Jack didn’t budge.
Jack bellowed from the door, his face contorted with rage, “I’m telling Daddy!”
White faced, his mother turned to Brandon and screamed, “Shut your door!” She hit the gas, and they blew out of the dirt driveway, past the shocked expression of the sentries dressed in camouflage, trying to close the gates to freedom.
When Brandon/Bronco was old enough to understand, his mother revealed that during the time they’d been living in the survivalist compound, she had been secretly meeting with undercover federal agents posing as hunters camping in a wooded area outside the enclave. In exchange for insider information on the survivalists who were amassing an arsenal large enough to blow up Boise, she arranged for new identities for her sons and herself. When Jack refused to come with them and threatened to tell her husband, she had no choice but to run. Had he caught her, he would have killed her.
“Bronco?” Emma’s voice brought him back to the present and the kitchen covered in Tallulah’s post-it notes. “You okay? Did you slip into remote viewing mode?”
He shook his head to clear the memories and tried to seal the hole that had been ripped in his heart. An aching void that had never been filled, because his other half was gone, swept up by hate. “No. Just thinking about those relatives and wondering what happened to them.” He shrugged. “Nothing to worry about, I’m sure they’re long gone now.”
“Grab your cat and let’s go.”
Gaucho, who was lounging in a spot of sun on the kitchen floor next to the pug, raised his head and glared at Bronco. You dare to interrupt my nap?
“I’d love to leave you here with your new playmate, but you know the drill.”
Looking more like a truculent teen than a bobcat, Gaucho slouched over to his partner and turned his head.
“Oh, so it’s gonna be like that, is it?” Bronco sighed. “We’ll be back in a little while, then you and Franny can play, snore and eat together, until our mission is clear.”
The cat shook his head and began to stroll toward the door, dragging his leash behind him.
Lucius chuckled, “See you later, pardner. We’ll leave the lights on and have a nice dinner in the works by the time you get back.”
Pocketing the room key, Bronco wished they had a better sense of where they were going and what they were doing. Emma was right. He needed a good night’s rest and a quiet space for his remote viewing, minus distractions—like the very provocative Ms. Emma Horserider and her searing kisses.
****
Emma plastered a grin on her face to cover the turmoil beneath, bid farewell to Lucius, and jogged for the truck at a pace her old drill sergeant would have approved. What was I thinking? She tried to convince herself that the kiss had merely been a test, like they did on TV at night for the emergency broadcasting system. But she knew she was lying—to him and herself. From the moment she set eyes on Bronco, she’d been drawn to him, a bedazzled moth to his sizzling flame. While his rugged good looks were a large part of the attraction, something more pulsed beneath those muscles and tattoos. Like the waves on a moonlit lake, darkness rose and fell in his eyes, turning them from bright blue to granite gray when it overcame him. She wanted to tell him his secrets were safe with her, no matter how bad they were. What had happened to him? How had he chosen this dangerous line of work—or had it chosen him?
Gaucho folded onto Bronco’s lap and resumed his napping. A short time into the ride, Bronco’s head fell back onto the headrest, and he too began to snore lightly. Emma drove on autopilot, the undulating green hills hypnotic and soothing.
Where had that earlier intense erotic vision come from? Definitely seared into her brain, when she closed her eyes the afterimage appeared, haunting her with its intensity and power to arouse her. Were Bronco’s remote viewing ability and her animal telepathy creating a subconscious link at the primal level? Would it happen again? Her biological clock was ringing its alarm loud and clear—but the timing? It wasn’t just bad, it was dangerous. She had to keep that man out of her head and her life. When the assignment was over, he’d get on his bike and ride away, just like every other romantic interest she’d ever had. No use getting involved with a man who didn’t understand her or her identity and heritage. She was her own woman, not some man’s appendage. Taking a deep cleansing breath, she envisioned a bullet-proof Plexiglas barrier around her thoughts—and her heart.
When the truck ran over a pothole on her street, Bronco jerked awake and looked around in confusion. “Did I fall asleep?”
“If you call snoring for the last hour sleeping, then yes, you did. Even Gaucho passed out.” She nosed the truck up to the curb. “Are you going to be okay to drive back to the hotel? Or do you need me to get someone to put the bike in a van and take you back?”
Shaking his head, Bronco said, “Nah, give me a cup of coffee and I’ll be ready to get out of your hair.”
“You’re exhausted. Bert would never forgive me if I let you become road kill. A waste of tax dollars.”
He yawned and scratched Gaucho’s head. “Okay, you convinced me. I’d still love a cup of coffee.”
“You got it. Come on in, I’ll give Jimmy’s mother a call.”
“Two-toes?”
“Yes, but her name is Marjorie Longjaw.” After placing the call and getting the woman to agree to pick Bronco up after dinner, she opened the door and was greeted by an eye-watering stench. “Taláashiile, your name fits you just right. You have butter for brains! That skunk doesn’t want to play with you.” The yellow lab mix wagged her tail and pranced. “I’m not kidding around. You must love that tomato and vinegar bath.”
At that the dog in question curled her lips and whined. “Outside. All of you.” The pack trooped out the back door, and the German Shepard mix named Bishké, or Dog, cast a long sad look over his shoulder. “I know it’s not your fault, Bishké, but you all stink now.”
Gaucho sniffed and sneezed, and Bronco coughed. “Wow. Nice welcome home.”
“Happens about once a month. She never learns.” Emma opened windows and turned on a ceiling fan. “I’ll put a pot of coffee on. I can use a cup, too.” She rummaged in the cabinets, pulling out mugs. “Milk and sugar?”
He nodded, sat in a kitchen chair, and winced.
“Oh, dear. You’re still saddle-sore, aren’t you?”
“You could say that.” He rolled his eyes. “I love my bike, but—”
“Hold that thought.” She had something in her garden that would help, assuming the skunk hadn’t sprayed the plant with his noxious fumes. Her fenced in back yard was part raised bed planters, part dog park, and completely her making. One side of her yard was lined with railroad ties and rebar boxes filled with loam. Protected from grazing deer, yarrow, sage, basil, bee balm, parsley, rosemary, dill, and other plants grew in profusion. She pulled some yarrow, or chipmunk tail, out and brought it into the house, placing the long green stems with lacy leaves into a pot of boiling water.
“What’s that smell?”
“Yarrow. It’s good on burns and sores. It will help your raw skin.” An image of applying compresses to his cute butt flashed into her mind. She pushed it away. She assumed a clinical tone. “I’ll pack up a container of the solution and some washcloths for you to take with you. After you take a shower”—Lord that was an image!—“apply wet compresses soaked in the yarrow tea to the affected areas. It will help.”
He crinkled his nose. “You’re saying the stuff that smells like cabbage is going to help my butt?”
“Yes.” She leaned on the edge of the sink to support her weak knees. His butt. Good grief. She had to get the man out of her house, but in the meantime. “Back in a bit. I need to take care of something. Enjoy your coffee.”
Emma strode into her bedroom, closed the door, threw herself on her bed, and screamed into her pillow. So much for her mental Plexiglas wall to keep her romantic thoughts at bay. What she needed was some distance. Or an armed perimeter. If her grandmother were here right now, Emma knew she’d be pushing Bronco into the bedroom, slamming the door shut, locking it and throwing away the key.
She could almost hear her saying. “He’s a good man. Why are you running away from him? Don’t you want children? You’re not getting any younger.” Emma bit her lips to keep from yelling back at the memories of her elder worrying about whether she’d ever find true love. Her grandmother had gone to her grave disappointed. No little ones to dandle on her knees. Was she really bullheaded in her independence?
The phone rang, and Emma rolled over. A county office phone number showed on the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“Emma, this is Tommy. There’s a motorcycle parked outside, and the neighbors are telling me a strange man, covered in tattoos is in your house. Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said through clenched teeth. “He’s a friend of my brother’s. In for a visit.”
“Seems pretty suspicious to me—and a lot of other folks, too,” he said in his little whiney voice. “I’m outside your door, happy to send him on his way if you need me to get rid of him.”
She stifled a moan. A high school classmate, Tommy Otterlegs, of all people, was the one her grandmother had favored and had kept pushing her to date. An ambitious bantam rooster of a man, he now worked as a sheriff’s deputy and had at one time tried to railroad Lucius into prison for attempted homicide. That hadn’t gone well for Tommy. Not that it kept him from still being a persistent suitor and nuisance. The short-legged man showed up at the most inopportune times, like now, sticking his nose into her business, as if he had a right to be there. Well, fine, she’d let him in. Get it over with, or he’d just pester her to death. “Be right there. Don’t mind the skunk smell.”
She strode past Bronco who nursed his coffee. Gaucho was spread across the rag rug like he lived there, playing with a dog toy. “One of our local constabulary has decided to stop in.”
Bronco quirked a brow. “Because…?”
“Indian telegraph.” She yanked open the front door, and the cocky little man sauntered in wrinkling his nose. “Tommy Otterlegs, meet Bronco Winchester. Bronco this is Tommy.”
The bobcat leaped to his feet and growled, a low, angry thrum ending in a hiss. He did not like this man, not one bit.
“It’s okay, Gaucho.” Bronco petted the cat’s head. “He’s harmless.”
Tommy bristled and put his thumbs in his belt loops. His index fingers pointed at his crotch. “You got a permit for that wild animal?”
Every freaking time she had a male caller the little snot had to show up and posture like a tiny cave man.
“Of course I do.” Bronco reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet which was secured to his pants on a chain. “Here you go. Federal and state.”
Tommy inspected the document as if examining it for forgery. “Where’d you get this thing?”
The cat hissed.
“His name is Gaucho, and he was an orphan. I bottle raised him.” Bronco tossed Emma a puzzled look and shrugged, as if to say, What’s his problem?
The little man frowned and handed the paperwork back to Bronco. “I’ll be on my way, but just so you know—” he glared at Bronco—“I’ve got my eyes on you. You better keep that cat under control.”
Bronco stood and stretched, towering a good foot over Tommy. “I’ll take that into consideration, Officer Otterlegs.”
Tommy flushed and blustered, “Deputy Sheriff Otterlegs.”
Bronco nodded. “You got it.”
Emma stood with the door open. “Good night, Tommy.”
As he strutted past her, he whispered, “Keep your phone handy. I don’t like the looks of this guy.”
“Point taken.” She slammed the door behind him. She didn’t like the looks of Bronco either. No, she loved the looks of the sex-up-against-the-wall biker man and that was just the start of her problems. Emma had to get him out of her house before she did something she regretted.
As if in answer to her thoughts, a horn honked outside.
“I think that’s my ride.” He scrambled for the door. “Hate to leave you with the stink, but—”
She laughed. “Sure you do.”
She’d have more luck de-scenting that skunk than she would getting him to stay after the assignment was over.
He grinned and gave her a two-fingered salute. “See you back at the hotel.”
As the white van pulled away from the curb, Emma closed the door and leaned against it with a sigh. Oh, my aching ovaries.