She led him through the front door and into the yard. When they were out of earshot of the cowboy guard posted on the porch, she whispered, “Nicole was giving us a clue.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Her hands. The way she was holding the newspaper.” She illustrated. “On one side, she held it with her thumb and forefinger. On the other, she had three fingers outstretched.”
He studied her hands for a moment. “A circle on one side. And the letter
M
on the other.”
The Circle M Ranch, headquarters for the Sons of Freedom, was the clue.
“It’s time,” Carolyn said tersely. “We need to pay Sam Logan a visit.”
Carolyn knew how to control her emotions. Since childhood, she’d been trained to keep her outbursts to herself.
Never cry. Never shout. Don’t even laugh too loud
.
But the rage she felt as she took the turnoff leading to the Circle M surged too close to the surface. Her pulse raced like a stampede. If Sam Logan had done this terrible thing, if he’d snatched Nicole, she’d kill that bastard with her bare hands.
She pulled onto the shoulder and parked.
“What’s wrong?” Burke asked.
“I need to get a grip.” Fiery embers exploded behind her eyelids. She could barely see straight. “I’m fighting mad.”
He removed his sunglasses. “Look at me, Carolyn.”
As if that would do any good
. Burke wasn’t the most calming presence in the world. “Leave me alone. I’ll manage.”
But he cupped her chin and turned her face toward him. She had no choice but to stare into his dark eyes. His gaze held her. In the morning sunlight, his irises were a rich, chestnut brown. His features seemed set in granite.
“How do you do it?” she asked. “In your job, you deal with bad guys all the time. How do you keep from lashing out?”
“Do you hunt?”
“Only with a camera.”
A smile twitched his lips. “You grew up on a ranch and you don’t hunt?”
“I don’t like killing animals. What’s your point?”
“My hunting analogy was supposed to make you think of focus. Emotion comes from your right brain. The left brain is logical. If you start thinking with logic, planning what move you’re going to make next, you’ll pull some of the focus away from your anger.”
“Planning,” she said. “I’m good at planning.”
“Think about what you’re going to say to Logan.” His voice was calm. “Concentrate on what steps we need to take. Once we’re inside the SOF compound, we need to assess the area. Make a mental map of the buildings. If they’re holding Nicole, where is she? Who would know where she is? Somebody must be bringing her food and water. Which person is most likely to help us?”
“Think of the end goal.”
“We need names,” he said. “Usually, I can count on Corelli to pull up this kind of information, but the SOF is too insignificant to be on the FBI radar. If we have individual names, we can run them through our database.”
“I’m good at remembering names.”
“Me, too.” He caressed her chin. “You’re trembling.”
“Holding back my anger.” She needed an immediate release—a way to express the raging emotion that rushed through her veins.
“How can I help?”
Without thinking of the consequences, she slid out from behind the steering wheel and across the bench seat of the truck. She moved into his arms, pressing against him.
They kissed, hard and fierce. She willingly surrendered to her passion. Her body arched toward him. The pressure of his mouth against hers sparked a fire within her. It felt good.
A controlled burn. Like the kind the forest rangers set to stop a wider conflagration.
Her lips parted. She drew his tongue into her mouth. Her senses went wild. Every cell in her body responded to him.
When he separated from her, she was breathing in gasps. She hadn’t cooled down. In fact, the opposite. But this fire made her stronger, braver, better. She felt like she could take on the world. One creepy ex-boyfriend like Sam Logan was no problem.
She turned the key in the ignition and drove to the gate outside the Circle M. Between sturdy gateposts, a double-wide gate—about five feet tall with horizontal white slats—was latched and locked with a chain. A dusty-looking cowboy ambled toward them, rifle in hand.
Carolyn parked at the side of the road, hopped down from the truck and strode toward him. “Tell Sam Logan that Carolyn Carlisle has come calling.”
“Don’t care,” he said defiantly. “Nobody gets in. No trespassing.”
“Use your cell phone.” She wasn’t about to let some half-baked guard stand in her way. “Tell Logan I’m here.”
Burke had gotten out of the truck and stood behind her. The cowboy glanced toward him, then back to her. “I’ll call.”
She and Burke stepped back. His kiss still burned on her lips, and she was incredibly attuned to his presence. If they’d been alone, she would have been all over this tall, handsome fed, but that wasn’t an option. She was here to gather information from the SOF, to find Nicole.
She leaned against the hood of the truck and watched as the cowboy returned to his guard position and took out his cell phone. Burke stood beside her.
“Logan will be out here in a minute,” she said. “You were right about his ego. He won’t be able to resist bragging about how he’s the big shot leader of a gang of crazies.”
“After he shows, what’s your plan?”
“I’ll get him to invite us in.”
Though she kept her focus on logic, she couldn’t think of a single rational reason why Logan should open his doors to her. Her method of persuasion had to be based on emotion. She’d mention their past relationship. “Have you ever been in love, Burke?”
“Have you?”
“You’re doing that negotiator thing,” she said. “Answering my question with a question of your own.”
“Yes, I’ve been in love. It changed my life.” Through his sunglasses, he looked at her. “And you?”
“Not with Logan. When we were together, it seemed like the right time to get married and settle down on the ranch. But I didn’t love him.”
“How did he feel about you?”
“It might have been love.” She’d had years to analyze this failed relationship. “Or he might have been in love with the idea of getting a piece of Carlisle Ranch. My father liked him. If we’d married, Logan would be a rich man today.”
“Maybe,” Burke said, “he was using you.”
A rueful awareness seeped into her thoughts. Years ago, when she broke up with Logan, he’d seemed shattered. He’d tried everything to win her back. “You think he was only after my money?”
“It fits the profile for a cult leader—someone who’s manipulative, egotistical and uncaring about the needs of others. With SOF as his power base, Logan has found a way to use these people and, apparently, to provide himself with an income.”
“All these years,” she said. “I’ve felt guilty for rejecting him.”
“Which is how he wanted you to feel.”
The road on the opposite side of the gate led to a barn. A stand of trees blocked the view of the house and the other outbuildings.
Logan rode toward them on that road. A majestic sight on his pure white horse. His dark brown leather vest looked like a doublet. He was bareheaded, and his long blond hair flowed past his shoulders and glistened in the sunlight.
At the gate, he reined his horse and looked down at her. In the six years since she’d seen him, she’d forgotten how truly good-looking he was. Not as tall as Burke, but broad-shouldered and lean. His features were as picture-perfect as a movie star’s. No wonder she’d fallen for him.
Carolyn ambled toward the gate. She climbed the slats to the top rung, making her nearly as tall as Logan on horseback. She looked directly into his baby blue eyes. “Well? Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”
“You look good, Carolyn. City life agrees with you.”
Instead of giving him the satisfaction of telling him that he was still as gorgeous as ever, she patted his horse’s neck. “This is a fine-looking stallion.”
“I’m keeping him for stud.”
“Is that what you do here?” She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smirking. “Stud service?”
“We train horses. One of my men is Butch Thurgood, a rodeo champion bronc rider.”
She’d never heard of Thurgood, but Carolyn didn’t keep up with the latest rodeo news. “I’d like to meet him.”
“I remember when you used to be the queen of the barrel race.” He glanced toward the guard with the rifle. “Back in the day, me and Carolyn were a couple. I considered marrying this young woman, joining with her to become part of the all-powerful Carlisle family. Imagine that. Me, being a corporate, capitalist stooge?” He gave a completely phony laugh. “I came to my senses and saw the error in my ways.”
Spare me the sermon
. “Last night, when my brother and the sheriff came by, your men wouldn’t allow them to enter.”
“We don’t recognize the law represented by Sheriff Trainer.” He looked past her to Burke. “Or by your friend over there. FBI?”
“Special Agent J. D. Burke.” He took a step forward. “I haven’t come here to accuse you, Logan.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t have a search warrant or a judge’s order,” Burke said. “Carolyn and I are merely looking for information. We want to talk to your people. To find out if anyone saw anything suspicious last night when Nicole Carlisle was kidnapped.”
Logan sneered. “The government and the agents of the government are liars.”
“I’m not armed.” Burke held his coat open, showing his empty shoulder holster. Apparently, he’d left his handgun in the truck. “I just want to ask questions.”
“We’re neighbors,” Carolyn said. “Aren’t neighbors supposed to help each other in times of need?”
“Carlisle Ranch represents the establishment. You and your brother are the nemesis of freedom.”
She tamped down her anger. It wouldn’t do any good to insult him. “You knew my father, Logan. He liked you, believed in you.”
“Sterling Carlisle was a good man.”
“I’m not your enemy.”
Not yet, anyway
. “Please let me come inside. I’m worried about Nicole. Maybe one of your people saw something. Maybe they can help me find her.”
He dismounted, passed the reins to the guard and unlocked the gate. With a sweeping gesture, he announced, “I have nothing to hide.”
Entering the Circle M, she strode down the road, flanked by Logan and Burke.
In her younger days, she’d been satisfied in a relationship
with a handsome cowboy like Logan. Now, she needed more complexity, more depth and a hundred times more honesty—qualities Burke had in abundance.
In a conversational tone, Burke asked, “How many people live here at the Circle M?”
“Gathering information for your FBI database?”
“We keep track of groups like yours,” Burke admitted. “But I’ll tell you the truth, Logan. We don’t have a listing for Sons of Freedom. You’re not dangerous enough to be on the radar.”
“Just because you haven’t heard of me,” Logan said, “doesn’t mean I’m not important.”
“The FBI has bigger fish to fry. Terrorists. Hijackers. The Russian Mafia. Those are the real enemies of the state.”
Logan puffed out his chest, possibly hoping to inflate his bruised ego. “You have no idea who you’re talking to.”
“How many people have you got here? Ten or fifteen?”
“Twice that. Twelve men and fifteen women and children.”
“Husbands and wives?” Burke asked.
“We don’t believe in the overregulated institution of marriage.”
“How does that work?” Carolyn asked.
“If a couple chooses to be monogamous, their decision is respected. If not, that’s accepted.”
“Are you monogamous?”
“Not at present.” His blue-eyed gaze slid over her body. “Sorry, Carolyn. You already missed your chance to be with me.”
Silently, she thanked her lucky stars.
Burke asked, “How much acreage do you have?”
“Enough to live on. Nate Miller is trying to sell the rest of his land. Hasn’t had much luck.”
“And how do you pay the bills?”
“The Sons of Freedom are establishing a new way of life, based on the real foundations of America. Self-sufficiency, simplicity and old-fashioned hard work.” He glanced toward Carolyn. “I’m writing a book.”
The World According to Peabrain?
“I didn’t know you could write.”
“A man can do anything he sets his mind to.”
They were within sight of the main buildings. Compared to the Carlisle ranch house, the Circle M was plain and shabby. The house was a simple, one-story structure with beat-up siding the color of soured milk and a shingled roof in need of repair. The other outbuildings were equally ugly. A shiny, new double-wide mobile home was parked near the ramshackle barn.
She saw two women walking together. Each of the women’s hair was pulled back in a bun. Beneath their jackets, shapeless dresses hung to their ankles.
“Interesting fashion statement,” she said. “You say that a man can do anything. What about a woman?”
“Our women are respected and revered,” he said. “They’re the glue that holds civilization together. They raise our children, provide sustenance and create a healthful environment.”
To Carolyn’s ears, his language was code for cooking, cleaning and popping out babies. “That doesn’t sound like much of a life.”
“Not to someone like you.” His upper lip curled in a sneer. “A career woman.”
What did I ever see in this jerk?
His golden hair, broad shoulders and perfect features didn’t make up for his ridiculous, misogynistic ideas. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Because I’ve always been right.” His sneer turned into a dazzling white smile. “Our women are happy here. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to talk to them and hear for yourself.”
“Wonderful.” The way she figured, some of these respected, revered ladies had to be dissatisfied. They were probably the best lead to finding Nicole.
Two cowboys stalked toward them. Unlike their leader, they weren’t smiling.
Logan motioned to the taller of the two and issued an order. “Escort Carolyn to the kitchen. She can help the ladies prepare lunch.”
She hadn’t come here to peel potatoes. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather—”
“I do mind,” Logan said. “We have a division of labor. The men discuss business. And the ladies…”
“Prepare lunch?”
“I’m glad you understand. Run along now.”
Nobody, but nobody, told her to run along. She was the CEO of an international corporation. She negotiated with heads of state. She knew the governor.
But this wasn’t about her. She was here to get information about Nicole. And the women would probably be more sympathetic than the men.
Baring her teeth in a false smile, she said, “You boys have a good time. Don’t tire yourself out with too much heavy thinking.”
She pivoted and strode toward the ranch house.