Licensed To Marry. Charlotte Douglas

      Chapter One

      On a bright September morning, Kyle Foster raced toward his worst nightmare.

      Kicking gravel in his wake, he crossed the driveway, Stetson clutched to his head with one hand, in his other his toolkit banged against his thigh. With natural fluid grace and impressive strength from tough physical conditioning, he sprinted toward the waiting helicopter in the pasture. Determination glinted in his jade-green eyes and hardened the set of his square jaw.

      He ducked beneath the spinning rotors and grasped the strong hand of Daniel Austin, who pulled him aboard just as the craft lifted into the air. Kyle removed his hat, stowed his kit beneath his seat, settled his headset over his ears and looked down at the Lonesome Pony Ranch, shrinking below him as the chopper gained altitude.

      Molly, his three-year-old daughter, waved to him from the arms of Dale McMurty, the ranch’s cook and Molly’s surrogate grandmother. His gut cramped with fear when he thought of Molly with her mischievous eyes, green like his own, and masses of white-blond curls, whose plump face dimpled when she laughed, making even the toughest ranch hand smile. Deserted by her mother, she depended on Kyle for everything. There was no way he could botch this job and not come home to her.

      Home.

      Their snug cabin at the Lonesome Pony Ranch was home now. He and Molly had left the rush and turmoil of Los Angeles for the peace and quiet of Montana Yellowstone country, but the Lonesome Pony was not as serene as it appeared on the surface. The helicopter banked toward the western mountain range and Helena, and Kyle gazed at the deceptive landscape beneath him. Still resembling its former incarnation as a dude resort, the main house overlooked the pasture they had taken off from.

      Beyond the pasture ran Crooked Creek, teeming with life, a fly fisherman’s paradise. On the other side of the ranch house glistened the turquoise blue of the swimming pool, ringed with cabins, including the one where he and Molly lived. Farther from the house sat the massive barn and corrals, and behind them, archery and shooting ranges and a rodeo corral.

      A casual, even a close-at-hand observer could not discern the secret operations room, deep beneath the main house. Ostensibly a retirement and breeding ranch for horses, the ranch served as a cover and headquarters for the covert agents of Montana Confidential, founded by Daniel Austin.

      Kyle glanced at Daniel, sitting grim-faced in the seat beside him. In his mid-forties with sun-bleached blond hair and brown eyes framed with laugh lines, Daniel had the rugged good looks of a film star who becomes more handsome with age. But his boss was far more than an attractive face. A Texas Confidential agent for more than fifteen years, Daniel had put together the secret Montana group at the request of the Department of Public Safety. Their main purpose was to ferret out international terrorists believed operating in the state.

      Daniel returned Kyle’s gaze. “Got everything you need?” his boss’s rich voice asked through the headset.

      Swallowing the panic that threatened to well into his throat, Kyle nodded and tapped his kit with the heel of his boot. “Got all my tools. I’ll have to borrow body gear from the local bomb squad.”

      “You’ll do fine.” Daniel nodded in encouragement, and the compassion in his deep brown eyes spoke volumes.

      More than the other agents, Daniel understood the crossroads at which Kyle found himself, because Daniel knew the whole story. While the others regarded Kyle as the hero who had saved the Beverly Hills Hotel from destruction three years ago, Daniel knew the darker side of Kyle’s past: today would be the first bomb Kyle would face since his partner on the L.A. bomb squad had been blown to bits before his eyes.

      In a habitual gesture, Kyle rubbed the crescent-shaped scar that intersected his left eyebrow and felt the old wounds tighten across his chest. If he lived to be a thousand, he’d never forget that horrific day—or expunge his own guilt. His hands shook slightly, and he gripped his knees to hide his nervousness. Now others were counting on him.

      Including Daniel and his two new partners, sitting in the seats in front of him.

      Frank Connolly handled the chopper with the steady confidence and skill of a career military pilot. He still suffered twinges from the injury to his right knee, but if he experienced any qualms about flying after being shot down over Bosnia, Kyle couldn’t tell it from the skillful way Frank flew the helicopter. Only the slight tightening and flexing of his hands on the controls betrayed his tension. The chopper, supposedly at the ranch for patrolling fences and herding livestock, had its true purpose activated today: rapid deployment of the agents in emergency situations.

      “What’s our ETA?” Daniel asked.

      Frank spoke into his mike without taking his eyes from the terrain below. “Fifteen minutes to Helena.”

      “Cutting it close.” Daniel looked to Kyle.

      Kyle shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “From what the capitol police told us, they can’t read the timer on the bomb. We don’t know how long we have.”

      “Let’s hope we arrive in time for you to do your stuff, hotshot,” Court Brody spoke from the copilot’s chair.

      A few weeks earlier, Kyle would have taken Court’s comment as sarcasm. An FBI agent who had been assigned to the Montana Confidentials against his wishes, immediately upon his arrival Court had made clear his reluctance to be there. But after recently discovering he was a father and reuniting with his child’s mother, he had decided to stay in Montana and quit the FBI and join the Confidential team. Like Frank, Court appeared unflappable, but Kyle knew better. The tiny muscle ticking in Court’s jaw telegraphed his raw nerves. None of them knew what they were walking into.

      Or if they’d walk out of it alive.

      “Yeah,” Frank chimed in, his voice calm, steady. “If anyone can keep that monster from blowing the capitol to smithereens, you can do it, Kyle, old buddy.”

      Court turned and grinned. “Hope you handle a bomb better than you do a horse, greenhorn.”

      “Maybe I should give you bomb duty, cowboy,” Kyle joked back. “You could just lasso the damn thing. That’s how they do it in Montana, isn’t it?”

      “That’s right.” Court’s eyes twinkled. “Or I could just shoot it.”

      Their exchange of gallows humor helped, and Kyle settled back in his seat and tried to ease his residual anxiety by deep, steady breathing. He wished he felt the confidence the other members of the team had in him, but he couldn’t stop blaming himself for Buzz Williams’s death. Every second of that horrible day was etched indelibly in his brain. The memories made his gut cramp and his hands shake, a fatal problem for a bomb-disposal expert.

      He and Buzz had answered the call at the Hollywood Bowl hours before a rock concert. A groundskeeper had discovered the explosive device only minutes before, and while the uniformed officers cleared and cordoned off the area, Kyle and Buzz had studied the bomb.

      “It’s sophisticated,” Buzz said. “Nothing I ever saw before.”

      Kyle nodded in agreement. “Better back off and let me handle this one, kid.”

      “It’s my turn.”

      “This is something new. I’d better do it.”

      Buzz shook his head. “It’s as new to you as it is to me. Besides, how will I ever get experience if I don’t take a shot at it?”

      At the earnest pleading in Buzz’s boyish face, Kyle relented. “Just take it by the book, okay? And holler if you need me.”

      Kyle moved a safe distance away, but not so far he couldn’t observe Buzz’s work. Seconds ticked away like anxiety-filled hours, and Buzz lifted his head and caught Kyle’s eye. From that one look, Kyle knew the young man was in trouble, and he trundled toward him as fast as he could move in the cumbersome bodysuit.

      He