Montana Secrets. Charlotte Douglas

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.