Читать книгу Out Rider - Lindsay McKenna - Страница 9

CHAPTER ONE

OH, HELL! Devorah McGuire gripped the steering wheel of her truck, knuckles whitening as she felt the unexpected sway of her horse trailer behind her. Automatically, she tensed, taking her foot off the gas pedal and signaling to move onto the berm on the four-lane highway leading into Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The traffic at 9:00 a.m. on a Tuesday going into the popular tourist destination was fairly heavy. Everyone was heading into work, she supposed. Her buckskin mare, Goldy, was in the back of a two-horse trailer. She hadn’t heard one of the four tires blow out, but she’d sure felt it. Her trailer had two tires on each side to carry a horse’s weight.

Slowing, Dev eased the truck off onto the shoulder. It was wide enough to be able to pull the trailer safely out of traffic, and would allow her to walk around and inspect the trailer to see which tire had blown. She was worried what Goldy, her ten-year-old trail mare, thought about the sudden blowout, but Dev didn’t sense the horse was agitated. If a horse was stressed, it shifted nervously around in the trailer and it could be felt by the driver. The May Wyoming sky was threatening rain and she hoped to reach the Grand Teton National Park, about twenty miles north of Jackson Hole, before the cranky weather arrived.

Climbing out of the truck, dressed in Levi’s, a red flannel shirt and work boots, she pulled on her heavy winter coat because it was near freezing.

“Hey, girl,” Dev called to her mare as she walked to the blue-and-white trailer. “You okay?”

Goldy whickered, turning her head toward her.

Dev saw the blown tire right away. The trailer had a double axle to bear the weight of two one-thousand-pound animals. The front tire on the driver’s side was shredded. More concerned about her mare, Dev went to the other side, opened the side door that led into a small compartment where she could check on her horse and stow hay and other items. Dev smiled at Goldy. “Hey, girl, how you doing?”

Goldy whickered again, sticking her black nose forward toward Dev’s extended fingers. The mare had on a bright red nylon halter and the chain beneath it was fitted to a solid iron loop so she was not loose in the narrow stall.

“Did that scare you to death?” Dev asked her, gently rubbing the mare’s white blaze that divided the front of her dainty face. Goldy’s large brown eyes looked a little more unsettled than normal and Dev couldn’t blame her. Petting her and leaning forward, extending her hand across the mare’s thick winter-haired neck, she moved her long black mane aside. That touch would quickly settle her friend down, and so would her soothing, husky voice. The mare’s ears flicked back and forth and she began to relax once more beneath Dev’s long stroking motions across her neck.

“Heck of a welcome to our new digs, isn’t it, girl?” Dev asked, smiling at Goldy. The mare snorted and tossed her head.

Dev grinned and looked up, seeing a dark blue Ford pickup truck with a cab on the back of it pull up behind her. “We got company, big girl.” She gave Goldy one last pat and exited the compartment, shutting the door.

She noticed a tall man wearing a beat-up tan Stetson in the driver’s seat. On the side of his truck she saw the sign: Sloan Rankin, Farrier. He was a blacksmith. Rubbing her hands down the sides of her jeans in the cold wind, Dev watched him climb out of his truck. There was a big dog on the passenger side, looking somewhat like a German shepherd, ears pricked, watching intently through the windshield, fully focused on her.

The man was in his late twenties or maybe his early thirties, the Stetson he wore sweat stained around the crown and shaped so that the brim was set low over his pale blue eyes. He wore a green canvas barn coat, jeans and beat-up cowboy boots that were scuffed and well aged. Most of all, Dev liked the kindness she saw in his square weathered face. He wasn’t handsome but rugged looking, his eyes wide spaced, large and intelligent. His dark brown hair was cut short, brows straight across his eyes. She relaxed because she saw a faint smile tug at the corners of his well-shaped mouth as he approached her.

“Howdy, ma’am,” he said, touching the brim of his Stetson. “I saw you blow a tire back there,” he continued, gesturing behind him. “You all right? Your horse okay?” And he halted about six feet from her, lifting his chin, sizing up the horse in the trailer.

“Yes, I’m fine and so is my mare, thanks. You must have good eyes to have seen it happen that far back.” She gazed up at him. The look in his blue eyes reminded her of a soft midday summer sky, and it warmed Dev for no obvious reason.

He shrugged. “My ma and pa always said I was part eagle.” He held out his hand. “I’m Sloan Rankin.”

Taking his gloved hand, she said, “Dev McGuire. Thanks for stopping.”

“Let me help you change that tire?” he said, releasing her hand. Looking toward the gunmetal-gray sky, he added, “Going to rain or snow shortly. Where do you keep your jack? In the forward compartment of your horse trailer?”

Dev nodded. Her heart wouldn’t settle down. The man had a soft drawl, not quite full Southern, but he was definitely not a northerner by the inflection in his deep, unhurried tone. “Yes, forward compartment. I can help you. I’m really used to doing this on my own.” She flashed him a slight smile of thanks as they walked toward the trailer.

“Well,” Sloan drawled, slowing his lanky pace for her benefit, “a woman shouldn’t have to change tires if she doesn’t have to.”

Dev pushed some of her shoulder-length black hair away from her face, the wind carrying it around her. “I appreciate the help, believe me.”

“Where you comin’ from?” he asked, halting and opening the door. He pointed at the license plate on the rear of the trailer.

Dev leaned down, drawing out the tools to fix the tire. “From the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I’ve just been transferred from there to out here, to the Teton National Park.”

Picking up the tools, Sloan’s brows moved up in surprise. “You a forest ranger?”

“I am indeed.”

He shut the door. “Well, this is your lucky day, Miss McGuire. I just happen to be a ranger at Teton Park.” He gave her a grin as he walked around the trailer.

“Seriously? You are?” Dev leaned down and picked up rocks the size of cantaloupes and placed them behind and in front of the four tires. It would stop the trailer from rocking back and forth as he worked. Or if Goldy shifted. It was a safety measure.

Sloan gently patted the gold rump of her horse as he walked by her. “I’m dead serious,” he told her.

“But,” Dev said, frowning, “it says ‘farrier’ on your truck door.”

“Oh, that.” Sloan crouched down on the dry, gravelly soil, using his glove to make the area clean of small rocks that might bite into his knees. “I’m officially a US forest ranger and I’m in charge of shoeing all the mules and horses for Grand Teton Park and Yellowstone Park. On my days off, I pick up some money on the side by shoeing at the local ranches around the valley.”

Dev quickly found more rocks. She placed them around the tire next to the blown one. It was critical when changing a horse trailer tire that it be stable. “Wow, what luck this is, then.” She smiled as he knelt down and slid the jack beneath the frame of the trailer. If Goldy had been on the side that had blown the tire, Dev would have had to unload the mare. As it was, she was on the other side, taking most of the weight off the left side where Sloan would be working. The wind was icy and Dev slid her hands beneath her armpits, wishing she’d put on her gloves.

“Quite a change,” Sloan told her, quickly putting the trailer up high enough on the left side to raise the blown tire off the soil, “from the Smoky Mountains to the Tetons. You probably know we get eight months of winter out here.” He moved his gloved hands with knowing ease, quickly removing the lug nuts and pulling the tire off the axle and setting it aside.

“I was warned,” Dev said. “I’ve got the spare. Hold on, I’ll get it for you.”

She hurried around and found it in the front compartment, lugging it around with both hands in front of her. Sloan met her, easily taking it out of her grasp. “Thanks,” she said.

“No problem.” He settled the tire on the axle, pulled off his gloves and put on the lug nuts to hold it in place.

Dev watched him work with speed and efficiency. Sloan had long, almost graceful-looking hands, but they were the hands of a farrier, for sure. She saw the thick calluses across his palms and on his fingers where he held his tools to fire and shape iron horseshoes. He wasn’t heavily muscled. Most farriers she’d met were short and on the thin side. Sloan was tall and lean. For whatever ridiculous reason, Dev wondered if he was married. Most likely. And from his easygoing nature and genteel drawl, he probably had a bunch of kids, too. He seemed like a fatherly type: calm, quiet and patient.

This man was a far cry from her stalker, Bart Gordon, another forest ranger at the park she’d just left. She couldn’t help but be deluged by memories, especially out alone like this. He too was tall, with dark brown, alert-looking eyes. But his face resembled a mean horse’s face: eyes set closely together, small and malicious looking. As Dev stood nearby, watching Sloan quickly tighten up the lug nuts, she automatically placed her fingers against her exposed throat, her skin cold to her touch. Gordon had stalked her for a year, always trying to corner her, touch her, ask for a kiss, which she’d refused to give him.

Don’t go there. But her heart automatically began to pound as Dev starkly recalled the evening at the ranger headquarters when she had been alone, getting ready to close up the visitor’s center. Gordon had waited, hidden, when she went into the back room to put the money in the safe. He’d jumped her, then knocked her down and started tearing at her shirt, popping the buttons off. Dev closed her eyes, willing away that terrifying experience, the fear skittering through her like a knife blade sliding through her tightening gut.

“You all right, Miss McGuire?”

Sloan’s low voice was near and it startled her. Ever since Gordon had jumped her, she’d been filled with anxiety, afraid of her own shadow. With a gasp, Dev’s eyes flew open and she leaped back. Staring up at him, she saw confusion and then regret come to Sloan’s expression.

“Sorry,” he said. “I startled you.” He turned and pointed toward the trailer. “Tire’s fixed and you’re ready to go.”

Gulping, Dev whispered, “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean... I...” She gave him an apologetic look. “I’m just jumpy.”

Nodding, Sloan said, “Understandable. You’re in a new state, new area with a new job. That’s enough to make a polecat wanna leap around.”

He pushed the brim of his hat up a little, studying her. Dev McGuire had gone pale on him except for two red spots on her cheeks from the near-freezing temperature. His low, soothing words seemed to calm her and her eyes no longer reflected menace. There was nothing threatening around him that he could discern, so Sloan wrote it off as that blown tire. It would spook anyone when they were carrying a beloved animal in a trailer. It took a damn good driver to safely bring a horse in a trailer to a standstill after a tire had blown. She had the skills.

“C-could you tell me how to get to Teton Park, Mr. Rankin?” Dev said, trying to collect her strewn thoughts. Every time she had a flashback on Gordon jumping her, she was shaking for the next few hours. She could feel her stomach curling and tightening, her breath a little ragged and shallow. “I need to put my mare, Goldy, in the barn area.”

“Call me Sloan. I’ll do you one better than that,” he reassured her. “Follow me. I’ll take you right to the barn. That way, you won’t get lost. Sound good to you?”

Did it ever! Dev gave him a grateful look. “Wonderful. Are you sure I’m not taking you out of your way?”

“Naw,” Sloan replied, pulling out a cell phone from his worn back pocket. “I was going to shoe Triple H Ranch horses today, but I’ll call ’em and let ’em know I’ll be a tad late. They won’t mind.”

Tension bled out of Dev and her stomach unknotted. It usually took hours for her to relax. Did it have to do with Sloan? He didn’t seem like someone who got rattled about anything. But then, her knowledge of horses and blacksmiths told her that the men and women who entered that trade were all like him: calm, quiet and possessing a low voice that just naturally put tense horses and mules at ease. Hell, he’d put her at ease! Smiling to herself, she said, “Great. Thanks. I’ll just follow you, then.” She walked quickly around the trailer and climbed into her truck.

* * *

SLOAN WAS MET by a whine from Mouse, his brindle-colored Belgian Malinois dog on his front seat. The dog’s cinnamon eyes danced with excitement, his pink tongue lolling out the side of his long, black muzzle. After patting Mouse, his dog moved over to the other side to allow Sloan into the cab. He was excitedly thumping his lean tail.

“She’s kinda pretty, isn’t she?” Sloan asked his companion.

Mouse whined, thumping his tail even harder and faster.

“You probably think I’m talking about that good-looking yellow Lab she owns hanging her head out her truck window. Don’t you?” Sloan grinned, roughing up his male dog’s dark brown fur. “Two nice-looking females,” he agreed as the dog sat obediently as he closed the door.

Sloan pulled his truck around Dev’s and signaled, easing into the nearest lane. Right now, there was no traffic coming their way. He watched through his side mirror and saw Dev McGuire was right behind him, but keeping a safe distance between the two vehicles. Smiling a little, Sloan rubbed his recently shaven jaw, thinking that she was one fine-looking filly of a woman. He liked her raven-black hair that shone with blue highlights even beneath a gray rainy sky. Her oval face had a strong chin and he could sense stubborn resolve in her after the tire had blown. Knowing she’d have successfully handled the changing of a tire, Sloan liked that Dev had allowed him to step in and aid her. She might be stubborn, but judging from the look in those deep forest green eyes of hers, she was intelligent and had the good common sense to accept help from others.

Dev was built slender, reminding him more of a willow, although he couldn’t tell much beneath that navy goose-down winter coat she wore. The woman definitely had a fine pair of long, long legs on her and that heightened Sloan’s interest in her. He’d always liked tall, willowy-looking women. But he darkly reminded himself that more than likely, she had a man in her life, even though she wore no wedding ring on her left hand. Most of the female rangers at the Teton station were either going with someone or married. Him and about ten other younger rangers were single. They were all looking for the right woman. He was not. His ex-wife, Cary Davis, had cured him of ever wanting marriage again.

As Sloan drove at a reasonable speed, he noted again that Dev was easily keeping up with him. Once they entered Jackson Hole, the four-lane highway bustling with locals and tourists, Sloan remained in the slower right-hand lane for Dev’s sake. Trailering a horse required 100 percent of the driver’s attention. Plus, they never drove near anyone else’s bumper because they had a lot of weight and a thousand-pound horse pushing them forward even after brakes were applied. Trucks and trailers didn’t stop that fast as a result.

Sloan kept trying to ignore the fact he caught the fragrance of her hair or skin, a subtle jasmine scent. It made him inhale deeply, as if he were inhaling a woman’s scent for the first time. Well, that was partly true. After divorcing Cary at twenty-seven, it had taken Sloan nearly three years to recover from the damage it had done to him. And just recently, he was beginning to feel the ache of wanting a partner, or at least a woman to be in a serious relationship with, in his life once again. But no marriage. Just a relationship. Sloan wasn’t the kind of man to have one-night stands. He never had been that type, and wasn’t about to start now. He’d always had long-term relationships and never went into them with the thought that they were going to be shallow or time limited.

There was a haunting softness to Dev McGuire that called powerfully to him. Maybe an innocence to her? She looked college aged, but Sloan was sure she was probably in her late twenties even though she didn’t look it. The maturity she had told him she was older. She wasn’t some giggly young twentysomething. No, Dev had dealt with him in an adult way, although Sloan swore he had seen her interest in him as a man. Maybe that was his imagination? Sloan knew he was no pretty boy or magazine cover model. He was country born, backwoods raised on Black Mountain, and lowlanders referred to his kind as hillbillies. There was pride in being raised in West Virginia, in the Allegheny Mountains among the Hill people whose blood ran through his veins. Black Mountain was a harbor for his kind. These were good people who lived off the land, worked hard, took care of themselves as well as their neighbors. And despite the stereotype where outsiders thought Hill people were dumb and illiterate, nothing could be further from the truth. Minds were changed, however, one person at a time.

So why the sense of innocence around Dev? Sloan pondered that question as he drove slowly through the town. Maybe she got married early, in her late teens. Again, he assumed she was in a relationship. Damn, she was pretty. He liked her beautifully shaped lips, their natural fullness. Her wing-shaped black brows emphasized those glorious, large green eyes of hers. They were alive with life, dancing and fully engaged with him when they spoke to one another. Sloan had tried to ignore as best he could the heat that had streaked straight down to his lower body when Dev had smiled at him.

Sloan thought back to his growing-up years in an old log cabin that sat on top of a tree-clad hill deep in the woods of Black Mountain. They had electricity and every night his mother, Wilma, would read to him as a young child. She loved myths and in particular he remembered Helen of Troy and how beautiful she was. Sloan thought that Dev could be a black-haired version of her. What bothered him, however, was her reaction when he accidentally scared the bejesus out of her. She’d reacted violently when he’d approached her. Looking back on it, he did walk quietly and Dev hadn’t heard him coming her way. Sloan felt bad about jolting her. The woman was under enough stress hauling a horse halfway across the United States, then having a flat tire, which could all have contributed to her reaction.

It was the look in her green eyes that had struck him deeply, the raw terror he’d seen in them. Her face had gone completely white except for her red cheeks caused by the cold weather and wind. He’d seen that look in Afghan villagers’ eyes too often, particularly the women and children who had been terrorized by Taliban who’d come through killing and torturing fathers and husbands. And raping the women. It was a look he’d never forget from his deployments. And it was reflected in Dev’s eyes. Why? Shaking his head, Sloan couldn’t put it together. At least, not yet. And probably never.

As they reached the outskirts of the town, there was a long, long hill they had to climb. On his right was the ten-foot-high elk fence. Below it was the valley where thousands of deer and elk were fed all winter long so they wouldn’t die of starvation. On his left rose a thousand-foot hill, rocks craggy and gleaming with wetness from small springs that wound unseen and then oozed out of the fissures and cracks on the surface.

Sloan could always tell a lot about a person by the animals they kept. That buckskin mare of hers wasn’t jumpy, nervous or tense. She was real relaxed in that trailer, alert but not jerking and jumping around like some horses did. That was a reflection of Dev’s real nature, for sure. Animals always mirrored their owners, plain and simple. So his initial sense of the woman was that she was grounded, quiet and mature. Just like her horse. That was a good combination in Sloan’s book. Giggly, flighty, nervous women made him tense. But then, Cary had been like that, hadn’t she? But that was because she’d been high on drugs and he hadn’t realized it until much too late.

Sloan had only caught a glimpse of the yellow Labrador in the front of Dev’s truck. By the fineness of the dog’s large, broad head, she looked to be a female. He’d find out soon enough, he though, and then he grinned over at Mouse, who was decidedly an alpha male. “I think you already know that good-lookin’ yellow Lab is a female.”

Mouse cocked his black head, his large, intelligent eyes dancing with excitement. He whined. His tail kept thumping against the seat.

Reaching out, Sloan petted his combat-assault dog that had, for two years, helped save his ass over in Afghanistan. When he got out of the Army, he was able to bring Mouse with him because the dog had developed stress from too many IEDs and explosions. He’d been a brave dog, often going after fleeing enemies in nights so dark Sloan couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Mouse would nail them, take them down and grip a leg with his teeth until the Army soldiers could arrive to take the screaming enemy prisoner.

Now his brindle dog was eight years old, well past his prime, but he was in better shape than 90 percent of the dogs in the United States. And Mouse had slowly, over time, let go of his combat-dog training as Sloan gently but firmly got his best four-legged friend to adjust to civilian life instead. As he moved his long fingers through the dog’s short, thick fur, Sloan smiled a little.

“Hey, this may be your lucky day, fella. That woman has a yellow Lab and who knows? You might get to befriend that dog of hers.” He chuckled. “And I might be able to befriend her owner.”

Mouse thumped his tail mightily, ears up, eyes on the back window where Dev’s truck and trailer were visible. He gave a long, excited whine.

Sloan knew Mouse could see the other dog through the windows, no question. The Belgian Malinois was one of the most intelligent dog breeds on the planet and nothing, but nothing, escaped Mouse’s attention.

It made Sloan grin. Giving Mouse a last pat, Sloan wrapped his hand around the steering wheel, urging the truck up the long, easy slope of the hill. As they crested it, the mighty Tetons sat on his left. They were clothed in deep white snow with blue granite flanks and skirts of evergreens around their bases. May was still a winter month up here, but Sloan knew come June 1, the tourists would descend like a plague of locusts on this park and Yellowstone, which sat fifty miles north of them.

Mouse whined. His thin, long tail was whipping against Sloan’s thigh.

“Patience, pardner,” he drawled to his dog. “We’re almost there. As soon as we can get this gal and her horse over to the barn, I might let you out and we’ll introduce you to her dog. But no promises. Okay? Gotta see what the lady wants to do with her horse first.”

The dog’s tail hit Sloan with great regularity across his hard thigh. They were bruising hits.

“Calm down,” he told Mouse. “Easy.” And Sloan slowly stroked the dog’s long, powerful back. He felt the dog’s muscles relax beneath his stroking fingers. Mouse stopped whining. If Mouse thought he could crash through that rear-window glass, run across the bed of his truck and leap up onto the hood of Dev’s truck, he’d do it. Such was his dog’s type-A nature. Belgian Malinois were basically sheep-herding dogs in Europe. And their nature was to bring everyone together in a nice, tight, safe group, with the dog prowling around the edges, watching for bears, wolves or apex predators from the sky.

Sloan couldn’t lie to himself. He was mirroring his dog. Only Mouse was a helluva lot more obvious about it than he was. No question, Dev turned him on. Caution told him not to put much stock in first impressions. He’d fallen so hard and fast for Cary, married her three months after meeting her in a bar, and look what had happened. Sloan frowned; he knew the price. And it was far too much for him to ever pay again.