Out Rider

“I need to get up on grizzly behavior before I go out to track,” Dev agreed.

“You will carry the following on you whenever you’re tracking, Ranger. A rifle, a pistol, a quart of bear spray and a radio. We keep constant monitoring of the bears in this park for good reason. But there’s always new ones wandering into the area we don’t know about. On a given search for a lost person, you’re going to work closely with our bear-tracking unit. That way, you’re on top of where the bruins might be located. But on any given day, a grizzly can travel twenty miles to find food.” She wrote down a name on a piece of paper and pushed it across the desk to Dev. “This is the ranger you want to talk to about grizzly behavior. I’d suggest the next time he’s on watch, you introduce yourself to him if you can?”

Dev picked up the paper. The name scrawled across it was Sloan Rankin. Her heart pounded, underscoring her feminine reaction to him. “I’ll make a point of finding his schedule and talking to him, ma’am.”

“Good. Because it could save you and your dog’s lives. We ban dogs from this park for the very reason that the grizzly hate ’em. They interpret a dog as a wolf. And wolves are their natural enemy.”

“Got it,” Dev said, tucking the paper into the breast pocket of her long-sleeved uniform shirt.

“For the next two weeks, I’m putting you over at our newly built visitor’s center. You need to get acquainted with the tourists. We get them from around the world. Most are completely ignorant of the grizzly bears that populate the Tetons.”

Dev’s heart sank. She hated office duty. But Hastings was right: she had to see the type of people coming to the park, get to know them and understand the general lay of the land.

“Ranger Rankin is our farrier. He’s also been here for two years and knows every trail in the Tetons. I’m going to keep you on an abbreviated schedule at the visitor’s center. You’ll spend four hours over there on your shift, the other four hours working with Ranger Rankin. I’m paralleling his schedule with yours so that the other four hours you two can ride the trails. You need to get acquainted with them as soon as possible. I’ve already talked to him about being your mentor and helping you, earlier today. Before you were assigned here, he always headed up any searches via horseback, to look for lost tourists. Now I want him shadowing you on every tracking assignment for the next few months.”

Dev frowned. “Is this because of the grizzly threat?”

“Precisely. You will go nowhere without a partner on any of these assignments. Ranger Rankin will be carrying weapons also. He will be your guard should you encounter a grizzly. He’s your chief defense because I want you tracking and paying attention to your dog. You’ll be distracted if you have to divide your awareness between watching for a grizzly and trying to track a lost tourist.”

“That sounds like good common sense,” Dev agreed. She was glad it was Sloan. She liked him more than she should. He was someone who was calm and didn’t appear easily shaken up in a dangerous situation. Even though she wondered how Sloan had taken this assignment, Dev was sure she’d find out sooner or later. Did he feel like a glorified babysitter for her? Probably.

Charlotte pushed a paper toward Dev that had her next two weeks of shifts on it. “Now, since Ranger Rankin is our shoer, he’s usually pretty busy. We’ve gone over a trail planning session already and he knows where he has to take you. There are some areas where we have lost more tourists than others. So, he’ll be with you in those primary locations first. His office, if you can call it that, is over at the main barn. You might try to catch him there now, and make introductions.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Questions?”

Dev knew better than to overstay her visit to the boss’s office. “No, ma’am.”

Charlotte nodded, closing the file. “Welcome to the Tetons, Ranger McGuire. Stay safe out there.”

Rising, Dev saw Bella stand at her side. “Thank you, ma’am. I intend to do just that.”

Leaving the office, Dev felt better. The tension in her shoulders had bled off and even Bella looked a little more relaxed. Her dog instantly knew when she was upset. Stopping at another office on the first floor, Dev got a USFS truck assigned to her. It would be her wheels around the park from now on. Plus, it had a ball hitch on it so she could trailer her horse to where people went missing in the park.

After finding the truck parked outside the motor pool’s area of HQ, Dev signed off on it and put Bella on the passenger-side seat. As she climbed in, Dev noticed how the morning was warming up. She took off her dark brown nylon jacket and placed it between her and Bella. The sky was clear and it was looking like a nice day after last night’s rain. The air smelled intensely of pine and Dev smiled as she pulled the door shut. She rolled down the window because she wanted that cool, fresh air to circulate that heavenly fragrance within the cab of the truck. Even Bella was appreciatively sniffing the air.

She pulled out into traffic between tourists’ cars. The barn and corral area wasn’t far and Dev wondered if Sloan was around or not. She probably should have called his office but took a risk. Even if he wasn’t there, she wanted to check on Goldy and see if her mare was happy with her new digs. Pulling into the parking area in front of the green barn, Dev saw the doors were open at both ends to allow air to circulate through the barn. No one was around. Where was Sloan’s office? Probably inside. She got Bella out on her leash and they walked into the barn.

There was a door open halfway down on the left. Dev peeked in and saw Sloan sitting at a beat-up desk, busy doing paperwork. He looked up.

“Hey, good morning,” Sloan said, standing.

Dev was touched by his courtly manners. In some ways, Sloan reminded her of a knight from a bygone era. “How do you get away with not wearing a ranger’s uniform,” she teased, meeting his smile. Instantly, her heart beat a little harder and she felt heat flowing down through her, wrapping around in her chest.

“Lucky, I guess,” Sloan murmured, looking down at his Levi’s and his blue chambray work shirt. He had the long sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. “I assume you saw Charlotte?”

“Yes. She told me to look you up.”

He gestured to the chipped and old-looking aluminum chair off to one side. “Have a seat.”

Bella came in, wagging her tail, nosing around the desk to lick Sloan’s proffered hand. He petted the dog with genuine warmth.

Dev sat down, noticing how much Bella liked him. She was a friendly dog by nature, but she had favorite people, too. Obviously, Sloan was on her short list. She tried not to stare at him, but the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, showing off his lower arms. Rankin was nothing but pure muscle, but that wasn’t surprising given his job as a farrier. Hefting around a heavy hammer, dealing with metal, shaping it with his large hands and inherent strength, this all showed in the lean, ropy muscles that moved beneath the sprinkle of dark hair across his skin. The Levi’s fit him well and she saw he wore the same scarred old pair of boots as when she’d met him yesterday. There was a green USFS baseball cap hung up on a nail behind him. She saw the holster and pistol that rangers were to wear hung on another nail.

“Your office is hardly larger than a telephone booth,” she said, looking around. A naked lightbulb hung above the desk, the only light to the place.

Sitting down, Sloan said, “I’m not in here any more than I have to be.” He gestured to the papers in front of him. “I don’t like office work, either, but today’s the day to handle it.”

“You’d rather be outdoors.”

He grinned. “No secret there.”

Dev pulled out the shift schedule and pushed it across the desk to him. “Charlotte wants me to shadow you or vice versa for the next two weeks.”

Picking it up, he looked at it. “Yes. She nabbed me earlier this morning here in the barn, telling me what she wanted done to acclimate you and Bella.”

“Do you want to play babysitter?” Dev wondered aloud, crossing her legs and leaning back on the chair. There was a glitter in his blue eyes, most likely amusement. His mouth twitched as he looked up to regard her.

“Now, don’t go down that path, Dev. Charlotte’s worried that because you’ve never been assigned to grizzly country before, that you need a little watching and training is all. Besides, we can’t lose our tracker and her dog to a bear, can we? We just got you.” He chuckled. “Charlotte’s been beating her drum for someone like you for the past two years I’ve been here. She’s over the moon you’ve arrived.”

Bella laid her head in Dev’s lap and she petted her dog. “And how are you with having to teach me the ropes?”

“Hey,” Sloan joked, gesturing around his tiny office, “it’s better than being stuck in here in my telephone booth, don’t you think?”

Dev saw the laughter in his eyes, the wry curve of his mouth that made her go hot with longing. The man’s mouth was to die for. And she wondered what it would be like to kiss Sloan. His face was deeply tanned, with fine, feathered lines at the corners of his eyes, all proof of how much time he spent outdoors. Again, she felt that invisible sense of protection surround her. Bella felt it, too. The dog lifted her head, looking over at Sloan, who was putting all his papers into a drawer. So, Dev wasn’t imagining it. Yes, she felt safe in Sloan’s company. Maybe more than she should? Her heart liked being around this lanky farrier whose hands mesmerized her. Dev was sure if she told Sloan he had the most beautiful hands she’d ever seen it wouldn’t go over too well with him. Men didn’t consider themselves beautiful. She kept the remark to herself.

“How’s Goldy?” she asked.

“I got here at 6:00 a.m. and checked in on her,” Sloan said. “She was fine. I’m the one that feeds the horses stabled here. Goldy had finished her flake of timothy from yesterday and was more than ready for another one this morning. Why don’t you go on down and visit her while I finish up duties here? It’ll take me about ten more minutes. Then we’ll hitch up a trailer and load Rocky and Goldy, and then trailer them up to the first area where we get a lot of lost tourists.”

“Sounds good,” she said, rising. Bella was out the door first, as if knowing Dev was going to see Goldy. The dog tugged at her leash. Smiling, Dev knew her mare and Bella were the best of friends. She wondered where Mouse was at. Did Sloan leave him back at his apartment for the day?

Goldy had her nose pressed between the iron bars and nickered softly as Dev approached. Bella whined and leaped up on her rear legs, paws on the front of the sliding door to the stall, happily licking at Goldy’s velvety black nose. Dev positioned Bella at one side of the stall and like the good girl she was, she sat down. Bella knew when Dev gave a certain hand signal it meant stay and sit. Now, Dev could bring Goldy out and put her in the crossties to give her a brushing, clean her hooves, and the dog wouldn’t move from where she’d placed her.

Her heart lifted with silent joy as she led her buckskin mare to the crossties and hooked the panic snaps on either side of her red nylon halter. Goldy’s black mane had bits of cedar shavings in it, indicating she had lain down and rested at some point during the night. That was good, because two days of riding in a trailer was tiring for any horse. Grabbing her grooming kit from the tack room, Dev met Sloan on the way out.

“While you’re cleaning up Goldy,” he said, “I’m going to get the trailer hitched up.”

“Sounds good. Do we saddle them before putting them in the trailer?”

“Yes. But we’ll put the bridles on them once we arrive at the trailhead.”

Her heart wouldn’t settle down because Sloan had just given her an intent look. The sensation she’d felt was as if he was mentally photographing her. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but rather made her feel desired. And darned if her body wasn’t taking off and reacting favorably to that heated look. When he settled the Stetson on his head, it made him look like a cowhand, not a ranger. Trying to ignore her body and silly heart, she quickly cleaned up Goldy, who enjoyed all the attention.

They worked like a well-oiled team, which surprised Dev. She quickly saddled her mare and led her out of the barn, the bridle in her other hand. Rocky, the big gray gelding with the black mane and tail, was Sloan’s horse. He was a rangy horse like his owner, probably part Thoroughbred because he was a good sixteen hands high. Of course, Sloan was a tall man and needed a bigger horse than she did for her size. Rocky was just as placid as his master. Dev waited outside the barn, allowing Goldy to nibble at the grass poking up here and there. She liked to watch Sloan move. He was graceful in a masculine sort of way.

“How old is Rocky?” she called down the aisle.