Out Rider. Lindsay McKenna
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The fact that he had been an Army combat-dog handler made her feel good. Why, she wasn’t quite sure, but because of her own experience it served to tell Dev that Sloan was a patient, kind person. A dog handler had to be sensitive, fully aware not only of themselves or their surroundings, but of the dog who was working and keeping the rest of the soldiers safe from hidden IEDs planted by the local Taliban.
Just the swaying movement of Goldy between her legs lulled her into a relaxation, more like a meditation, that Dev loved. The morning was perfect in every way. And the man in front of her tugged at her dormant heart. For months, Dev had been wrapped in anxiety, nightmares and sleeplessness after Gordon’s attack on her. Her male supervisor had wanted her to go get therapy, but Dev had refused. Her mother, an airline pilot, was a very strong, confident woman. Dev had never seen her buckle under any loads she carried, and she wasn’t about to buckle under hers, either. She’d just had to gut her way through it.
About a mile into the trail, it widened and Dev noticed that two trails to the east and west branched off from the one they were on. Sloan halted his horse and turned around at the juncture.
“Nice riding, isn’t it?” he asked her, watching as Bella came and sat down nearby, panting and looking happy to be out in the woods with them. Big dogs needed big exercise to stay happy.
Dev wore her dark green USFS baseball cap. “Yes, gorgeous. It’s so peaceful here.” She smiled fondly, looking around, absorbing all the smells and sounds around them.
Pushing his Stetson up on his brow Sloan said, “This east trail goes to the waterfall about half a mile above us.” He gestured toward the upward slope. “The other trail goes down into Lupine Meadow. It’s a very large meadow about a quarter of a mile from the waterfall.” He pointed to the signs. “You can see they’re well marked. What happens is that parents with small children who go to the Lupine Meadow trail are pretty bushed by the time they arrive at the spot. Once they get into the meadow, which is very large and wide, they let the children run around. Nothing wrong with that, but if you got more than one child to look after, distraction occurs and the parents tend to lose one of ’em.”
Nodding, Dev lifted her leg and curved it around the saddle horn to ease the stress on it. She hadn’t ridden in about two weeks, so her legs needed to get their muscles back. “Are we going to the meadow?”
“Yes. First, I’ll take you to the waterfall area and then there’s a small, unmarked trail that goes directly to Lupine. Most tourists don’t find it because it’s pretty well hidden. Plus, there’s a grizzly whose territory is around there and she has two one-year-old cubs with her. We don’t mark that trail nor do we want tourists on it. The construction teams use it, though, when we pack in equipment on the mules to repair trails or other areas that need fixing after the hard winters we get around here.”
Taking off her cap, Dev pushed her fingers through her loose hair. She saw something in Sloan’s eyes but couldn’t translate it. Her body, however, did respond to that millisecond look as she slid her fingers through her hair. “Okay, I’d like to see that trail, too. Has anyone ever gotten lost on it?”
Sloan shook his head. “No, thank God. Because the mother grizzly has a den up about one-tenth of a mile off it and the Forest Service doesn’t want anyone up there. Right now, we’ve got grizzly warning signs around the waterfall area where she comes to get water. If she’s spotted too often by incoming hikers, we’ll shut the whole area down until midsummer when she’s not so hungry as to be looking at tourists as a food source.” Sloan grinned a little.
“Do grizzlies really want to eat a human being?”
“Not really. But if the human gets in their territory, then the bear perceives them as a threat and will attack. You ever seen a grizzly?”
“No. From the sounds of it, I don’t want to, either.”
“Oh,” Sloan murmured, “you’ll meet them soon enough.” He glanced over at Bella. “And what’s worse, you have a dog in tow. Bears really get agitated when seeing a dog and that’s why they aren’t allowed in either the Tetons or Yellowstone Park. Grizzlies, I think, see them as wolves. They aren’t, but bear perception is such that they are seen as a definite threat.” He touched the quart of bear spray hanging off his left hip. “This is why whenever you take Bella with you, you have bear spray as a deterrent. And you have to make sure she won’t go bark or charge the bear, either, because that will only worsen the situation.”
“Do they like to eat horses?” Dev asked, running her fingers gently through Goldy’s black mane.
“The scent will attract them,” Sloan said. “Usually, we get bear and horse attacks on riders who are staying and camping overnight in certain areas of the Tetons. Grizzlies are starving to death when they come out of hibernation, which is right now, and they will eat anything they see. Horses look like big elk to them and elk are their favorite meat source on the hoof.”
Mouth tightening, Dev looked down at the leather sheath beneath her left leg. There was a .30-06 rifle in it, loaded, with the safety on. It was a bear rifle and would stop one, if necessary. Not that she wanted to kill one of those magnificent bears, but Sloan had said they could range between six hundred to a thousand pounds. And that was a threat to Dev, pure and simple. Her horse weighed a thousand pounds. She couldn’t imagine a brute of a grizzly weighing that much, but Sloan assured her they were around, and plentiful among the females of the population.
“I just don’t want to run into one,” Dev muttered, frowning.
“You will. Guaranteed. And if you’re tracking to find a tourist, it’s what you do with Bella that counts the most.” Sloan regarded the yellow Lab, who had lain down in the muddy trail to cool off. They had ridden for half an hour, a constant climb. Right now, they were at seven thousand feet. The horses were breathing heavier, too, so it was a good time to allow them a rest. “Has Bella had confrontations with black bears where you were assigned before?”
“Yes, quite a few times. The trails in the Smoky Mountains aren’t like these.” She gestured around them. “They’re wide, clean paths in comparison to this stuff.” Dev wrinkled her nose. “When tracking, I always had Bella on a long lead from my horse I rode. But here, it’s impossible to do that.”
“It’s rough country,” Sloan agreed, placing his hand on Rocky’s rump and stretching a little. “As long as Bella is a hundred percent controllable by voice commands, you’ll be okay. And she doesn’t bark, so that’s in her favor. Bears get riled and agitated in a hurry when a dog is barking at them.”
“Probably reminds them of wolves calling back and forth to one another?” Dev suggested.
“Yep. That’s it in a nutshell. Well? Ready to move on?” Sloan smiled.
Heat skittered down through her lower body, his smile warming her, the corners of his eyes crinkling. There was a sultry, inviting sensation enveloping Dev right now and it felt like a big fuzzy blanket embracing her. When she knew Sloan better, she’d talk to him about this feeling that came around her at times when she was with him. Maybe he could explain it, because she sure couldn’t! The fact that she willingly absorbed the sensation confused her, as well. “Yep,” Dev said, uncurling her leg from around the horn of her saddle and slipping the tip of her boot into the stirrup, “I’m ready.”
* * *
SLOAN COULDN’T KEEP his gaze off Dev as they sat near the roaring waterfall that fell over a hundred feet into a pool. They sat on the grass and ate their midmorning snack. The horses were both trained to ground tie and knew they had to stand where they were placed. Bella had eagerly lapped up the water and now sat next to Dev, who was on a bank, her long legs hanging over it. She had taken off her baseball cap, and her black hair was shining like a raven’s wing beneath the sunlight. It was cold at nine thousand feet where the waterfall sat but they were bundled in their brown down-and-nylon jackets.
Sloan sat about four feet above Dev on the slope of the rocky cliff. Below them, the dark green pool of water was in constant motion from the falls. Sometimes, when the breeze changed, some of the mist