Wind River Protector

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Men have usually been taught not to cry or be emotional,” he agreed, savoring the pineapple upside-down cake.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Can you cry, Dev? Or are you one of them?”

  Chuckling, he said, “Yeah, I can cry. Your dad is like mine. He cried from time to time, too. I grew up knowing it was okay to let it all go. But going into the military, I had to shut it down, or find a place where I was alone and couldn’t be heard.”

  “Same here,” she muttered, shaking her head. “I hate that men think crying is a sign of weakness. It really isn’t. Maybe society thought it was weak, but thankfully, those times are changing. Besides, men own hearts and have tear ducts just like women do. Crying isn’t a sin. I think it’s healthy.”

  “Do you cry?” he wondered, watching the sorrel quarter horse he had ridden happily up to his knees in grass.

  Her mouth twisted. “As you know, you can’t fly in combat and be an emotional mess.”

  “Right.”

  “I remember when I was about six years old and my mom saw me stub my toe and fall out near one of the barns. I sat there trying not to cry. She picked me up, sat on a nearby bench, held me in her arms and rocked me. And then? The tears really came.”

  “Did you always fight crying?”

  “Yes, I did. I guess,” and she sighed, watching the horses content and eating. “I was probably stuffing the fact that my biological mother abandoned me. I didn’t even know I was adopted at that age, but I remember that day. I remember all this hurt bubbling up inside me, and I had no idea where it had come from. I mean, I did stub my toe, but my shoe protected it. It happened in July, and I had a pair of coveralls on. My mom pulled up each leg and saw that I had redness on my knees. She kissed each one of them. And I cried even more.” She halted, confusion in her low tone. “I didn’t forget that day because I cried so hard and for so long.”

  “Maybe six years’ worth of tears you’d hidden inside of yourself without ever realizing it?”

  She finished the cake. “I’ve come to the conclusion there isn’t one single human being on the face of this earth who isn’t badly wounded in some way, shape or form. And some of us have more than one wound. I’ve talked to my parents about this observation and they agree with me. This is such a planet of pain and suffering, Dev. On most days I let that go because it’s just too much to carry by myself. On other days, when I have one of those depression-like times, that’s when I cry. My mom taught me: better out than in.”

  “Well, if it’s of any support,” he said wryly, finishing his cake, “I grew up seeing my parents struggle every day. It wasn’t easy for them. Plus, getting a green card was just the beginning of their travels toward citizenship. They had to study a lot. I remember one night my parents were at the kitchen table, ten at night, working over their books on government. I could see and feel their confusion about some things. My dad finally hired a tutor, even though they couldn’t really afford it. I think, as a ten-year-old, you don’t understand the pressures on your parents.”

  “That’s true. Being parents is the toughest job I know.” She wadded up the foil and shoved it into the bag. Dev reached over and put his in there as well.

  “So?” he teased, “did we solve the woes of the world over lunch?”

  Andy snorted. “Hardly. But I think we’ve got bigger fish to fry from that Friday afternoon update we got from Sheriff Carter on the Elson gang. That was damned scary, if you ask me.”

  Sobering, Dev nodded. “I’m glad she’s giving us updates on the known players around the valley. Having color photos of the three sons who are left in that snake pit of a family are good.”

  “From what Sarah said, Kaen, whose thirty-one, has taken over since Brian, the father, was shot and killed by her last year. He’s lethal-looking,” she whispered, getting up on her knees and putting everything away in the saddlebag and strapping it shut. “Scary.”

  “Sometimes looks match what the person really is,” Dev said. He slowly stood up and held out his hand to her. “Come on, we gotta get back to work.”

  She gripped his hand, liking the warm strength of it as he gently pulled her to her feet. “Thanks,” she said, releasing it. Lifting her chin, she met his gaze. “I like our talks, Dev. I really do.”

  “Then can we keep having them? Whenever we get a window of opportunity to do it?”

  She smiled and carried the bag over to Goldy, her palomino mare, throwing it across the rear of the saddle and strapping it on. “Yes. Operative word here is ‘opportunity. ’ July Fourth is coming up soon enough; we’ve got a lot more flying and work to do between us and the hospitals here and in Jackson Hole as well as in Salt Lake City.”

  He brushed his chaps and headed for the sorrel known as Prince. “We are busy and it’s going to stay that way. I think most of our medevac trips are going to be during the summer months. As soon as the snow flies, most of the tourists leave.”

  “Except for the skiers who come in. The mountains above Jackson Hole are well known. We get in a whole different set of tourists at that time.”

  “True,” he said, mounting the horse.

  Andy saw a grimace come briefly to Dev’s mouth as he swung his long leg across the saddle and settled in. “Thighs screaming?” she asked, mounting Goldy.

  “Better believe it. I can hardly wait until we get back to the condo. I’m looking forward to that hot tub.”

  She nudged Goldy forward, aiming her toward another line of fence posts where the cottonwood line ended. “Remember, you wanted to learn to be a wrangler.”

  He rode up alongside her, their boots brushing from time to time. “I’m beginning to have a new appreciation for you doing this as a young girl growing up on this ranch.”

  “Yes, we all did it. Our summer vacations from school meant about three months of wrangling here on the ranch.”

  Shaking his head, Dev muttered, “That’s brutal.”

  Laughing, she looked around in appreciation of their long, narrow valley bracketed by two mountain ranges that had snow on all their peaks. “We loved it! None of us were good at sitting still all day long in classes. We were all highly athletic and loved pitting ourselves physically against the world.” Drily, she added, “Or, in this case, it was us against rotting four-by-fours, cutting off the six strands of barbed wire and then throwing a lasso over it and hauling it out of the ground, thanks to the strength of the horse we rode. No,” she said, smiling over at him, “we all loved it.”

  “Do Sky, Luke and Gabe, when they come for a visit, go out and help the wranglers?”

  “They sure do. You’ll get to meet them soon enough. Luckily, they all got some days off from their jobs and they’ll be flying in at different times and staying here to celebrate the opening of the airport. We’re all so proud of our mom and dad in getting this wonderful hub into Wind River Valley. This is a game changer for the people eking out a living here. So many of them are going to be hired by the airport. They’ll finally get a decent, living wage. Lincoln County will no longer be the poorest one in Wyoming.”

  He rested one hand on his chap-covered thigh after pulling the black baseball cap bill down a little more to keep the sun from hitting his eyes. “I hope I’m going to be able to meet them at some point. I’m helping Pete with all the celebration events.”

  “Oh, not to worry. I was asking my mom the other day about just that.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I really wanted my siblings to meet you. My mother wants to invite you to a quiet family dinner the day before the festivities.”

  “Wow, that’s an honor,” he murmured.

  “You’re in the good graces of my parents,” she teased. “They really like you, Dev.”

  He felt his cheeks heat up. “I’d like to accept that dinner invite.”

  “Good, it’s a date, then.” Andy realized what she’d just said and saw a sharpening look in his eyes over the use of that word. Flustered, because she felt herself growing closer and closer to Dev, she stamm
ered, “W-well, maybe ‘date’ was the wrong word.”

  “No, I’m fine with it, no matter what you want to call it,” he soothed, giving her a warm look.

  “Really?” Her heart sped up. Chiding herself because she sounded like a breathless teenager, she saw amusement come to his gaze.

  “It’s nice to talk to a woman whose got intelligence, maturity and was in the military,” he offered. “I’m not saying all other women aren’t smart and aren’t mature, but in your case, I was seeing you differently because you were in the military. Plus, we shared five days of life-and-death hell, and we lived through it—together.” He opened his gloved hand. “I guess I feel we already have a bond, Andy. Now that fate has thrown us together again, I see it as a second chance with you. I liked you when we were running for our lives. You had courage, a steel spine and you were a fighter.”

  “Just like you,” she whispered, suddenly choked up by his unexpected admission. “There were hundreds of questions I had about you, too.”

  “I didn’t know that.” He smiled a little.

  “I feel comfortable around you, Dev. I did even out on that rugged, damned-cold mountain we crashed on.”

  “Funny, when I realized you were a woman, I felt okay about it. The way you handled yourself and all, I suppose. You always conveyed an air of calm and confidence. Do you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t. You had that same kind of demeanor yourself.”

  “I think being a combat pilot shaped us like that. We can’t let our emotions get the better of us. Whether we want to or not, we have to stay focused through the fray and make good, tactical decisions.”

  The breeze picked up, and she drew that green-grass scent she loved so much into her lungs. For Andy, it was a perfect day with a man she’d longed to know on a much more personal level, and now he was revealing himself to her. It was exciting. Scary. But good. “That calm in the storm will be with us, I’ll bet, for the rest of our lives.”

  “Not a bad attribute to have when a crisis is whirling around us,” he agreed. He pointed down the line of fencing. “See that sixth post down there?”

  “Yeah,” she grumbled, “it’s leaning like the Tower of Pisa.”

  “Amazing what five to six feet of snow will do to a line of fence,” he said. “You get snow dumped by the foot here in northwestern Wyoming.”

  “True,” she said, wanting to stay on their original subject—themselves—but knowing that work on the fence post was going to interrupt them for the next twenty minutes or so.

  “Hey,” he said, standing up in the stirrups for a moment and stretching his aching thighs, “how about a rain check on what we started out here at lunch?”

  “What?” she asked, frowning, not sure what he was proposing.

  “We don’t have a lot of time to get to know each other like we wanted when we met in Afghanistan. I’d like to take you to Kassie’s Café for dinner, and then we can drive to the condo and have that hot tub together. Sound like a plan?”

  “I like the idea.” She wasn’t sure if Dev would have had enough of her, but apparently not. Her heart lifted. Where was this going? He was far more likable, a man’s man in her eyes. Most of all, it truly was his humbleness and vulnerability that drew her powerfully. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, Andy admitted. She couldn’t deny the pleasure she felt at watching his well-shaped mouth change and then show that Irish smile of his. She wondered what it would be like to kiss this man, her own experience telling her he would be a wonderful lover. Whoa! Double whoa!

  Inwardly, Andy scrambled like a wild mustang that had suddenly felt a loop settle over its head. Where was this going? Dev was her boss. She desperately wanted this job she’s just gotten. Office romances were not on the table. Wanting to stay home, to be close to her parents and do some part-time wrangling, because she missed it so much, hung in the balance.

  As she searched his gaze, she saw a man who was interested in her. What she didn’t see were signs of lust and sex in his expression. No, there was something more here, and Andy moved uncomfortably in the saddle. What did Dev want out of this burgeoning relationship? How did he see her? That was key. As a partner for a one-night stand? Something more serious? Befuddled, she didn’t know and was dying to ask him. But better to let things unfurl magically between them, like what had happened today. Her heart felt lifted; she felt hope and happiness. Dev was good for her. But the question was: what did that mean?

  Chapter Nine

  June 30

  Saturday

  Skylar Whitcomb’s heart raced as she hurried from her rental car toward Kassie’s Café. She was home once again and it felt so damned good. The only home she’d ever known, at least consciously. At two months old, she had been adopted by Maud and Steve. They had flown into Phoenix, Arizona, picked her up from a foster family, and brought her home to Wind River, Wyoming. She’d found out from Maud after driving to the family ranch, that her older sister, Andy, was going to the café for dinner. That she and her new boss, Dev Mitchell, had been out on the ranch earlier, digging out rotted posts from lease pastures. The air had a rich scent of newly sprouted grass, and she inhaled it deeply. She was home.

  That word meant so much to her, body and soul. At twenty-eight years old, she had come to appreciate it so much more than ever before. She couldn’t explain why. But it didn’t matter to her as she threw her purse with its long strap across her shoulder. It was 1700, five p.m. civilian time, and the wooden sidewalk was crowded with tourists who were stopping to eat at the busy, popular café. Hoping that Andy was in there already, she quickly smoothed the wrinkles out of her light tan slacks, pulled the white collar of her three-quarter-sleeve cotton blouse into alignment once more, and hurried through the ambling people toward the café.

  She hadn’t seen Andy in over two years because of her duties with the Montana aeronautical company that rented out the air tankers she flew to put out fires all across North America. Lately, even in the winter, places like Arizona and California had huge fires because of prolonged drought conditions and climate change. Normally, she took the winter off and came home, taking over her old bedroom at the main ranch house, slumming and relaxing. She turned into a wrangler for three months out of the year, despite the snow and winter conditions. There was lots to do in the barns and buildings, from repair of structures, saddles and bridles to cleaning out box stalls. All part of the job she loved. Even now, the fragrant scent of alfalfa hay up on the second floor of the red barn was like heaven to her. She might be a Latina by blood and the brown color of her skin, but in her heart, she was a Wyoming cowgirl and one helluva pilot on the front lines of wildfires.

  Oh, how she missed seeing her older sister! They were so tight growing up. Nervously, she pulled at the long, black ponytail that fell between her shoulder blades, brushing at her temples for flyaway hair and hoping she looked presentable. Taking one more look before she went in, she thought her light brown flats went well with her slacks. She’d always dressed down, like her mother. Sky had never been a frilly, feminine female. It just wasn’t her.

  Gulping in a deep breath of air, she went to the door and stepped into the diner. It was early for dinner, so there were empty booths. Instantly, her gaze went to the one nearest the kitchen. It had walls on two sides and it was near an exit, the kitchen itself, and away from all windows. A grin tugged at her lips. There was Andy! And OMG! The guy across the table from her was a hunk. Lucky her! A boss with those rugged good looks was like a storybook hero coming to life. Her grin widened into a smile as they caught sight of each other.

  “Sky!” Andy’s voice was a shriek of joy. She slid out of the booth, arms open, walking swiftly toward her.

  A warmth filled Sky’s heart as her sister, who was two inches taller than she was, grabbed her and hugged the hell out of her.

  “Oh!” Andy whispered fiercely, holding her tight, “it’s so good to see you, Sky!”

  Kissing her sister’s cheek, Sky stepped out of the mutual embrace, looking
up into Andy’s wide gray eyes, filled with utter happiness. She gripped her hand and squeezed it before releasing it. “Mom told me you’d be here with your new boss. I just got in and was dying to see you.”

  Andy’s face crumpled with so many emotions. “Two years, Sky. It’s been two years since we last saw each other. I’ve missed you so much!” and she hugged her fiercely again.

  Laughing, Sky’s heart burst open with the love she’d always had for her adopted sister. Andy was easy to like and to love, unlike herself. She’d been locked up emotionally and still was to a large extent because she feared life in general. Her birth mother, whoever she was, had abandoned her on the steps of a Catholic church with a note, begging the local priest to take care of her, that she couldn’t. She asked forgiveness and asked that Sky be given to a loving family where she would have the opportunities she could never give her. And the last sentences of the note, which were burned into her soul were: “Take care of my beautiful niña. I will always love her with all my heart. I want only good things for her. I can only give her pain and bad memories. I am a bad person. My daughter deserves so much more than that. Thank you, Father, for taking in and protecting my niña. Bless you.”

  It was signed Maria L. A name Sky had often tried to chase down in her efforts to locate her birth mother. Why had her mother left her that clue, that her last name started with an “L”? Did she want her to find her? How often had she dreamed of just that? Sky had lost count over the years, that same, recurring dream haunting her life, always in the background but there. Tearing away from the past that hovered around her like a thick, heavy coat, she smiled at Andy.

  “You look wonderful! How are you feeling, Andy?”

  “Oh, I’m fine, fine, Sky. And you? Mom said you’ve been busy in all four seasons, which was why you haven’t been home in the winter for the last two years.”

  Sky slid her arm around Andy’s waist as they walked toward the booth. “Wildfires, because of climate change, occur in all four seasons, not just three. I’ve missed coming home, too.”