Wind River Wrangler

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Now, a curry is used only for the meaty parts of the horse,” he told her. “You’d never run these sharp teeth down a horse’s legs. It would hurt him.” He positioned Shiloh on one side of Charley, putting her left hand on his rump, and then wrapped his hand around hers to show her how to use the currycomb.

  Shiloh’s mouth went dry. Roan was standing right behind her, maybe an inch or two between them. She could feel his male heat, his scent in her nostrils, her hand tingling wildly as he showed her the way to curve the curry in order to clean the horse, but not hurting his thin skin. Next came a lesson with a stiff brush that would take all the dead skin, mud, or dust loosened by the curry off the horse. Lastly, he showed her how to use the soft dandy brush as a final cleansing of the horse and his legs.

  Her heart was pounding in her chest and it wasn’t from fear. She felt herself going achy as she worked in tandem with Roan as he showed her the ropes of grooming the horse. By the time they were done, she felt dampness between her thighs. A quiver moved through her and Shiloh was never more aware than in this heated moment how sexually starved she really was. Roan just turned on every sexual button she had. And yet, he didn’t seem to be attracted to her, his words and movements brisk and to the point. There was no teasing in his eyes, no suggestive movement of his body toward hers. It was all business from Roan’s end and she swallowed hard, wishing it was otherwise.

  Next came learning how to saddle a horse. That was more complex. Roan showed her and then she emulated him. Only, she didn’t sit the saddle on Charley’s withers where it should have gone the first time. More than once, she felt Roan’s patience with her. She was worried he’d be in a rush, frustrated with her mistakes, but he didn’t seem to be.

  “Okay,” Roan said, congratulating her, “you’re now ready to throw a leg over your horse once you get him out of the cross ties and into the barnyard.” He pointed in that direction. Settling his hat on his head, he watched as she removed the panic snaps from the horse’s halter and sedately led him down the concrete passageway and outside. Shiloh didn’t have a cowboy hat; she wore a dark green baseball cap instead. Roan untied his big quarter horse gelding and walked over to where she stood with Charley.

  He dropped the horse’s reins, being ground-tied trained. “Here’s how you mount your horse,” Roan said, and slid the toe of his boot into the left-hand stirrup and straightened, throwing his long, powerful leg up and across Charley’s back. Roan found Shiloh was very good at show-and-tell. She picked it up immediately. And Roan wasn’t disappointed as she copied him, sliding that nice-looking rear of hers into that saddle.

  Roan positioned each of her feet into the stirrups, showed her how to clamp her thighs against the saddle, keep her toes up, heels down. And then he showed her how to guide Charley with the reins. Touching Shiloh was the best part of this educational process with her. He noticed that when he did touch her, her cheeks would flush. There was something living and organic happening between them and as much as he tried not to respond to it, certainly not let Shiloh know about his reactions, Roan damn well wanted this woman in his bed. Where she belonged.

  “Okay, we’re good to go for a ride,” he told her, quickly mounting Diamond, his blood bay quarter horse gelding. Gesturing toward the pine grove that stood two miles away and to the east of the ranch, he said, “Cluck with your tongue and Charley will move forward.”

  To her surprise, the old paint did just that. The movement felt good. Shiloh laughed a little. “It feels like I’m in a rocking chair!”

  His body responded to her infectious, low laugh, the sparkle that came to her eyes that held surprise over her discovery. The expression on her face was of an excited child off on some fantastic adventure. It warmed Roan’s heart to see that kind of reaction in a grown woman. Shiloh might be a hard-working writer, responsible, meeting deadlines, organized and disciplined, but she could drop that demeanor when given the opportunity and revert to being a kid. That made him smile, but he covered it by grazing his jaw with his leather glove.

  “For now it will feel good,” he agreed. “But an hour in the saddle is going to test you in all kinds of ways.” She wouldn’t be able to walk straight, after her thighs had stretched wide across Charley’s broad back. Shiloh would be stiff and sore for days to come but if she rode every day, her muscles would adapt, stretch, and no longer bother her. She’d have a pair of riding legs then. Roan would like to get his hands on her legs. With a muffled curse she couldn’t hear, Roan grimly thinned his lips, unhappy with his libido that had a brain of its own.

  The warmth of the sunlight embraced Shiloh and she rode close to where Roan rode, their feet occasionally brushing up against each other. He rode tall and proud, his broad shoulders thrown back with confidence. Every inch a tough, rugged cowboy, it inspired Shiloh’s active imagination. Maybe she should write about cowboys next? They were iconic. The Wild West. Hardy. Independent. Unsmiling. She looked around at the activity now going on. A string of families on horseback were going in another direction, riding between several large pastures. She saw a herd of brown and white Herefords on the other side. The breeze was soft, grazing her cheeks, and she inhaled deeply, smelling the lush grass and the clumps of pine trees here and there. The gentle sway of Charley between her legs seemed perfect. She was warm, lulled almost into a semi-meditative state, and she had one of the most handsome men in the world right next to her!

  Soon, they left the busy center of the Wind River Ranch behind and were on a wide, well-beaten trail leading toward a thick grove of pine trees that looked as if it stretched about half a mile in length and width out in the middle of flat, grassy floor. Everywhere she looked green pastures covered the land. It looked to her like combed strands of hair, only it was thick grass instead. Shiloh appreciated the grove as they drew near. The pine trees reminded her of pincushions, sticking up from the slight knoll where they grew. She couldn’t see the screeching blue jays hidden among the pines. There were two trails ahead. One led down toward the middle of the grove, the other went around to the end of it and disappeared.

  “See that red-tailed hawk sailing above us?” Roan asked, pointing upward.

  Looking up, glad she had sunglasses on, Shiloh saw a hawk flying about a thousand feet above them in lazy circles. “He has a red tail?”

  “Yes. He and his mate live on the edge of the grove. When we ride around it, I’ll point it out. They have a big nest made of wooden sticks up in the tallest, oldest pine.”

  “So beautiful,” Shiloh sighed, turning and giving him a wispy look. “The sky is so wide and large out here. It’s nothing like New York City.”

  “You can’t see the sky for all the skyscrapers,” he snorted.

  Laughing, she nodded. “I just love how big and bold this country is,” she said, and she turned in the saddle, looking around, appreciating the greenness of the pastures, the content animals eating and the powder-blue sky surrounding them from above.

  Roan was beginning to see Shiloh honestly relax. Maybe for the first time in a long time. The sun glinted in her red hair, burgundy and gold threads among the strands. He found himself wanting to pull that thick, slightly curly hair out of the clip she wore to keep it gathered up. What would the strands feel like running through his exploring fingers? How would Shiloh respond as he kissed her lips? Her mouth was driving him to distraction. His erection stirred. Not now. Not in a saddle. He’d be in constant agony, firmly willing himself not to respond.

  “This is . . .” she sighed, tipping her head toward him, meeting his dark eyes, “. . . wonderful, Roan. Thank you so much for putting up with me this morning. I’m sure you don’t want to be teaching a city slicker how to ride a horse.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Shiloh.” Her name slid off his tongue like hot honey. He was in so much damned trouble. Roan could see the transfixed look in her green eyes; she was overwhelmed and mesmerized by all the ongoing beauty surrounding her. He understood Shiloh’s awe and appreciation. “There isn’t a day that
goes by that I don’t feel like you do. It’s beautiful country.”

  You are beautiful. The words almost escaped his mouth. Fuming with himself, Roan wondered why in the hell he couldn’t remain immune to Shiloh. The way the breeze picked up strands at her temples, the glint of gold and red in them, emphasizing her large, intelligent eyes, all conspired to make him harder, not softer. Dammit.

  “I just never realized how big the West was,” she admitted. “I feel like I’ve missed something really important.” She rested her hand holding the reins on the saddle horn, loving the soft sway of Charley. It was like getting rocked by her mother when she was a child; a wonderful, maternal, and nurturing feeling that always had made Shiloh feel not only loved, but safe.

  “Do you think you’ll write about your experiences out here?”

  She smiled a little. “I was thinking about it. I mean”—she gestured her hand toward the sky—“this place is so inspiring! It’s untamed, beautiful and wild nature. I just feel like I’m bubbling over inside with joy,” she said. “It does something good to me. . . .” and her voice trailed off. Shiloh held his interested gaze, felt that masculine heat surround her once more like invisible arms. It was palpable. Every time he studied her with that intensity of his, she felt . . . well . . . like his woman. Like he was claiming her. Branding her as his own, maybe?

  Her flights of imagination were taking off and truly crazy. Shiloh tried to tell herself that because Roan was an operator in the military, that look he gave her was due to past training. Still, her breasts automatically tightened, her nipples hard and rubbing erotically against her cotton bra. The sensations were new. Exciting. Driving her to distraction. She didn’t see desire in Roan’s eyes. No, if anything, she felt like he was a scientist. She’d rather be his lover than looked upon as an interesting petri-dish experiment.

  Chapter Six

  Roan tried to remain immune to Shiloh as they rode around the far end of Pine Grove. About halfway around it, he pulled his horse to a halt. Raising his arm toward a huge pine tree, the top of it containing the red-tail nest, he pointed it out to her. She got busy and pulled out her cell phone and took photos of it. He felt himself go hungry as she became excited and awed as one of the hawks flew back to the nest. The hawk had a four-foot wingspan and when it came in for a landing, Roan had to admit, it was impressive-looking.

  There was a stand of cottonwood trees a little farther around the edge of the grove, a small stream nearby. He decided to pull up there, get her off the horse, and give her legs a stretch. Roan dismounted and walked over to Charley’s head, his hand on the reins.

  “Go ahead and dismount,” he told Shiloh. He watched as she gripped the horn with her left hand, placing the reins on the horse’s neck, and swung her leg across Charley’s rump.

  “Oh, geez,” she muttered, grimacing as she slowly lowered herself to the ground. “My legs are killing me.” She looked up to see him grin a little. The gleam in Roan’s eyes made her very aware she was a woman and he was a man. Leaning down, she rubbed the insides of her legs near her knees. They felt tender.

  Roan pulled the reins over Charley’s head and let them drop to the green grass. The horse was ground-tied trained and wouldn’t move from the spot. “What you don’t want to happen is that the skin inside of your knees has been rubbed raw. Is any skin broken? You should check.”

  Hotly aware of Roan’s closeness, she tenderly touched her Levi’s inside her knees. “No . . . they feel okay. No broken skin. Yet . . .” Straightening, she grinned up at him. “But my thighs . . . I feel like a chicken that got its drumsticks ripped apart,” she said, laughing.

  His mouth twitched. He opened one of the saddlebags on his horse and pulled out a bottle of water, handing it to her. “Yeah, that pretty much says it all, Tenderfoot. Drink all of this. Need to keep you hydrated. City people don’t realize even when they ride a horse, they’re sweating a lot more than normal. You lose water and that’s not good.” His gloved fingers met hers. Damned if Roan didn’t feel momentary sparks of heat in his fingertips. There was such joy shining in Shiloh’s eyes, the change in her was startling. Mesmerizing. Roan felt like he was meeting another woman, not the one he’d met earlier at the airport.

  “Come on,” he said gruffly, lifting his hand. “Follow me.” Roan led her over to beneath the sprawling limbs of a very old cottonwood tree. He gestured for her to sit down on the lush grass beneath it. He sat down, back resting against the rugged-looking grayish trunk. Shiloh plopped down, removed the green baseball cap, her ponytail loosened between her shoulder blades. The crimson tendrils only enhanced the natural pinkness in her cheeks. Roan purposely pulled his gaze away from her mouth. The woman was calling to him on every level—intellectually, physically, and emotionally—and yet, she’d made no obvious sign or signal to him. She was probably caught up in the wild, natural beauty of the West.

  Sipping from the canteen of water, Shiloh sighed, gazing around. “Will the horses be okay out there? You haven’t tied them up.”

  “They’re ground-tied trained,” Roan murmured, tipping his head back, slugging down half the bottle of water he’d pulled from one of his horse’s saddlebags. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

  Shiloh couldn’t help but stare at him. His flesh was deeply tanned and the red bandanna around his thick, strong neck only emphasized the maleness of him. He tipped his Stetson back on his head, one knee drawn up, his elbow resting on it. With the leather chaps on, he reminded her of a long-ago knight dressed in a coat of armor. But more to the truth, Shiloh felt walls around Roan. Why? Compressing her lips, she decided to ask.

  “Are all black ops guys walled up?” she asked, sliding him a glance. There were small fanlike lines at the corners of his eyes, telling her he was outside a lot, squinting against a harsh sun.

  Tipping his head in her direction, Roan caught and held her curious gaze. “Now, where did that question come from?” he teased. “What do you mean?” He saw the seriousness in her gaze and he hadn’t been expecting such a surprising observation from her. He saw her cheeks grow pink with blush.

  “It’s just a feeling I get from you,” she murmured, a little defensive. “I was thinking because you were in black ops, that you had to hide in different ways, and that was the reason for feeling you were guarded?” She boldly searched his amused gray gaze.

  He drank the rest of the water and capped the bottle, considering her explanation. “When you’re an operator, Shiloh, you can’t allow your emotions to get in the way of what you’re doing. You put them away. Out of the way.”

  Her brows fell. Shiloh felt sorry for him. “Really? I mean, men are human. So are operators. Doesn’t it bother you to always hide your feelings?” She watched his mouth curve into a slight, sour smile.

  “Let me put it another way. If you had the barrels of AK-47s staring back at you, and the guys at the other ends of those weapons wanted to kill you, what would you do? Would you go hysterical? Let your emotions get the better of you?” He took off his hat, wiping his sweaty brow with the back of his arm, and settled the hat on his head once more. “Or”—he pinned her with a hard look—“would you ignore how you felt and focus on what you had to do to defend yourself, shoot back and kill them instead of them killing you?” He saw her face go blank for a moment, saw some emotion he couldn’t interpret deep in her green eyes as she mulled over his questions.

  “I guess,” she said, and shrugged a little, staring down at the bottle between her hands, “I don’t know how to put my feelings aside.” She lifted her chin, holding his calm gray gaze. “Is there such a thing? Can you really do that?”

  “Sure you can. It’s training, Shiloh. That’s all it is. You find out real quick that if you let your emotions run you, you aren’t going to be thinking clearly enough to survive.”

  “Wow,” she muttered, thinking about that. “I’ve never not run on my emotions.”

  “But you haven’t, until lately, ever been threatened with a life-and-death situation. Right?”
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  She scowled. “Well,” she began hesitantly, “that’s not quite true. . . .”

  Roan’s brows dipped as he felt a shift in her thoughts. Nothing obvious, but as a long-time operator who was used to picking up on a person’s real feelings, this snagged his full interest. Studying her, he saw she was avoiding looking at him, that her full lower lip was being chewed on between her teeth. There was a lot more to Shiloh’s story than he’d originally realized. He had to tread lightly, feeling as if an IED was sitting between them. Invisible, but there just the same. He saw her worrying the water bottle, slowly turning it around between her fingers, staring hard at it.

  “Can you talk about it?” he wondered, holding her unsure gaze. She looked so scared for a millisecond and then hid her reaction from him. It took everything not to lift his arm and place it around her suddenly tense shoulders.

  Shrugging, she whispered, “It’s not something I tell many people about.”

  “Does Maud know?”

  Shaking her head, feeling bereft, Shiloh uttered weakly, “No . . .”

  Roan’s mouth thinned and he waited. He knew there was trust building between them, felt it and saw it back at the barn when they worked with Charley. Whatever Shiloh was holding on to, it was big. He could feel her emotionally wrestling with it. Had he accidentally stepped on an IED with her? Sure as hell felt like it. And here, he thought her simple question about his walls was a tempest in a teapot. Yet, there was a side to him that was ultra-protective toward any woman or child who couldn’t adequately defend themselves. Roan supposed it came from his upbringing, his dad who said it was the place of man to protect those who were vulnerable, no matter what. But there was more to it than just wanting to protect Shiloh. His reaction to her was almost visceral.

  “That’s all right,” he said, “You don’t have to talk about it” he said quietly, meeting and searching her eyes fraught with anguish. What had he stirred up?