Loving Deep
Steele Ridge Series
Tracey Devlyn
Kicksass Creations LLC
Loving DEEP
A Steele Ridge Novel, Book 4
A rugged mountain man falls for his beautiful neighbor, the one person who can save his beloved red wolves and whose business depends on their destruction.
Britt Steele is on a mission to protect endangered red wolves in the mountains of North Carolina. But when the wolves’ territory is threatened, he clashes with the new landowner, a woman who’s capturing his heart even as she plans to sell that precious land to the highest bidder.
Miranda Shepherd’s quirky bar is her passion, but money’s flowing out faster than she can pour a drink. An outsider’s bid to purchase the land she’s long called home will save her business. Only one man stands in Randi’s way—a dangerously handsome and persuasive man who poses equally dangerous questions that rock her whole world.
An unscrupulous trophy hunter wants the game-rich property and he’ll stop at nothing to get his hands on the wolves’ haven and another trophy for his collection. When members of the pack begin disappearing, Britt and Randi must join forces to protect the wolves and save the love of a lifetime.
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Published by Kicksass Creations LLC
Steele Ridge Series
The BEGINNING, A Short Prequel, Book 1
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Going HARD, Book 2
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Living FAST, Book 3
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Loving DEEP, Book 4
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Coming in 2017
Breaking FREE
Roaming WILD
Stripping BARE
To Canis rufus
And to all the brave wildlife warriors protecting this critically endangered and important species
1
Kodiak Island, Alaska
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Stomach down, legs spread wide, he steadied his breathing and waited.
His heart pumped a steady cadence achieved only through years of experience. Anticipation tingled along every nerve ending, though he did not allow it to break his control.
The snow-tipped mountains, with their glacial vale and emerald ridges, failed to break his concentration.
The profusion of chocolate lilies, wild irises, and monkey flowers painting the wet meadow below failed to break his concentration.
The gang of bachelor river otters carousing in the clear stream cutting through the valley failed to break his concentration.
As his guide had promised, an enormous, lumbering Kodiak bear came into view, rewarding his patience. He’d been tracking the adult male for three days, enjoying the hunt almost as much as he would the kill. Almost.
A Kodiak in his prime. One that stood ten feet tall on his hind legs and weighed in around fourteen hundred pounds. A behemoth among giants.
Click by slow click, he rolled the scope’s dial until the blurry image sharpened into distinct objects. A small adjustment to the left was all it took to place his target in perfect alignment with his Ruger’s sights.
He released the safety, and the pad of his finger slid over the cool metal trigger until both dovetailed into a perfect grip. For several seconds, he followed the brown bear, admiring the male’s sure-footed gait around thick tufts of grass and over Mini Cooper-sized boulders. Muscles rippled beneath the bear’s dense fur, hinting at the beast’s incredible strength.
The hunter’s pulse spiked at the thought of conquering such a powerful animal. Only one other bear on earth could topple the Kodiak from his throne—the magnificent polar bear, the largest of them all.
Slowing his heartbeat, he waited until the Kodiak presented the broadside of his shoulder. A clean lung shot.
Releasing a slow breath between his lips, the hunter pulled the trigger. The bear dropped. Dead before he hit the ground.
Blood roared through the hunter’s veins. Another victory. Another milestone met. Another good kill.
“Fine shot, sir.”
“Indeed.”
To experience this second in time again, he would pay double the five thousand dollars he’d shelled out for this honor. He nodded toward the dead Kodiak, and his indispensable guide flicked a hand at the nearby porters, who rushed to prepare the bear for transport.
Soon, the fallen Kodiak would occupy a space of honor opposite the polar bear in his trophy room. Two giants standing sentinel in his sanctuary, welcoming their master, warding off his enemies. Warriors protecting a warrior.
Five hundred ninety-nine kills. Only one more to go before his name would be featured in the Master Marksmen book—or, as it was known in the more elite inner circles, the Kill book. A status achieved by few others.
One more.
The rarest of them all.
Canis rufus. North Carolina’s red wolf.
2
Steele Ridge, North Carolina
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Cresting a thirty-foot rise, Britt hiked to the overlook he used to spy on the red wolf den. He paused about twenty feet from the edge to peel off his backpack and retrieve his binoculars. Not taking any chances, he crouched low to avoid detection by his quarry below.
A sharp pin pricked his neck. Britt swiped at the mosquito. The bloodsucking bastards had been especially bad this summer, and he could do nothing to protect himself other than wearing long everything. If he applied bug spray, he might as well flash a beacon, notifying the wolves of his arrival, so keen was their sense of smell.
He set his pack and walking stick aside and lowered himself onto the grassy, rock-strewn ground. He inched forward commando-style until the ravine came into view. Dense stands of tulip, maple, and oak protected the understory and blocked out much of the Carolina sun. Even so, large shiny-leaved rhododendrons filled empty spaces, as did longleaf bluets, frostweed, and snakeroot.
North of his position, where one side of the creek bed rose twelve feet high before leveling off to create a shrub-laden shelf, a familiar pile of dirt led into a shadowed nook. Low branches made it difficult to see the den with the naked eye. But Britt knew what to look for and where to look for it.
Setting his binoculars in place, he focused in on the nook, which was two foot wide by one and half foot high. The small, dark cavern provided shelter to the breeding female and her four-week-old pups. Given the lateness of the hour and no sign of adults outside the den, the breeding male must have taken his small pack hunting.
Five pups—three females and two males. Before he’d left for a construction conference, he, his mentor, Barbara Shepherd, and friend Deke Conrad had flushed the breeding female from the den, so they could check on the pups and take blood samples. Although earlier tests had confirmed that the breeding pair were full-blooded red wolves, Britt had wanted to remove any lingering doubts about the pups.
Movement just inside the den caught his attention. The pups were stirring. He wondered if their floppy ears had gone erect yet.
The breeding female, Calypso, poked her broad nose outside the den, sniffing the air. Then she eased through the opening until the upper third of her body was visible. She glanced inside the den and soon, one by one, the pups tumbled out of their protective shelter.
Sensing their untethered freedom, yet too frightened to venture far, the pups loped along the creek bed shelf, tackling each other, relieving themselves, and chasing unsuspecting critters. Their ears were a mish-mash of one ear up, one ear down. Two ears down, two ears up.
Calypso watched over her brood like any long-suffering mother who’d given up on teaching her children how not to pick their nose at the dinner table. He’d seen t
he expression on his own mother more times than he could count.
Britt pulled his phone from his pocket, zoomed in to take a couple still shots, then hit the record button. Before long, the tension that had riddled his body began to fade and he found himself smiling at their antics.
Now he wished he’d taken the time to stop by Barbara’s place instead of coming straight here. She would have loved witnessing this milestone. After several days of conference head, all his mind had been able to manage was a simple list of instructions: airport—home—equipment—den.
His senior by twenty-odd years, Barbara could out-trek him and had more guts and grit than most men. After one lively conversation about coyote management, Barbara had adopted him as her unofficial student. She’d volunteered hours of her time toward his education. To this day, he couldn’t fathom why someone with a PhD in Animal Behavior from Duke would spend a second of her precious time with a rough-around-the-edges country boy like him.
He’d asked her about it once and got a simple answer in reply. “Passion is worth a thousand PhDs. I can teach you how to transect a study area. But I can’t teach you how to care about the findings.” She’d tapped the left side of her chest. “That kind of wisdom comes only from the heart.”
Britt stopped the video recorder and stared down at the wolves. A sense of overwhelming helplessness seeped into his good mood, melting his smile back into its familiar no-nonsense lines. Would he and Barbara and Deke be able to do right by the wolves? They needed constant monitoring to make sure they weren’t overcome by disease, shot by farmers, or caught by trappers. The odds of surviving extinction in the wild were already stacked against the red wolf and now, for this isolated pack, the odds had hit hope-killing proportions.
He followed the pups’ movements for a while longer, then backed away from the edge of the bluff. Collecting his gear, he headed out. He could have stayed and observed the wolves for hours, but the sun had begun to dip below the canopy and he’d left his flashlight in his truck.
Britt didn’t mind being out in the woods at night, when he was assured of a clear night sky. But the clouds had grown thicker and would block the moon’s light. Which meant it would be hard as hell not to break his neck.
Careful not to create a footpath leading to the den, Britt hiked a different route back to his truck. Barbara’s property lay in this direction, and he would use the opportunity to stop by her place and fill her in on the pups’ progress.
Unlike many large tracts of land in Western North Carolina, this property hadn’t been logged to death. Stands of towering, thick-waisted oaks and hickories dotted the landscape, proclaiming this an old growth forest.
He still couldn’t believe how much his life had changed since his baby brother, Jonah, developer of the blockbuster Steele Survivor video game, bailed out their on-the-brink-of-financial-collapse hometown.
“Meddling billionaire.” Britt dug his walking stick into the ground as he ascended a steep incline. “Why didn’t he stay out west and tear up some lives in Seattle?”
After years of helping raise his five brothers and sisters, Britt was finally able to concentrate on his own career and happiness. Though he still had his sixty-year-old mom and his little sister, Evie, to watch over.
Then his brother Jonah came home, bored and flush in the pockets, and proceeded to reprioritize Britt’s world once again. By saving the town, Jonah, along with the entire Steele family, became the custodian of twenty thousand acres, a law enforcement training center under construction, and a mountain of headache-worthy decisions.
Britt thought about the application sitting on his kitchen table, ready to go. So much for his promise to Barbara and his sister Evie. He couldn’t mail the paperwork now. Spending a few weeks in a foreign country was unthinkable. He needed to stick around to coordinate the training center’s contractors. And he couldn’t leave the pups. Couldn’t miss another day of their development.
Regret closed his throat, suffocating him for an alarming period of time. He wallowed in the unfairness of setting aside his dreams yet again. But only for a minute. He’d learned long ago about how resentment ate at a person like a starving lion, leaving behind nothing but a hollow shell.
He swallowed hard, forcing the ache and regret to release their hold and slither back to their compartments where they roiled 24/7.
And that’s when he saw her.
3
Tiny needles pierced Randi’s skin—one at the base of her neck and one on her left shoulder, right through her thin purple stonewashed tee. She smacked at the mosquitos with greater force than necessary, causing herself more pain than the bites themselves. She checked her palm for bug fragments or blood smear. Nothing. “Freaking mosquitos! Do I have a neon sign over my head that reads ‘Eat Me’?”
Randi fingered the bite on her neck and felt the welt already forming. “I. Hate. The outdoors.”
She hadn’t always disliked the outdoors. There was a time when she enjoyed traipsing around these grounds more than playing with dolls, eating candy, and tormenting boys.
But that was ten Star Trek movies ago.
Randi reached the stream and followed it until she heard the rushing current of a waterfall. Excitement made her reckless, and she barreled forth. Limbs whacked her face and brambles scratched her arms. One moment she was on her feet and the next she was on her knees. She didn’t look down to see what had tripped her, just scrambled to her feet and continued her mad dash to solace.
The understory opened and the sun shone through a hole in the canopy. Randi halted as if she’d reached the end of her leash. She blinked, unable to believe her eyes. The Landing, as she and her family had dubbed it two and a half decades ago, looked the same. Absolutely the same.
A three-tiered waterfall dominated the area. The clash and gurgle of water echoed off the bluff walls, surrounding Randi in unrivaled serenity. She loved this place. Missed this place. Longed for this place.
At the base of the waterfall, a small pool of clear water formed before narrowing down to a six-foot-wide stream that separated her mother’s property from the newly formed Steele Conservation Area. She had spent many hours in the heat of the summer flopping around in that pool. Her inner child goaded her to shed her clothes and jump in.
But the rushing water seeped into her subconscious, bit by bit, reminding her of the large vanilla latte she’d consumed an hour before. How long had it been since she’d peed in the woods? So long ago she couldn’t remember. At one time, she’d perfected the squat and shake method. Could she still drop trou in the open?
Randi glanced around. In all her years of coming to the Landing, she’d never seen another soul.
She’d never make it back to her mother’s farmhouse. The more she thought about peeing, the worse her urge became. Just do it, Shepherd. All this dithering over two minutes of your life.
Randi ducked behind the largest tree she could find. She unbuttoned her fashionable skinny jeans and tried to shuck them down to her knees. It was like peeling off a layer of wet skin. After a good ten seconds of wrestling with them, she assumed the position—and waited. And waited. “Pee shy? Really?”
The tight jeans gathered around her knees began to cut off her circulation. If she didn’t relieve herself soon, she’d be stumbling around on lifeless nubs. A slow trickle began—and that’s when she felt the first needle prick. “Not now. For the love of Pete, not now.” She smacked her bare bottom, only to be attacked by another needle and another and another. Everything was free flowing now, so she couldn’t stop or she would be in worse discomfort than before.
She pushed, hard, forcing herself to go faster while she continued to slap the disease-transmitting bitches landing on her ass. When it was safe to do so, she closed off the spigot, stood, and performed a rusty shake-jiggle before pulling her panties up, then wrenching her jeans back into place. Or at least she tried. Inch by slow inch, she slid her pants up, giving herself a wedgie when the rough denim caught on her cotton panties.
>
Perfect.
“An interesting feat of acrobatics,” a deep, masculine voice said from behind.
This can’t be happening. Surely, I haven’t been so awful as to deserve this sort of humiliation. Dread seeped into every pore, every muscle, every nerve ending. Randi whipped around. Oh, yes. She’d ticked off the Almighty in a big way.
Dressed in greens and tans and browns, from head to boot, Britt Steele strode toward her with a confidence that could only come from spending decades in the woods. His wide shoulders and broad chest filled her line of sight, massive, imposing, breath-stealing. Thick dark-blond hair framed a shadowed square jaw and intelligent brown eyes.
Eyes that had just caught her copping a squat.
So much for clearing her mind. This moment would be etched into her long-term, short-term, quarter-term, three-quarter-term memory, and every fraction in between.
Fixing a nonchalant smile on her face, Randi fastened her jeans. “Show’s over, Mr. Tom. Enjoy your hike.” She brushed past him. Humiliation roiled deep in her chest, upheaving the anger that constantly fought for release. Good God, she didn’t need this. Didn’t need the hottest guy in town catching her urinating in the woods and observing squished bug bits all over her bare bottom. And the wedgie. She needed to pull her underwear out of her crack in a bad way.
“Tom?” he asked.
Don’t answer. Don’t turn around. Don’t acknowledge. “As in Peeping.” Gahhh.
He chuckled. “I don’t think this particular setup qualifies for Peeping Tom status. Not when the show was there for all to see.”
Loving Deep: Steele Ridge Series Page 1
