Out Rider

by Lindsay McKenna

  Her heart leaped. Game? Dev wanted to throw her arms around Sloan’s broad shoulders and hug him. Resisting, she said, “We can bring the dogs?”

  “Of course. Well?”

  “I find being in nature is the most healing thing to me.” Except, Dev silently amended, being with you. She felt helpless to stop her heart from liking Sloan so much. Now that she understood the ugly, toxic feelings around Gordon, Sloan’s energy felt like clean, healing sunlight in comparison. Dev wanted to be around him because Sloan fed her strength and calm. She watched his lips curve.

  “Okay, gal, you got it. I’ll come knocking at your door at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Good night…”

  She watched Sloan turn away and almost reached out to grip his upper arm and stop him. Dev wanted to thank him for all he’d done for her today. In her heart, she knew it was because Sloan was trying to help her up and over the experience she’d shared with him last night. Sloan would never admit to that, but it didn’t matter because Dev knew. Just having him tell her that she was an empathic person, a human sponge of sorts, had suddenly enlightened her as few other things ever had.

  Dev followed Bella into the apartment. Closing the door, she turned, and Bella was sitting, patiently waiting for her to unsnap the leash from her collar.

  “Is that why you like being around Sloan, Bella? Because you’re picking up on his incredibly healing energy?”

  Bella panted and thumped her tail, her eyes shining.

  “So? Are all dogs empathic, I wonder? That will be a good question to ask Sloan at breakfast tomorrow.” Laughing softly, Dev hung the leash on a wooden peg on the wall.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SLOAN COULDN’T GET to sleep. He lay naked in his bed, hands behind his head. Tiny slivers of moonlight peeked in around the drawn blinds and heavy dark green curtains. The clock ticked away on a mahogany dresser opposite his king-size bed. His heart centered on Dev. Damn, she was excruciatingly innocent in a world that ate empaths up and spit them out for breakfast. No one had ever realized her high sensitivity to other people’s emotions. Dev felt like she was a human being without skin to protect her. Sloan was glad he’d grown up with Poppy Thorn as their Hill doctor. Poppy had also been his mother’s best friend. He’d seen similar reactions in Dev, and that was what brought him to the realization that she was truly unique among most human beings.

  Sloan couldn’t shut off his mind as he wondered how in the hell Dev had managed two deployments to Afghanistan in the thick of combat situations, looking for IEDs that could kill her or her squad, with that kind of wide-open sensitivity. That was probably one of the reasons the Marine Corps had placed her as a K-9 handler. Dev’s sensitivity had shown up on the battery of tests that they performed on every recruit. Maybe living through that hellish family dynamic of hers had grafted a kind of skin that somewhat protected her during her combat deployments?

  Closing his eyes, he thought about the threat of Bart Gordon in her life. Sloan wasn’t an empath, but he had his Ma’s intuition that warned him that Bart Gordon was someone who would seek revenge. And Gordon would seek it from Dev, no question. Sloan wasn’t sure how much he should emphasize this possibility to her. She was already stressed-out enough, still recovering from the assault and the police department of good ole boys who hadn’t taken her claim seriously. He wished he’d been there at Dev’s side to see her through that demeaning and intimidating process. Yet Dev was showing him that deep down she was tough and could gut it out when necessary. Although now, Sloan was sure he was seeing the fallout from extruding such strength from within herself. Dev was tired and he could see it, from the smudges beneath her rich green eyes to the way she easily tired by the end of a day.

  Dev was good at putting on a game face, Sloan realized. But around him, she was letting it down, being more herself, maybe trusting him a little. His palm fell across his fast-beating heart as he thought about her in sexual terms. Yes, he wanted her. In every possible way. He wanted to feel how soft and lush her mouth blossoming beneath his would feel. To hear the softened sounds catching in her slender throat as he pleasured her. Something told him Dev was a woman who enjoyed and luxuriated in her sensuality. She would be hot, assertive and enjoy sex just as much as he did. Sloan would bet his life on it.

  A bit of guilt ate at him because although he was sexually drawn to Dev, he also appreciated her on so many other equally important levels. Sloan liked the way she saw the world. Liked her innate gentleness and that soft, husky voice of hers. He could see her confidence clearly, but with him, she allowed him to see a little of who she was beneath it and that thrilled him as little else had in a long, long time. He wondered about her life. Had she ever been married? Divorced? God, he had a hundred questions for her and didn’t have an answer for any of them. Maybe tomorrow, if it felt right, and she was relaxed, he’d ask. More important, now that Sloan realized the pressures on Dev, he was going to make damn sure he didn’t trod like a bull on a rampage into her life. Pacing and timing with her was everything…

  *

  DEV GASPED WITH delight as their narrow, twisting riding trail opened up into an oval meadow with a small lake in the center. A cottontail rabbit startled near the only tree, an old oak, and it took off for the evergreen forest not far away. Both dogs’ ears pricked up, but they remained with their riders. Mouse whined.

  “I think he thinks it’s a ball to chase,” Sloan confided, grinning over at Dev. She wore her USFS dark green baseball cap, but everything else was civilian, from her jeans to the long-sleeved pink blouse. The sun showed it was near noon, and it glinted down upon the loose black hair that framed her face. He tried not to drown in the happiness he saw reflected in the green depths of her eyes. And as his gaze fell to her lips, his entire lower body reacted. Too many nights lying awake, imagining kissing her, dammit. He dismounted. “Come on. Would you like to have that picnic under that old oak tree out there?”

  “Looks perfect.” Dev sighed, dismounting. “Is it okay to give Bella the signal to go snoop around? Or do you think there are other rabbits around?”

  Sloan’s eyes narrowed as he absorbed the tree line, looking for anything that appeared out of place. He glanced over at her as she came and stood at his side, the reins in one hand. “Tell me what you feel. You’re an empath. Do you feel anything threatening around here?”

  She quirked her mouth. “Oh, I don’t think I have that kind of skill, Sloan. If I did, I sure as heck would have felt Gordon sneaking up on me.” His grin grew.

  “Well, you might have a point.” Sloan lifted his hand, gesturing around the meadow. “A little lesson here, because you’re still learning about this area. The first thing you want to be aware of is the willow stands. Moose feed on willows. But elk, and especially elk mothers with their newborn babies, will hide in them. So will a mama moose, with her babies, too. Either way, if you see willows, there’s always a chance that there’s a grizzly hunting them nearby. You’ll never hear the bear coming. They might sometimes weigh close to a thousand pounds, but you will not hear them until it’s too late. Even elk and moose, if they’re distracted, won’t hear them approach, which is how they lose their offspring. Or their own lives.”

  “That’s awful,” Dev murmured, frowning. “I don’t see any willows around here.”

  “Right. One of the reasons I wanted to ride up here today. Grizzlies naturally gravitate to the willow stands because that’s where their meat source is at. Here, you have a wide-open meadow, with no place to hide. There’s one tree, which isn’t enough cover for elk or moose. And the pond is small and ringed with reeds.”

  “So? It’s safe?”

  “Yep.” And then he chuckled. “Unless, of course, you actually see a grizzly walking through the meadow. Then we would leave immediately.”

  “I don’t see any.”

  “But the possibility of them being around is very real,” Sloan cautioned, clucking to his horse. “Let’s get to the tree and check out the whole meadow before we decide whether o
r not to let the dogs snoop around. We don’t want a grizzly around, unseen. If he sees a dog, there’s going to be a fight, and a bear weighs more than we do.”

  “We never had this kind of issue in Smoky Mountains Park,” Dev said, falling into step with him, glad that Sloan was with her. The dark blue surface of the pond was dappled with sunlight, like jewels leaping and sparkling along the surface. There was a mallard duck couple at one end, opposite the oak tree. The grass across the oval meadow was lush and plentiful, barely ankle high because they were at eight thousand feet. Spring came slowly at higher altitudes, she knew.

  “Black bears are easy to deal with in comparison to our grizzlies,” Sloan said. He halted at one end of the pond, observing the other half of the meadow. Both dogs sat, panting. He gestured to the other line of evergreens. “Hear that blue jay in the distance in that direction?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jays start screaming when they see a threat. Now, it could be a cougar, a bobcat, but it could be a grizzly, too.”

  “So keep the dogs on a leash?”

  “Right. Jays often will fly over the threat and keep calling to warn the surrounding area. And if he continues to call and he’s coming closer to us, then—” Sloan turned, placing his gloved hand over the butt of the .30-06 rifle in a leather sheath beneath his stirrup “—we might have to use this.”

  “But…” Dev stumbled, searching his tense face. “You wouldn’t kill a grizzly, would you?”

  “Not unless I have to. Often, if a grizzly hears humans, it’ll turn away and head in the opposite direction.” He pointed to Mouse and Bella. “But if the bear picks up on either of their scents, and if it feels threatened, it will charge the dogs, trying to kill them.”

  She patted the quart of bear spray on her hip. “You said this will deter them.”

  “I’ve seen it used on a charging grizzly,” Sloan said, gesturing for her to follow him. “It works. But dogs often provoke a bear with barking and that’s when the bear turns ugly. He’ll go out of his way to kill a barking dog, bear spray or not. It reminds the bear too much of a wolf pack, and they’re natural enemies to one another.”

  Dev leaned over, petting Bella’s back. Her yellow Lab wanted to go run, smell and explore, but under the circumstances, it might not be a good idea. She followed Sloan to the tree, to the shade from the gnarled, ancient branches that had probably seen over a hundred years of harsh winters. To her they looked like arthritic arms and hands.

  Sloan led his horse, Rocky, to the bank of the lake. Dev followed. Both horses thirstily drank their fill, their muzzles dripping with water as they smacked their lips afterward. Walking them beneath the oak tree, Sloan dropped the reins to his horse. Rocky was ground-tied trained and wouldn’t move. Sloan kept his hearing keyed to the blue jay, and the sound seemed to be lessening, as if the bird were moving away from their area. That was a good thing. He wanted a nice, peaceful lunch, without having to deal with a pissed-off grizzly. The dogs lay down side by side after drinking their fill of cold, clear water. They looked beautiful together, Mouse’s black-and-caramel-brindled coat next to Bella’s golden short-haired coat. Sloan pulled out a plastic case that held their lunch, handing it to Dev.

  “What did you make us?” she asked, standing back as he spread a small red wool blanket on the ground beneath the shade of the tree.

  “Nothing fancy. Tuna fish.” Kneeling down, Sloan smoothed out the blanket and looked up. “You okay with that?”

  “Sure am,” Dev said, handing him the container. Going to her saddlebags, she reached into one of them and pulled out a large plastic container and carried it back to where he sat cross-legged. Sitting opposite him, she said, “Chocolate pudding for dessert?” She held it up toward him.

  “Great. You’ll find I’m a human garbage can,” he reassured her, opening the container and handing her a carefully wrapped sandwich. “I’ll eat anything as long as it doesn’t move.” And his mouth twisted. “Well, I should amend that. There were times Mouse and I were up on ten-thousand-foot ridges in the Hindu Kush, having gone through all our food, and I’d send him out to hunt. He always brought back something.” He opened his sandwich, taking a bite. “No fire, either.”

  Wrinkling her nose, Dev said, “Ugh. Let’s talk about something else.”

  Sloan gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry. What would you like to talk about?”

  “You.”

  Swallowing his surprise, Sloan saw the dark green of her eyes and she reminded him of a dog on a hunt. And he was her target. He shrugged. “Told you about my family. What else is there?” He kept his voice light and teasing because today he did not want to stress Dev. Sloan wanted her to enjoy the day without any pressure. A light danced in her eyes and he had no idea what it meant.

  “Well,” Dev hedged, wiping the corner of her mouth where a bit of mayonnaise was stuck, “I have a question for you, but maybe it’s too personal? And you don’t have to answer it if it is,” she added hastily.

  “Okay,” Sloan said. His instincts told him this was far more serious than what he had in mind. Clearly, it was important to Dev, so he gave her an easy smile and said, “Fire away.” He saw her cheeks turn a deeper pink. She was blushing. Why?

  “You’re too nice of a man to not be married. I guess I was wondering if you ever were?”

  Sloan kept his face carefully arranged, mulling over her question. He hadn’t prepared for it because he hadn’t known whether she was curious about this facet of him. And why was she? Because she might be thinking of some kind of a relationship with him? He didn’t know. Sloan always thought he knew women and knew their minds, but his ex-wife, Cary, sure as hell had destroyed all his confidence in that department. “Yes, I was married once.” He gave her a wry look. “My ma counseled me to marry when I was older, rather than when I was young. She told me I really didn’t have the maturity or experience to tell a good partner from a bad one when I was in my early twenties.”

  Sloan lay down on the blanket, propping himself up on one elbow across from her. “I’d just gotten out of the Army at twenty-two and I was messed up with PTSD. And maybe—” he hitched his one shoulder “—I was needing to feel alive again. I met Cary just after I got a job with the US Forest Service. My first assignment was the Grand Canyon in Arizona and she was a waitress just outside the gates of the park where I used to get breakfast every morning, before I went on duty.”

  Sloan saw the seriousness in Dev’s eyes. Her legs were crossed, her elbows resting on her knees.

  “I was pretty dead inside from those deployments over to Afghanistan. I wanted to feel something…anything.” He lifted his chin, looking across the quiet, beautiful meadow for a moment. “Cary was a live wire. Always smiling. Always up. Always on. Unlike me. I felt like I was a robot, numb, not alive at all.” He heaved a sigh and studied Dev. “It was the PTSD symptoms. I’d seen too much in combat, gone through too much, and my emotions were numbed out. Much later, after I got treatment for my anxiety with Dr. Jordana McPherson, who is a physician and head of ER at the local hospital, I began to realize what had happened. My cortisol was far above normal. It works in concert with adrenaline and shoots into our bloodstream when we’re under threat or think we’re going to die.”

  Dev groaned. “I should get tested, too.”

  Nodding, Sloan said, “More than likely a test would confirm the same thing in you. Your job in Afghanistan was never safe, either. You pulled two tours. That’s enough to make anyone’s cortisol shoot through the roof.”

  “Once I settle in with my new job, I will get tested. So,” Dev said, grappling with his story, “you were drawn to Cary because you felt numb inside? And she made you feel things again?”

  “Something like that,” Sloan grudgingly admitted. “I just wanted to be around normal people again, I guess. I wanted to try to be like them. But I had a hole in my body as big as a crater and I couldn’t feel anything. Even Cary couldn’t do it for me. My ma was right: I was young and stupid. I thought
being around Cary more would make me feel things again. I just wanted to feel normal. And I put all my chips on her, and married her.” Sloan saw her flinch. “Yeah, bad choice for the wrong reasons,” he added wryly.

  “Twenty-two is young,” Dev agreed softly. “You did the best you could at the time.”

  Grimacing, Sloan smoothed out the wrinkles in the blanket before him with his long fingers. “I was still learning how to read people, and I sure didn’t read Cary right.” Pain drifted through his heart. And sadness. “It took me three years to realize she had a cocaine habit. She’d been addicted to drugs since she was thirteen, but I didn’t know anything about it until much later.” Years later. Years of nothing but pain for him. He forced himself to look up at Dev. He saw anguish in her eyes.

  “That’s awful…”

  Tell me about it. But Sloan didn’t say those bitter words. “When I took Cary home to my parents, my ma pulled me aside and said there was something wrong with her. She couldn’t put her finger on it. I laughed it off and married her, anyway. It was a pretty bad decision on my part for a lot of wrong reasons.”

  “Had you ever dealt with someone who was addicted before?” Dev wondered quietly, searching his saddened expression.

  “No. Way beyond my personal life experiences.” His mouth slashed into a grimace. “But I sure as hell learned about drug addiction. When I caught her using unexpectedly one morning, all hell broke loose. She turned angry, blaming me, saying it was my fault for the way she was. That she couldn’t help herself. She needed her cocaine.”

  “That’s the drug speaking,” Dev said gently. “My father would blame my mother for his drinking problem, too. Same old story.”

  “I took it personally. I had no idea how to deal with an addicted person.”

  “They’ll lie to you with a straight face,” Dev muttered.

  “Cary lied to me all the time,” Sloan admitted. “But I never knew it. I tried to get her to rehab, to help her, but she didn’t want to go. She said she was fine, that she was happy with the way she was.”