The Loner

by Lindsay McKenna

  “I always liked seeing you sweat,” Vance said, continuing to smile. “If you don’t give us a truck and five thousand dollars, all in twenties, I’ll make an anonymous call to the sheriff’s department I’ll tell them how you smuggle drugs all over the West.” His brows moved upward. “You think they’d like to hear from me?”

  Rage tunneled through Curt. “You son of a bitch!”

  “Thank you. Now fork over the keys to one of your many trucks that are parked out there.” Vance thrust out his hand. “And the money, too. We need some operating funds.”

  Getting up, mouth set, Curt knew better than to push Vance. He knew his prison record. His hand rested over the butt of the pistol in his waist. Walking to the Peg-Board hanging on one wall, Curt jerked off a set of keys. He turned and tossed them at Oren Hartley, who caught them.

  “There’s a dark green Chevy truck at the end of the first row. Take that one.”

  “No company sign on the door?” Vance demanded. “We want to blend in, not stand out.”

  “No, that’s why I’m giving it to you. All my other trucks have Ace Trucking painted on both doors.”

  Going to his desk, Curt pulled open a drawer on the right-hand side. “This is it, Welton. You can’t ever come back here and ask me for anything else again.”

  “We’ll see,” Vance murmured.

  Curt pulled out the cashbox, set it on his desk and opened it with a set of keys.

  “Look at all that cash,” Oren said, gawking into the box. “Hooooeeee, that’s a chunk of greenbacks.”

  Curt counted out five thousand dollars in small denominations. He shoved the bills to the edge of the desk.

  “Thanks, boss,” Vance said, picking them up. He took half and gave Oren the other half. “Stuff it into your pockets,” he ordered.

  “Now get the hell out of my life,” Curt snarled.

  “Gladly,” Vance said, opening the door. “Later, gator.”

  Curt sat down, fuming after they’d left. The door was still open and he stood and slammed it shut. Dammit! Pushing his fingers through his sandy red hair, he got up and angrily paced the office. What the hell could he do? If he went to the sheriff’s, he could tell them Welton and Hartley held him up, stole money and a truck. The downside, and it was a steep cliff, was Welton, who had driven for him for a year, would turn him in. He’d take a plea bargain and turn state’s evidence against him and his drug operation. It was rare that Curt felt so damned helpless.

  As he finished up his paperwork, Curt could only hope those two bastards wouldn’t get caught in his truck. And what the hell was this about some business in Jackson Hole? They had no ties to this place! Cursing softly, he jerked open the left drawer and dropped in the receipt bag that would go to the bank tomorrow morning. What were those two up to? It would be smarter for them to hightail it out of Wyoming and disappear.

  * * *

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Shelby asked, having just put the sheets and covers on the bed. Dakota had his sleeping bag tucked beneath his arm, heading for the door. It was 10:00 p.m.

  “Going to sleep outside.”

  “What?” She stared at him, uncomprehending. “It’s below freezing out there at night, Dakota.” Part of her deflated. She wanted him close.

  “I want to keep you safe,” he growled, hand resting on the doorknob.

  “You’re guarding me from the outside?” She studied his darkening eyes. What was going on here? All evening, she’d seen Dakota close up, unavailable, as he worked to make the cabin hospitable for her. He’d dusted, cleaned the floors and swept down the cobwebs from the corners.

  “You ever been around a combat soldier?” He hated bringing up her dead brother, Jason, but he had to.

  “Only Jason.” Brows drawing down, she said, “What’s he got to do with this?”

  “When Jason stayed with your parents, did he ever wake them up at night?”

  Shelby thought for a moment. “Well...yes...sometimes.” Tilting her head, he stared hard at him. “What’s this got to do with us?”

  “Your brother had PTSD. The dark is when the nightmares stalk us.” He tried to soften the growl in his tone because he saw her distressed by the fact that he was going to leave the cabin. “I had a good friend over in Afghanistan, a Green Beret. He was a top soldier, but he’d seen four rotations of combat in that country. The last time he came home after his tour, he had nightmares.” His mouth tightened. “His wife tried to wake him up one night when he was in the middle of one. He kept a pistol under his pillow.” His voice lowered. “He shot and killed her, mistaking her for an enemy who was attacking him in the nightmare.”

  Gasping, Shelby’s eyes widened. “Oh my God....”

  “It wasn’t pretty. He got tried for manslaughter and spent five years in prison. When I heard about it, I remember the firefight that probably pushed him over the edge. The Taliban had come over the hill. There were seventy of them and ten Green Berets. It ended up in hand-to-hand combat. He was the only survivor in that skirmish and it scarred him.”

  Shelby stood quiet, feeling terrible for the soldier and his wife. “You think you’re going to have a nightmare tonight? And you’re afraid you’ll hurt me during it? That’s it, isn’t it?” Her heart pounded.

  The shadows deepened in his eyes and he nodded.

  “Okay, if you wake up, I promise I will not come out of this bed to help you. That way, you can stay in here.”

  Shaking his head, Dakota rasped, “You don’t understand, Shel. Sometimes I wake up and I sleepwalk. I’m fighting my own ghosts from my Afghan tours.” He held up one of his hands. “I can easily kill with one of these.” He hated that tears flooded her eyes. Just as swiftly, they disappeared. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re the last person on this earth I’d want to harm. Do you understand?” Dammit, she was waging a good campaign of reason against him. If he stayed in the cabin, he’d take her. He’d take her and love her until neither of them could move afterward, so completely exhausted. He’d been so damn long without a woman. And most women didn’t appeal to him anyway, but she did.

  A lump formed in Shelby’s throat. “Okay...” Taking a step forward, she whispered, “You have to see Dr. McPherson. I’ve heard of her working with other vets who have had similar issues. She’s been able to help them, Dakota.” Swallowing hard, Shelby felt the heat of tears pushing into her eyes. God help her, all she wanted to do was take those few steps and throw her arms around Dakota and hold him. Hold him against the night terrors that she clearly saw in his gaze. For a moment, he looked sad, but quickly covered it up.

  “Yeah, I think I will see her. But not right now.” He moved his shoulders to get rid of the accumulated tension in them. “The woodshed is near the creek. Storm and I will be out there.”

  “What if it snows?”

  He held up his down sleeping bag. “This is specially made for SEALs in cold climates. It looks pretty ratty, but it keeps me plenty warm.”

  “Damn, Dakota, I didn’t mean to force you out of your own cabin,” Shelby muttered, frustrated. She put her hands on her hips. “Maybe I should stay at my parents’ home.”

  “No.”

  The swift response stunned her. “What? You think Welton will try to find me there? He doesn’t know my parents live here.”

  “Welton is a sociopath,” Dakota began heavily, “and you can’t ever assume he’s stupid. Most of them are damned brilliant, Shel. I worry about your parents, too. I called Cade Garner a few hours ago and asked him to warn them. It’s up to your dad to decide what he wants to do. Frankly—” he rubbed his jaw “—I told Cade to ask them to leave town until we can verify if these convicts are in the vicinity or not.”

  Her throat tightened. “I didn’t even think in that direction. Do you know what Cade found out? Are they going to leave?”

  He nodded. “I talked to him earlier this evening on my cell. Your dad wanted you to come with them, but Cade told them you wouldn’t do that.”

  “He’s right abo
ut that,” Shelby muttered. “I want to track those two and land their asses back in federal prison like I did before.”

  Dakota respected her decision. “I’m having a helluva time looking at you and grasping the fact you tracked them down.” Giving her an uneven grin, Dakota added, “That’s a backhanded compliment, Shel. Old dogs like me have to learn new tricks. Tracking isn’t a gender skill. I’m just too used to working with the men of my SEAL team. It just never occurred to me a woman could do it, too.”

  Her shoulders slumped, the tension bleeding out of her. “Tomorrow, we need to start sniffing around, Dakota. I want to find them. My gut tells me they’re going to hole up in the Tetons.”

  Nodding, he said, “Bingo. Welton hid in the mountains of Yellowstone. The last stolen car has put him in our vicinity. We’ll go see Cade tomorrow and start creating a mission plan to locate them.”

  “Are you really going to sleep outside every night?”

  “Yes. It’s better this way.” For you. For me. He struggled and said, “I don’t like it, but I couldn’t live with myself if I harmed you, Shel.” He held her steady gaze. She was upset and concerned. Not for herself, but for him.

  “Well,” she groused, trying to lighten the tension, “I’ll miss you.”

  “Yeah?” It made him feel good for the first time in such a long while. She had the capacity to reach him in a place he thought had died when he was seventeen.

  A slow, heated male smile touched the corners of his mouth. Shelby recalled the scalding desire he’d sparked within her before and she responded powerfully to that glittering look in his eyes. Now he was the wolf stalking her. It excited her, made her want to beg him to stay. It was a selfish and foolish thought, not worthy of herself. Or him. He was putting his life on the line to protect her.

  “You realize when we pick up their trail, Dakota, we’ll be out in the woods for maybe days on end.”

  He saw the challenging light in her eyes. “Yes, that occurred to me.”

  “Unless we’re humping two tents, we’ll be sharing one. Together.” She set her jaw, hands on her hips.

  He studied her, the silence intensifying between them. “That thought didn’t escape me.”

  “And you aren’t going to sleep outside the damned tent, Dakota. I won’t let you.”

  “No?” The heat in her eyes made him feel good about himself as a man.

  “No. It will be just you and me. I’m not afraid of you. I’m a law enforcement officer. I can take care of myself.”

  As he met her steady, challenging gaze, his mouth curved faintly. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.” He twisted the doorknob. “Remember, if you hear me yelling, do not come out and rescue me.”

  “Okay, but I won’t like it, Dakota. I’m not a weakling. You think you’re so dangerous that no one on this earth can help you.”

  “Talk to the nurses at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. I sent one flying across the room one time. She was new to the hospital and they failed to warn her not to come running to my bedside if they heard me screaming at night.” He shook his head. “I broke her arm. I felt really bad about it after I woke up.”

  Shaken, Shelby said, “If you scream and you wake me up, I won’t guarantee you anything, Dakota. How do I know if Welton and Hartley aren’t holding you prisoner? You could be in real trouble and need my help.”

  Grimly, he rasped, “Those two would never get within a hundred feet of me. They’d be dead in a heartbeat. You stay inside this cabin and do not go out that door until morning. Understand?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHELBY JERKED AWAKE when her cell phone began ringing near her head. She’d placed the iPhone near her pillow, in case the sheriff’s department or her parents called. Blinking, she sat up, the covers falling away from her pink flannel, long-sleeved nightgown. She focused her drowsy attention on the iPhone. As she picked it up, she saw it was dawn.

  “Shelby here,” she whispered, rubbing her eyes.

  “Shelby, it’s Cade. Sorry to wake you up so early, but we need your help.”

  “You got a line on Welton?” she mumbled, rubbing her face.

  “No. Not yet. We just got a call from Yellowstone Forest Rangers HQ. They’ve got a camper who is missing. Apparently his wife brought her husband, who has Alzheimer’s, to the park because he loved being in the woods. When she awoke this morning, he was gone. She has no idea where and there are thousands of acres of woods surrounding them.”

  Shelby sat up, her feet touching the cool wood floor. She heard a knock at the door. “Hold on, Cade...” She pulled the cell away. “Come in,” she called.

  Dakota entered the cabin, concern written on his features. Storm squeezed by him, wagging her tail.

  Shelby said, “It’s Cade. They’ve got a missing man up in Yellowstone.”

  Nodding, Dakota put the rifle in the corner after shutting the door. He focused on the phone conversation as he lit a magnesium tab, opened the window and got the coffee going.

  After finishing the call, Shelby got out of the bed, the pink nightgown falling to her slender ankles. Dakota felt his body respond. The gown was old-fashioned, with ruffles across the bodice. It was pink with tiny white roses across the material. There was grayness in the cabin, but even in low light, he saw the wheat and gold colors of Shelby’s hair tumble around her shoulders.

  Shelby was hotly aware of Dakota’s gaze upon her as she went to the table and pulled a notebook from the pocket of her shirt. Once she wrote down the information on the missing man, she glanced up to meet his hooded gaze. There it was again, that connection between them. He was dressed like the night before. Had he slept in his clothes?

  She gave Dakota the intel on the missing man. Moving over to the bed, she pulled on a clean pair of thick socks for hiking. It was cold in the cabin and she wanted to get warm.

  “And Cade wants me to go along?” he asked, placing two mugs out on the counter as the coffee percolated on the heating grate.

  “Yes. Will you?” She lifted her head after putting on the thick socks.

  “You’re going nowhere without me until we find those two gomers,” he said.

  “Turn around. I need to get dressed.”

  “I’d rather watch.”

  “Another time and place, Dakota.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, Shel.” He turned, facing the window.

  Shelby grabbed civilian clothes. She never tracked in her sheriff’s uniform. Even though it was early June, it was cold in the area. Taking a dark brown cable-knit sweater, she pulled it over her head. A set of heavy corduroy trousers of the same color completed her uniform. She pushed her fingers through her mussed hair. “Okay, you can look now.”

  Dakota did. The dark sweater brought out the color of her hair. His fingers itched to investigate those shining strands as she pulled out a brush and comb from the opened suitcase on the floor. The chocolate-colored trousers did nothing but remind him how long and beautifully sculpted her legs were. Scowling, he turned and poured hot coffee into the awaiting mugs.

  “Here, breakfast.”

  Taking the cup, she thanked him. “Did you get any sleep?” she asked.

  Dakota sat down at the table, coffee between his large hands. “Some.”

  “Why do I not believe you?” She pulled her hiking boots from the suitcase. “You look like death warmed over.”

  “And I never thought this cabin would look so good as when you were in it.” He sipped his coffee, watching her reaction over the rim of the mug.

  Grinning, Shelby pulled on one boot and then another. She met his dark, assessing eyes. “I slept like a baby. Probably because I knew you and your wolf were keeping me safe from the bad guys.”

  “Close to the truth,” Dakota murmured. When she stood up and smoothed the corduroy down across her thighs, his body reacted. “Come and get some coffee in your veins. We’ll talk tracking strategy.”

  Groaning, Shelby nodded, pulled out the chair opposite him. Storm came a
nd sat next to her, resting her head in her lap.

  “Does Storm like me?” she wondered, sitting down and gently patting her head.

  “She’s taken a shine to you.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “She’s a female alpha wolf. She may see you as a female beta wolf.”

  Picking up her coffee, Shelby chuckled. “Is she worried I’m going to take her mate?”

  His brows moved upward for a moment. “Could be.”

  “Do I have to roll over on my back and expose my belly to her to convince her that you’re safe with me?” A warmth exuded from Dakota. It enveloped her. His light brown eyes gleamed with unspoken desire. For a moment, her gaze fell to his well-shaped mouth. A mouth she was already familiar with—and wanted to taste again. Only longer and more deeply.

  “Let’s get back to business,” he growled. “Have law enforcement or the rangers started a search for this guy?”

  “They’re just starting because they need light.” Shelby glanced toward the window. “I feel sorry for the wife. She and her husband used to come to Yellowstone every year for two weeks and camp. He was a birder. It gave him such joy to be in the woods.”

  There was real concern and sadness in her blue eyes. “Why are you so touched by this situation?”

  “I try to put myself in the wife’s place. How would I feel? They’ve been married for thirty-five years. That’s a long time. And I can’t imagine her terror when she woke up this morning and he wasn’t at her side. That’s hard on the heart, Dakota.”

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a softy beneath that sheriff’s uniform?”

  Shelby took his gruff teasing in stride. “I think that if you turned this around and it was one of the men in your SEAL platoon lost, you’d have a similar emotional response. Don’t you?”

  Her intelligence was wide and deep. He liked her ability to help him understand in ways he never had before. “Okay, I see your point.”

  “So, I’m not some ‘softy’ as you put it. We’re going to have to deal with the wife. She’s going to be upset and anxious.”