style="font-size:15px;"> “My pa is a pretty stubborn man,” Sloan said, amusement in his tone. “My ma calls him mule headed upon occasion. She said I take after him.”
Dev grinned. “So far, I haven’t seen you be mule headed.”
“I like to think I learned from my pa’s stubbornness at times, and modified it a bit.”
“Where did you get your calmness, Sloan? From your mother or father?” Dev wanted to delve deeply into this man who made her feel incredibly at ease in his presence.
“From both of them. My ma never gets rattled and neither does my pa. I guess I have a family calmness gene?” He laughed a little.
Dev chuckled. “Well, whether you know it or not, when you’re around me, I always feel that deep sense of calm around you.” More shyly, she added, “And it helps me ramp down, take a deep breath and just be.”
“You seem mighty calm from the outside,” Sloan noted, searching her eyes.
“It’s a game face,” Dev admitted. Opening her hands, she said, “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel anxious.”
“Well,” he drawled, “you grew up in a household where there were threats and you were in survival mode. It would make any innocent and vulnerable child feel unsafe, don’t you think?”
“I guess I never quantified my childhood like that,” Dev admitted.
“Do most people make you feel edgy?” he asked.
“Yes, if I’m truthful.” Dev sighed and gave him a confused look. “But with you, Sloan, I let my guard down. I relax. I don’t feel anxiety when I’m around you. It’s really odd. That’s never happened to me before.” She saw him give her an assessing look, a momentary burning expression in his eyes that quickly disappeared and was replaced with a hint of kindness.
“That’s a nice compliment. You know, farriers are good at soothing a fractious horse or mule they have to shoe. They generally work real quiet and slow around an animal to get it to relax and get it to trust them.”
Dev straightened, his words filling her heart with a new realization. Trust. That was it! For whatever inexplicable reason, Dev trusted Sloan. And on the heels of that, she suddenly realized for the first time that she had never trusted her father, and that had directly led to her always feeling anxious around him growing up. Even now, when she thought of him her anxiety would amp up. And just as quickly, when she was around Sloan her anxiety dissolved. Instantly. Always. It was trust. Moistening her lips, she said softly, “You’re right. Farriers can calm the most scared horse or mule.” And he could calm not only her general anxiety, but mysteriously dissolve the fear of men she’d developed since Gordon’s attack.
Sloan slowly sat up. He gazed up at the waterfall, appreciation in his expression. “I could stay here all day,” he confided to her. “There’s just something about running water, the sound of it, that fills my thirsty soul and sates it.” He slanted a glance in Dev’s direction. “What about you? Does water have that kind of effect on you?”
“Oh, yes. I remember as a kid we had a creek that ran through that large meadow out behind our home. When I was feeling really upset, me and Ghost would go to the creek. There’s a part of it where there’s a little two-foot waterfall and I always used to sit down there. I’d cry, get out whatever I was feeling, and then let the water heal me. I always felt better being around water, Sloan.” And she almost blurted, You’re like water to me. Healing. Wonderful. Soothing my soul. But she didn’t.
“I wish I’d known you growing up,” Sloan said, rising and brushing off his lower legs. “I’d have let you cry on my shoulder and just held you.”
His piercing gaze cut straight through to her opening heart and Dev felt Sloan’s protectiveness and something else that she couldn’t define. It made her go all warm and fuzzy inside. When he offered her his hand, she slipped her fingers into his. She felt the thick calluses on his fingers and palm, the strength that he called on as he pulled her to her feet. There was a storminess in his eyes and she sensed he was upset for her about her childhood. Sloan didn’t try to mask how he felt and that was refreshing to Dev. Reluctantly, she pulled her fingers from his large worn hand. Her heart wanted her to move closer to him, slide her arms around his neck and broad shoulders. The ache within her lower body caught her by surprise. He was so tall, so solid and reassuring to her emotionally that Dev found herself falling into his blue gaze, reading that he wanted to kiss her.
That snapped Dev out of her reverie. A kiss?
They barely knew one another, her head warned her. Dev took a step back, suddenly unsure of herself, not of Sloan. She had no idea what was taking place between them because no man had ever affected her as deeply and wonderfully as Sloan did. And yet, Dev knew he wasn’t stalking her. He was casual. Not chasing her. This cowboy was the opposite of Gordon. Night-and-day difference.
BART SMILED A LITTLE. He had the weekend off as a truck driver for Ace. He’d been working for two weeks, showing his boss he had the right stuff. Rivas, the owner, seemed happy with him, and that was all that counted. Even better, Rivas had given him a cot in a back room near the repair bay, a place to stay, until he could find somewhere to live. There was more to it than that, of course, Bart thought as he drove in his silver Dodge Ram. The day was sunny even though the sun was sinking in the West across the Tetons. The mid-June weather had been welcoming and warming. No more snow flurries, thank God.
He was driving down Moose Road toward a set of condo buildings on the left. On the right were apartment complexes sticking out on the flat land. So far, he’d found out that Dev Blake was at the Teton Park HQ. They wouldn’t give out her phone number or address and so he’d hung up on the person answering the phone. He had learned that, yes, Dev was working at the visitor’s center.
Today, he was going to check out the condos and the apartment complexes. The only way to find out where she was living was to go into the condo office and ask for her. So far, he’d turned up nothing. His mind roved over other possibilities, such as Dev living with another woman ranger and splitting the rent somewhere in town. If it was a house, she was going to be harder to trace. Bart was hoping she had opted for one of these places on Moose Road because he’d exhausted all other rental properties, working from southern to northern Jackson Hole. He’d gone east and now he was finishing up by going west. The bitch had to be living somewhere.
And finding out she was working at the visitor’s center was a piece of good luck. If nothing else, on his day off, he could hang out in the large parking lot and observe. Bart knew Dev McGuire owned a blue-and-white Ford pickup truck. It was another piece of vital info he needed in order to find out where she was living. Making a right turn, he decided to go into the apartment complex and parked near the office. Bart climbed out of the cab. He had made sure he looked like a tourist in a red polo shirt, a fisherman’s hat and ivory chinos.
“Hey,” he called, coming in the door and smiling at the young blond-haired woman behind the desk, “how are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “May I help you?”
Folding his hands on the pine counter Bart said, “I’m looking for a friend of mine. Dev McGuire. By any chance is she living here? I’d like to connect with her.” Bart saw the girl’s young face redden a little as she put the name into the
