The Loner

Shrugging, Dakota actually found himself enjoying her spirited conversation. In some ways, Shelby reminded him of his late sister, Ellie. Both had a lot of spunk and spirit. A sudden sadness descended upon him and he scowled. “The bear charged me. I shot the bear. End of story.” Her blue eyes narrowed. Still, he savored her husky voice. It reminded him of honey, sweet and dark. He looked at her left hand. No wedding ring. He assumed she was in a relationship. A woman this damned good-looking would have men hanging around her.

“Tell me where you live.”

Dakota sighed. “I’ll give you GPS coordinates if you know how to use them. It’s on a no-name dirt road. It doesn’t even have a forest service designation number to it.”

“Which mountain?”

“Mount Owen,” he growled. “Now do you know where it’s at?”

Shelby stood her ground with the ex-SEAL. She reminded herself that he was still coming out of shock and surgery. “I do. When I was a teen, I was up tracking in that area many times with my dad.”

“Tracking?” Dakota certainly didn’t expect that answer. He was a damned good SEAL tracker. He’d spent years tracking Taliban and al Qaeda in the Hindu Kush Mountains.

“Why so surprised?” Shelby grinned at him. If Dakota wasn’t so testy and sour, she’d like his company. If he didn’t have that two-day growth of beard, he’d be a cover model for GQ. He was in top, athletic shape and she liked the way his thickly corded neck and shoulders moved.

“Tracking isn’t exactly what I expected to hear coming out of your mouth.”

“Surprises abound, Mr. Carson. There’s an old miner’s shack up at eight thousand feet on a narrow dirt road. It was pretty well in ruin the last time I was in that area. There’s an old sluice box next to the creek. That shack sits about fifteen feet from the creek. At one time, gold was found in the Tetons, but the miners exhausted it.” She studied him. “Now, is that the cabin where you live?”

Amazed, he simply uttered, “Yeah, that’s it.” How the hell did Deputy Barbie Doll figure out his hiding place? Dakota found himself readjusting his attitude. There was more to her than he thought. And it triggered a curiosity in him he rarely felt. Most women he’d been with in the far past were interested in getting married, having kids and settling down. As a SEAL, he was in a two-year cycle, with six months of it being deployed into the badlands of Afghanistan. It didn’t leave much time to cultivate an honest-to-God relationship with a woman, which was why all of his entanglements crashed and burned.

“So, you were heading for your trapline when the bear charged you?”

“Yes, it’s that simple.”

“Do you have a phone?”

He managed a sour laugh. “Up there? You know there’s no phone or electric lines up to that shack.” Dakota saw her face go dark for a moment. She obviously didn’t like being reminded about the obvious.

“Cell phone,” Shelby amended in a firm tone. What was it about this guy? He was positively bristling and his hackles rose in a heartbeat. It was like flipping a switch off and on with him. Yet when his mouth relaxed and his eyes lost that glitter of defensiveness, she saw another man beneath that grouchy exterior. She liked that man and found herself wanting to know him better. Much better.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I got one.” He gave her the number and added, “Of course, I get, maybe, one or two bars, depending on the storms up there at that elevation.”

“I know,” she said, writing the info down on her pad.

“How would you know?”

She felt the gauntlet thrown at her feet once more. His eyes were dark with distrust. “Because,” she answered in an unruffled tone, “I was tracking a lost child up in that same area a year ago. I found the lost boy I’d been tracking. When I tried to call in on my cell, I couldn’t get a signal.”

Surprise flowed through Dakota. “You tracked a lost boy?” This blew his mind. Women did not know how to track.

“Yes.” Shelby kind of resented his genuine surprise. He wasn’t the only one with skills. Then the sudden relaxation came to his face. Interest glimmered in those gold-brown eyes of his. She felt a shiver of yearning move through her as the look he gave her was primal, sexual. What was happening here? Stunned by her own reaction toward this snarly ex-SEAL, Shelby said, “Let’s stick to the facts, Mr. Carson.”

Dakota opened his mouth and then closed it. He regarded her with a little more deference. “The only thing women can track is a sale price of clothing at a department store.”

Shelby couldn’t contain her laughter. “What are you? A Neanderthal? I can track as well as any man. Better.”

“Who are you?”

Her entire body reacted to his growling question. Now the wolf was circling the prey—her. “We don’t have time for that, Mr. Carson. I need to get the location of where you shot the bear in order to notify the Tetons Forest supervisor. They’ll want to find the bear, get it out of there and bring it back to their headquarters for autopsy.”

All business. Still, Dakota’s mind reeled over the fact that she was a tracker, of all things. And he knew this area like the back of his hand. It was serious, rugged, backcountry mountainous area. Even a skilled hunter could get lost and disoriented. And she hadn’t. As he gazed up into her sparkling blue eyes, he saw banked humor in them. He gave her the directions to the meadow where he had killed the bear.

“Great, thanks,” Shelby said. She walked away, pressed the button on the radio on her left epaulet.

Watching her, Dakota liked what he saw. She was definitely a throwback to the Victorian age with the proverbial hourglass figure. Her breasts were hidden by the Kevlar vest, but he could tell they were full. Her hips were flared and she had long, long legs. Damn, she was a good-looking woman. He warned himself that she was in a relationship, lay back and closed his eyes. He had to get out of this place. There was no friggin’ way he was staying overnight.

“How are you feeling?” Shelby asked when she came back over to his gurney. “Better?”

Opening his eyes, he said, “Yeah. Better.”

“We have two forest rangers going out to find your bear.”

“Am I going to be charged?”

“I doubt it. I’ll talk to Charley over at Tetons HQ tomorrow. It sounds like self-defense to me.”

His mouth curled into a slight grin. “Oh, it was, Deputy. It was. You should have been there.”

“No, thanks. I’ve had enough grizzly interruptus too many times when I’m tracking. I like to stay away from them. They’re big and they’re fast.”

He held up his bandaged arm. “Tell me about it.”

She liked his black humor. “You were lucky.”

“No luck at all. I had the situation under control.” Well, almost. If not for Storm charging the grizzly and biting the bear’s nose, he wouldn’t have gotten the second shots to kill the charging beast.

“Yeah, right.” Her mouth twitched. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No, you won’t.”

Shelby frowned. “You have to stay here for the night, Mr. Carson. Or go home with me.”

He sat up, his head clear. The nausea was ebbing. “Bull. I’m leaving....” He threw off the blankets and gave her a look that warned her not to stop him.

CHAPTER FOUR

SHELBY WATCHED DAKOTA Carson get up, unsteadily at first. His calves were knotted, which told her what good a shape he was in. He calmly removed the IV because he knew how to do it and dropped the needle and tube back on the gurney.

“Your clothes are kept in that locker room,” she said, pointing to a door on the left. “Probably got your last name on one of the lockers so you can find them.”

He stopped and studied her. Something about Shelby intrigued him. “You’re smart.”

“I’m field smart, Mr. Carson.”

His mouth twitched. Yeah, she was damned smart for not getting in his way. “If you were a man, you’d rear up on your balls and try to stop me.”

“I have a titanium set, but I choose my battles very carefully.”