Roz Denny Fox - The Single Dad's Guarded Heart

He didn’t consider himself the total recluse he was rumored to be. After all, he got together three or four times a year with his fellow rangers and their families. Mainly to catch up on everything that happened in other sectors of the sprawling national park—but also to give Dean an opportunity to play with other kids.

Wylie rarely looked twice at the women at those gatherings. Not even when one or another friend introduced him to a new, single female ranger. And there had been several who’d joined up since Shirl hightailed it. For the life of him, he couldn’t recall if any of them had worn such a tantalizing perfume. On second thought, he decided, he’d remember if they had.

In the distance, he heard the woman, Marlee, call for her daughter. Muttering under his breath, Wylie dived into his task. He didn’t glance up again until the sound of feet shuffling through pine and fir needles on the trail interrupted him. Marlee Stein’s worried expression yanked Wylie right out of admiring the picture she made. “Something wrong?”

“I found the tire swing. The kids aren’t there. I called for Jo Beth, but got no response. My daughter’s not used to being in the woods. She could easily get turned around.”

“Dean probably took her out to the animal pens.” Wylie, who’d been down on one knee checking the largest of the crates, stood and brushed off the needles stuck to his khaki pants.

“Animal pens?” Marlee’s face paled. “Oh, I suppose you keep hunting dogs?”

“Our pens house wild creatures that Dean and I have rescued.”

Marlee raked a hand through her hair. “Wild—oh, Mick said something about that. Isn’t that dangerous? Jo Beth’s a city girl. Where are the pens?”

“It’s a fair walk. I’ll take you.”

“How far?”

“We keep the environment as close to normal for the animals as we can,” he said in explanation. “So when they heal, it’s easier to release them back into their natural habitat.” He led the way to a junction in the trail Marlee hadn’t seen on her trek to the swing.

She had a hard time keeping pace with the ranger’s long stride. Suddenly he stopped. Slightly winded, Marlee caught up.

He parted the dense foliage. “That’s where they got off to, all right. I can hear Dean explaining how he stumbled across Boxer after a rancher shot its mother.”

“Boxer?”

“A griz cub. Yea big.” Wylie shaped his hands to the approximate size of one of the smaller crates.

“Griz, as in grizzly bear?” Her pitch rose, along with her anxiety level.

He nodded and Marlee found herself noticing how deep they were in the forest, enough so that every ray of sunlight was blocked. She prided herself on having a good sense of direction, but now realized she hadn’t paid attention to their route. She was at this man’s mercy and it unnerved her. That and the nonchalant way Wylie Ames discussed grizzlies and gun-toting ranchers.

Marlee bit her lip. “I don’t hear voices.” Closer to the runway, birds chirped and squirrels chattered, but here, surrounded by undergrowth, it seemed uncannily silent.

The ranger placed both little fingers to his lips and rent the air with a shrill whistle. Moments later he repeated the call.

As if Ames had flushed out small varmints, Marlee heard scuttling in the brush. Then an answering whistle sounded, quite some distance off. Very soon, though, childish giggles followed. And in no time, two bright heads burst out of a thicket. One sandy red, the other toffee-brown. Relief unfurled in Marlee’s stomach.

Dean Ames stared curiously at his dad. When the girl traipsing at his heels stumbled on a knobby tree root, the boy instinctively reached back and kept Jo Beth from falling. “Did you want us, Dad?”

Marlee rushed over and pulled Jo Beth tight against her legs as if to shield her from any threat. The woman’s frightened expression gave Wylie an idea of what he was dealing with.

“Son, you told us you were going to the swing. You shouldn’t have gone to the animal pens without telling anyone.”

Dean screwed up his nose as he squinted at his dad. “Where else would I be?”

“Mrs. Stein had no idea. You worried her.”

The freckle-faced boy gaped at Marlee. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I told Jo Beth about my pets and she asked to see them.”

“Mama,” the girl broke in. “Dean’s got his very own bear. The kind we saw at the zoo at home, only littler. Boxer got hurt, but Dean and his daddy are making him better.”

“That’s…commendable,” Marlee said with a quaver in her voice. “Tell Dean goodbye, Jo Beth. We have an order to deliver to Glenroe’s Lodge.”

“You’re going into the backcountry? Dean, run to the house and get Mary’s pie tins.” He turned to face Marlee. “Last time Mick came out, Mary Glenroe sent along a couple of fresh apple pies. Can you tell her thank you?”

“And tell her she can send us more pies,” the boy said.

“Dean, that would be ill-mannered.”

“Doesn’t that tell Mrs. Glenroe we liked her cooking?” “Well, yes, but…” Flustered, Wylie clammed up. He was more dismayed when Marlee laughed. The soft trill seemed to coil around places inside him long untouched. It was a nice sound, even if her laughter was at his expense.

“I’ll tell Mary you loved her pies, Dean. I recall enjoying a slice or two of her peach pies when I wasn’t much older than you.”

Marlee hadn’t realized that the roundabout path Wylie led them down now would end up not at the runway but at the back door of his cabin. Not until Dean darted ahead and she heard the screen door slam. The boy reappeared with pie tins before the others emerged from the woods into a clearing that held a vegetable garden fenced with chicken wire. She’d been so worried about not finding Jo Beth at the swing earlier, she’d completely missed seeing the garden. The neat rows of vegetables surprised her nearly as much as the flower box had. Ranger Ames was domestic, which one wouldn’t imagine looking at his very masculine body.

“Dad, the soup smells yummy. I’m hungry. Can’t Jo Beth and her mom stay and eat with us?”

Wylie and Marlee whipped out a simultaneous denial.

Jo Beth pouted and stamped a foot. “I’m hungry, too, Mama. Why can’t we eat with Dean?”

For the life of her, Marlee couldn’t find a way to tell the two children, who’d obviously hit it off, that neither she nor the boy’s father wanted to remain in each other’s company.

Ames reacted to his son’s disappointment by ruffling the boy’s red hair. Then he sighed, giving in to the pleas of the children. “Won’t take long,” he said to her, sounding gruff even though he smiled at the kids. “A matter of filling bowls and slicing bread.”

Marlee, who’d never felt more like turning tail, wasn’t about to be the bad guy in this setup. “Sure, okay. I’d hate to have Mary think she had to fix us something.” She gave a quick shrug. “They must be getting on in years, Mary and Finn. I haven’t seen them in…fourteen years.”

Wylie opened the back door and stood aside to let his guests enter. “Been three for me. Dean and I had to take a run to the lodge on the big snow cat that winter. Finn had complaints about a couple of guests. Whit Chadwick claimed they chased his sheep, and he’d recognized Finn’s snowmobile. The kids turned out to be Mary’s great-nephews, come from Dallas to celebrate her sixty-fifth birthday. And Finn’s even older.”

“Definitely not spring chickens.” Marlee followed Dean and Jo Beth through a laundry room into a country-style kitchen. She didn’t know what she’d expected—surely a cluttered mess much like she’d found at Mick and Pappy’s. Not so. The Ames’kitchen was spotless. Cheery curtains hung at the windows and bright place mats graced the table. A Crock-Pot on the counter emitted puffs of steam. Good-smelling steam. “Dean’s right,” Marlee said, stopping to close her eyes and sniff. “The soup smells delicious.”