and held mock battles with paint balls. They had worked on their team skills as well as their navigational ones.
“And found our inner man, uh, men, or something like that,” a third added, causing the others to chuckle.
“The boss will be proud when we report back.” The first man gave Mary a wink and handed over the reins to his mount, a gentle cowpony now gray in the muzzle.
After releasing the horses and pack mules into the paddock, she led each one in turn into the stable. She cleaned their hooves and groomed their coats, then fed and watered them.
She left one mule in the paddock while she reluctantly moved Attila under the lean-to and made him a bed in there, with a pole propped between two bales of straw to keep him enclosed. Tomorrow she could look around and maybe figure out another arrangement.
After caring for the last mule, she drove her vehicles to the rear, retrieved her bags from the SUV, then trudged up the barely discernible path to the lodge. From the dining room came sounds of merriment and lots of teasing about their exploits among the six men. She quietly walked along the corridor to the stairs.
From the office, she could hear the deep voice of her boss. “Yeah, she arrived,” he said.
She stopped upon realizing he was discussing her. “She seems to know her way around. Did you know she has a horse? She does,” he said when the other person obviously replied in the negative. “One thing, she can cook. She did something to fix the soup and also made cornbread when I burnt the biscuits. So maybe she won’t be a total loss.”
Mary’s chest lifted in indignation at the implied criticism. She quelled the emotion and the urge to storm in and inform her boss that she was a damn good worker. People new to an area were often viewed with suspicion, and she couldn’t afford the luxury of hurt feelings.
“Well,” he continued as if explaining his remark, “she’s as skinny as a birch twig. The first winter wind might blow her away. I don’t know if she has the strength to do the job.” He chuckled sardonically. “Yeah, I know, beggars can’t be choosers. Thanks a lot, cuz.”
Before Mary could move, he hung up and walked into the hallway, now alight with the soft glow of two wall sconces.
Their eyes met.
“Sorry. I didn’t know you were out here,” he said.
She shrugged. “Lots of men don’t think women can do the job. We have to prove ourselves each time. It comes with the territory.” She spoke carefully, determined not to let him rattle her.
“You’ll have to help me with the hunting parties this fall. We’ll be setting up blinds, maybe wading through snow up to our boot tops.” There was a warning in his tone.
“I’m not afraid of hard work.”
Only of people, but she didn’t say that. She wasn’t really afraid of anyone, but she’d learned to be wary.
“Good, ’cause we have plenty of it around here.” He started toward the kitchen area.
She went up two steps.
“Your cornbread was a hit with the men,” he added.
Glancing over her shoulder, she nodded.
“And the soup. What did you do to it?”
“Added some spices.”
His smile was sudden and unexpected. “You’ll have to show me what and how much. My attempts at cooking are unreliable, as you observed earlier.”
Mary experienced a flutter in the pit of her stomach at the rueful humor evident in his eyes. “Sure,” she said and moved up another step.
His next words stopped her cold. “You have a very precise way of speaking,” he murmured, looking at her in a quizzical manner as if trying to figure out what made her tick.
She hesitated, not sure how much she wanted to disclose but feeling compelled to tell him some of the truth. “I had speech therapy when I was a kid.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “Yeah? Why was that?”
Every muscle in her body went rigid at the question. She realized she’d set herself up for an inquisition, but it still took a second for her to regain her poise. She gave him a level stare. “When I started kindergarten, I had a stutter. In first grade, I was placed in Special Ed for therapy.”
She had to pause in saying the last word to prevent the stutter from returning. She’d learned to slow down, to breathe calmly while she heard the word in her mind, then to say it.
A ripple of emotion went through his eyes. For a second she thought he could see right down into the chasm where her soul dwelt, but he didn’t mouth any platitudes and meaningless compassionate phrases. He simply nodded as if her words explained everything and went on his way.
Mary exhaled sharply, then continued up the stairs and into the room he’d said she was to have. She closed and locked the door behind her, then stood there panting as if she’d barely escaped from a trap.
“I’m not afraid of him,” she said aloud, her face in the dresser mirror set and angry. “I’m not a child. I don’t ever have to be afraid again.”
But the memories flooded into her mind—of times when she’d been terrified, of loneliness so intense she’d felt a part of her innermost self had been ripped away, of helplessness because she was a child and her world was filled with strangers who decided her life without consulting her.
The man who was assumed to be her father had abandoned her at a bar in Wyoming. She’d remembered her nickname and that she was three years old, but she didn’t know what had happened to her mother or where their home was. She’d thought she had lots of family at one time, but maybe that was the fantasy of a lonely child.
Two things she remembered very well—the shock of having her head shaved when she was put into the orphanage and the year it had taken for her hair to grow long enough so that her image in a mirror no longer frightened her. For the first four months of that year, she’d quit speaking entirely. She’d felt as if her real self had been stolen. She hadn’t known who she was, where she belonged.
Sometimes, she mused, she felt as if she still didn’t. Perhaps that was why she didn’t like to stay in one place too long. She was looking for the little girl who’d been lost all those years ago…
With a confused sigh, she settled on one of the twin beds in the neat room. Since arriving in Lost Valley that afternoon, she’d felt unsettled and anxious.
She didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if she’d ever been there or had known anyone who’d ever lived in the area.
However, something about the name—Seven Devils—haunted her. While waiting for Jonah’s cousin at the Trading Post to sketch the map on the brochure advertising the ranch, she’d read the legend of the seven monsters who’d crossed the river and eaten the children until Coyote had turned them into the seven peaks grouped around the eastern side of the Snake River. For some reason the story had both intrigued and bothered her.
A shiver ran along her spine as apprehension seized her. She felt danger all around, but she didn’t know if it came from within herself or the seven devils of the legend.
Or from the tall, handsome man whose keen gaze saw more than she wanted to reveal.
Chapter Two
Jonah spotted the forms on the pass-through counter to the office at once the next morning. Since it was barely daylight, he wondered when his new helper had filled them out. He swiftly read the information.
Mary McHale was twenty-six years old. Her birthday was in March. Her mailing address was in care of general delivery at a post office in Wyoming. She’d apparently grown up on a ranch and had worked with horses at rodeos for six years, moving from place to place, then had worked two years in