Pursued By the Park Ranger (Heroes of Whispering Pines #8)

1. CHAPTER 1

Neely

I ease my RV around the last curve of the access road, and there it is, Ponderosa Flats Campground, forty-two sites tucked under pines so tall they make my rig look like a toy.

The host site sits just past the entrance kiosk, with its level gravel pad, water and electric hookups, and a picnic table that looks recently sanded.

I back into the spot like a pro, nailing it on my first attempt, set the brake, and sit for a minute with my hands still on the wheel. I peer through the windshield to take in the beautiful view.

Home sweet home. For now, anyway.

This is stop number eleven. Or twelve, if I count the four days in Ouray that ended when the campground flooded and closed for the season.

"Idaho for fourteen weeks," I tell the dashboard. "Then on to Oregon."

The dashboard doesn't argue. It never does. That's one of its best qualities.

I've got the water hooked up, and I'm wrestling the sewer hose out of its bay when a green Forest Service truck rolls in and parks beside the campground kiosk. The park ranger who climbs out is the best-looking man I’ve ever seen.

Tall, broad through the shoulders, dark hair cut short…

damn. His uniform fits just right, better than a tailored thousand-dollar suit ever could.

The sleeves are rolled up, showcasing sexy-as-hell forearms.

Girl, you’re practically salivating over forearms. Get a hold of yourself.

"Neely Quinn?" he says.

"That's me." I straighten up, still holding the sewer hose, which is not the accessory I'd have chosen for this moment. "You must be the ranger."

"Tate Benton." He doesn't offer a handshake right away.

Instead, he glances at my hookup, at the hose, at the angle of my rig on the pad, one quick pass, like he's cataloging every detail.

Then he steps over, picks up the support cradle I hadn't gotten to yet, and sets it under the hose line where it needs to go.

No comment. No lesson attached. He just does it and then holds out his hand.

"Welcome to Ponderosa Flats."

His grip is warm and careful, the handshake of a man who knows his strength and doesn’t want to intimidate. His eyes are the problem, though. They're steady on me in a way that feels less like a greeting and more like being read.

"Linda, the town manager, said you've hosted before," he says.

"Eleven campgrounds in four years. Colorado, Utah, Oregon, two summers in New Mexico." I brush my hands on my jeans. "I have lots of experience.”

"Good." His mouth quirks up at the corners, almost a smile. "Then this'll be fast."

It is not fast.

Tate Benton conducts an orientation the way I imagine he'd conduct a search and rescue. He’s extremely thorough, and no details are skipped.

We walk the loops, checking out each campsite, while he talks.

He informs me that quiet hours begin at 10:00 PM.

We go through the fee station procedures.

The vault toilets get serviced on Tuesdays, and if the pumper truck is late, I’m to call Ollie at the maintenance shop, not the county, because the county will put me on hold until September.

“Ollie’s the one who gets things done around here,” Tate says. “He’s a bit scatterbrained and tends to jump from one project to another, so you have to stay on him. But he’s a great guy and does great work.”

I bob my head. “Got it.”

At the day-use lot, he hands me a radio. "Cell service is non-existent here, so this is your lifeline. Channel one is dispatch, that's Tessa, she's faster than 911 up here. Channel three reaches me. Radio checks every morning at eight. If I don't hear from you by eight fifteen, I come looking.”

"Punctuality is very important to you. Got it.”

The corners of his mouth twitch again. Still, it’s not quite a smile. "It’s at least fourteen miles to the nearest spot with good cell service," he says. "Up here, a missed check-in could be really bad news. So, we take them seriously.”

I clip the radio to my belt and try not to notice how much I like the weight of it. It feels so… official. Like I’m a cop or something, and not just a temporary campground host.

We continue walking, and Tate moves on to the food storage lecture.

Apparently, it’s even more important than the radio checks.

Every site has a bear box made of steel and bolted to concrete.

Anything with a scent goes in the box, which must be securely latched, or into a hard-sided vehicle.

Coolers, trash, dog food, citronella candles, and even toothpaste must be locked up tight to keep bears from hanging around the campground.

"Campers will tell you their fancy, overpriced cooler is bear-proof," he says. "It isn't. If you get pushback, you don't have to win the argument. You call me, and I’ll win it."

I bristle at that. "I can handle campers.”

"I believe you." He sounds sincere, which mollifies me a bit.

"But there's a reason I'm being a pain about this one.

We've had a young black bear in the area for about three weeks. He’s on his own.

Probably just got kicked loose by his mother.

He's found trash twice that we know of. Once at the campground, and once at the trailhead parking lot. Both times, it was due to human error."

"So, he's learning that humans equal food?”

Tate stops walking and looks at me. "Yeah. He's learning. And if he keeps interacting with humans, it’ll end up costing him his life. I’ve seen it before. Bears put down because they won’t stay away from people. And it all starts with someone’s bag of potato chips or jar of peanut butter.”

We finish the loop back at my site. The RV sits there in the shade, awning still rolled, my whole life packed into twenty-eight feet of aluminum. Four years, and I can still break camp in under an hour. I’ve become a pro at being on the road.

"Nice rig," Tate says.

"She's home."

"And she’ll be parked here for the next fourteen weeks." He says it easily, no edge, just repeating what's in my paperwork. But his eyes stay on me a beat too long, and I get the unsettling feeling he heard everything I didn't say.

"That's the contract," I say.

"Mm." He hands me a laminated card, emergency numbers, gate codes, his cell for when I'm in town and off radio. His handwriting is small and square. "Anything you need in the next few days, just ask. Doesn't have to be an emergency."

"I'm pretty good at handling things myself."

"I noticed," he says. "You leveled that rig alone in under ten minutes. Most couples take thirty, and one of them ends up sleeping outside." He almost smiles again, and I'm annoyed at how much I want to see the full version.

That's when the voice comes from Loop B, a man in a fishing vest, waving like he's flagging down a rescue plane.

"Hey! Ranger! Somebody trashed the bin by site nineteen.

Garbage everywhere. And I'm telling you, something big went through the brush behind our tent last night. My wife heard it breathing."

Tate turns. And I watch it happen, the warmth doesn't disappear exactly, it just files itself away behind something quicker and harder. He's already moving, radio up, eyes on the tree line past site nineteen where the huckleberry runs thick.

"Neely." Not looking at me. "Walk with me. Orientation's not over."

I unclip my radio and follow.