Roaming Wild (Steele Ridge Book 6) Read online

  Roaming Wild

  Steele Ridge Series

  Tracey Devlyn

  Roaming WILD

  A Steele Ridge Novel, Book 6

  She’s loved him forever…

  The last thing traveling nurse Evie Steele expects to find aboard the RV housing her mobile health clinic is her brother’s best friend. As always, Deke’s close proximity stirs her forbidden desires and long-suppressed dreams. But his sudden reappearance in her life and curious interest in her patients makes Evie wonder what he’s hiding.

  …but now his secrets could destroy them both.

  Special agent Deke Conrad is in big trouble. Not only does he have a thing for his friend’s little sister, but what should be a routine mission is turning into a tour of temptation and survival. He fooled himself into thinking he could keep the beautiful and dynamic Evie in the dark while he used the cover of her Med Mobile to track down a merciless wildlife trafficker. But he didn't anticipate the lure of her scent or the warmth of her smile…or the string of dead bodies littering their path.

  When Evie winds up in his enemy’s crosshairs, Deke must unleash every weapon in his arsenal to save her, including his heart. But will he be too late?

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  Published by Steele Ridge, LLC

  Contents

  Steele Ridge Series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Discover More Steele Ridge

  Also by Tracey Devlyn

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Steele Ridge Series

  The BEGINNING, A Short Prequel, Book 1

  Going HARD, Book 2

  Living FAST, Book 3

  Loving DEEP, Book 4

  Breaking FREE, Book 5

  Roaming WILD, Book 6

  Stripping BARE, Book 7

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  1

  July 28, 11:37 a.m.

  Bamford, Western North Carolina

  Deke crouched behind a large tree, his AR15 at the ready while he waited for his team members to get into position.

  Eleven months. That’s how long it had taken him to get to this point.

  Eleven months living as Dan Wimberly, a gun store clerk looking to make a quick buck.

  Eleven months currying favor with a greedy lowlife who cared nothing for the things Deke had dedicated his life to for the past decade.

  Eleven months away from family and friends. Away from Evie.

  He sensed more than heard his second-in-command, Keone Akana, move into position twenty yards away. “Team check,” Deke whispered into his mic.

  Voices from the other five members of his team chimed in his ear.

  “All appears quiet inside,” Keone said.

  “Too quiet.” Deke flipped his night goggles in place. Everything turned into shades of green and shadow. He searched the area around the large red barn and two outbuildings. Nothing stirred. Not even an insect.

  “Are you sure you got the right night?” Keone asked.

  Forty-eight hours ago, his confidential informant had warned him that the Distributor would be moving his inventory from this location at midnight. Deke assessed the barn. It had to be at least five thousand square feet. A lot of space to store illegal contraband. A lot of senseless deaths.

  The muscle in Deke’s jaw tightened. No matter how many of these busts he made, he would never get used to walking into a room full of animal pelts and parts. Never.

  Had his CI screwed up the date or time? Had Deke’s cover been blown?

  “We’ll soon find out.” Deke squashed the coil of uncertainty in his gut. “Move in, on my mark. Three…two…one. Move.”

  His unit advanced as one toward the barn. Deke didn’t need visual confirmation to know it. They had trained together for a year in a half before their first mission. Their tactics came to them second nature, though each man and woman brought their own expertise to the table and acted accordingly. As long as each member achieved their individual missions, Deke left it to them to determine the best method.

  Deke and Keone flanked a door on the east side of the building. Trying the latch, the door creaked open. Their gazes met, grim.

  With a hand gesture, Deke gave his partner the go signal.

  Keone eased through the opening and entered the barn. Deke closed in behind him.

  They’d barely cleared the door when Keone yelled, “Get down!”

  A whish followed by a thrump split the air.

  The force of the arrow spun Deke around, throwing him off-balance and buckling his knees. Steel ripped through muscle and tendons. Searing pain stole his breath. Blood pounded in his ears, deafening him to the outside world. For several precious seconds, he lay on his back, disoriented.

  “You okay?” Keone pulled him clear and propped him against a stack of empty crates.

  “Fine,” Deke panted, holding his injured arm against his body. “Warn the team.”

  “Shooter!” Keone fired back in his mic. “Stay sharp—”

  “Fuck!” someone roared into Deke’s earpiece.

  “Matteo’s down,” Wes said in his usual can’t-rattle-me tone. “Arrow to the leg.”

  “I’m on my way,” Raelyn said.

  “Rae’s the best. She’ll patch the new kid up.” As usual, Keone could sense Deke’s turmoil before he could. The Hawaiian had a deep connection to the entire team’s inner workings. It was damn uncomfortable at times.

  “Have you located the bastard?” Deke peered through the slats in the crate.

  “No, but I see a spent crossbow mounted against a support beam.”

  “Sonofabitch.” He spoke to his team. “The entrances are booby-trapped. Team check.”

  Everyone’s voice came over the mic, including Matteo’s, though the engineer’s was strained.

  “Commander,” a more distant female voice called through Deke’s earpiece.

  “Go ahead, ComOne.”

  Intelligence analyst Marisol Vega continued, “Satellite imagery is picking up some activity about a half mile south of your location.”

  “What kind of activity?”

&nb
sp; “Two large trucks and nine subjects.” Typing echoed in the background. “No buildings in the area, though there appears to be…”

  “What’re you seeing?”

  “Sorry, sir. The image is unclear.”

  “Taj, Jax, check it out.”

  “10-4,” Taj said.

  Deke got to his feet. “Let’s continue our sweep.”

  “Hang on a second,” Keone said. “I’ll get Rae over here to take a look at your injury.”

  Deke glanced down at the arrow protruding from his shoulder. Bad idea. Sweat broke out on his forehead. “Leave her with Matteo.”

  “But—”

  Not in the mood to argue, he brushed past his second, but within minutes Deke knew the mission was a bust. The barn sat empty, except for some wooden crates and metal shelving units.

  Frustration burned through his veins. Eleven months’ worth of work vaporized before his eyes.

  “Loft and perimeter empty. Entrances clear,” Keone said, rejoining him. “We’ve got a damn rat in our midst.”

  Deke lifted his goggles and rubbed his eyes, the exhaustion he’d been holding at bay finally breaking through. “Appears so.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Not offhand.”

  “Any chance the new kid made a mistake? Maybe he inadvertently passed on intel?”

  Although each team member came to SONR with a specialization, everyone had to put in field time. Which meant undercover work. Some were naturals, some stuck out like a red M&M in a peanut bowl.

  “Anything’s possible. But from what I’ve observed, Matteo can hold his own.” Into his mic, he asked, “Matteo’s status?”

  Raelyn replied, “The arrow’s lodged deep in his thigh. He’s going to need surgery.”

  “Load him up. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “The Distributor got wind of our arrival somehow,” Keone pressed. “And our circle of trust is damn small.”

  Distributor. Not very original, but it was the name the team had adopted for the elusive mastermind behind a multimillion-dollar wildlife and plant trafficking scheme. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established his elite team, SONR—Special Operations for Natural Resources—for the sole purpose of taking down empires like the Distributor’s. The problem was, no one knew the guy’s identity, and Deke had only found one who would dare cross him.

  Could someone within SONR have betrayed the team? He’d trained, eaten, slept, trained, shot, killed, and trained with these agents. How much money would it take to turn comrade against comrade?

  “You think one of us tipped him off?” The words scraped along Deke’s throat like slivers of glass.

  “No—yes—maybe. Damned if I know.” Keone’s brown eyes passed over a few members of the team filtering into the main room of the barn. “We’ve got enough shit to sift through. The last thing we need is a dirty agent.”

  “Commander,” Taj said in his ear.

  “What’d you got?”

  “We’re too late. All that’s left is a set of large tire tracks leading out of the woods.”

  Dammit. “Head back. We’ll return tomorrow for a better look.”

  “Tire tracks aren’t all that’s left,” Jax said, snapping her gum.

  “What’s she talking about, Taj?”

  A mountain of silence followed.

  “Someone talk to me.”

  “Looks like the Distributor left a message for you,” Taj said.

  “What?”

  “Probably your CI,” Jax interjected.

  “Bald, scruffy beard, reeks of stale smoke?”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Deke said. “He’s got some explaining to do.”

  “Not gonna happen, boss,” Jax said around another bubble. “His throat’s slit.”

  2

  July 31

  Steele Ridge, Western North Carolina

  Deke pushed through the door of Blues, Brews, and Books—or, as the locals liked to say, Triple B. It was good to be back in Steele Ridge, which had formerly been named Canyon Ridge. His family had moved here right before he entered the fourth grade and stayed through his junior year before returning to their hometown of Rockton.

  For him, Steele Ridge would always be his true home. He’d made lifelong friends here, and it was the place where he’d become a man.

  His eyes took a moment to adjust before settling on the lone figure stationed at the bar. Zigzagging his way around islands of low and high tables, he slapped his friend’s broad shoulder. “Hello, shit for brains.”

  Rather than be startled by such an abrupt greeting, Britt Steele angled his lumberjack body around and held out his hand. “You’re late.” He shook Deke’s hand before bellying up to the bar again. “Some of us have to return to work, you know.”

  Deke slid onto the barstool kiddie corner to his friend’s. “Can’t even work up an ounce of sympathy.” He nodded to the bartender, Grady. “My last vacation was over a year ago. I’m going to enjoy every second of the next fourteen days.”

  Britt eyed the sling cradling his arm. “What happened? Keyboard attack you?”

  Deke did his damnedest not to lie to those he cared about. As far as his friends and family knew, he worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of External Affairs, traveling all over the Southeast Region in search of his next story. Or he could be found cooped up at the Asheville field office banging out articles for the Service’s quarterly newsletter. All true—but not the whole truth.

  “You have no idea how threatening the office environment can be.”

  “And I hope I never do. How are you healing?”

  The dull, throbbing pain in his shoulder served as a constant reminder of how quickly a mission could go wrong, even with hours of careful planning. Matteo had gotten the worst of it, though. SONR’s engineer had spent three days in the hospital after the surgeon had dug the arrow out of his leg. The damned thing had gone so deep that the tip had embedded in bone.

  Clenching his jaw, Deke flexed his fingers and lifted his elbow until the action caused an involuntary wince. Better than yesterday, but he wouldn’t be playing basketball anytime soon.

  “Getting there.”

  “What do you have planned, besides lunch with a friend you’ve blown off for months?”

  “Not a damn thing.”

  “You’re going to stare at your apartment walls for the next two weeks?”

  “Maybe. If the mood strikes.”

  “Don’t see it. I’ve never known you to be idle, in over twenty-five years.”

  “I’m hoping to sleep away the first two days.” Deke rubbed his tired eyes. “I’ll see where things go from there.”

  “Tough assignment?”

  He chose his words carefully. “They get more complicated every time.”

  “Complicated how? Don’t you just go into an area, interview people, take some pictures and then write up an article?”

  “I wish it were that simple.”

  “What can I get you?” Grady asked.

  “Surprise me.” He glanced at Britt. “You order food yet?”

  “Yeah. Hope you’re in the mood for a burger.”

  “Do you order for Randi?”

  “Not a chance,” a new voice said.

  Randi Shepherd cuddled against Britt’s side and kissed him. Although she kept it short, Deke could feel the power of their intimacy from two feet away. A pang of envy clutched his chest, and he shifted his attention to Grady’s nimble hands. What he wouldn’t give to have a woman love him as Randi loves Britt. It was a notion that had filtered through his thoughts a lot lately.

  “He knows better.” Randi wrapped Deke in a warm hug. “Seems like forever since we saw you last. You gonna hang around Steele Ridge for a while?”

  “I’d planned to. Mind if I rent the loft above the bar for a few days?”

  “Of course. I’ll have someone run up there to see if it’s habitable.”

  “Thought you
didn’t have a plan,” Britt said.

  “My plan is not to have a plan.”

  Randi laughed. “Let me go check on your food.”

  He watched his friend’s gaze follow Randi from the room. “How’s domestic life treating you?”

  “Bit of an adjustment at first, but we’ve settled into a groove now.”

  “A good one?”

  “The best.”

  “How’s the Center?”

  Thanks to a hefty investment from Britt’s younger brother, he was running a Wildlife Research Center on the outskirts of town.

  “I hired a botanist to study the red wolves’ habitat and the surrounding conservation area.”

  “Is that trepidation or skepticism I hear in your voice?”

  “Fear.” Britt lifted a beer mug to his lips. “She’s my cousin.”

  He searched his memory for another conservationist in the Steele family. “Not Riley.”

  “Ding, ding, ding.”

  “The Kingston menace?”

  Britt smiled.

  “What the hell were you thinking? She used to plant shit bombs in our sleeping bags.”