Soldier's Rescue

His hands curled into fists at the remembered urge to touch her.

Then he had driven like a madman to her clinic and volunteered to help with the damned surgery. After years in Iraq and the Stan, you’d think he would have had enough trauma and gore. But there he was, itching to get back into it while sneaking glances at her shape—which admittedly was pretty sweet—and watching her hands. What was it about her hands?

He groaned aloud and finished his beer in a couple of gulps. He didn’t need to be thinking like this, feeling like this. But he kept going back to the end, when he’d stood close to her, watching her face. He knew he should back off and give her some room, but was unable to make himself do it. Every nerve in his body had hummed with awareness of her.

He crushed the empty can and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his thoughts back to the problem at hand. The dog had a fifty-fifty chance. He had promised Ben they would check on her, but there was no guarantee she would still be there on Saturday. He didn’t want to think about the disappointment he would see in Ben’s face if something happened to the animal in the meantime. He’d gotten himself into a situation.

Man up, Stanton. For God’s sake—just hope the golden makes it a few more days. And who says Kate Everly will even be there? She has a partner—maybe he’ll be there instead of her. Just keep your head in the mission, your hands in your damn pockets and get it over with.

CHAPTER THREE

THE GOLDEN WAS holding her own.

Kate stood at the counter of the rear surgery at noon that Saturday, entering notes into the computer on her last patient of the day when the golden raised her head. She drank from the water bowl they had placed nearby, and Kate paused to watch, marveling at the dog’s progress. The golden was still weak, but the stitches were holding and she was showing some interest in food, at least if it came from a human hand. She seemed to be comfortable around people, and Kate couldn’t help wondering for the twentieth time where she had come from and why she was wandering the countryside in the company of a temperamental shepherd.

“You know,” she said to the dog, “if you stay around here much longer, we’re going to have to give you a name. If you have any preferences, you’d better speak up, because Jess is dying to name some poor critter ‘Ermahgerd.’”

She knelt by the dog, running hands over her silky head and soft ears. “Good girl.” The dog gave a tail thump in response and Kate smiled. She checked the IV line taped to the dog’s foreleg, found it secure and slid inescapably into the memory of how it was done. Those big hands—she could see them in perfect detail—neatly muscular, surprisingly agile—

“That papillon of Mrs. Richardson’s is a piece of work.”

Kate started and turned to see her partner exiting exam room 3.

“The old lady swears ‘Poochie’ picks out her own outfits every day,” Jess continued, shaking her head. “Today it was blue taffeta and pearls. Pearls. The dog’s got a better wardrobe than most women I know.”

“Well, it wouldn’t take much to be better than mine,” Kate said with a laugh, tucking her hair behind her ears and rising. She looked down at her khakis and the faded green polo awash in animal hair and sporting a couple of damp spots she didn’t want to investigate too closely.

Jess, on the other hand, looked like an ad for vintage Abercrombie & Fitch: plaid shirt and stylishly faded jeans beneath her white coat, and expensive, half-laced hiking boots. She stood six feet tall, had long, dark hair that she wore pulled back into a haphazard bun, and moved with an athletic grace Kate had always envied. Even in her most windblown or just awakened state, she managed to look good.

They were complete opposites, which was probably one of the reasons they had become fast friends the first semester of vet school and had always wanted to go into practice together. Short, honey-blonde Kate was the neat one, the careful planner and progress monitor, the one determined to iron out all the wrinkles in life. Jess was messy in everything but her work, spontaneous and adventuresome, and loved parties, men and changing her mind.

“How is she doing?”

“She’s coming along.” There was no small bit of pride in Kate’s assessment. “If she keeps this up, in another few days we can move her to the shelter.”

Jess came to stand beside her and look down at her patient.

“Then maybe she’ll get to see her boyfriend again.” She chuckled. “That dude’s a handful. I can’t imagine anybody scooping him up and taking him home. Not unless they live in a bunker somewhere.” She shrugged out of her white coat and hung it on a hook by the waiting-room door. “Hey, maybe you ought to call that big trooper and have him come over to help move her.” She brightened visibly. “You know, the one with all those muscles and the uniform.”

Kate gave her a don’t-go-there look and regretted ever mentioning Nick Stanton to her, much less describing him so thoroughly. She fished through the papers on the nearby counter for the shopping list she’d made last night. “Don’t you have a supply run to make?”

“I’m just sayin’.” Jess’s smile was pure provocation. “I know you have a weakness for uniforms.” Kate’s deepening glower only incited her to continue. “You’ve got to live while you can, Kate. You can’t let what happened with Jared ruin the rest of your life.”

“My life is not ruined just because I’m not attached to a man. I have a lot to do, and I enjoy what I do. I don’t have time for...wasting my time.” That last came out a little more vehemently than she intended. Jess put her hands up in surrender, then snatched the list and headed for the back door, where she paused for one more volley.

“Sex, properly done, is never a waste of time, sweetums.”

Kate watched the door well after it closed, roundly annoyed by her partner’s final salvo. Jess was fond of making one last crack and escaping before she could make a blistering comeback. Not that she usually could come up with a blistering comeback, but she at least deserved the chance to try. The man thing was a running argument they would likely never settle: Kate believed in stable and serious relationships, while Jess pursued fierce and spontaneous affairs of the heart.

“Doc?” LeeAnn Monroe, their spiky-haired receptionist, poked her head through the double doors that led to the waiting room. “The patients are all gone and I finished the bank deposit, but before I could lock the doors, a man walked in, asking to see you.”

“What about?”

“He said it was about that golden—the one that cop brought in.”

A frisson of expectation ran down her spine. “Is it a state trooper?”

The quirky receptionist shrugged. “No uniform. Big sucker, though.”

“You can go, LeeAnn,” she said, heading for the waiting room. “I’ll see what he wants and then finish locking up.” She took a deep breath, surprised at how her heart was suddenly racing. It might not even be—

Beyond the double doors stood a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing jeans, a T-shirt and cross-trainers. At the sound of her footsteps, he turned, and she stopped a few feet away, and when she looked up into his eyes, her stomach slid to her knees. She hadn’t just imagined how big and male he was or how that affected her.

“Can I help you?” She sounded a little breathless to her own ears as she tried to take refuge in hard-won professionalism. “Trooper Stanton, right?”

Before he could respond, a young boy stepped out from behind him with widening eyes. Beautiful golden-hazel eyes, just like Nick Stanton’s. The trooper laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder to halt him.

“Yes. Nick Stanton. And this is my son, Ben.”

“Are you the doctor who took care of the hurt dog?” Ben asked eagerly. His brown hair stuck straight up in front, and a few new teeth were fighting for space with ones he hadn’t lost yet. He had on a green shirt sporting the number 7, matching shorts and shin guards beneath padded knee socks.

“Yes. I’m Dr. Everly. Nice to meet you, Ben.” She covered her surprise by extending her hand. With a glance at his dad, who nodded, he gave her a very grown-up handshake.

“I told him about what happened to the dog, and he made me promise to bring him to see her.” Stanton released Ben’s shoulder and shoved his hand into the pocket of his jeans. “I didn’t realize your Saturday hours ended at noon. He had soccer practice this morning and—I don’t want to keep you—”

“It’s no trouble,” Kate said, focusing on Ben. “The dog is doing fairly well. Want to see?” She motioned for them to follow her through the doors and into the surgery, where she stooped in front of the boy to match his height and draw his gaze to hers. “Now you have to realize, Ben, she was hurt pretty badly. We had to shave some of her hair in places and stitch her up. And she’s not exactly frisky, okay? She’s still a pretty sick dog.”

Ben looked thoughtful and then nodded. When they reached the shelf where the golden lay, the boy stood for a moment, taking in the dog’s condition. His expression sobered, and she could see his mind working behind his eyes. Edging closer, he instinctively reached for the dog before he caught himself.

“Would it hurt her if I petted her?” He looked at Kate and then at his dad, who remained silent, deferring to the professional.

“I think she’ll be fine with it.” She was aware of Nick’s gaze on her and slid naturally into teacher mode. “Just be gentle. I think she likes people.”

He gingerly touched the dog’s head with a couple of fingers, then seemed to relax and moved closer, using his whole hand. “That’s where you had to do the surgery?” He pointed to the bare lines of stitches on her leg and hip. When Kate nodded, he frowned. “Did it hurt her when you cut her?”

“No,” Kate said, seeing where his logic was taking him, “we wouldn’t let that happen. We put her to sleep, so she wouldn’t feel anything while we fixed her leg. You want to see how?”

He nodded, and she pulled over the portable gas bottle and the mask attached to it. “We put this over her muzzle, and she breathed in gas that made her go to sleep.”

“What kind of gas?” he said, coming to look at the mask and touch it. “Like what they give to kids when they take out their tonsils?”

“Oh, so you know about that.” Kate smiled, understanding a little more about this boy from that statement. “Did you have your tonsils out?”

“No, but Wyatt did, and he told me all about it.” He headed back to the golden, more confident that he wouldn’t hurt her, and gave her a careful stroke that rated a tail thump. Then she raised her head to sniff him and look around. “Look, she’s smelling me!”

“I think she likes you, Ben.” Kate smiled. “That’s the most interest she’s shown in anyone since she’s been here. Try talking to her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Well, that’s a good question. We don’t know. She was a stray—no collar or tags. But that’s a funny thing about dogs—if you love them and are good to them, they’ll start to answer to any name you want to give them.” She knelt beside the shelf to give the golden a few strokes and meet Ben’s thoughtful gaze. Having him give the dog a name might be a bad idea at this point; she still had a lot of recovery ahead of her. “She’s a golden retriever, so for now, why don’t we just call her Goldie.”

He muttered “Goldie” a couple of times, as if getting used to it. “We’re going to get you well, Goldie.” Then he looked up with a determined expression. “Can’t we make her better faster?”

His use of “we” was not lost on her. He was a sensitive kid, and she could tell he was already invested in this dog, for good or for ill. She hoped he would take away a positive lesson from this, and then realized with a mental groan that making it positive was probably up to her.

“Okay, let’s talk about healing.” She sank to a seat on the edge of the shelf beside the dog she had just named Goldie. “We doctors—people doctors and animal doctors alike—can’t make our patients well. Their bodies have their own special systems for doing that. What we do is put things back in place and give them medicines that will help their bodies heal themselves. You know how when you get a cold, it takes a couple of weeks to get better?” He nodded, so she continued. “Well, during that week or two, your body has to figure out which viruses are making you sick, then round them up and lock them away. Your body has a kind of virus police already in place. They just need time to get to work and then repair anything that got damaged.”

She gestured to Goldie. “It’s the same with her. We set her leg bones so her body can knit them back together in the right places, and we stitched her up so her cut will stay together while her body grows new tissue to keep it together permanently. All of that takes time.” She smiled. “One of my old professors always said ‘Time is the best healer there is.’”

Ben nodded earnestly and then put his face close to Goldie’s.

“You take your time, Goldie. We’ll be here to help you get better.” Then he looked up at his dad. “Won’t we, Dad?”

Kate bit her lip to keep from grinning as Nick struggled with that.

“We can check in from time to time,” he conceded, “and see how she’s doing.”

Kate smiled at Ben, who was already on to the next topic.

“What about the other dog? What happened to him?” Ben looked around the surgery as if hoping for a glimpse.

“The shepherd?” Kate rose from the shelf and looked at Nick. “We took him over to the shelter yesterday. It was all my partner and I could do to get him into the Jeep.”

“Can we go there and see him, too?” Ben said in a tone that was clearly a prelude to full-blown wheedling. Kate saw a muscle twitch in Nick’s jaw and enjoyed watching this formidable man made defenseless by his son’s plea. “He’s probably worried about his friend.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Ben,” Nick said, visibly uncomfortable.

“Why, Dad? His friend is here, sick, and he may be scared.”

“Plus, there are puppies who need to be played with and socialized,” Kate said on impulse, batting away guilt at supporting Ben’s begging when Nick clearly didn’t want to go. “And there aren’t always enough volunteers to spend time with them.”

Nick paled, caught in a perfect pincer movement. He seemed to be working hard not to squirm; cords were visible in his neck.

“Okay, we can go to the shelter.” He sent Ben a stern look that didn’t seem to impact the boy’s grin, so he added, “Just for a little while.”

She smiled. “I just have to check on the dogs in the runs and then lock up. I guess I’ll see you there.” As the Stantons headed for the front door, she heard Nick’s deep voice rumble.

“Just to be clear, we are not taking any puppies home.”

And she grinned.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE PARKING LOT was nearly full that afternoon when Nick and Ben arrived at the Harbor Animal Rescue. Nick took in the rambling farmhouse. He could see people in the fenced side yards, playing ball with some dogs. Ben climbed out of the back seat and headed straight for the fence. His face lit like it was Christmas morning as he climbed on a fence rail and watched the dogs romping and enjoying all the attention. Nick hung back for a while, but then made his way to Ben’s side and leaned on the fence to soak up his son’s enthusiasm.

For the past two days, dogs were all Ben could talk about, and Nick had a bad feeling about where this “hurt dog” stuff was heading: Ben asking for a dog of his own. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Ben to have a dog someday. He just wasn’t sure his son was ready for that level of responsibility. Caring for a living being involved a lot, and to be frank, he really didn’t want to have to—

“There you are.” The doc arrived at their side in the middle of his ruminations. He straightened and laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder as she gave them a sunny-from-the-inside-out kind of smile that made his belly tighten. “Want to come inside and check out the puppy room?”

“Yeah, that would be great!” Ben fairly glowed with excitement as he jumped down and headed after her without even a glance at his dad.

Nick sighed and followed.

She led them in the front door of the shelter office, and he fell in behind her and Ben as she explained the rules. “Simple, really. Wash hands before and after a play session, no roughhousing, don’t let the puppy chew on any part of you and if the puppy tries to get away, let it go.”

Reasonable rules, he told himself as he tried to avoid looking at Kate Everly’s khaki-clad hips and honey-gold hair. She was curvy and bright and a major animal lover. He watched the way she touched Ben, the way she used her hands as she talked, the purposeful ease of her gait. Grace, he thought. It sounded old-fashioned, like something his mother would say, but that was the only proper name for it. She had an open, feminine way about her that made people comfortable—probably a good thing in a doctor trusted to care for beloved animals. But those same qualities made every nerve in his body twitch with...anxiety? Expectation? Interest?

There were eight little bundles of fur in the puppy playroom. They were mixes—varying fuzzy shades of solid colors—long-haired dogs in the making. Ben did the obligatory hand washing with his eyes glued to the puppies. He was practically quivering with eagerness.

When the doc asked if Nick was going to join them, he gave a shake of his head and stepped back to lean a shoulder against the door frame. He watched Ben chase first one puppy, then another, trying to pet them. The pups sniffed him and bounded away to investigate other things. Kate Everly found a dry spot on the floor, sank down and patted the floor beside her. She showed Ben how to let the puppies come to him and sniff him. Moments later he was being swarmed by curious puppies and was beaming as he petted them and told them how cute they were.

There were other people in the room, one older volunteer and a girl who looked to be about twelve. The puppies tumbled over their own paws and climbed the humans and tried to chew on their shoes, their pant legs and their fingers. And there was licking. Lots of licking.

Nick stiffened, and his hands fell from his pockets into fists at his sides.

Ben caught one little fur ball chewing on his shoelace and lifted it up to look it in the eye, saying, “No, no. That’s not allowed. You better get with the program, kid.”

A sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a groan came from Nick’s throat, but thankfully was quiet enough to get lost in the confusion of puppy yips and human laughter. His whole body was now rigid; his breath came fast and shallow; and his vision was narrowing to a memory that mingled too intimately with present events.

There had been puppies...little mutts born in the stacks of old supply crates that edged their camp. The brood was adopted by his platoon, and when the mother disappeared—his guys fed and fostered the pups. For them, the pups became personal, something good to relate to in such foreign surroundings, something to care for and protect.

He could still see them...jumping after tennis balls somebody had sent to a war zone in a well-meaning but clueless Christmas package...sleeping sprawled on their backs or curled into sleek little balls that were slid gently into the men’s packs. Some of the little buggers snored or yipped or practiced running in their sleep, which never failed to set him and his men laughing. The bomb dogs assigned to their unit seemed just as enthralled with the puppies as the men they served with were. Jax and Colo, both male shepherds, were downright respectful of the little buggers; brought them balls and shared bones, played tag in the yard, and let the puppies climb and nip—

The blood drained from his head, and suddenly he found it hard to breathe.

He did an about-face and strode out the door and out of the office.

In the parking lot he bent over to recover, taking slow, deep breaths to fight down the anxiety those memories always raised. Gradually, the tightness in his chest subsided and the darkness threatening his vision retreated.

After a few minutes, he was able to take a last, cleansing breath and let it go. It was four-plus years ago and a world away. It had nothing to do with his life now, he told himself every time, but it still weighed on him...a burden he didn’t want to share, especially with Ben.

Squaring his shoulders, he sought normalcy in walking the grassy berm that led to the fenced exercise and introduction areas. There were a number of people about, considering adoption and watching as candidates played with their children. But in the farthest yard, he noticed a young man with an uncooperative dog on a lead, trying to get his charge to cooperate. He watched as the dog became a whirl of motion and the volunteer shrank back to the end of the leash, sputtering a stream of entreaties and anemic commands.

A moment later the dog yanked the lead from the volunteer’s hands and began to run. Nick headed for that far exercise yard, feeling an urgency he couldn’t explain. The dog managed to stop before hitting the fence, but then ran the entire perimeter, frantic for a way out. It was Goldie’s friend. The shepherd. And it seemed like he was getting ready to jump.

“No!” Nick barked out, catching himself and the dog by surprise.

In another heartbeat he was climbing over the fence and standing a few yards from the headstrong shepherd, his feet spread and his fists propped on his hips. The dog hesitated as his gaze flicked between Nick and the nearby fence...ears forward, nose testing the air...escape clearly still a powerful pull on him.

“No,” Nick said matter-of-factly, his tone firm and certain. “You don’t want to jump that fence. You’ve got it good here, tough guy...plenty of food and a clean, dry place to lay your head. You don’t want go back to sleeping in culverts and eating out of garbage cans.”

The dog was still tense and ready to run, but he was listening to Nick’s voice. Did he remember the other night? In the surgery, he’d obeyed an order to sit, and just now he stopped dead at “No.” Maybe he had been trained somewhere along the line. If so, giving him a few familiar commands might help get him under control.

Nick dropped his arms to his sides, lowering his tension, though not his alertness. He waved the grateful volunteer back and took a couple of steps toward the dog, where he paused, making his posture relaxed and confident.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

First command: “Sit.”

As in the surgery, the shepherd just stared at him, every muscle taut. Then he added the hand motion, the snap of a fist up against his shoulder. After what seemed like forever, the dog sank onto his rear haunches, a coiled spring ready to release at the slightest provocation.

Nick nodded, thinking of other commands they had used while on deployment. The shepherd watched him as he began to walk the perimeter of the exercise yard. Scent was the quickest way to familiarize a dog with a human, so he walked by the dog, keeping a few feet between them and not looking at him, but close enough for him to get a good whiff. Interestingly, the shepherd didn’t move; he just watched and processed the scent. Nick wondered if he would remember it from their contact the other night and if he would respond.

“Stand.”

If dogs could frown in confusion, this one did. Nick glanced back and saw the hesitation. He stopped, turned and added a hand signal for “stand”: arm curled toward the biceps and then punched straight out to the side, where he held it for a moment. The dog came alert and stood.

Nick smiled.

“You know your commands, tough guy. Silent ones anyway. Let’s see what else you can do.”

The shepherd did indeed know a range of nonverbal commands: stay, down, fetch. Every order delivered and executed helped the shepherd relax a bit more, until one last command—where he refused to bring the stick back and veered toward the fence.

“Come here,” Nick ordered with as much authority as he could muster. The shepherd caught the edge in his voice, and after a pause brought the stick back. It took some serious negotiation to get him to understand a “let go” command, but he finally dropped the stick and backed away.