He has to find good in the world again...

Warmhearted Kate Everly is a veterinarian with a special love for dogs. But she’s about to find out if her inner strength and unique “puppy whisperer” skills extend to healing wounded humans, too.

Florida state trooper Nick Stanton, a struggling single dad, is former military, and his army exploits led him to avoid dogs with a passion. Then a fateful rescue on a lonely back road brings the veteran and the veterinarian together over a gravely injured dog. Before long, Kate has her hands and heart full with a man coming to terms with his traumatic past...

“I think he’s depressed,” Nick said. “It happens to military dogs when they lose their handler. They lose interest in training...forget how to play.”

“I’ve heard about that, but never treated it.” Kate watched the shepherd. “Well, now that we know more about him, we can handle him better and start to rehab him. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even find him a forever home.”

Ben looked up at her. “A forever home?”

“That’s what we call it when a dog finds people who will love it and make it a part of their family for the rest of its life. A forever home.”

There was a heartbeat’s pause. “So...some homes aren’t forever?” Ben’s eyes darkened as the meaning of that hit him. “Some people get dogs, then decide they don’t want them anymore and just...” He glanced up at his dad, then jumped down from the fence and headed for the sanctuary office.

Kate stared after him, speechless. She would never have expected to hear such hurt from a vibrant and seemingly well-adjusted child. Had she totally misread Ben’s relationship with his father?

“What was that about?” she asked Nick.

“It’s not exactly a secret.” Nick’s tone flattened as he spoke. “Ben’s mother left us after I returned from my last deployment. He had just turned four. He doesn’t talk about it or about her. But sometimes...it comes out.”

“So his mother is...”

“Not in the picture.” He produced a tight, humorless smile. “It’s just him and me.”

Dear Reader,

Animals have always been a big part of our family life, especially dogs. When the last of our beloved schnauzers passed away, we felt the loss keenly, but weren’t sure we wanted to go through another puppyhood. We searched online adoption sites for an older dog and found a golden retriever that touched our hearts. When we went to meet the dog, we found the “rescue” to be a very odd place that had household items stacked on upper and lower porches. But our attention went to the sweet golden girl who was to become our Gracie. After taking a short walk around the yard with us, she headed for our car and stood beside it as if to say, “Let’s go home, guys.”

Gracie is loving, attentive, mannerly and a world-class food mooch. But it was clear from certain behavior that she had been abused in her former life—she was frightened of human feet and cowered whenever we approached with something in our hands, even a food dish. With time and love, she has grown more confident.

Then one day we opened the local paper to find that the “rescue” where we had gotten Gracie was being investigated for animal hoarding. The stacks of household stuff were a symptom of good intentions gone terribly wrong. As the story played out, we watched on the evening news as volunteers removed animals from the place, and we could hardly believe what we saw. That experience led me to do eye-opening research. When a new shelter opened in our county, I knew I had to write about the people who give so much of themselves to make the world a better, safer place for animals. And about how rescuing an animal can sometimes rescue us.

I hope you enjoy this story of the veteran and the veterinarian!

Betina Krahn

Soldier’s Rescue

Betina Krahn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Bestselling author BETINA KRAHN is a mother of two and owner of two (humans and canines, respectively) and the creator of dozens of satisfying happily-ever-afters. Her historical romances have received numerous reviewer’s choice and lifetime achievement awards and have appeared regularly on bestseller lists, including the USA TODAY and New York Times lists. Her books have been called sexy, warm, witty and even wise. But the description that pleases her most is “funny”—because she believes the only thing the world needs as much as it needs love is laughter. Visit her online at www.betinakrahn.com to learn more about her and her books.

For Kate and Nicholas

May each of you find a love that helps you become the person you are meant to be.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

TO HELL WITH speed limits.

He was driving on a dry, sunlit back road without another vehicle in sight, the perfect place to open it up and make time. And he was already late.

Florida trooper Nicholas Stanton put his foot down hard on the gas and felt his senses make a corresponding shift into overdrive. He registered the wire fences along the sides of the county road, hummocks of scrub palmetto and stubborn live oaks, cattle grazing and smatterings of cowbirds and egrets around farm ponds. Heat radiated visibly off the worn macadam, and of habit, he touched the air-conditioner controls—which were already set on high. Barely five minutes went by before he spotted something in the road ahead.

“Sh—crap.” He was trying to work on expletives. He was a single dad with a kid who was all eyes and ears. And who was playing in his first ever soccer game in exactly—he glanced at his watch—fifteen f—frickin minutes. As he crested a small rise, he could see far enough to know he had to take his foot off the gas. The big engine of the cruiser whined as it slowed, and when he topped the final rise, there they were.

Dogs. One lying smack in the middle of the road with the other standing over it.

“Aw, hell.” Nick slammed on the brakes and came to a jarring stop twenty feet from where they blocked the center of the narrow two-lane road. He paused for a minute, breathing hard and taking in the situation. He could probably slide around them on the berm, but he could see a drop-off into a concrete culvert just ahead—and those dogs would still be here when some local came shooting down the road at breakneck speed. With a growl, he pulled his front wheels over the centerline and flipped on his light bar.

It was his job to make sure accidents like that didn’t happen.

He stepped out into the heat, his shirt sticking to his back, and donned his Florida Highway Patrol hat against the still-fierce evening sun. He stood for a moment with his legs spread and his hands on his belt.

Dogs. It would be dogs.

He took two steps toward them, and the standing dog—a black-and-tan German shepherd, thin and rangy—sprang in front of its companion. Its ears were up, nostrils flared, and a low growl reverberated deep in its chest. In full protection mode. The downed dog had long reddish-gold hair and a pretty face...golden retriever for sure.

Nick watched the shepherd’s eyes, sensing he was being sized up even as he was assessing the dogs. He’d seen that wary body language dozens of times in Iraq and Afghanistan. Muscles weren’t tensed to launch—yet—but every nerve in that lean body was firing in preparation. Closer now, he could see scars on the shepherd’s face.

“Tough guy, huh.” He took a deep breath, determined to get it over with. “Well, I’ve seen my share of action, too. You got a buddy down, and if you want me to take a look, you’re going to have to back off. Now.”

When he moved in, a full-blown snarl came from the shepherd. But as Nick hoped, the dog backed up a step, then two, still growling, glancing fiercely between Nick and his wounded friend. They were both thin and looked like they had been on their own for a while, but the shepherd, at least, seemed to know something about humans. Not entirely feral.

Nick kept one eye on the shepherd as he knelt cautiously beside the golden and surveyed the damage. Female. There was blood on her hindquarters, and a rear leg was canted at an odd angle. A glance across the worn pavement showed spatters of blood, some not fully dried; the accident had happened here and not long ago.

Aw, damn. She didn’t even have the energy to drag herself off the road.

He ran his hands gently over the golden’s side, avoiding the shepherd’s gaze and the blood on the injured dog’s rear quarters. Her ribs were prominent but seemed intact. The dog lifted her head and opened her eyes.

“It’s all right, girl. It’s all right. Just checking you out.” He held out his hand for her to sniff, and she gave a couple of feeble thumps with her tail before dropping her head and falling back into a half-conscious state.

She’d be dead before long unless he did something. There was a new shelter in the east part of the next county...

If he thought about it too much, he’d make himself crazy.

“Just do it,” he muttered irritably.

Instinct took over. He stalked back to his cruiser, retrieved a thick wool blanket from the trunk and opened the cruiser’s back door. He covered the bloody rear of the golden with the blanket and lifted her carefully into his arms. She was fifty pounds of deadweight, but didn’t protest at being moved, though it had to be painful as hell. He managed to slide both her and enough of his shoulders into the back of the vehicle to position her on the seat so that her hindquarters would be supported.

As he withdrew from the car, the shepherd shoved past him into the footwell of the back seat.

“Hey!”

The shepherd gave him only a glance before sniffing and nosing his injured companion. Nick stood braced across the door frame, watching. God knew what would happen to the dog if he was left here alone. Big, alert brown eyes searched him. The trust Nick saw—or imagined—in those eyes caused an unwelcome tightness in his chest.

Dogs. Why the hell did it have to be dogs?

“All right,” he snapped, rationalizing the only course his troubled feelings would allow. “You go, too. The public will probably be safer with you off the streets.”

He closed the back door, slid behind the wheel of the cruiser and took off. He was halfway to the county line when he remembered why he’d been flying low earlier and felt his stomach clench.

“Sorry about the game, Ben.”

* * *

ALL IT TOOK was a touch.

The little balls of fur sensed something warm and good and migrated toward her, climbing sightlessly over each other, tumbling, mewling.

“It’s okay, little Mama,” Kate Everly, DVM, said as the dirty, matted schnauzer sat up anxiously to watch the calm, soft-spoken stranger kneeling beside her. Even if Kate hadn’t had a special knack for reassuring animals, the mother dog was too depleted from whelping to do much more than worry. “I’m just going to check your babies.”

With a sniff of the back of Kate’s hand, the mother looked up at the humans standing around the old cardboard box and sank back with resignation. Kate picked up the puppies, one by one, and gave each a thorough examination.

She felt the pudgy little legs and soft pink pads of the feet of each of the four puppies, then she turned them over and checked their abdomens and listened to their hearts. Afterward she settled them against their mother, who sighed and lay back in the newspaper bedding as the last pup recognized her scent and began rooting for milk.

“They’re in pretty good shape, actually,” Kate said, rising from the floor of the makeshift surgery she and her partner, Jess Preston, had created in the kitchen of the old farmhouse that had become the headquarters of Harbor Animal Rescue. She swiped her shoulder-length hair back with her wrist as she headed for the old porcelain sink to wash her hands.

“For puppy mill escapees, you mean.” Nance Everly, one of the shelter’s founders and not-so-coincidentally Kate’s grandmother, stood over the box with crossed arms and a scowl. Nance was a tall, straight-backed woman of seventy with silky white hair and a faced tanned and lined by years of outdoor life in Florida. “Look at the mother. She’s a mess. Filthy, undernourished—it’s a miracle she survived their birth.”

“But she with us now. We feed ’em good,” volunteer Hines Jackson said, bending stiffly beside the box and letting the mother sniff his hand before running it down her back and side. “She gonna be okay. She got good bones.”

Kate finished drying her hands and leaned a hip against the worn laminate countertop stacked with jars and tins of first-aid supplies. “Who dropped them off? Anybody see this time?”

“Nope. Just opened the office door and there they were. A box full of scared-and-needy.” Nance’s face darkened. “Damned criminals. Breeding these dogs dry of health and hope, keeping them caged and forcing them to bear litter after litter—”

“Preachin’ to the choir, Everly,” Hines said with a knowing glance at Kate, who gave a rueful smile. This was one of Nance’s hot buttons.

“There you are.” Janice Winters, a uniformed officer from Sarasota Animal Control, stuck her head in the doorway, wearing a look of disbelief. “Got a real beaut this time.” She led them out of the surgery and into the main reception room, where a russet brown heap of fur sat on an old blanket. The creature turned its head to them, and with the reference point of two dark eyes Kate was able to make out the head of a dachshund. On steroids.

Or carbs. Lots and lots of carbs.

“Good Lord,” Nance said, walking around the beast. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my time, but this—”

Silence fell as they took stock individually. The dog peered anxiously from one to another of them, looking like it was trying to move, but couldn’t.

“Where on earth did you find it?” Kate asked, sinking to her knees and letting the dog nose her hand before running it over the bulbous shape. The fat was appalling; it distorted every aspect of the doxie’s body and all but prevented the animal from walking. The poor thing’s stomach scraped the ground and, from what she could see, was scoured raw from its attempts to move.

“In an alley across from the Westfield Mall,” Officer Winters said, shaking her head. “We got a call from a woman driving by and went out to investigate. I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, how long would it take to feed a dog that much? He must weigh—fifty, sixty pounds?”

Kate helped Hines drag the blanket and the dachshund into the surgery and then slide him onto the scale.

“Fifty-two, actually.” She shook her head. “Enough for three dachshunds. What kind of human being would do this to a dog? Let’s get him up on the table and see about that belly.” She motioned for Hines to help, and together they lifted the dog onto the exam table. He struggled when they rolled him, but fat-bound as he was, he was as helpless as an overturned turtle. He was indeed a male, and Hines chuckled and christened him “Moose.”

“We have to put you on a diet, Moose,” Kate said, cleaning and then spreading salve over his abraded belly. “And when we get you nice and healthy, we’ll find you a forever home.” When she finished listening to his heart and lungs, they turned him over and she took blood samples and checked his joints, which were, amazingly, intact. “He’s in surprisingly good shape,” she told her grandmother and the animal control officer standing in the surgery’s doorway. “Except for the thirty pounds of extra lard he’s hauling around.” She stroked his head to reassure him, then took his head between her hands and looked him in the eye.

“We’re going to take care of you, fella.” Her magic worked; the dachshund relaxed, sniffed and then licked at her hand. “We’ll find somebody to foster you and—”

“Me,” Hines said, his dark eyes glowing and his jaw set in a way that said there was no arguing with him. “He comin’ home with me.”

“You sure, Hines?” Isabelle Conti, the shelter’s director, glanced at the aging volunteer’s arthritic hands. “He’s going to take a lot of work.”

“I never been afraid of work, Izzy. Old Moose here needs me. Who knows, maybe I need him, too.” He moved to the head of the table and petted the dog. “I hope you like green beans, old son.” He laughed as the dog eagerly nosed and licked his leathery hand. “’Cause you gonna be eating plenty of ’em.”

They helped Hines put Moose and some supplies in his lovingly maintained 1987 Lincoln Continental and watched as he drove slowly out of the sanctuary’s gravel parking lot.

The lowering sun was painting golden edges on the rose and purple clouds lining the western horizon, and Kate paused to appreciate the gentled light and listen to the rustle of the nearby palms. She slid her hands into her back pockets and lifted her face to the breeze.

Sometimes the magnitude of the career she had chosen seemed overwhelming. Whenever she confronted the heartbreaking ways human failings and animal vulnerability could collide, she found herself making the decision all over again to stand on the front line of decency and compassion. It was her job to treat and care for patients who could not speak for themselves, and whose trust of humans was unequivocal and often undeserved.

She was unaware of her grandmother standing behind her until Nance hooked Kate’s arm through hers and tugged. When she turned, Gran’s sun-weathered face was soft with understanding. Her gran had always seemed to know what was happening with her before she knew herself.

“Come on.” Gran led her back to the main office. “I know just the cure for that look.”

Minutes later, they were on the puppy-room floor, ensconced with eight rambunctious balls of fur, tossing toys, stroking fuzzy new coats and avoiding sharp little milk teeth. It was impossible to dwell on human irresponsibility in the face of such a contagious love of life. The pups threw themselves wholeheartedly into learning and exploring, seeking out Kate and her grandmother and Isabelle. They chewed and licked and tumbled. They investigated toys and the room’s boundaries, tracked through the water bowl and barked at the humans sitting in their play area. They attacked each other and teased their caretakers; it was enough to melt the most jaded heart.

Kate picked up one of them in her arms and cuddled him, inhaling his sweet puppy breath and laughing with delight at the way his little pink tongue licked her face.

“They’re almost eight weeks old.” Nance turned to Kate as if an idea had just occurred. “Hey, why don’t you take one of them home with you?”

Kate rubbed noses with one of the pups, feeling her gut tighten. “Don’t have time, Gran. My life is hectic enough with the practice and the new house—I haven’t even finished unpacking.”

“You’ve been unpacking for six danged months,” Nance said.

“Exactly. I’m too busy. And, of course, there’s the shelter.” She shot a narrow look at Nance. “The one my grandmother keeps roping me into giving away my hard-won professional expertise to.”

“Excuses, excuses.” Nance gave a huff. “You can’t postpone life forever, Kate. Just because he turned out to be a jackass—”

“Gran.” Kate raised a hand to prevent a familiar argument.

“I’m just saying. You need to find someone to share your life with.”

“I have more than a someone, I have a partner and a grandmother and a bunch of friends and this shelter and another whole farm full of rescues and strays.”

“That’s my farm. My animals,” Nance said.

“Yeah? How many times have I heard you say that no one ever owns an animal? That they are all God’s creatures and they’re just given into our care for whatever time they’re here on earth?”

“Fine. They’re in my care. It’s time you got your own to care for.”

“Once again—” Kate grinned, knowing she had won “—not enough hours in the day.” She nuzzled another puppy nose. “Right, Pee Wee?”

Moments later the sound of the shelter door creaking open drifted into the puppy room, followed by heavy footsteps. She looked over to find a large pair of boots—big and well polished—settling in the doorway. She followed khaki-clad legs up to a broad pair of shoulders bearing a badge, and on up to a serious pair of aviator shades. The officer stood with his hands propped on a heavy service belt, looking at them.

“Got an injured dog in the cruiser,” came a deep, authoritative voice. “Hit by a car and lost a lot of blood. I don’t want to move her.”

“I’ll take a look.” Kate was on her feet in a flash and hurrying for the makeshift surgery. Behind her she could hear Isabelle say that they didn’t usually take in injured animals, but he was in luck—one of their volunteer vets was on premises.

A minute later, she emerged with her stethoscope draped around her neck, snapping on a pair of gloves. The officer, Nance, and Isabelle were already out the door, so she dashed after them. A black-and-cream highway patrol cruiser sat in the gravel drive, its engine running and light bar flashing, sweeping the area with red and blue.

The big officer opened the rear passenger-side door and hesitated a moment before waving Kate toward a blanket-wrapped form lying on the back seat. Before she could completely duck through the door, a growl set her back outside. A shepherd rose out of the shadows onto the seat beside the injured dog, ears up, every muscle taut with warning.

“Come on, you stubborn—She’s going to look at your friend.” The officer was around the car in a flash and opening the far door, dragging the shepherd back to clear the way for her. “He was with her when I found her,” he explained as Kate took a deep breath, slid into the foot well and got busy with her stethoscope and penlight.

“Pupils reactive. Heart is slow but steady—good so far.” She carefully felt the golden’s prominent ribs and rear quarters and ran her hands gently over the injured leg. The scrape of bone against bone said it all. “She’s got at least one fracture. I need X-rays to see how bad it is, and she needs fluids right away. I may have to do some surgery.” She glanced over her shoulder at the shelter and frowned.

“I don’t have all of the equipment I need here.” She looked at the officer, who was half in, half out of the cruiser, restraining the unhappy shepherd. He seemed to have the big, rangy dog in hand, and the fleeting thought occurred to her that having things under control was probably his norm. At that moment, she envied him. “She’ll have to go to my office,” she said, popping off the gloves. “I hate to ask, but can you drive her over there? She shouldn’t be moved more than necessary.”

“Just tell me how to get there,” he said, his voice full of certainty.

Kate inhaled sharply as if she’d been holding her breath.

“Why don’t you ride with the dog?” Gran said as Kate emerged from the back seat. “I’ll bring your Jeep over later, and Isabelle can pick me up.”

It sounded reasonable. She nodded and handed her keys to Gran. As she slid back into the rear seat, she was aware of the officer releasing the shepherd into the front seat with a warning and then closing the rear door. The shepherd climbed over the hardware in the front—computer, radio, scanner, racked gun—not the least bit intimidated. He turned and put paws on the seat back to watch what was happening behind him. The officer slid behind the steering wheel and managed to click his seat belt and crank the wheel with the palm of his hand at the same time.

“You’ll want to hang on,” he called over his shoulder.

She scrambled for room beside the injured dog and found a seat belt just as they took off, gravel flying. She jerked against the restraint as the cruiser’s tires grabbed the asphalt of the county road.

Lights and sirens for an injured dog; this was a first for her. She glanced up at the officer in the front seat and caught a few more details: strong jaw with a hint of a scar beneath a Florida tan. Dark hair cut high and tight—military, for sure. Judging by his erect bearing and contained physicality, he could handle himself—probably had handled himself.

She gave directions, then stroked her patient and murmured quiet reassurances. When she looked up, wary eyes in a brooding shepherd face were watching her. Distrust. She’d seen that look a thousand times in animals and sensed that she’d need the officer’s help at the end of this mad dash. Turning back to her patient, she carried in her mind’s eye the image of the shepherd anxiously nosing her patient’s head.

“Thanks for doing this, Officer...”

“Trooper. Stanton. Nick Stanton.”

“Kate Everly. DVM.”

“I gathered.” He seemed to glance at her in the rearview mirror; it was hard to tell where he was looking behind those shades. “Lucky you were there.”

“My grandmother is on the shelter’s board. She ropes me into helping regularly.”

He nodded and said nothing more.

Clearly a man of few words.

CHAPTER TWO

“SO, THIS IS YOURS,” Trooper Stanton said, killing the siren as they pulled into the parking lot outside the darkened Lakeview Animal Clinic. The building was a stucco-covered one-story with a dozen indoor runs, two surgeries and half a dozen exam rooms; perfect for a two-vet operation.

“And the bank’s,” she said as she pointed to the drive at the side. “Around the back—we can take her straight into the surgery.”

The minute the cruiser stopped, she jumped out and headed for the steel security door to punch in the lock code. Then she stepped inside and turn off the alarm. Seconds later, the trooper lifted the injured golden from the cruiser and carried her to the rear entrance. Kate went ahead of them, turning on lights and making sure one of the surgery tables was clear.

“We’ll start a line first—get some fluids going in her—then we’ll do an X-ray or two.” She grabbed clippers, a bag of saline and an IV needle.

He settled the golden gently on the table and watched as Kate made a more thorough examination, then shaved one of the golden’s front legs.

“I got this.” He grabbed the needle pack as she reached for it, and he ripped it open. “I don’t know anything about X-rays, though. That’s your department.”

But he did know about starting IVs in dogs? She was halfway around the table to protest when a growl startled her. The shepherd braced himself in a warning stance near the table, his nose up and twitching as he read the surgery’s mix of urgency, animal scents and medicinal smells.

“Can it, tough guy.” The trooper straightened as the dog ignored him. He barked an order to sit. When the dog defied that order, he made a fist and did a biceps curl, snapping the fist to his shoulder. After a tense moment, the dog lowered its rear to the floor. He stared at the dog for a minute, seeming a little surprised it had worked, then went back to starting the IV.

His take-charge attitude in her surgery rankled, but something stopped her from setting him straight. Maybe it was the knowledgeable way his fingers swabbed the shaved area, felt for a vein and carefully inserted the needle. Maybe it was the shepherd’s obedience. Still, she didn’t move until the line was established and he raised the bag, looking for a place to hang it. In the midst of starting the IV, he’d taken off his sunglasses; they were hanging from a shirt pocket.

“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked. His eyes suited his face—big and bold—an arresting light hazel color.

“Iraq.” When she crossed her arms and waited for more, he looked less comfortable. “We had dogs...and...sometimes they got dehydrated.”

“Interesting,” she said after a moment, sensing there was a lot of story behind that terse description. His rescue of these dogs made sense in light of his military experience. Soldiers in combat got close to their canine comrades, and that experience often carried over to civilian life.

Still, this dog was a stray, and whatever time and effort she expended would never show a positive on the practice’s balance sheets. The odds of a favorable outcome were probably just south of fifty-fifty, but she had to do whatever she could to treat the dog.

Annoyed—with him or her own soft-hearted impulses?—she pulled over a pole for the IV and went for the portable X-ray.

Thankfully, this didn’t take much time. Because it was just as she feared: the X-rays showed a hairline in the pelvis and a major compound fracture in the leg. She called her partner, Jess, to come in to help, but the call went straight to voice mail. It was Jess’s night off, and she was probably out with her man-of-the-month.

“I’m afraid if we wait until tomorrow to do the surgery she’ll be in even worse shape,” she said, mostly to herself, while running a hand gently over the golden’s head.

“I can help,” Trooper Stanton said over his shoulder as he washed his hands in the scrub sink. When he turned and propped his hands on his service belt, spreading his elbows enough that his chest strained his shirt. She frowned, wishing he wouldn’t do that and that she wasn’t drawn to watch him do it. Her frown deepened.

“You ever helped with a surgery?”

“Field stuff. Stitching sometimes. Mostly wrap and run.” He cocked his head, watching her decide. “I’m not a fainter.”

“I would guess not,” she said under her breath. Decision made, she turned to the shelves along the far wall to pull surgical supplies. Halfway there, she stopped dead, confronted by a shepherd braced for action. “Um, we may have a problem here.”

Trooper Stanton scowled and then ordered the shepherd to the table where his injured companion lay. The dog approached cautiously, rose with one paw against the table and sniffed his friend.

“She’s going be okay, tough guy, but you have to give the doc here room to work.” He strode to a nearby door, flipped on a light inside the exam room, then shoved the shepherd in. The instant the door closed between them, there were thumps against the door and barks of protest. Stanton drew a deep breath. “It’s for the best.”

Jess, Kate’s partner, was a big gal, but even the large gloves she used were a tight fit on the trooper. To his credit, he didn’t complain, and he held the anesthetic mask properly and paid scrupulous attention to Kate’s directions.

She described the damage and the basis for her decision-making at each step as they went in. There wasn’t much to do with the cracked pelvis; nature would have to take care of that. But the broken leg had to be held in position while she pinned the bones, and he supplied the necessary muscle without a twitch. Twice she paused to listen to the golden’s heart and pronounced it within safe limits.

More than an hour later, they finished cleaning and closing the last cuts on the dog’s hindquarters. She injected antibiotics and pain meds into the IV and watched for any reaction. As she hoped, there was none.

“Well, that’s it,” she declared, ripping off her gloves and stuffing them, along with the bloody drapes and used instrument packs, into the garbage can. “It’s up to her now. You want to help me move her?”

They picked up the blanket she lay on by the corners and transferred the dog onto a low shelf where she could be monitored while being out of the way. “Our version of the recovery room,” she explained with a wry smile.

She checked the dog’s heart and lungs again, then rose to find Trooper Nick Stanton staring through the window, his expression as dark as the night outside.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He seemed oddly subdued as he gestured to the door of the nearby exam room where a thud and some growls reminded them there was still another problem to solve. “What about him?”

She chewed her lip as she studied the door and then looked back at her patient. “Maybe we should let him see she’s all right. Then we could put him in a run for the night. I’ll take him back to the shelter tomorrow.”

The shepherd shot out into the surgery and followed the trooper’s direction to where the golden lay recovering. He sniffed her head to toe, seemed to understand her condition was grave and began to pace. Kate snagged a leash from the rack by the waiting-room door and approached the dog in a calm manner. She managed to get the leash over his head before he bolted.

Stanton reached for the lead and ended up dragging the animal into the kennels, where they were bombarded with barking from dogs overnighting at the office. As the door to the run closed, the shepherd clawed at the leash and shook his head to remove the loop from his neck.

“I’d say he has trust issues,” Kate said as she watched the dog.

“From the scars on his face, he’s got reason,” Trooper Stanton said, working to recover his breath.

“Could be he had a run-in with another dog.” She retreated down the alley to the back room, flipping off the lights in the noisy kennel. Stanton followed, retucking his shirt and resettling his service belt.

“Could be that humans sponsored that run-in.”

Out in the surgery again, she busied herself wiping down the table and equipment. He paused across the room, watched her for a minute and then looked around.

“Nice place,” he said. “You and a partner?”

“And the bank,” she said, pausing with a towel in one hand and disinfectant spray in the other. “Can’t forget the bank.” A moment later she stowed the cleaner and washed her hands. As she knelt beside her newest patient, she heard him come around the table and stop nearby.

“How is she doing?”

“Sleeping it off. I’ll give her another dose of pain meds in the morning. If we can keep her comfortable, she’ll heal better.” Overwhelmed by his presence, she rose and stepped back.

“Okay, then. I guess I’m done here,” he said, staring at her.

“I guess so.” A foot or two wasn’t enough space to escape awareness of his size, his body heat and the aura of control that radiated from him. Warmth slid down the back of her throat; she felt a little conspicuous as she cleared it. “Thanks for the help. You’re kind of good at this, Trooper Stanton.”

“Nick,” he said, his voice a little deeper than moments ago.

“Nick,” she said, and offered her hand. “I remember. And I’m—”

“Kate. Nice working with you, Kate.” He shook her hand, careful not to look directly at her. She knew because she was being careful to avoid eye contact herself.

“You okay here? By yourself?” He glanced around the surgery.

“Yeah. I’ll call Gran. She’s going to drop off my car.” She realized now that she could probably have driven herself over to the office. Odd that Gran insisted she ride along with the trooper and that she would bring Kate’s Jeep over, but hadn’t.

“Okay, then.” He seemed a little uncertain, then backed toward the door. “I’ll take off. Have a good night, Doc.”

“Thanks, Nick. You, too.”

As he exited, he turned back. “Lock this door behind me.”

Control. It wasn’t just the shepherd who had issues. But then she did exactly what he said, and as she did, she smiled.

It was another fifteen minutes before Gran answered her cell. There were loud voices and music in the background; her grandmother and Isabelle were not at the shelter anymore.

“I thought you were dropping off my Jeep. Where are you?”

“We’re at Bogey’s, grabbing a bite and a beer. I figured you’d need some time to—um—I thought maybe that nice statie might give you a ride home.” Gran had a hint of mischief in her voice, and two and two came together to make a sneaky four. Grandmotherly manipulation: strand her granddaughter with a hunk of a state trooper and see what developed.

“Yeah? Well, he didn’t.” She reddened, hoping her disappointment didn’t register in her voice. “So, you owe me a burger. With the works. And a hard cider or two.” She glanced at the golden. “Looks like I’ll be here pretty late—maybe all night.”

* * *

NICK PULLED HIS cruiser into the driveway, killed the engine and sat for a minute, looking at the lights from the living-room windows of his neatly landscaped three-bedroom ranch. He dreaded going inside. Ben’s first soccer game, and he’d missed it. It was all his son had talked about for days; shin guards and footwork, free kicks and headers, strikers and defensemen. The expansion of his vocabulary alone was enough to make Nick endorse his participation.

Ben wasn’t a very physical kid, at least until now. He talked too much like an adult and spent more time with books and computers than most eight-year-old boys. The idea of him joining a team, mixing it up with other kids, and learning the basics of fair play was reassuring. And Ben had enjoyed sharing his newfound enthusiasm with his dad—recounting what happened at practices and begging for additional sessions in the backyard.

With his long hours, Nick wasn’t always able to help that way, but had done his best to encourage him. And he had promised to be there for Ben’s first game, cheering him on from the sidelines.

Then he’d come across the dogs.

He dragged himself out of the cruiser, locked it up and was met at the front door by a pair of warm brown eyes in a face filled with understanding. His mom stepped back to let him enter and shook her head as he silently removed his service belt and stowed his gun in the lockbox on the top shelf of the entry closet.

“How is he?” he finally asked as he turned to face her.

“Hurt. Quiet.” She winced at the misery in his face. “Of all the days to be late, Nick.”

“I ran into a situation...” He blew out a breath, knowing the best excuse in the world couldn’t cover this failure. After a moment, he squared his shoulders. “Where is he?”

“In his room. He already finished his homework.”

Nick paused and looked at his mom. Sarah Stanton’s short hair was fashionably cut, graying in streaks that she augmented with highlights at the salon. She carried a few extra pounds, worked out twice a week and made sure they all ate healthily. She was a listener, a guide and a genuine and caring woman; the epitome of what a grandmother should be. It weighed on him that she had to be more mom than grandmother for another generation of Stanton men. He grieved even more that she seemed to relate to his bright, serious-minded son better than he did.

“Just talk to him, Nick. Explain. He’ll understand.” She read his anxiety like a book. She always had. “He needs his dad.”

That came like a punch to the gut, even though he was sure she hadn’t meant it that way. Ben needed his dad all the more because he didn’t have a mother. Not for the last four years.

His next steps, through the family room and down the hall to his son’s room, were among the hardest he had ever taken. Anxiety kept his shoulders square and his expression taut; it was only on the inside that dread softened him to a slump. Why was it that after four years he still felt like every interaction with his son was some kind of a test?

He stood in the doorway for a minute, preparing himself. It was a typical kid’s room in most ways: twin bed, posters on the walls, bookcase stuffed with books, rock collection and robot models, and a huge toy box spilling action figures, vehicles and train parts onto the carpet. On the desk near the window were a crystal-growing experiment in progress, a small microscope beside an ever-expanding bug collection and a telescope. The poster on the wall beside the desk was a chart of constellations in the northern hemisphere sky. How many eight-year-olds could tell you where the Pleiades were?

Ben looked up with a frown and then back at the Tyrannosaurus rex he was assembling. Was that look concentration or disappointment?

“Hey. How did the game go?” He settled on the bed across from Ben, who sat sideways in the chair at his desk, the half-assembled T. rex skeleton on his lap. Doing something with his hands always seemed to calm him; Nick had seen him rebuild that very dinosaur a dozen times.

“Okay.”

“Just okay?” Nick groaned. It was going to be one of those talks where every word he got out of Ben would be like pulling a tooth. “So did you play a position?”

“Yeah.”

“Which one? Defenseman? Striker? Goalie?”

“Defense.”

“Get any good assists in?”

“No.”

“Get any good shin bruises?” He looked Ben over with a half grin.

“No.”

Silence fell. This was pointless. Nick braced and changed tactics. Best to just come right out with it, a frontal assault of the problem.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it, Ben. I had a situation come up, a problem on one of the county roads—” almost as an afterthought he added the rest of it “—with some dogs. I had to take care of—”

“Dogs?” Ben’s head came up, and he searched his dad’s face with wary interest. “What kind of dogs?”

“Well, I think they were strays. They were thin and pretty dirty—like they’d been on their own for a while. One got hit by a car and was lying in the middle of the road. I had to stop and pick her up and take her to that new shelter on Curlew Road. It turned out the dog needed a vet.”

“A hurt dog?”

“Yeah. She had a broken leg and some bad cuts.”

“What kind of car hit her?” Ben set the dinosaur back on his desk.

“I don’t know. I came along later. She was blocking the road, so I had to pick her up and clear the highway. She had lost a lot of blood.”

“Did you get blood on you?” he asked, scanning Nick’s uniform.

“I don’t think so.” Nick looked down and then back at Ben, surprised to see new light in his son’s eyes. “I was careful. I covered her with the blanket I carry in the cruiser, and I drove her to the shelter.”

“’Cause you’re a vet, and you’re supposed to help people and dogs.”

Nick realized the connection Ben was making and smiled. “I’m a veteran, that’s true. But she needed a veterinarian—an animal doctor.”

Ben nodded, digesting that and frowning at his mistake. “What color was she?” He transferred to the bed beside Nick. “Was she a big dog, or a little one?”

“Well, a golden retriever—I think—so, sort of big. The other dog was a German shepherd. He didn’t want anyone to touch his friend, so I had to stare him down to get close enough to help.”

“Did he try to bite you?” Ben was more fascinated than alarmed.

“No.” Nick chuckled and ruffled Ben’s hair, surprised by Ben’s desire for every ghoulish detail. There was an eight-year-old boy in there after all. “He and I came to an understanding pretty quick.”

“So, you took the hurt dog to a hospital? What did they do to her?”

“Well, it was late and the other doctor wasn’t available, so I helped the vet do some surgery to fix the dog’s leg and hip.”

“Like a real doctor does? With blood and everything?”

“Yeah, like real surgery.”

“So she’s better now, and she’s going to be fine?”

“The vet was good and she did her best. But the dog has a ways to go before she’s really well.”

Ben thought about that for a minute.

“How long before she gets well?”

“Well, when a soldier breaks a leg, it sometimes takes months for them to heal and get back to walking. It’s a lot the same for dogs, so at least a couple of months.” He avoided the question of how likely it was that a stray would get the weeks of care and attention she needed to fully recover.

Ben’s eyes widened.

“Can we go see her?” Ben was on the very edge of the bed now, his face filled with anticipation. “At the hospital?” When Nick began to shake his head, Ben really poured it on. “Pleeeease, Dad, can we go? It’s a hurt dog.” It was a little late to remember that he had been talking a lot about dogs lately and bringing home books about them. “Maybe we can help.”

“But we’re not sure the dog will—”

“I’ll do garbage runs every single day and make my bed all the time—honest. Can we go tomorrow, please?”

“You have school tomorrow.” Nick clasped his son’s shoulder, feeling himself softening. For some reason the idea of going back to the animal clinic made his palms sweat.

“Then, Saturday. Can we go see the hurt dog Saturday? That’s two days away.” He grabbed Nick’s arm and held on tight, as if his very heart were in Nick’s hands.

It was probably a mistake to let him get involved with those dogs on any level; there was no guarantee the golden would even survive until Saturday. But Ben didn’t ask for much...whether because he was content with what he had, he didn’t want to be a pest or he feared being disappointed, Nick couldn’t have said. God knew he’d had more than his share of pain and disappointment in his young life. At that moment, as he looked down into his son’s big, hazel eyes, Nick would have agreed to take him to the moon and back.

“Okay, I guess. If they’re open. Saturday.”

Whatever happened later, it was worth it just to have his son throw his arms around his waist and hold on for all he was worth.

He stroked Ben’s head where it lay against him and for the thousandth time questioned if he was doing right by the boy. Would he ever feel up to the job of father and guide for the son he didn’t really understand? Would he ever be able to make up to the boy for his mother’s abandonment? But then, how could he help Ben understand why she’d left them when he didn’t understand it himself?

Later—after he’d put Ben to bed, had some of his mom’s warmed-over ziti and sunk into a chair in front of Thursday Night Football—he groaned privately at what he’d agreed to do. Saturday. He was going to have to see that vet again, the curvy little blonde with the big blue eyes and strong hands. Sure hands. Gentle hands. The image of her stroking the golden’s head, reassuring the dog, came back to him in a rush, and on its heels came the memory of that first moment in the puppy room.

She’d been sitting on the floor being mobbed by puppies, smiling, laughing—her face, her whole being radiating vitality and pleasure. The rays of the setting sun were slanting through the windows and struck her from behind, causing her hair to glow. Glow. For a minute there, he’d been struck speechless and just stared.

There were other women present, and the floor was strewed with puppies, chew toys and spilled water, but Kate Everly hugging those puppies was all he saw. It had taken every bit of discipline he could command to remember his mission and tell them about the dog.

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.

This time, Nick picked up the stick and said, “Break.” That was a nonstarter. He tried “sit” again and the dog obeyed. After a few moments of toying with the stick, Nick held it up and said, “Finished!” The dog stood, tail twitching, watching Nick. He threw the stick again and this time the shepherd retrieved it and bounded around the yard with it like a puppy with its first toy.

* * *

NANCE EVERLY HAD just pulled her old Chevy truck into the gravel parking lot of the shelter when she spotted a big man in jeans and a T-shirt bursting out the office like his hair was on fire. The guy rushed to the grassy area at the side of the exercise yards and bent over as if he were going to hurl. She bolted from her truck to see if she could help, but before she got close enough, he straightened and stood with his hands on his belt, taking deep breaths. She halted as a look of relief came over him.

This was a first: somebody getting sick over a visit to the shelter.

He seemed to be recovering. She watched as he headed down the greenway. There was something familiar about him. Shaking her head, she turned back to the office and was surprised moments later to find Kate ensconced in the puppy room with a young boy who was as cute as a bug and alive with enthusiasm.

She paused just outside the doorway to watch her granddaughter teach the boy about puppies. There was a light in Kate’s eyes that Nance hadn’t seen for a while. She broke into a wistful smile. Her granddaughter deserved a family of her own and a lifetime of loving and being loved. If only she would cooperate and open herself up to possibilities around her.

“We’ve got quite a crew today,” she called as she entered the room and headed for the sink. “Who’s your friend, Kate?”

“Hey, Gran.” Kate’s face bloomed with a 50-megawatt smile as she put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “This is Ben Stanton. His dad is the trooper who brought in those two dogs the other night. They dropped by the office to check on the golden and then came here to see about the shepherd. I twisted Ben’s arm into helping with the puppy play this afternoon.” She laughed when Ben reddened and grinned.

Nance replaced the towel, then joined them in the puppy pen and stuck out a hand.

“Hey there, Ben. Nice to meet you.” The boy gave her a very adult handshake, and the sense of what she’d seen outside struck her forcefully. His dad, the state trooper, had been about to empty his stomach on the grass outside.

* * *

KATE HAD OBSERVED Nick standing in the doorway watching his son with the puppies, and she’d been jolted by what she saw. Pride, tenderness and what could only be called longing had bloomed in his face, until something more haunting took over. What made him leave the puppy room with such a devastated expression? It was as if he’d closed a door on all the tender feelings she’d glimpsed. And why had he refused to come inside with his son to play with the puppies in the first place? What kind of person backed away from the chance to play with puppies?

At least Ben hadn’t seen him go.

The joy on Ben’s face edged those thoughts aside as she told him about the various stages of puppy development. Socialization with people, she explained, was critical to puppies being able to form bonds with their future families, and socializing with other dogs was important so that they would behave well when they met dogs in the future.

The boy absorbed every word. She caught the sparkle of discovery in his eyes and warmed inside.

“I want a dog,” he revealed, surprising no one. “A puppy would be great—but I’d like a dog of any kind.”

She smiled. “And what does your dad say about that?”

“I didn’t ask him yet. He’s busy...saving people...and dogs.”

There was a wistful pride in his tone that sent a pang of longing through Kate. Ben sensed his father’s ambivalence toward this whole dog business, so he wasn’t begging or pushing like most eight-year-olds would. He really was a wonderful kid, a remarkable mixture of curiosity, enthusiasm and sensitivity. And those eyes. Big golden pools of wonder rimmed by thick, dark lashes...just like...

Her next free thought was for the boy’s mother. Was she responsible for the attentive, respectful tone Ben displayed toward adults? As Kate tried to imagine the woman who had captured Nick Stanton’s heart and produced such a bright, lovable boy, a knot formed in her stomach.

Not long after that, she heard Gran’s voice and looked up to find her grandmother smiling down at them. Soon they were watching Gran ply her uncanny magic on the little scamps.

“She’s famous for being able to connect with and teach even the most stubborn dogs,” Kate told Ben in hushed tones. “Puppies adore her. Watch this.”

One by one the puppies were lured to Gran by her special charm. They seemed to relish the affection she gave so freely as much as the little training treats she carried in her pocket.

Ben leaned close to Kate. “They did what she said. They sat down. How does she do that?”

Kate gave him a mysterious grin. “We call her ‘the puppy whisperer,’ although she seems to have a similar knack with animals of all kinds. You should see her farm. It’s practically a zoo out there. And the animals all come running to meet her when she walks outside.”

Ben’s eyes were as big as saucers as they turned back to Gran.

When playtime was over, the tired puppies gravitated to Nance and climbed over each other to reach her lap. They nestled against her as she sat cross-legged on the floor, petting them. Before long, her lap was full of sleepy pups. Two of them resisted the lure of nap time in Gran’s lap to continue exploring and they ended up on Kate’s lap, yawning.

As Ben stroked one of the puppies she held, he leaned close to ask, “Are you a puppy whisperer, too?”

She chuckled softly. “I guess so. It seems to run in the family. But Gran has a lot more experience at it that I have.”

After a few quiet moments, Ben helped put them in their basket and carry them back to the run where their mother was waiting.

“Where’s my dad?” Ben asked, looking around as they exited the kennel and crossed the old patio to the office again.

“I’m not sure.” She frowned as they passed through the kitchen-surgery and the empty reception room. “He stepped outside while we were in the puppy room. Let’s go find him.”

CHAPTER FIVE

THEY FOUND NICK in the farthest exercise yard with a familiar-looking German shepherd, giving commands and waiting patiently as the dog complied. A teenage volunteer was hanging on the fence near the gate with a leash over his shoulder, watching the interplay.

Kate’s jaw dropped as she saw the dog sit, stay, come and retrieve. This was the same shepherd who growled and bared teeth at staff and became a Tasmanian devil when anyone tried to put a leash on him?

Nick seemed unaware of their presence as he worked with the dog, so they waited in silence for a while. The volunteer responded to Nick’s request and entered the yard to put something in his hand. The instant Nick turned to the shepherd, the dog’s nose was quivering. Seconds later, he was being rewarded with treats and pats on the head, the latter of which caused him to freeze for a moment, still wary after accepting Nick’s commands and the treats that meant a job well done.

Nick reached for the leash, and the shepherd allowed him to slip it over his head. There was some resistance when the volunteer tried to lead him back to the kennel, but after a few words from Nick, the shepherd grudgingly followed the volunteer. When Nick turned and spotted Ben and Kate, he headed toward them with a long, military stride that made it seem he could be wearing full dress blues.

“That was him, Goldie’s friend, wasn’t it?” Ben climbed onto the bottom rail of the fence to greet his dad, his face alight with discovery.

“Yeah, that was him,” Nick responded with a smile that made Kate’s stomach quiver. Then he stopped by the fence and looked to her. “It seems Goldie’s friend has had some major training. Maybe even military. Certainly knows verbal and silent commands.”

“And it seems you know how to give those commands,” she said, tilting her head, wishing she could see behind that handsome pair of eyes. “Those dogs you knew in Iraq, right? You were a handler?”

“Not really.” His smile faded. “I took over a few times when handlers got injured or rotated out. The guys attached to our unit taught us the basics, in case...” He halted and after a moment swallowed hard. She noticed, because she couldn’t take her gaze from that muscular neck. Every part of him seemed armored with muscle, impervious—except those eyes, which had darkened and were now avoiding hers.

“You know how to make dogs behave, don’t you, Dad?” Ben’s grin brought back some of the pleasure to Nick’s tight smile.

“Certain dogs.” Nick ruffled Ben’s hair with a big hand and then drew the boy against his side in a half hug. Kate’s stomach dropped. Her knees weren’t feeling any too steady, either.

“It may sound strange,” he continued to Kate, “but I think he’s depressed. It happens to military dogs that lose their handler. They droop physically...lose interest in training...forget how to play.”

“I’ve heard about that, but never treated it. I think you may be right.” Kate looked toward the kennel. “He seemed a lot more energetic just now, not to mention cooperative. Well, now that we know more about him, we can handle him better and start to rehab him. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even be able to find him a forever home.”

Ben looked up at her and seemed puzzled. “A forever home?”

“That’s what we call it when a dog finds people who will love it and make it a part of their family for the rest of its life. A forever home.”

There was a heartbeat’s pause.

“So...some homes aren’t forever?” Ben thought about that, and his eyes darkened as the sense of it hit home. “Some people get dogs and kids, then decide they don’t want them anymore and just...” He glanced up at his dad, then jumped down from the fence and headed for the sanctuary office.

Kate stared after him, speechless, unable to place what he’d said in any reasonable context. She would never have expected to hear such hurt from such a vibrant and seemingly well-adjusted child. Had she totally misread Ben’s relationship with his father? She looked at Nick, but he seemed just as devastated as she was by the emotion packed into Ben’s statement.

“What was that about?” she said, shifting directly in front of Nick.

“It’s not exactly a secret.” Nick’s tone flattened and expression hardened as he spoke. “Ben’s mother left us right after I returned from my last deployment. He had just turned four, and he took it hard. He doesn’t talk about it or about her. But sometimes it comes out...like...now.”

“So his mother is...”

“Not in the picture.” He produced a tight, humorless smile as he stepped to the side and swung over the fence to stand beside her. “It’s just him and me. And my mom. She’s a widow, and she moved in with us after Ben’s mother left. She’s great with him and does everything she can to fill the hole in his life.”

“And who fills the hole in your life?”

It was out before Kate could apply a filter—the thought went straight from her brain out her mouth. His eyes widened a couple of degrees, but otherwise he seemed surprisingly undisturbed by the question and the curiosity that prompted it.

“That wound healed pretty quick,” he said. “We were apart more than we were together, with deployments and all. It’s Ben I worry about. I have to work a lot and don’t get to spend the kind of time with him I’d like.”

“Understandable.” She hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “But then, every parent I’ve ever talked to says the same thing. Time is the one thing there never seems to be enough of when it comes to kids.” She searched his now guarded expression. “If it helps—from an outsider’s point of view—Ben seems to worship you. He talks about you a lot and is very proud of how you help people and dogs.” Back on safer ground now, she smiled. “Fair warning—he wants a dog pretty badly.”

“Yeah, I got that. Seeing him with the golden at your office, then with the puppies—it wasn’t hard to figure out that a dog request is probably in the works.”

“When we were in the puppy room, he said he’d be happy with an older dog. And if I could offer a little advice, that might be a good option for a boy as young as Ben. But all kids want a puppy. The cute factor is overwhelming. I mean—” she remembered his expression in the puppy room too late “—who doesn’t love puppies?”

He straightened and focused on her in a way that made her feel like a specimen under glass. Wow. A shiver ran down her spine at the intensity of his stare. It’s personal, that look said.

She stuttered mentally. More personal than the disintegration of his relationship with the woman who gave birth to his child?

A shout of alarm from one of the volunteers yanked her attention to the end of the long gravel driveway, where two dark lumps lay on the pale crushed shell, one still and the other struggling to move. In the distance, hidden by the trees lining the road, an engine revved and tires squealed. Her nerves snapped taut. Someone had dropped off dogs.

She was in motion before she had a chance to think about it. She ran with two other volunteers to see what had been dropped on their doorstep. By the time she arrived, one of the volunteers was on his knees beside a dog that was scarred and bloodied beyond belief. Its head and ears were so swollen it was hard to identify the breed. The other dog, an American Staffordshire terrier—a male “pittie” from the looks of him—struggled to rise, clearly weakened and dazed from loss of blood. There were open, bleeding wounds all over its blocky head and muscular shoulders.

Instinct told her the motionless dog was probably beyond help, so she focused on the Staffordshire thrashing on the stone, trying to make it to his feet. She put both hands on the dog’s chest and ribs to try to get a sense of his heartbeat while murmuring reassurances, trying to calm him. It felt like his heart was going to jump out of his chest; he was frantic to escape whatever torment he expected at the hands of humans.

“We need to get him inside so I can work on him,” she said to the people gathered around. A familiar pair of arms appeared with a blanket to cover the dog and lift it.

“Ben, go to the car and stay there.” Nick’s voice was strained as he carried the dog down the long drive.

“But, Dad, the dogs are hurt and I can—”

“Go!” Nick thundered. “Now!”

Kate was aware of the boy heading away from the group, shoulders rounded and feet dragging. She looked up at Nick with a question she didn’t get to ask.

“I don’t want him seeing this,” Nick said roughly. “He’s too young. It’ll give him nightmares.”

Kate nodded and ran ahead to make sure the exam table was clear and to prepare the necessary supplies. When she looked up, Isabelle and three other volunteers were crowding the doorway behind Nick, who settled the dog on the table with a grim expression.

“He’s in shock. We have to find out where all that blood is coming from.” It was a short-haired dog, but she gave his front leg a pass with the clippers anyway and then thrust the coil of tubing and needle pack at Nick. “Get this going while I check out his wounds.” She sensed his hesitation and looked up. His face was taut and his jaw was set, but after a moment he went to work establishing the IV, and her gaze moved on to one of the older volunteers, Harry Mueller, who was just pushing into the room. Harry had been the one trying to help the other dog. “What happened?”

Harry wiped his face on his sleeve and shook his head. “Gone.”

“Damn.” She froze for a second and then drew a sharp breath. “Well, let’s see what we can do about saving this one.”

For the next several minutes she worked intently, cleaning away blood and investigating cuts—some jagged rips and others clean slashes. There were fresh scars and lumps that looked like old swelling in several places, including on the dog’s head. Part of one ear had been ripped off recently and was only half-healed. The certainty settled in her gut like a stone. “These are fighting injuries.”

“Yeah,” Nick said, looking around for a place to hang the IV bag, but, finding none, simply held it himself. “From the looks of him, this guy has seen plenty of action. We’ve heard rumors that they’re back in this area. The dogfighting rings.”

“But why would they dump their injured off on us?” Isabelle asked from behind Nick. She folded her arms tightly across her chest as she edged around the others to see the damage for herself. “Don’t they usually just bury the evidence somewhere out of the way and move on?”

No one said anything for a minute, then Kate looked up at the ceiling to clear her vision, then back down at the wound she was stitching. “Maybe somebody had an attack of conscience.”

She quit counting knots after a while; it seemed like she stitched forever, having to layer some in the deeper cuts. Swelling caused some of the lacerations to go together unevenly, leading her to comment that he might not be pretty afterward.

An ache had begun in the small of her back by the time she finished. The group crowded into the doorway had since moved on; only Isabelle and Nick remained.

“That’s it,” she said, snapping off the gloves, tossing them into the nearby can and arching her back. “That’s all we can do. I’ll bring over some antibiotics later, and we’ll have to watch him closely for the next few days.”

“You think he’s got a chance?” Isabelle asked.

“A slim one.” Kate frowned as she studied her handiwork, then turned to the sink to scrub her hands and arms up to the elbows. Her clothes were a disaster. “Maybe twenty-five percent.”

“All that work for twenty-five percent.” Nick’s voice sounded thick.

She reached for a towel and turned to look at him. “Without that work, his odds would have been zero.” She met the storm in his gaze with a calm she had learned at her grandmother’s side. “That’s what we do...better the odds. We give it all we have and trust in the outcome.” She paused and ran a hand gently over the dog’s battered, heavily stitched head. Emotion that had been held at bay by professional duty came rushing in.

“You learn early on, working with animals, that you’re a conduit for healing, not the source,” she said quietly, as much to herself as to him. “We’re not responsible for every life we touch. That’s a burden too big to bear. After a while the weight of that kind of thinking would paralyze us. It’s also a recognition that we’re part of the natural processes of life. We help wherever we can, whenever we can, always knowing that the outcome may be out of our hands.”

Tears pricked her eyes, and she grabbed her stethoscope to busy herself listening to the dog’s heart: slow, but still beating.

Moments later, Gran entered with an anxious expression, towing a young boy behind her.

“Ben and I were wondering what’s happening.”

Nick wheeled and found Ben moving toward the table where the injured dog lay—swollen, stitched and inert—in a mass of bloody cloths.

“Did he die, too?” Ben asked, his eyes wide.

“What the hell?” Nick ground out before checking himself and bending to take Ben by the shoulders. “I told you to—” He reddened with what looked like chagrin and then glowered up at Nance. “He doesn’t need to be seeing this stuff.”

Kate watched Ben recoil from his father’s anger and rounded the table to intervene. “It’s all right, Nick. It’s probably not as bad as he might imagine. If you’ll let me explain to him—”

“He’s seen enough for one day.” He turned Ben toward the door and gave his back a gentle push to get him going. “He’s just a kid, for God’s sake.”

Shocked silence descended as Nick rushed Ben out, and the sounds of their departure wafted back through the offices. It took a minute for the tension to dissipate. Kate felt Nance studying her and hoped her grandmother wasn’t reading every confusing emotion she was feeling. Nance looked to the door where the two had escaped.

“I’ve seen a lot of creatures in pain in my time,” she said with a concerned look at Kate, “enough to know that one is carrying a load of torment inside him.”

Kate nodded, her anxiety melting into something softer, something more complicated. It was too late for grandmotherly warnings. She was already involved, heart-over-head, with the trooper and his adorable son.

CHAPTER SIX

KATE STAYED AT the shelter that night, catching a few winks of sleep on the lumpy, donated sofa in Isabelle’s closet-size office. In the empty hours before dawn she kept going over the day’s events, recalling everything Nick had said and second-guessing every response she had given. She’d be lucky if she ever saw the Stantons again.

Nick clearly had a thing about hurt dogs, undoubtedly tied to his experiences in war zones, and was doing his best to avoid resurrecting bad memories. And Ben had a thing about hurt dogs that produced the exact opposite reaction. He was drawn to them, wanting to help in whatever capacity he could.

By dawn, she was aching from lying on that miserable couch and bleary-eyed from lack of rest. And when she checked on the injured dog, her heart sank. His heartbeat had grown weaker and was giving her a premonition that this case was not going to end well. After all that work...she hadn’t lied to Nick, she truly did believe she wasn’t responsible for every life she touched. But that didn’t mean she didn’t get involved with animals or that losing a patient didn’t take a toll on her.

Nance arrived early in the morning with breakfast sandwiches and gigantic cups of coffee. Jess came by on her way from an overnight somewhere and agreed to come back later and stay with the dog so Kate could go home and get some rest. Isabelle checked in between sessions with potential adoptive families. And Hines showed up with his new buddy, the visibly smaller but not entirely mobile Moose, to spend a little time with his other charges in the kennels. But overlaying all of that normal activity was a quiet sense of expectation, an air of impending loss. It was almost six hours before the dog’s weary heart gave way to the inevitable and stopped beating.

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