whined. She glanced at Major McCall just in time to see him swallow. Hard. “You mind if I say goodbye?”
She nodded mutely. He squatted down next to the metal box, cracked the door open.
“Shtopp,” she heard him softly mutter the German commands nearly all combat dogs grew up hearing. “Sitz.”
Inside the kennel, Janus shifted around. She couldn’t see much with the metal door blocking her view, but she spotted the black paw that landed over the top of Major McCall’s hand. He turned it until the two were touching palm to pad. It made her want to cry.
“This kind lady is going to find you a new home,” she heard him say. “A place where someone won’t be trying to kill you every five seconds.” She saw him smile bitterly. “Well, aside from maybe a five-or six-year-old kid that might try to saddle you up and ride you around.”
That was so close to the truth of what might happen, Claire found herself momentarily smiling, but her smile faded fast because watching Ethan say goodbye to his friend’s dog was difficult to watch. Usually a pickup was impersonal, the military staff remote. Not this time. It took every ounce of willpower not to lose it right then and there.
“Take care of yourself, buddy.” He reached in and stroked the dog’s head. “Trev will be there with you every step of the way.”
One last pat on the head before the man closed the kennel door. He didn’t look at her as he straightened. “Can you help me lift?”
“Of course.”
His hands shook as he reached for an aluminum handle. In a matter of seconds they had the crate inside. Claire stepped back and closed the doors.
“I’ll take good care of him.”
“I know.” He still wouldn’t look her in the eye. “The base commander told me about you.”
“It’s a labor of love.”
He met her gaze and she could see it then—how hard he’d fought for control. But he had himself in hand. His eyes might be rimmed with red, but he was a soldier through and through. A combat veteran. A man who’d been trained to keep his cool even when the world fell apart. She knew the type well.
“Thank God for people like you.”
She felt close to tears again for some reason. “And thank God for servicemen like you.”
They both dropped into silence, Claire wondering what he would do after today and where he would go, warning herself that it wasn’t her problem.
“I should get going.”
He nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”
She started to back away, but he held out a hand. She didn’t want to clasp it. She really didn’t. Stupid, ridiculous thing because there was no reason why she shouldn’t, but the moment she touched him she knew she’d been right. It was like a scene from an old-time movie. A slowing down of time. A freeze-frame moment when everything seemed to stand still and all sound faded: Zoom in camera one. Hero and heroine touch and seem unable to look anywhere but into each other’s eyes.
“Drive carefully.”
He let her hand go and smiled. He had dimples. She would have never expected dimples.
“Thanks,” she heard herself say, and then she forced herself to take a deep breath as she turned away and headed toward the driver’s side door.
Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.
She looked back.
Major McCall still stood there, his hand lifting to his hat as he saluted. She smiled, saluted back, all but wilting into the driver’s seat a moment later. She started the engine and slowly backed out, Janus whining one last time. It wasn’t until she hit the main road that she pulled over on the shoulder.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, shaken by the touch of his hand.
“What in the world was that?”
What was he doing here?
Ethan McCall looked down at his nearly finished coffee. He’d just driven five hours to pull into a strange town, order breakfast at a place called Ed’s Eatery, and then sit and watch traffic pass through the small town of Via Del Caballo, California.
My family owns a big ranch. You’d be welcome there.
He recalled her eyes. They shared the same eye color, only his were nothing like her green eyes. Hers were like the rind of a lime. Bright green. Bottle green. Sun shining through glass and right into her soul green. He’d never seen anything like them before. They’d been filled with kindness, too, and maybe that’s why he’d driven to her hometown. That, and the truth was, he had no place else to go.
Out in front a new car pulled into an empty parking spot, one of the diagonal kind. A small family. Two little kids. Mom laughing at something Dad said. It was such a stark contrast to his view over the past four years—crumbling buildings, half-dressed children, dust-covered cars—that for a moment he simply stared. The mom took the hand of the youngest child, a little girl with cute blond curls that caught the morning sun. Behind them and across the street, someone loaded what looked like grain into the back of their truck. The sign on the store read Via Del Caballo Farm and Feed. Out in front sat a row of livestock feeders. Round. Square. Tall. Feeders of all sizes. When he’d first sat down he’d gazed at them for the longest time, just thinking about the times he’d been in the Middle East, longing for a view like the one he had now.
Hometown, USA.
“Need more coffee?”
He glanced up at the waitress—a teenage girl with dirty blond hair and freckles—and said, “No, thanks.”
She smiled and walked away, Ethan would bet she entered her pig in the county fair every year. FFA. Local rancher’s daughter. Good kid with no bad habits and a weekend job.
Life in a small town. He’d fought to protect that lifestyle. Had kept going even when the chips were down. And then Trev and Janus had been shot and...
He nearly cracked the handle of his coffee mug. It took him a moment to regulate his breathing again. When he did, he glanced across the street.
And froze.
It was her. Claire Reynolds. The woman he’d come to see. The one he’d convinced himself wouldn’t be home. The woman who’d called him on the phone one day—out of the blue—and asked for his opinion on a dog in her care. Behavioral issues, she’d said. But instead of calling her back he’d slipped behind the wheel of his old truck and found himself heading north and then west.
And there she was.
She’d slipped out of a pickup truck, that long, black hair he remembered so well pulled into a ponytail. She glanced toward the restaurant and he found himself turning away, even shielding his face with a hand, for some reason embarrassed even though he doubted
