After dark, at least. That was the one obvious time. Early morning, before many people were up and about? That still wouldn’t allow Click to relieve himself in the middle of the day as well as other times, which might be hard on the poor dog.
She knew she wasn’t going to get answers now, so she didn’t bother asking.
“Great,” she said. “I’ll bet you’re glad to go for a walk now, aren’t you, Click?”
Hearing his name, the dog looked up at her expectantly. Did he understand the word walk? Probably. She had the sense that, as playful as he was, he was also a smart pooch.
“So are we all going?” Kathlene said after Ralf brought over Click’s leash.
“Just you, me and Click,” Jock said. Ralf just nodded, not appearing particularly unhappy about being left out.
It bothered Kathlene, though. She’d be more or less alone with the man who was driving her a bit nuts. His sexiness didn’t let her state of mind settle down in his presence. His secretiveness drove her nuts in other ways.
Well, she couldn’t—wouldn’t—do anything about the former. The latter she could get around. She could be sweet or professional or just darned pushy.
But one way or another she would find out what these men had planned to do to start their investigation.
* * *
“Here we go, boy.” Jock spoke to Click as he attached his leash inside the cabin. “You ready to join us?” he asked Kathlene.
“Definitely.” She smiled, although it faded quickly. “I can only stay here for another few minutes, though. I need to get back on duty.”
“We’ll make it short, then.” Jock gave a gentle tug on the leash and let Click lead them out of the cabin.
Jock was glad to have an opportunity to walk Click. Mostly, it was Ralf who figured out the best times to go out with the dog, when they were least likely to be seen.
On the other hand, he and his aide had talked often about potential timing for Jock to be the one to walk his cover dog. People seeing them together was generally a good thing. They would know there were two entities, Jock and the dog. They wouldn’t think Jock even slightly resembled the pet he had brought here. Or that he was, sometimes, a canine himself.
Not that most regular humans would even imagine the possibility.
And of those that might...well, there weren’t any people they needed to demonstrate anything to here, in this motel area.
Maybe not anywhere in this town. At least not yet.
Except for Kathlene.
He was both glad and sorry for the opportunity to take a walk with her. The best thing for his cover would be for them to stay as alone as possible here.
But that would be worst for his sense of self-control. He wanted this woman. He knew it, and being in her presence only kept his desires at the forefront of his thoughts.
As well as his physical reactions—which were uncomfortable at times, but definitely stimulating.
She was a bundle of contradictions, and that attracted him. A lot.
Maybe because he, too, wasn’t all that he appeared to be.
“Let’s take Click into the woods,” he told Kathlene once they were outside. He held Click’s leash. “He loves the scents there.”
“I noticed,” she said, then shrugged. “Fine with me.”
He chose to say nothing about the woods in this motel area being any different from what surrounded the compound that was the target of their observation. In many ways, it was the same.
Although he himself had detected a lot of differences in the smells around there from what was here.
Gunpowder and explosives, for example. If Click had really been there, Jock had no doubt he’d have scented them, too, despite how they seemed to be muted by distance or age. He’d also have some sense of urgency about them, since he was a trained military K9. But he’d have waited for orders to determine what to do about them.
Jock would need to figure that out for himself, although he would discuss it, if necessary, with his commanding officers, as well as Ralf.
The closest part of the woods began only a few feet away, behind the row of cabins. Jock pulled Click’s leash slightly to aim him between the rustic structures toward that direction.
“So tell me,” said Kathlene once they had gone beyond the narrow lawn area and beneath the trees. “What is our next plan of action? Did you learn anything by sending Click to the encampment of those supposed sportsmen last night?”
“Click’s presence there did give us some ideas,” Jock said. Rather, it was his own presence. And it certainly had triggered what he intended to be their next course of action.
In wolf form, he had looked for—and found—some portions of the surrounding chain-link fence that were less secure and more penetrable by a canine observer than the rest of it.
He intended to return tonight under cover of darkness, and in his wolfen form.
He’d not seen or heard enough to understand what was really going on there, let alone how best to deal with it.
“What do you smell, boy?” Kathlene was talking to Click, whose nose was all but buried in a stack of dead leaves.
Jock scented it, too, of course. His sense of smell was much more acute than any person’s besides other shifters, even when in human form. But he was hardly going to tell Kathlene that the dog was fascinated by the odor of a pile of pheasant droppings.
“Must be something interesting,” Jock said mildly. “But we’d better keep on the move.”
He nevertheless waited until Click lifted his leg to imbue the area with his own canine smell. And then they continued on.
“So what are those ideas you came up with?” Kathlene asked, walking directly behind him as they made their way through the towering trees that had a sweet, piney aroma.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t been fully distracted by Click and his reaction to the odors of the woods.
“We need more information about what’s going on inside the compound,” Jock said. “For one thing, we’ll want to know where the sportsmen hang out when they’re in town. If possible, we’ll act like we’re of the same hunting mind-set and also want to engage in target practice and have the fun of killing whatever game is in season.”
Even though that was contrary to his way of thinking. There were plenty of farm animals raised to be meat. He might feel sorry for them, but he was definitely carnivorous. He was a wolf in human form.
But in his opinion creatures that were wild, like wolves, should be permitted to stay that way. Survival of the fittest would allow them to feed on their own kinds of prey.
Humans did not need
