blue eyes the color of a summer sky. At one glance she made him feel dusty, unkempt and out of his league.
But she smiled warmly and extended her hand. When he reached for it, the touch was electric. “I heard about your ostriches.”
“Not everything, I’m sure.” Well, at least he could still talk, and the ostriches provided a bridge over his reaction to her. Never had a woman left him feeling so...well, hell, he was a cop. No one, male or female, ever left him gobsmacked.
Until now.
“Betty said you inherited the birds with the ranch?”
His grin returned. “Yup. I have no idea where they came from, just that apparently my dad had been taking care of them. Long enough to put in electrified fencing so they can’t escape. So there they are.” He turned and pointed to the pen. “Don’t get too close—they peck.”
She smiled, a beautiful expression. “Betty says you want to get rid of them?”
“To a good home somewhere the climate will suit them better. So far, no takers.”
“I have to confess I had no idea how big they are,” Dory said.
“Eight feet or so at maturity. Say, let’s go look at the dogs. They make much better company.”
He could feel the evil eyes following him as he led the ladies around his two-story ranch house to the dog run and kennels out back. At the moment he had six in various stages of training, mostly Belgian Malinois, but a German shepherd had joined the mix. In all he had ten kennels with access to fenced areas behind. It would have been unkind to expect them to live on concrete with their messes.
The dogs stood immediately, curious, ears pricked attentively. No barking, no crazy antics. Training showed.
He waited while the ladies looked them over, then Dory surprised him, pointing at the shepherd. “That’s a different breed.”
“Most people don’t even notice,” he answered. “Yeah, he’s a German shepherd. The others are Belgian Malinois, sometimes called Belgian shepherds.”
She looked at him with those blue eyes. “Do they behave differently?”
“A bit. The Malinois can be stubborn. He needs a good handler, but he’s also more powerful than he looks. A great police dog. But the shepherd is more obedient, so...” He shrugged. “I’ve worked with both breeds over the last decade or so, and I love them both. Either breed would make you a good guard dog, but they’re energetic. I hope you like to jog.”
Her smiled dawned, and he felt his heart skip. Too much perfection?
“As it happens, I jog every day. Two or three miles. Would that be enough?”
“Like anything else, the faster you go, the faster they tire. They’ve got a lot of endurance, though, which is why they’re such good working dogs. Both are also courageous to a fault.”
He watched her look from dog to dog almost pensively. He pointed to two on the right end of the kennels. “Those two are almost ready to join the force as K-9s. Their handlers are about to finish training with them. But the other four are at various points in training, and any would make a good guard dog quite quickly.”
She nodded. “Which would you recommend for a computer geek who can forget the time of day half the time?”
Cadell couldn’t suppress a laugh. “The shepherd would lie at your feet and give you soulful looks. The Malinois might poke you with his nose to get your attention. But...they can all be mischievous. No guarantees on that.”
He didn’t expect her to decide just by looking, so he opened two of the kennels, freeing the shepherd and one Malinois. Far from racing away along the dog run, they stepped out, surveyed the newcomers, then politely sniffed both Betty and Dory. Once their immediate curiosity was satisfied, both sat on their haunches and waited expectantly.
“I’ve never seen dogs so well trained,” Dory exclaimed.
“Most people don’t want to be jumped on,” Cadell replied. “They will if you want them to, but I don’t recommend it. Hold out your hand palm up. Once they’ve sniffed it, you should be able to pet them.”
* * *
DORY LOVED THE look of both dogs. Something about their eyes, at once alert and...empathetic? Did dogs feel empathy? She had no idea, but she was drawn to squat down so they were at eye level. Both dogs met her gaze steadily, which surprised her. She held out both hands, one to each dog, and as promised got nosed. Only then did she reach out to bury her fingers in their thick coats.
She’d never had a pet, she knew next to nothing about what she was getting into, but she knew in that instant that she very much wanted one of these dogs. She had the worst urge to wrap her arms around both their necks and hug them.
Amazed by her own response, one she almost never felt with people, she sat back on her heels and tried to regain her composure. “They’re both beautiful. I have to decide right now?”
“Of course not,” Cadell answered. “But it might help if we went out in the paddock and played a bit with them. They have different personalities, just like people do. One of them will catch your eye more than the other.”
So, for a little while, Dory forgot everything else as they played fetch with tennis balls and tug with a twisted rope. In the end she settled on the Malinois. Yeah, she could see the mischief in him, but she loved his coloration, a dark muzzle and legs that looked like they were cased in dark socks. There was something else, too, something that happened when their eyes met. It was almost as if the dog were saying, “I’m yours.”
Crazy, she thought, but she announced her decision. A Malinois it would be. As she turned toward Cadell to tell him, a smile on her lips, she saw the heat in his gaze. Quickly shuttered, but not so quickly she didn’t feel a responsive heat in herself.
She swiftly looked to the dog that had stapled itself to the side of her leg. Cadell Marcus was a very attractive man. Well built, a strong face and a great smile. He stood there in his sweatshirt, hands on narrow jean-clad hips, waiting, and she didn’t dare look at him again.
These kinds of feelings frightened her almost as much as her nightmares. She was broken, she thought as she stroked the dog’s head. Broken in so many ways, and all those ways led back to George. A spark of anger stiffened her spine.
“This one,” she said to Cadell.
He smiled. “You’re already a pair. He really likes you. Great choice. We can start training you right now, if you like.”
“Training me?” she asked, surprised.
“Training you,” he repeated. “All we’re going to do is ask him to use his native personality and skills for your benefit. But you need to know how to bring that out of him.”
Looking down at the dog, she felt a real eagerness to get started, to develop a relationship with him. “Sure. What’s his name?”
“Flash. But you can call him something else if you want.”
She smiled again. “Flash is a good name, especially since I’m a geek.”
