again, he thought as he led them out to the patio to join his wife.
Life with a dog who kept forgetting he was just a dog was very interesting.
Cleaned up and cooled down now, Liam Burnett stood in the bathroom and stared at his own rueful expression in the mirror. He ran a hand over his hair. He’d been letting it grow out a bit from his usual buzz cut. He hated haircuts and usually just did it himself, short enough he didn’t have to worry about it for a while. But now he laughingly admitted it was fun, because he went to Teague’s fiancée Laney’s dog grooming shop and she did it with her variable-length clippers, shorter on the sides, a little longer on top. He liked her, and it was fun telling people he got his hair cut at a dog groomer’s.
Teague had gotten really lucky, he thought. Laney was the real deal. And good for him. The frequent sparring partner who helped Liam stay sharp was a good guy. The ex-marine with the easy grin deserved to be happy. Former marine, Liam corrected. Both Teague and Rafe had sternly told him there was no such thing as an ex-marine.
And what do you deserve, exactly?
He answered his own question. Not that.
He thought of the group out on the patio. The girl with the locket, who had started Quinn Foxworth on the path that had led him to the Foxworth Foundation. It was the story they had each heard when they’d joined up, to illustrate that it wasn’t the size of the case that determined what they took on, or the importance of the person. To Foxworth, helping a ten-year-old girl devastated by the loss of a single memento was just as important as taking down a crooked politician.
And then there was the woman. He didn’t remember ever having a teacher who looked like her. That sleek swing of dark hair that gleamed in the sun, those eyes the color of today’s sky, that petite, nicely curved figure...nope, nothing like that in his memory banks. Of course, if he’d paid more attention in school he might have noticed if one had been there. Not to mention he never would have started down that road to—
He caught himself before going down that snake hole. Barely, because he’d gotten out of the habit. His life now was good, so good he rarely thought of those days anymore, the days before Quinn had yanked him off a bad path. Had given him a final choice.
“And saved your sorry ass,” he muttered to the reflection in the mirror.
And that, he thought, was enough self-absorption for the week. He wasn’t sure what had set him off now. Maybe it was the girl, Emily. Maybe he was just hoping she wasn’t in trouble. But she’d seemed happy enough. Maybe the problem wasn’t hers.
The teacher? Had Emily brought her because she was the one with the problem Foxworth could fix?
He found he liked that idea even less. Which in turn unsettled him even more. She was a complete stranger; why would it bother him to think she had a problem that would need Foxworth? He was always glad to help people in trouble, he loved what they did, but this was a different sort of feeling, and he didn’t like it.
He caught himself looking in the mirror again. His mirror gazing was usually limited to making sure nothing was grossly wrong, like dirt on his nose or pizza sauce on his cheek. Yet he stood there wondering how he had appeared to her, all grubby and sweaty from playing with Cutter.
All right, that’s it. Now you’ve gone over the edge. Get the heck out of here.
As he donned clean clothes from his locker on the back wall of the bathroom, he pondered. Maybe he should just go about his business. Maybe Quinn wouldn’t need or want him on this one, he reasoned. Emily was special to his boss, being the first case and all. He’d probably want to handle whatever this was himself.
Besides, Liam had other things to do. Some stuff to send to Ty. He and the tech guy at Foxworth headquarters in St. Louis had been working on improving the in-house tracking system, installed on all the Foxworth vehicles. And he hadn’t been to the shooting range in a while; he needed to do that, too. He’d never had to actually use the handgun Quinn insisted he be proficient with, but it had been close a couple of times and he wanted to be sure he was up to speed. Even though he was much more at home with rifles, he’d turned out to be a decent shot with the Colt. But that didn’t mean he didn’t need to practice. And he’d promised Rafe he’d do an electronics check on the backup generator while Rafe was off in Alaska on that sabotage case. So he could do that, and then he could...he could...
His list of reasons to avoid joining the group on the patio sputtered to a halt. He was trying to decide where to start when a low woof outside the bathroom door startled him. He hastily yanked on his boots—custom-made back home, his one splurge when he’d accepted the job here—and opened the door. Cutter stood there, waiting.
“What’s up, hound?”
The dog turned and trotted a few steps toward the patio, stopped and looked back over his shoulder. The customary “follow me” canine body language. Cutter’s vocabulary was much larger than most dogs, and given that Liam’s folks raised them he had some basis for that observation. But this one was pretty standard to most dogs. What wasn’t standard was how impossibly inventive the animal was when it came to getting his point across.
And how impossibly stubborn he was when it came to getting people to do what he wanted.
“Boss didn’t ask for me,” Liam pointed out, even though he knew resisting was useless if the dog’s mind was set. And the look Cutter gave him then was the canine equivalent of “Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?”
Maybe Quinn had sent the dog for him, to hurry him up, Liam thought.
He had a sudden vision of taking this guy home to meet his parents’ rather rambunctious pack of mostly tracking hounds and hunting dogs. Cutter would have them organized and herding longhorns, whether they were bred for it or not.
The image gave him the laugh he needed and, feeling silly over his uncharacteristic burst of self-contemplation, he followed Cutter who, as he’d expected, headed straight for the patio where the others were gathered.
* * *
Ria Connelly was glad she had a glass of Hayley Foxworth’s delicious lemonade—no powdered mix here—to focus on when the Foxworths’ dog came back. Because he had with him the other Foxworth...agent? Operative? Whatever they called themselves. The one she’d met outside. Liam. Who had obviously been playing with said dog quite cheerfully. Part of his job? Maybe, but judging by the way he’d been laughing as they came around the building, it was a part he enjoyed.
Of course, Cutter was a very beautiful dog, with a lot of personality. She’d seen that even in the short time she’d been here. She liked the way his head and shoulders were black but the color shifted to a reddish brown over the rest of his body, liked the thick, soft fur and most of all the amber-flecked dark eyes, so wise and knowing.
And she wasn’t usually fanciful about dogs, but this one seemed different to her. If he was a person she would have said he had an old soul. So maybe that applied to dogs, too.
As for his ball-throwing partner...
She told herself it wasn’t that delightful grin or hair in that style she liked—short but a bit longer on top, where it looked like you could muss it any which way and it would still look intentional...
And
