fork back down on the plate. “I decided to put it on the market a while back, and it sold while I was deployed.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t known. “So where are you staying?” She’d been wanting to get in touch with him for months, had presumed he was away again, because he hadn’t even been able to make it back for Sam’s service.
“I’ve been at a recuperation clinic. My leg was burned pretty bad when the...” His sentence trailed off. “It’s kept me away for a while, then I traveled around for a bit to come to grips with everything, and I only just arrived in yesterday.”
She swallowed, taking a deep breath before she asked a question that needed to be voiced. “You’re staying in a hotel, aren’t you? You only came back here to see me.”
Brett looked guilty. “You were Sam’s wife. I could only stay away for so long. He’d want me to look out for you, Jamie. You know that. He even asked me as much.”
Unspoken words hung between them, words that would never be braved by either of them. Because before it had just been flirting. Now that Sam was gone... It was too soon for either of them, wasn’t something that could ever happen. But it didn’t mean she wanted Brett to leave, and it didn’t mean that he was here for any other reason than because he loved her for being Sam’s wife.
“I want you to know that I’m here, no matter what you need, okay?”
Jamie stared at him, raised one eyebrow as she looked into his eyes. “You really want to be here for me? To help me?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“Then help me with Bear,” she said. “Turn me into a worthy owner of the dog who meant the world to my husband.”
Brett was playing with his fork, looking at the half-eaten breakfast on his plate.
“You’re sure you want me hanging around?” he asked. “I mean, you don’t have to say that just because...”
Jamie reached for his hand, squeezed it and stared straight into Brett’s eyes. “You weren’t just his friend, you were mine, too,” she confessed. “I’ve missed you guys—you, Sam and Logan. I miss you all. I didn’t just lose my husband, I lost having you two here all the time, too.”
Brett grunted. “Bet Logan’s been better at staying in touch.”
She shook her head. “He’s phoned me a couple of times, but I haven’t seen him, either. It’s been—” Jamie shrugged “—weird. But he did say he was back in town soon, so maybe he’s back now?”
Brett looked surprised, but she didn’t say anything. He went back to eating his pancakes and so did she.
“Well, if you need help with Bear, I’m here,” he said. “How about we start with a few basics today, and I’ll come past tomorrow and we can take him out to a park or something.”
Jamie stood up to clear their plates. “That sounds like a good plan,” she told him.
A niggle in her mind was telling her she should have asked Brett to stay, that her husband would have been horrified that his best buddy was paying to stay at a hotel, but she wasn’t ready for that. Wasn’t ready for a man to be sleeping in her home, under her roof—a man who wasn’t her husband, even if she did hate being on her own at night. Being alone...it took her back to her childhood, brought the ice-cold fear back, and she hated that as much as the reality of waking up without Sam beside her.
And if she were honest with herself, she was feeling nervous about being with Brett too much, just the two of them. They’d always flirted, it was just how he’d always been with her, but back then she’d also been in love with her husband, which meant their joking had always been nothing more than fun. Now?
She just had to take one day at a time. Having Brett here was better than being on her own, and she knew it was what Sam would have wanted. Even if she was having feelings about Brett that he wouldn’t approve of.
CHAPTER TWO
BRETT DIDN’T KNOW what he’d expected, but being with Jamie was...different. He always knew it wasn’t going to be the same without Sam, and he was pleased he was here, but it didn’t make it easy.
Thank God they had Bear to deal with. He would have felt weird coming over again without a good reason, without a purpose to help her.
“So did Sam ever teach you any of his commands?”
Jamie shook her head. He could tell she loved the dog, and it looked as if the canine reciprocated—the trouble was plain simple communication. Bear was sitting faithfully beside Jamie, and her hand had fallen to the top of his head, which told him that there was no reason they weren’t going to form a good team. They just weren’t in sync yet, and that’s what he was going to help her with.
“The thing with this dog is that he’s extremely easy to teach, so long as you make your commands and actions clear and consistent,” Brett told her. “You don’t have to be Sam, but you do have to understand how he learns.”
“Do you mean like how they need to be rewarded by play?”
Brett grinned. “Exactly. This dog was chosen for the dog detection unit because when we tested him as a youngster, his commitment to a game of ball was unwavering.”
“So I need to play with him?” she asked, staring down at the dog.
“Yeah, you need to play with him, and you need to let him be with you all the time, because that’s how Sam treated him whenever they were together.”
Jamie was laughing and he loved seeing her happy, as if for a moment they were both here for any reason other than because of what had happened—that they were just two friends catching up under the sun, like old times.
“You guys always act so tough, but when it comes to your dogs, you’re like marshmallows.”
“It’s part of the bonding process, you know that,” he told her, pretending to be offended. “And we are tough, I’ll have you know.”
“Yeah, that’s what you all tell each other, but really? You’re just lonely when you’re away and want a warm body in your bed to snuggle up to.”
Brett laughed, unable to help himself. “How did you figure us all out so fast, huh?”
Jamie held up her hand to shield her face from the sun. “So are we just going to start with the basics?”
He nodded. “Why don’t we run through sit, stay and heel, then I’ll teach you how to play with a ninety-pound canine. Sound good?”
The smile she gave him made him drop his gaze, focus on the dog instead, because he was walking a dangerous line between helping out a friend’s widow and wanting to be here because he’d always liked Jamie and still did.
And if he were honest with himself, it’s why he’d taken so long to come back. It hadn’t just been about his injury, it hadn’t just been because he was struggling to come to terms with losing his best human friend and his canine best friend, it was because when it came to Jamie, he didn’t trust himself. He could have all the best intentions in
