Ranch. She checked the time display on her dashboard.
“Looks perfect, Peace,” she said and headed along the road.
She wondered then if Officer Maisie Murran would find a way to visit the demonstration even briefly despite her indication yesterday that she couldn’t.
And her brother? He was even less likely to attend.
The road narrowed even more and Elissa kept an eye out for signs indicating addresses. As soon as she passed a large property labeled Chance Resort, she saw a signpost at the next driveway for the Chance K-9 Ranch.
They had arrived.
The ranch property was surrounded by a large plank fence that probably wouldn’t keep anyone out but perhaps helped to keep dogs inside. The gate was open. Elissa drove through it and up the driveway. She saw other vehicles parked at the top of the rise near what unsurprisingly seemed to be a ranch house—one story high and extending for a substantial distance.
“Let’s go,” she told Peace after parking beside another SUV, a big black one that appeared to be an official police vehicle, with a light on top. Was one of the K-9 officers there after all? Or was it another cop?
Elissa exited through the driver’s door, then opened the one behind it to let Peace out after snapping on her leash. When she turned, she was happy to see Amber exiting the house, holding the leash of a black Labrador retriever. A tall man came out after her, also leading a leashed dog, a German shepherd—Evan, the head dog trainer, whom Elissa recognized from the demonstration videos on the ranch’s website. With them was an older woman Elissa figured must be Amber’s mother. Sonya Belott. No surprises there.
But what did surprise her was that this group of anticipated people was followed by another person with a dog on a leash.
Officer Doug Murran and his German shepherd, Hooper.
What was he doing there? And why did Elissa’s heart both soar and sink at the idea of his watching her initial therapy dog demonstration?
There she was—the reason Doug had brought his dog to the Chance K-9 Ranch early this morning, even though he had determined yesterday not to come here at all.
And his presence was definitely not for the reason he’d even considered coming.
No, he was here on official police business.
A sign had been attached to the front gate near the road that had worried the Belotts enough to call the police and request that he or Maisie be sent to the ranch that morning. Maisie had already left for their previously assigned case, so it had fallen on him.
He’d just finished talking to Amber Belott and her mother, Sonya, as well as chief dog trainer—and Amber’s fiancé—Evan Colluro inside the house. Now he followed as they strode out to greet Elissa.
He couldn’t help liking the big grin on her face or the way she stepped forward and hugged Amber. Her hostess and potential boss introduced her to her mother and to Evan as well as to their dogs.
He saw her eyes shift slightly in his direction more than once. He didn’t think her smile was for him, which was fine. He kept his expression blank.
But he was looking forward to seeing her reaction to the reason he had been called out to the K-9 Ranch.
Still, the decision had been made to proceed with the demonstration that had brought Elissa to the ranch and to ignore, at least temporarily, the reason he was there.
He’d been asked by Amber to not only observe but to also help in the demonstration. He would pretend to be someone recuperating from an injury who was under a lot of psychological stress and needed soothing, perhaps by a therapy dog. Amber had said that Evan and her employee, ranch hand Orrin Daker, who was sometimes used as an agitator in K-9 training situations, would also participate.
That didn’t mean Doug shouldn’t at least be polite and greet her. “Hi, Elissa,” he said after the other introductions had ended. “And hi, Peace.” He’d heard her introduce her dog to the others, too, but he didn’t bend to pet her. Not when he was soon going to act like he needed some canine TLC from this therapy dog.
Besides, he now had even more reason not to allow his initial attraction to this lovely woman turn into anything. She was potentially involved in the case he’d just been assigned to handle.
But he felt a surge of warmth inside when she returned, “Good morning, Doug. And Hooper, too.”
Interestingly, her dog Peace got up close and personal with Hooper, her tail wagging furiously as she sniffed his shepherd’s face. Hooper seemed fine with it, sniffing and wagging back a bit. Good thing he wasn’t officially on duty at the moment.
“Okay, we’ll get started,” Amber said. “I’d planned to have some neighbors’ kids come over, but...well, things have changed. We’ll just do a demonstration with adults. Come this way.” She led them all back into the house.
With Hooper, Doug stayed back and held the door open for Elissa and her dog. “So you need the warmth of a therapy dog today?” she asked with a smile as she went past him, but he also saw puzzlement in her deep brown eyes. Yesterday she’d been somewhat dressed up. Today her outfit consisted of a blue plaid shirt over jeans—a look that seemed comfortable for her but might also help put stressed people at ease. Or at least that was what Doug assumed.
Soon Amber got the three men lined up in the living room, leaving her mother holding the leashes of Hooper, Evan’s dog Bear, and Amber’s Labrador retriever Lola at the far end of the room. Fortunately they were all well trained. Doug wasn’t sure how Sonya, a somewhat fragile-looking senior, would do with aggressive or even eager dogs.
“Okay,” Amber said to Elissa. “Assume these three guys were in the military and suffer from PTSD.” She looked toward Evan, who smiled at her. Doug knew that the statement was accurate as far as Amber’s guy was concerned. “They need a bit of TLC and soothing from a really good therapy dog. Show me how you and Peace would handle it.”
As far as Doug could tell—without knowing more about how therapy dogs worked—they handled it well, including him. First, Elissa knelt and tied a blue scarf that said “Therapy Dog” around Peace’s neck. Then, on direction from Elissa, Peace went up to each guy individually, sat before him on the floor to be petted, walked carefully around him while sidling against his legs, and acted wholly engaged and pleased, even wagging her tail, as each of the men knelt and hugged her—or, in Evan’s case, pretended to ignore her until the last moment.
There was more to it, too. Doug was impressed, especially as Elissa explained with each movement, each command, just how that was intended to help calm a nervous, scared or psychologically impaired person. But mostly she left it to her dog to interact with the supposed needy human.
And who wouldn’t be soothed by a loving, caring dog? Especially one trained, and handled, by someone as apparently loving and caring as Elissa?
Heck, he thought as he once again sat on the wood floor and pretended to mope as Peace came over and nuzzled him. He had to remind himself yet again that he knew far better than to even think of getting involved with someone entwined in a case.
And now it appeared that Elissa was exactly that.
Even Orrin, who must be used to being given all sorts of strange things to do here as a
