him.
Then it was Doug’s turn. “Okay, dog,” he said gruffly. “What if I don’t want your attention?”
“That’s exactly why you need her attention,” Elissa said softly. “She wants you to hug her.”
Which Doug found himself doing with the furry, snuggling golden.
The demonstration went on a while longer. Eventually, Elissa also gave Amber and Lola a brief lesson on how the Lab could also be trained to be a therapy dog.
Amber seemed to have gotten everything accomplished that she wanted to. “Okay,” she said when her lesson was finished. “Good job, Elissa and Peace. Let’s go into the kitchen, shall we?”
She unobtrusively motioned for Doug and the others to stay there, in the living room, while she led Elissa and Peace through the door. In a couple of minutes she returned and requested that Orrin get back to work. The ranch hand left.
“She’s good,” Amber said once he was gone. “Real good. Her explanations to people as well as working well with her dog... I want to hire her no matter what.”
“I don’t like the idea.” Evan drew himself to her side. “No matter how good she is.”
“Me neither,” said Sonya, staring at her daughter.
“But that sign really didn’t say anything.” Amber directed her gaze toward Doug. “Did it? Is it really a threat? I know what real threats are like.”
Doug was well aware that Amber had received text messages not long ago containing some really nasty threats. Fortunately, that situation was now resolved. “We don’t know enough yet,” he said. “I’m just beginning our investigation.”
“Well, we’ll all be aware and be careful. But I don’t intend for some stupid, unclear sign to make me change my mind regarding something I feel strongly about. She’ll only be here part-time anyway.” And with that, Amber pulled away, turned and left the living room.
“Then you’ll really have to help us,” Sonya said pleadingly to Doug.
“I’ll do all I can,” he promised. But he was definitely concerned—about the Belotts and others who lived at the ranch, their dogs and now also about Elissa.
He might not be able to act at all on his initial attraction to her. But neither did he want her, or her dog, to be harmed.
“For now, I’ll join you while you talk with Elissa, and just listen in. We’ve already secured the sign and locked it in the back of my car.”
They’d wrapped it in plastic carefully so as not to obscure any fingerprints or other evidence.
The sign had been hooked onto the gate down by the road that morning when Amber and Evan had first gone outside to walk their dogs. They didn’t always walk that way but Evan had noticed something a bit off at the upper driveway.
The sign read Be Careful Who You Hire. It was a small cardboard sign, hung on the gate by the road with string and not too obvious. The dogs hadn’t alerted on it, either.
But it wasn’t something Doug, or the Chance Police Department, would ignore.
Like the rest of the house that she’d seen, the kitchen seemed utilitarian yet attractive to Elissa. A tiled floor and counters, too, lent themselves to being scrubbed clean despite the abundance of dogs undoubtedly brought in here. The metal sink and refrigerator were large, and the stove, with the microwave attached to the wall over it, was more moderate in size.
Sitting on a stiff chair at the round kitchen table with Peace lying on the floor near her, Elissa made herself look over the paperwork Amber had left for her to review. It described the Chance K-9 Ranch, its history and goals, as well as the contract she would be expected to sign if she was hired.
Interesting stuff, but she couldn’t help wondering how the conversation in the living room was going.
She assumed they were all analyzing her therapy dog demonstration as well as the brief training lesson she’d provided. That was expected since they were considering hiring her.
Or at least Amber, her mother and their lead trainer were.
But what was Doug Murran doing there? A K-9 officer didn’t necessarily know anything about therapy dogs. Nor had Elissa thought he or his sister would attend today, but there he was.
She hadn’t anticipated seeing him again anytime soon, if at all. Of course, if she was hired and spent more time in Chance, there was always that possibility.
A thought struck her. He was a cop. He knew dogs. Maybe she could ask him...
“Hi, Elissa.” Amber strode into the room with Lola at her feet. They were followed by Sonya. Both women sat at the table, facing her, and Elissa felt her heart speed up. Would they make her an offer—or would they thank her and usher her out the door?
It was the former and she was thrilled! “We understand you have a nursing job in San Luis Obispo,” Amber began, “and that works out fine with us as long as you don’t mind the commute. We’d like to hire you part-time, for about eight hours a week, at least to start. That means you could spend four hours a day here for the two days you’re not at your hospital each week. If you’re okay with that, we’ll work out the schedule, how we’ll bring in students and other details.”
“That’s great,” Elissa said. “I’ll give you the general training parameters so you can decide which students might work best, and their dogs, too. We can start working with younger dogs and maybe take them to therapy venues for practice, but they have to be at least a year old before we can actually get them qualified.”
“Great. We’ll need your input on that.” Amber made notes in a folder she was holding. “I’ve already posted info on social media about plans for an upcoming class and received some nibbles from potential students, so we’ll be able to start quickly.”
“Another thing—do you have any contacts at the local hospital?” Elissa asked. “Before branching out to other facilities, I’ll want to see if Peace and I can do a little therapy work there, as well as use it as a potential teaching location once we get handlers in our classes trained enough to actually start therapy work with their dogs.”
“Actually, I do,” Sonya said. “One of the senior nurses on staff is a good friend of mine.”
“Excellent,” Elissa said.
“Now let’s talk some details like salary, timing, benefits and all.” Amber smiled at Elissa, who could only grin back. She wouldn’t get rich at this, she was sure, even with the grant that Amber had said she’d obtained. But Elissa had her other job to pay for the basics. The main thing was that this was something she really wanted to do.
Fortunately, those details as Amber described them worked well for Elissa. Today was Friday, and they determined that Elissa would actually start working there the following Monday.
That would give her time to put more hours in at the San
