Heat of the Moment (3 page)

The snarl that rumbled from the darkness had his skin prickling. His free hand went to his empty hip again as a huge, black wolf loomed from the night.

Becca stepped in front of Owen. He still had a grip on her arm and pulled her back, which only made the wolf snap, jaws clicking shut centimeters away from Owen's free hand. Again, quickness was everything. He'd learned that the hard way in Afghanistan.

“He isn't hurting me,” Becca said.

The wolf crouched, still grumbling but no longer snarling and snapping, its freakishly light green gaze fixed on Owen.

“You have a pet wolf?”

She stared at the beast as if it were the first time she'd seen it, and considering the animal's behavior that couldn't be the case. “Wolves aren't pets.”

“Got that right.”

The beast showed Owen her teeth. If he'd been confused before, he wasn't now. Definitely not a pet.

Frantic barking commenced. A bolt of brown fur vaulted through one of the now glassless windows of the house and hit the ground running.

Owen had time to shout, “Reggie,
nein
!” an instant before the two animals slammed into each other and rolled. Snarls filled the air. Spittle flew; teeth snapped.

“Call her off,” he ordered.

“She isn't a pet. Call him off.”

Reggie wasn't a pet either, but he had been trained by the best.

“Nein!”
Owen ordered.
“Aus!”

Reggie released the wolf's leg, as ordered. The black beast circled the brown one.

“Hier!”

The dog hesitated, his eyes flicking to Owen, then back to the wolf. Owen couldn't blame him, but he also couldn't let Reggie disobey.

“Lass das sein! Hier!”

This time Reggie followed the commands of “don't do that” and “come.” Though his neck craned so that he could keep the wolf in his sight, he trotted to Owen's side and sat without being told to
sitz!

“What was that?” Becca asked.

“German.”

She cast him an exasperated glance. “I got that much, but why?”

“Reggie's a military working dog.
Er gehorcht auf Kommando.
He obeys German commands.”

Most K-9 working dogs were purchased from Germany. There they not only nurtured the bloodlines necessary for K-9 work, but they had the best training programs for the same. Even dogs purchased young and trained in the States still learned commands in German to match their initial training—sit, come, stay—as well as to align them with all the other dogs.

“That's a Belgian Malinois.”

Most people thought Reggie was an oddly unmarked and slightly small German shepherd. Not Becca. She knew her dog breeds. Always had.

“He is,” Owen agreed. “A lot of Belgians are bred in Germany.”

Becca offered her hand to Reggie, palm down, nonthreatening. He glanced at Owen. Military working dogs—MWDs for short—were not pets. They accepted admiration as their due, but only if it was allowed by their handler. Anyone who knew anything about MWDs would never touch one without asking first. That was a good way to lose a finger.

Reggie was better than most, he didn't need a muzzle in crowds, but he still wasn't cuddly and probably never would be.

“In ordnung,”
Owen said.
Okay.

The dog sniffed her fingers. The wolf growled, and Reggie pulled back, with a low
woof.

“Hush,” Becca murmured, to one or both of them, Owen wasn't sure, but they both hushed. The wolf paced back and forth a dozen yards away. There was something odd about the animal that went beyond its far too human eyes.

“What kind of military work does he do?”

Owen didn't want to say, but from Becca's expression she already knew or at least suspected. It wasn't rocket science to figure it out, and for a veterinarian even less so.

“Explosive detection,” he answered.

“Then why is he here?”

The world shimmied, as if something had exploded nearby, though Owen knew nothing had. He was still hoping that remnant would fade along with the constant urge to hit the dirt after any loud, sudden noise. It was embarrassing. Though much better now than it had been when he'd first woken up. Back then, a door closing could make him shake like a tree in a strong breeze.

“There was an accident.”

“An accident with a bomb-sniffing dog would involve a bomb.”

“Can't put anything past you.”

“Must you be sarcastic?”

“Apparently.”

She looked like she wanted to smack him, except that would involve contact, and from the way she hovered just outside his reach, that wasn't going to happen. Was she keeping her distance to avoid setting off the wolf, or to avoid setting off Owen?

Owen wasn't sure what he'd do if she touched him. That single second of touching her—before the wolf took offense—had been bad. Or maybe it had been good. He couldn't decide.

“You're in one piece,” Becca said, “and so is he.”

Only because they'd been put together again better than Humpty Dumpty, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He also wasn't going to walk where she could observe him long enough to register that he still couldn't walk quite right. While the coldness in those eyes that had once gazed at him so warmly was hard to stomach, the pity would be even harder.

“We're fine,” he lied. “Home on leave. I plan to get this place ready to sell, then we'll be out of here.”

“You're staying in the house?”

“Where else?”

She eyed it as if it might collapse in a heap any second. He wouldn't be surprised.

“I've slept worse places,” he said.

Her hazel eyes flicked to his. “Where?”

He wasn't going to talk about that. Not now. Not with her.

Actually, not ever and with no one.

“I'll only be here until I sell the place.”

“Sell?” she echoed, as if hearing the word for the first time. “But your mother—”

“Isn't ever going to be well enough to come back.”

It had taken him a long time to accept that, even longer for his mother to, but now that they had, the house was an unnecessary burden.

“You don't want to live here when you—”

“No,” he interrupted. Here was the last place he wanted to live. Here was too close to her.

“Shouldn't your enlistment be up by now?”

“I re-upped.” Several times. “I'm due to re-up again.” And he would if he could. “Men die if I don't do my job.”

Her gaze narrowed on Reggie. “If he's a bomb-sniffing dog that makes you his handler.”

“Becca, you had to have known all this—”

“How would I?” she interrupted. “You never wrote, Owen, except to tell me you wouldn't be writing.”

He'd had his reasons. They still applied.

“I'm sure there was plenty of scuttlebutt on the Three Harbors grapevine.”

And as the local veterinarian, Becca had to have heard all of it.

“If it concerned you,” she said. “I didn't listen.”

That shouldn't hurt, but it did.

 

Chapter 3

I was being a bitch.

Heard it. Knew it. Couldn't help it. He made me so damn mad.

Ten years since Owen had left Three Harbors, left me, and he hadn't come back. You'd think I would have gotten over it, over him.

Guess not.

“I … uh…” Why was I here? What was I doing? “I should check those animals.”

“No one's stopping you.”

Now he was being a bitch too. Great. I headed for the house.

Owen was different. Why wouldn't he be? He'd been gone a long time.

He'd always been handsome, with a grin that could charm the socks off just about anyone. He'd charmed more than the socks off me.

Back then his dark brown hair had been long, curling over his nape, sloping across his equally dark eyes. I'd loved how those eyes could go from icy—when he was glaring at someone who'd dissed him—to smoldering whenever they stared at me.

His hair was now brutally short, and his eyes seemed darker, sadder—though there'd never been anything light about Owen McAllister. He'd always been a big kid—taller than everyone else, muscular long before the other boys. That hadn't changed. He was taller by over an inch, shoulders wider by more than that. His biceps bulged; his thighs seemed too large for his jeans.

We'd been friends first. Good friends. Best friends. I missed that. You could always find another lover—theoretically; I certainly hadn't—but a friend like Owen didn't come around every day. Or any day apparently.

Then again with a friend like him, who needed enemies? He'd broken my heart, and I hadn't yet figured out a way to mend it.

I reached the listing porch, glanced back. Owen and his dog hovered, unmoving, at the edge of the yard.

“Go ahead.” He bent and pulled something from Reggie's coat. “He's got some burrs that I don't want in the house.”

From the appearance of the house, a few burrs wouldn't hurt it. Perhaps Owen had seen enough of what was inside. I didn't blame him. I didn't want to look either. But I had to, so I climbed the steps and went in.

I stopped just past the threshold—not only because of the smell—charred flesh and fur—but the sight. The place was ruined. Not that it had been in that great a shape to begin with, though Owen had done the best he could. He'd been a kid with very little money—all he'd had was time and hope.

The years had taken a toll. Damage had been done not only by the elements but by the teenagers that had come here to drink, dope, and screw. I saw evidence of all three—bottles and cans, the stubs of cigs and joints, several used condoms—scattered everywhere.

What I found in the living room was worse. The other had been kids being kids. Asshole kids, but still kids. This …

I stared at the charred remains.

This was evil.

*   *   *

Owen waited for Becca to disappear into the house.

Though she'd probably seen worse, or at least seen similar, he didn't want to let her go inside and face that alone. But more than that, he didn't want her to see him walk.

Childish. Foolish. Selfish. He silently berated himself with every
ish
he could think of as he gimped in her wake. He could have added
gimpish,
but he didn't think it was a word.

Should be.

Shrapnel had made a mess of his leg. Tendons were damaged, nerves too. The break in his femur had been ugly. The doctors had said he wouldn't be able to walk again. He'd refused to believe them, and he'd been right.

They'd also said he wouldn't be able to return to active duty. He refused to believe that either. Owen had nothing else. He was good at nothing but the job he'd learned in the Marines. If he wasn't Sergeant McAllister, who was he?

Reggie yipped. Owen had stopped walking to rub his thigh. The dog, which had healed much faster than Owen had, stood at the bottom of the listing porch steps.

“I'm okay,” he said, as if Reggie could understand. Sometimes he swore the dog could.

He'd certainly understood when Owen had shouted, “Run,” that day Reggie had found the turned-up earth at the same time Owen had seen the boy with the cell phone.

Which was why Reggie was in better shape than he was.

The kid had activated the IED a bit too soon, which meant that Owen and Reggie were alive and not dead after the big—

“Kaboom,” Owen said.

The dog climbed the steps. Now he was gimping too. Owen sat on the top step, patted the area next to him.
“Sitz.”

Owen ran his palm over the animal's injuries, masked now by fur, but still there. When he reached the worst one, Reggie flinched.

Owen moved the hair away from the scar. No blood at least. This far out, there shouldn't be.

“Looks like you've bought yourself an aspirin in your kibble, pal. Shouldn't have been rolling in the dirt with a wolf today. Probably not any day with a wolf.”

Speaking of … The wolf had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Where had it gone? Why had it gone? Why had it come in the first place? Becca seemed to know the animal, which wasn't surprising. She'd always had a strange affinity for them.

When they were children, she would entertain Owen with tales of “what the bunny said,” and “what the fox thought.” Forest creatures would walk up and eat out of her hand. The first time his mom had seen them surrounded by raccoons and opossums and squirrels, she'd flipped out. Started screaming about rabies, scared all the little beasties away.

He'd been six years old and already adept at knowing when he could calm her down and when he needed to call the EMTs. He avoided the latter as much as possible. Because if his mom went to the mental health facility, Owen went to foster care—at least until they'd moved here. Once he and Becca became friends, the Carstairs allowed him to stay with them while his mom “rested.”

He owed that family more than he could ever repay. Another reason he had left when he had.

Reggie's tongue lolled. He appeared to be smiling. Owen rubbed behind the dog's ears. “You liked tussling with that wolf, didn't you?”

Reggie barked.

Owen had heard the Belgian Malinois described as the “sugar-hyped kid” of the dog world, and that could be true when they weren't handled correctly. A Belgian did not make a good pet, unless you had a huge amount of land and all day to spend throwing sticks. Without constant activity, they got into trouble. Left alone and bored they would destroy anything, everything, just for something to do.

But that drive to go, go, and keep going was what made them excellent bomb-sniffing dogs. Belgians didn't stop until they found something; they weren't afraid of much, and most didn't get twitchy when bullets blazed all around them. Owen thought Reggie kind of liked it.