Lethal Redemption

by April Hunt

  “I’ll give it some thought.” And he wasn’t committing to anything. High-ranking sponsors from DC or no, if Atlas didn’t like her, Miss Jones was out the door.

  And it was about time to address the way she was lurking on the other side of his.

  * * *

  The door opened so fast under Lyn’s hands, she pitched forward before she could catch her balance. She came up against a hard, very well-muscled chest.

  Smooth, poised, graceful even. All things she wished she’d managed but definitely was not.

  He wrapped big hands around her upper arms and set her back on her own feet. Cheeks burning, she forced herself to look up into his face. His brows were drawn close over his steel-blue eyes in the most intimidating scowl she’d ever encountered. No sense in fumbling for excuses. “I figured giving in to my curiosity about whatever you were doing was better than succumbing to the urge to go meet Atlas.”

  A noncommittal grunt was his only reply.

  Good. Because she was fresh out of ideas for how to recover the professional manner she’d strapped on this morning as armor. She fussed with her suit, straightening the fabric and brushing away imaginary dust, as if setting her clothes to rights would bring back her confidence.

  “For what it’s worth, the doors around here are surprisingly soundproof.” It would be the closest she’d admit to having pressed right up against the door trying to hear something, anything to give her a clue as to whether this man would cooperate today or if she’d have to escalate back up to her sponsor, the man who’d signed her contract, her employer. Thinking of the man in those terms made her grit her teeth.

  And she wanted to talk to him like she needed a hole in the head.

  David Cruz quirked his very sexy mouth in a half-smile. “Good to know. Maybe I’ll cancel the order on the white noise generators for the offices.”

  Lyn blinked. “Overkill for a kennel, isn’t it?”

  His dark eyes fixed her in a somber stare. “We’ve all learned here to be prepared for every conceivable situation. It’s kept the people, and some of the older dogs, alive when others didn’t make it. We like to keep up the practice.”

  Oh man. Mental note to do some more research on Hope’s Crossing Kennels. All her employer had given her was a newspaper article on Atlas, the hero dog returned from overseas, and the address for the kennel he’d been transferred to. She’d walked in ready to deal with the usual blustering egos. Strong personalities were a given with trainers working with dominant dogs all the time. But taking in the man that was David Cruz, really looking at him…

  Lean and wiry, Cruz didn’t seem to have an ounce of extra flesh on him. Everything about him was sharp, from the way he responded to every sound around them to the way his musculature showed through his snug tee. Cut wasn’t the word for it. She thought she’d seen some fitness guys on the Internet call it shredded? Oh yes. His bronze skin and dark hair, combined with his brooding expression, stole her mental filter, leaving her with no sensible words from the start.

  She was messing up this entire project and what she really wanted was to do the only thing she was good at: helping dogs. She’d turned down two private training contracts to clear her schedule for this. Her services were in high demand. And damn it, she could help Atlas.

  But she’d made a mistake trying to bulldoze her way through Cruz. She shouldn’t have tried to get around him or walk over him. Her employer would’ve sneered at her and cited a serious tactical error. But she wasn’t military and she didn’t have to maneuver her way to steady footing again the way others might. She could give a little, compromise, adjust to the situation and change her approach. And she could open her mind and learn before trying to shower everyone with her expertise.

  “Has the status with Atlas changed?” She kept her tone soft, trying not to make it sound antagonizing.

  Cruz’s brows drew together and if it was possible, his expression darkened further. “How do you mean?”

  She treaded carefully. “Newspaper article said he was pining away for his handler who died overseas.”

  A long pause. “He’s eating.”

  Her heart skipped and then sank. It was a good sign if Atlas was eating. Bad news was they might not need her after all.

  “To be fair,” Cruz continued, “he’s only eating on command. He won’t eat if someone’s not watching to make sure he does.”

  Lyn struggled to keep a politely positive expression. No gloating. No anything that might shut Cruz down again. “I appreciate your honesty.”

  “Yeah well, I try not to lie unless absolutely necessary.”

  But he hadn’t had to share the whole truth either. Was he giving her a chance?

  Whatever she said next might mean the difference between seeing Atlas and seeing her way out the front door. Her employer wouldn’t be happy and she wouldn’t be either.

  Atlas’s story had struck a chord with her. He’d gone to hell and back on the commands of someone he trusted, with unwavering faith he was doing the right thing. And that person was suddenly gone. Her father had always guided her to do the right thing. When he died, her world had been filled with a lot of people telling her what to do and every one of them had their own selfish motives in mind. It’d stopped being about the right thing and warped into presenting the right illusion.

  Be real. Every dog recognizes a fake. And good men can see through it too.

  “I’d really like to help.” Honest. Simple. All the other reasons paled in comparison to this.

  Cruz pressed his lips together in a hard line. She thought for a moment he’d say no. Fighting the urge to let loose an avalanche of reasons why she could and reiterate every point on her résumé supporting her expertise, she forced herself to stay put and wait. Five years rehabilitating abused animals in New York City and four years working as a private trainer to some of the most difficult human personalities on the West Coast had taught her patience.

  “You’ve worked with dogs suffering from PTSD before.” He made the statement a question.

  “Yes.” Quite a few in fact, but with a man like Cruz, she was getting the sense that less was more, at least when it came to credentials. He could and would check out her résumé later. He’d see her years of work, her awards and appearances at training conferences, in the paperwork.

  No more bragging at this point and no more blustering.

  “Let’s go.”

  She didn’t have a chance to thank him, only hurried to keep up as he took long strides down another hallway and through a solid built door. They came out in the hallway to a set of kennels built directly against the main building.

  Every one of the dogs came to alertness.

  Cruz came to a stop at one. “We’re not going to do the usual introduction and sniffing. I’m going to open up the kennel and bring Atlas out. I’m going to hand him off to you and I want you to do exactly as I did for him. Then you’re going to give him back to me.”

  Lyn nodded. This was new to her. It didn’t matter because she was up to handling anything this man might ask her to do. What mattered was Atlas.

  Cruz gave a quiet command and opened up the kennel. A moment later he was leading a beautiful, muscled dog out into the corridor. The dog stood squarely on all fours and had the elegant lines characteristic of the Belgian Malinois breed. His proud head was chiseled and in good proportion to his body. There wasn’t an ounce of extra flesh on him and in fact, he looked slightly gaunt.

  Still, even among the working dogs she’d met, she wasn’t sure she’d ever encountered a dog with this air of…fitness.

  But there was something missing. Atlas was aware and responsive, but he didn’t have the indefinable energy the other dogs around her were projecting. He wasn’t engaged, vibrating with eagerness. Intelligence was unmistakable in his expression but there was no air of inquisitiveness. As if he didn’t care.

  Another murmured command and then the man bent down. Picking up Atlas, he wrapped his arms around the dog’s chest an
d hindquarters in a secure hold. He then lifted what had to be around 70 to 75 pounds of solid dog and turned to her.

  Lyn swallowed hard.

  She held out her arms, watchful for Atlas’s reaction. He remained calm in Cruz’s arms and didn’t even look at her. As the trainer stepped forward, she copied his hold on the dog, ignoring the accidental brush of Cruz’s arms against her breasts. Once Atlas was securely in her hold, Cruz stepped away.

  Atlas’s fur was surprisingly silken and soft under her hands. She resisted the urge to bury her face in his shoulder. God, he was a magnificent animal. Gorgeous, and so very sad. Her heart ached…and so did her arms.

  How long was he going to have her hold Atlas? She leaned back slightly to try to take more of the weight in her back and legs as her arms strained.

  She would not drop this dog.

  “Okay.” Cruz stepped forward and took Atlas from her.

  As the dog left her arms, Atlas turned his head and touched her cheek with a cool nose and sniffed. Once.

  “Huh,” Cruz grunted. He stepped back and set Atlas on his feet. Then he returned the dog to his kennel with quiet praise.

  Lyn waited, trembling a little. She should probably add some weights to her daily fitness routine. If Cruz had noticed how hard it had been for her, he might not…

  “We start tomorrow.”

  “Excuse me, what?” She’d heard him. Only, it wasn’t what she’d expected.

  “That’s the first sign of personal response I’ve seen out of him.” There was a wry note in his words. “I’ll take help where I can get it. You’re staying at a nearby hotel?”

  “Yes.” Excitement zinged through her.

  “Good. Give me the address and leave the attitude you came here with back at the hotel room.” Cruz scowled at her. “This, right here, the you I see right now with the dogs is the person I want to see at oh-five-hundred tomorrow morning.”

  She wasn’t going to argue, not when she basically agreed with him. It was going to be such a relief not to have to walk around with attitude for armor. Any soldier her sponsor had ever introduced her to had been a world-class asshole. The attitude had protected her, given her a way to stand up and not be treated as a doormat…and it was exhausting. But it seemed as if David Cruz was a different kind of military man and for the first time, she looked forward to working side by side with one.

  But she was not going to say “yes, sir.”

  “You got it.”

  A grin spread across his face, lighting up his whole expression and doing evil things to her libido. “Well, you might be one of the better things that’s happened all day after all.”

  Wow.

  Chapter Two

  Seriously? You’ve been here for days and it’s a woman who gets your attention?” Cruz stood in Atlas’s kennel, leaning against the doorframe.

  The dog in question lay in the far corner, probably enjoying the cool cement beneath his belly. Not that he didn’t have the option of a cushy bed over in the other corner.

  Right now, Atlas wouldn’t even look at Cruz and the dog seriously appeared to have no shits to give on the current topic of conversation. He’d been that way since Cruz had returned from seeing the very pretty Miss Jones out to her car and hadn’t moved in the several hours while Cruz was out working the other dogs under his care.

  ’Course, Atlas rarely moved, based on Cruz’s experience both in having observed the dog back at Lackland Air Force Base and in the days here at Hope’s Crossing. The dog might as well be a statue unless given a direct command. Then he’d obey, but it was like giving a robot orders.

  When Cruz had seen Atlas respond to Jones, there’d been a spark. A ghost of the young dog Cruz had trained years ago.

  And he would latch on to any incentive to get the dog to respond.

  “Well, we’ll see how you do with Miss Jones tomorrow morning.” Not even a perked ear. Then again, Atlas didn’t know the pretty stranger’s name yet and it occurred to Cruz that he wasn’t on a first-name basis either.

  Been too long surrounded by just men and dogs.

  Oh, he’d dated on and off since he’d arrived in Pennsylvania. A couple evenings here and there in Philly. He’d had a few hot women but nothing had lasted more than a few sweaty nights, and he had no plans to change the trend.

  “I bet the club scene isn’t your style either.” Cruz preferred to spend some time every day hanging out in Atlas’s kennel, talking. Gave the dog a chance to get to know him again, become used to his presence as a companion and not just as a temporary handler or his once-upon-a-time trainer.

  But the indefinable moment when a dog chooses a new master? Hadn’t happened yet. Not with Cruz or Rojas or Forte, the three best dog trainers on the East Coast. It’d been Calhoun that Atlas bonded to and now his handler was dead.

  And contrary to bills of sale or certificates of ownership, it was always the dog’s choice as to who his next master was going to be.

  “We’ll see what Miss Jones prefers to be called on a first-name basis.” He wouldn’t admit out loud, even to Atlas, how curious he was about the things she liked to be called. Not as if Atlas was going to go around telling anyone stories.

  His smartphone vibrated in his back pocket. Cruz reached for it and gave the picture password lock screen a tap and a swipe in the right places to get past the security. A little more effort than the usual pin or swipe to unlock apps that came standard with a smartphone, but maintaining higher security was a habit he didn’t intend to let go.

  An alert flashed across the screen.

  “Hold the fort, Atlas. I’ll be back.”

  In moments, Cruz strode into his office cursing. His computer was still running and it took less than a few seconds to authenticate and gain access past the screen saver protection.

  A few seconds too many.

  Whatever virtual intruder had tripped his network security was long gone. Best he could hope for was to follow any tracks left behind to trace whoever it was back to their source. ’Course, the person had only been nosing around the edges of the security system. They hadn’t stumbled into it the way a random Internet intrusion would occur. No, whoever it was had known this system was here and had been testing to see just how sensitive the security measures were.

  He glowered at his screen as he attempted to trace them back to their IP, only they’d gone through several servers. And by the time he did locate the originating IP, he cursed even more. Random computer terminal in a cyber café in Japan. Not likely.

  Weird.

  He didn’t like weird. Nor did he believe in coincidences, so he locked down his computer again and pushed away from his desk, rising and heading for the door. Something like this didn’t happen randomly, considering the other new things here at the kennels. There was Atlas’s arrival and the circumstances around it, Miss Jones arriving to insist on working with Atlas, then this.

  Atlas’s handler had died for a reason, one Cruz was still looking for. Apparently there were other people looking for it, too.

  “You headed out?” Forte passed him in the hallway. The owner of Hope’s Crossing Kennels must’ve been breaking for lunch after a morning of teaching basic obedience classes.

  “Yeah. We’ve had a security issue. No physical incursion, just a minor blip on the network. Secured now but I want to follow a hunch.” Cruz didn’t linger.

  Forte called after him, “Let us know if you need us.”

  “Will do.”

  He and Forte had served together overseas. They’d gone out with less information in the past. Likely Forte would want answers later but it was good to be with people who wouldn’t hold him up with questions when he was on the move.

  Cruz crossed the front parking lot and headed for the private drive where his car was parked alongside the other trainers’ vehicles. On his way, he glanced at the front drive and what could be seen of the trees lining the perimeter of the extensive property. His security wasn’t just computer system based. He’d designed it al
l, from the access to any of the buildings to the kennels to the perimeter of the grounds they were built on. It’d been designed to maintain privacy in a civilian area but easily upgradeable if there was need, and they’d never had multiple nibbles until today.

  There was only one new person, unexpected and unannounced, who’d shown up recently and she’d been there this very morning.

  He entered the address to her hotel on his smartphone and set the GPS to direct him there.

  Her attitude had been one thing, but her threat about calling her backers in the Pentagon? Maybe she was more than a simple civilian dog trainer. And maybe her interest in Atlas had grown from more than just the news coverage about his situation.

  A man developed hyperawareness to survive overseas and there was a fuzzy line between hyperawareness and paranoia. Miss Jones arriving the way she had and hinting at high-ranking backing hadn’t just gotten under his skin. Something was off.

  Time to seek her out and ask a few pointed questions about her reasons for wanting to work with Atlas. And if any of her answers came across the slightest bit shady, she was out. Hell, he was tempted to keep her out of it based on his doubts here and now.

  In his experience, any doubt whatsoever could mean the difference between success and failure, coming home alive and…not. Atlas’s handler hadn’t come home. And the circumstances around it were enough to make Cruz proceed with extreme caution.

  He’d suffered a momentary weakness in telling her she could work with him on Atlas. Seeing her face soften when she’d gotten near the dogs—the way all her walls came down the minute Atlas was in her arms—had made Cruz think she really had come to help the dog.

  But if the incursion on their network had been her, she must’ve gone straight back to her hotel and jumped online to start hacking into their system.

  And she was good, too, if she could make it look like she’d done it from the other side of the world.

  Well, he recognized her for what she was and he would be damned if he was going to wait until tomorrow morning to call her on it.