Ultimate Courage

by Piper J. Drake

  Boom.

  Hope’s Crossing Kennels.

  Elisa rose and wondered if she could ask the nurse to return the glove to Boom and her father. After all, they’d be here a while.

  But as she approached the desk, the nurse took the clipboard from her without looking at her. “Thank you, dear. They’ll be calling you any minute now to take you back. Have a seat.”

  Before Elisa could say anything about the glove, the nurse had turned her attention to another person who’d just entered. Elisa jumped, then silently cursed herself. And there were two more people coming through the doors. The night was getting busier.

  Heart pounding, Elisa returned to her seat and struggled to remain watchful without letting fear get the best of her. Hopefully, she’d either catch sight of Boom in the ER area or ask a nurse to find the girl and her father to return the glove.

  She really wanted to manage to thank him if she saw him again.

  Chapter Two

  Some mornings were just a little more challenging than others.

  It was a good thing getting to work didn’t involve traffic, driving, or more than a two-minute walk. Life had its simplicities that way, and Alex Rojas reminded himself that things could always be worse.

  He could have to wear a tie to work, for example.

  He hurried out the front door of his home, letting it slam shut behind him as he tugged the one clean polo he had left over his head. He jogged down the porch steps and across the yard to the side entrance to the main building of Hope’s Crossing Kennels. Living on the property was another thing to appreciate.

  The dogs in residence came to their feet to greet him as he passed by each of their enclosures.

  “Sorry, boys. I’ll be back for you in a minute.” His pace didn’t slow, and he let his momentum carry him right into the main building. He passed the common kitchen area and snagged an apple out of the basket on the counter, thankful for Sophie’s thoughtfulness. Sophie might be a childhood friend of Forte’s, but she’d adopted Rojas and David Cruz as big brothers without hesitation. It’d been awkward when they’d first arrived a few years ago, but Sophie hadn’t been deterred by the kind of walls he and Cruz had built around themselves. She walked right through them, over them, whatever.

  When Brandon Forte had established Hope’s Crossing Kennels, he’d built it as a new proving ground. It was a place for men like Rojas to start over. The support people like Forte and Sophie provided just by being themselves…it was a good feeling to be surrounded by it.

  “Rojas? I’m up at the front.” Forte’s voice echoed down the hallway, and Rojas headed for the main entryway. Forte, Cruz, and Rojas usually had breakfast together before dawn, but Rojas had missed the meal after staying up most of the night watching over Boom. His daughter was currently still tucked in and he was here, catching up with the day.

  The waiting area was empty, but it’d be crawling with people and dogs within the next few minutes. Rojas surveyed the reception area and grabbed a broom from its hiding place behind the front desk. The place was clean, but this was a dog training and kennels facility. There was always random fur to be swept up. “Remind me again why you decided to offer obedience classes for troublesome twos and threes.”

  They already had a steady class schedule for the general public, teaching basic and advanced obedience classes. Adding these troubleshooting classes for dogs, and their owners, who’d been through obedience and still hadn’t quite worked things out, took more energy out of every trainer at the kennels.

  Forte pushed away from the reception desk. “Because we want the community to feel safer with us here, not afraid of our dogs or us. The more people who have classes with us, the better. It’s beneficial all around.”

  Good point. A fair amount of PR could only be helpful. Rojas had endured his share of crap experiences when he’d been fresh back from deployment, before he and Boom had moved here. Times when he’d still been in culture shock from coming home and people made things worse by reacting out of fear. He still hated going off the property into busy places like grocery stores or malls; too much going on and too many triggers for his overreactive reflexes. But now, when he did go out, people recognized him. Some even had smiles for him, though mostly they welcomed Boom. And that was more important.

  If the community was afraid of them and the dogs they trained, Boom wouldn’t have those positive experiences.

  “Besides,” Forte continued, “anyone can go to a local pet store for basic obedience and puppy training classes. We’ve got the skill sets to handle the older two-year-olds, give or take a few months, and make behavioral corrections. Maybe prevent a few dogs with potential from landing in shelters.”

  Rojas grunted. To be honest, usually it was more about training the owner than it was about training the dog. “Retraining isn’t my favorite pastime.”

  “Sometimes it’s worth it.” Forte set a pile of clipboards on the front of the reception desk. “When you’re done with sweeping, can you find some pens?”

  Rojas finished up, got rid of the gathered dust and fur, and stowed the broom. Then he started going through drawers on a search mission for the damned pens. “The occasional older rescue with bad habits or a tricky history is worth the effort.”

  Actually, he enjoyed working with those. It was time well spent, helping the owner willing to give such dogs another chance.

  He liked to think they all deserved another chance from time to time.

  “Yeah, you’ve got a soft spot for those.” The clipboards fell with a clatter. Forte cursed. “There’s got to be a better way to do this.”

  “We need an admin.” It wasn’t the first time Rojas had made the suggestion.

  “Yeah, yeah. Cruz mentioned it.”

  Rojas snorted. “And Sophie and Lyn, too. Lyn’s reputation is enough to bring more people in on top of what we’ve already got, so it’s only going to get harder to manage.”

  Lyn Jones was a civilian dog trainer with a solid consulting business. She’d come in four or five months earlier on consult to work with Cruz and Atlas, a high-profile military working dog. Both Cruz and Atlas had had it bad for Miss Jones, and she’d developed a strong partnership with Cruz. With her less structured, more psychological approach to working with dogs, they were seeing more civilians come to them for dog training.

  Good for the kennels. Maybe not so good for him. The more he had to deal with people, especially the ones milling around in the waiting area before a class got started, the edgier he got. All the frenetic activity, the sudden moves, and random raised voices drove him crazy. Half the time he found himself ready to head for cover, sure something was trying to kill him. The rest of the time he struggled to quell the instinct to take out the potential threats first. This wasn’t a danger zone and, theoretically, nothing was trying to kill him. Or at least he was trying to convince himself of that one day at a time. He’d been getting better, but the hard days still outnumbered the peaceful when it came down to it.

  “Business is good.” Forte finished retrieving the clipboards and gave up on keeping them in a neat pile, leaving them spread out across the counter. “I just don’t like to keep all my eggs in one basket, so having some buffer from these training classes doesn’t hurt.”

  The majority of their income came from providing well-trained working dogs to both military and law enforcement organizations around the country. They supplied dogs trained to track humans or detect explosives to some private security groups, too, though they vetted those organizations carefully.

  “The business plan was your brainchild.” Rojas held his hands up. “I thought it was a great concept when you invited me and Boom here three years ago. It’s come a long way, so if you want to develop more, I’ll follow your lead.”

  Forte had started the kennels when he’d returned from his last tour of duty and invited Rojas and Cruz to join him a year later. Cruz’s romantic partner, Lyn, had her own established training company for civilian clients but had been sending
additional references their way. All in all, business had ramped up over the last few months but their business administration was nonexistent. They needed an ops person, or department, depending on just how much Forte wanted to expand. The three of them couldn’t stretch to cover it anymore and the bookkeeping was suffering for it.

  “You want to keep growing, got to get the support team in.” Rojas came up with three pens. He could’ve sworn they’d opened a fresh box only a week ago. Did the damn things get up and walk?

  “I hear you. We’ll get an ad up online, stat. In the meantime, we need more pens.”

  Rojas’s back pocket buzzed. Coming to an immediate halt, he yanked his smartphone out of his pants and answered the call. “You okay?”

  Boom’s voice came across the line. “Yeah. Dad, can I watch an anime?”

  His daughter wasn’t quite back up to speed, but she was a hundred times better than she’d been the night before, and relief washed through him all over again. The pain meds were working, and her broken arm was set and immobilized in a solid cast. He’d kept her home from school to give her some time to rest.

  Of course, even with enough pain medications to put down a camel, his daughter was up and bored.

  “A what?” Rojas searched his brain for whatever his daughter was asking for.

  “Anime. It’s a Japanese cartoon.” Boom had her innocent tone going. Which meant it couldn’t be as simple as all that.

  But it was a cartoon. How bad could that be?

  He mouthed the term to Forte. Forte held up his hands in a “nope, no clue” kind of signal.

  “Why don’t you watch one of the movies I got you for now and I’ll come up at lunch to take a look at these Animaniac things you want to watch.”

  “Anime, Dad. Not Animaniacs. Totally different.” Boom huffed. “Okay, but if I can’t watch them this morning, can you bring frozen yogurt for dessert tonight?”

  Rojas narrowed his eyes as Forte motioned for him to keep looking for pens. Boom was at the stage where she was big into negotiating. If she didn’t get what she wanted in the first place, she angled for bonus deals to make up for the loss. Still, she’d been a trooper last night at the hospital, and she was doing a good job managing the pain from her broken arm. She deserved a little spoiling. “You got it. Frozen yogurt.”

  “Thanks!” His daughter’s happy chirrup made him grin as she ended the call.

  Forte had a matching grin. “Glad she’s holding up well.”

  Rojas tipped his head. “Going to need to drop everything if she needs something today, but so far she’s taking it as a fun day off.”

  “Everyone deserves one of those once in a while.”

  There was a knock at the front door.

  Forte cursed. “Still need to get those forms printed out. Can you get that?”

  Rojas nodded, already headed for the door. “See if there’s any pens hiding near the printer back there. Or in Cruz’s office.”

  The front door had panes of glass set into the center, and Rojas got a glimpse of brown hair and pale skin. One person, alone. No dog. It was enough of an impression to know what he was dealing with as he opened the door.

  Beautiful blue-gray eyes met his briefly before the woman dropped her own gaze to focus on someplace lower on his face, like his nose or mouth. Subtle. Most people would probably not even notice the way she avoided direct eye contact.

  But then again, not many people made eye contact a challenge the way he and his colleagues did. It wasn’t on purpose, really; more of a common quirk in their personalities.

  Funny, he hadn’t expected to see her again. Okay, maybe he’d been hoping to find her at Revolution MMA for those self-defense classes he’d recommended. But here she was. A weird tingle jolted through his chest.

  This woman was about as non-aggressive as possible without cowering outright. Despite her upright posture, her hands hung at her sides in a loose, non-defensive position. Her left wrist was covered in a brace and it was easy to see she held something in her right hand. She was far enough back on the landing to easily drop down a step or two without having to back up more than a few inches.

  But the mannerisms didn’t fit her energy, the straightness of her shoulders, or the set of her jaw. Whoever this woman was, she’d developed habits. She wasn’t a mouse by nature. He wouldn’t be as irritated to see these behaviors if these things came naturally to her.

  Who had forced her to assume those mannerisms to survive?

  “Mr. Rojas.” Her voice was steady.

  Another sign of her being more than what she seemed, as far as he was concerned. The timbre was almost soothing, and he realized he’d balled his hands into fists. Well, shit. He let his hands loosen.

  She presented the object she held in her right hand. “I think your daughter left this behind at the ER last night. I hope you don’t mind, but the logo for the kennels was on the inside label, so I googled the address.”

  Slowly—because he didn’t want her to snatch her hand back—he took the glove from her. “Thanks.”

  “The hospital lost and found was overflowing, and I wanted to make sure Boom got her glove back,” the woman continued, then bit her lip. “And I wanted to be sure to thank you.” Her cheeks took on a fascinating pale pink blush.

  Caught by surprise, Rojas raised his eyebrows. “Me?”

  Maybe his tone had been the right encouragement, because she looked up again, her gaze meeting his, and the chemistry shocked him right down to his toes, hitting every vital organ—including his balls—along the way.

  Blue-gray, cool as a calm day out on the water, her gaze held his. “You were very kind last night, and I didn’t thank you then. I try to thank the kind people I meet. So thank you.”

  Rojas cleared his throat. “You’re welcome.”

  He didn’t know what else to say. He’d only given her some ice, a cup of coffee, and a card about the martial arts center. Boom had a good sense for people, and when she’d said the woman needed the referral for the self-defense classes, he’d been inclined to agree.

  She broke their eye contact, and he felt the loss as if someone had broken the circuit on an electrical current. “I should be going now.”

  “Wait.” He didn’t know what made him ask her to. But she paused, balanced on the balls of her feet at the edge of the landing. He was sure if he didn’t catch her now she’d be gone for good. “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Oh.” She turned to face him. Another sign that she’d learned caution but she wasn’t afraid by nature. She was open. A people person. Or at least more of one than he was. “Elisa Hall.”

  He dug up his best behavior smile from somewhere. “Nice to meet you, Elisa. You new in the area?”

  She gave him a tentative smile in return, though she kept her focus in the vicinity of his nose again. “Maybe. I’m looking to see if I can find a place to settle for a while, but it depends on if I can find a job.”

  Wasn’t that just a coincidence?

  “Pens. I found pens,” Forte called from the hallway. “Damn printer is taking forever. Are people showing up yet?”

  Matter of fact, there were cars coming up the drive.

  “I should let you…” Elisa began to step away again.

  “To be honest, we’re actually in need of serious help.” Truth. And he wasn’t in charge of hiring, but Rojas tended to go with his gut. What harm could she do in one day? “If you’re interested in an administrative job, we’ve got an opening. Trial run today and see if it’s a fit.”

  She paused. “Seriously?”

  “As a heart attack.” Because he did not want to have to spend one more day greeting all those people and getting their dogs signed in with all the associated paperwork. For him, it was death by a thousand paper cuts.

  “I’m qualified for administrative work.” There was a touch of irony in her tone, and her lips pressed together in a line as if she held other words back. He’d be interested to learn about the story there. “Word processi
ng, typing, filing.”

  “Sounds good so far.” He stepped back and motioned inside. “Bonus if you can start right away. We’ve got a dog training class starting and people showing up. If you can greet them and get the paperwork taken care of—”

  “Then you don’t have to,” she finished shrewdly.

  He shrugged. Not the least bit ashamed. “Exactly. We’re dog trainers. It’s what we do. The pleasantries and paperwork aren’t our thing.”

  She huffed out a laugh, glanced up and met his gaze. “If I’m dressed okay…”

  Even as she trailed off, he knew she wasn’t inviting him to look for any reason other than surface value. But he looked anyway, because there was a whole lot of chemistry going on in holding her gaze and he needed to break eye contact or he might do something stupid. So he tore his attention from those stormy eyes and checked out her clothes as asked. And damn, he liked what he saw. Petite but athletic build. She wasn’t frail or tiny by any definition, which was good because the men and the dogs of Hope’s Crossing tended to knock those types over. Her clothes were clean, sensible. Her jeans hugged her legs enough to make his mouth water but weren’t painted on the way some girls wore theirs. She could move in those.

  He forced himself to look back down the drive before his assessment took too long and spooked her. She’d already tensed despite her own implicit invitation.

  “Fine for today.” And they were, but if she was going to work with them for more than a day, he should think about the business. “But maybe if we do decide together to extend this arrangement, you might want to wear a collared or button-up shirt. It’s what the rest of us try to wear when there’s people on site for classes.”

  Her smile was back, still hesitant. “I think I can manage that.”

  “Come inside, then.” He waved his hand toward the interior since he was already holding the door open for her. “I’ll introduce you to Forte, and between the two of us we’ll try to brief you on what you need to do for the day. If we’re all happy by the end of the day, we’ll do the whole resumé, questions-and-answers thing.”