by Dale Mayer
Crouching between them, Ethan smiled. “Well, you obviously know each other.”
Sally was still tired, and, outside of tail wagging, she kept her movements to a minimum. He needed to get her outside so she could do her business. But that would be a little harder. It was one of the reasons for being in the spare room, because it was closest to the front door.
He dropped Bart’s leash and put the sling back on Sally. “Come on. Let’s get you out front.”
He helped her to the front door, but Bart wanted to come too. So he took Bart’s leash dragging behind him, opened the front door and carefully let the two dogs out. Bart wanted to dance and bark around, but, with Sally in the sling, Ethan’s hands were already more than full. It was hard to give hand signals.
Carefully, Ethan let Sally walk a few steps in the grass. He was taking the bulk of the weight of her body off her injured leg, while he let her go to the bathroom. He didn’t even have bags to collect anything yet. But it was good to see her body functioning normally. After she was done, he helped her walk around the yard once. It was important for her to exercise as much as she could.
He could see she was tiring because he was carrying more and more of her body weight as they made their way back to the front steps. Bart obviously wanted to stay longer. But the front yard wasn’t fenced.
Ethan managed to get both dogs back into the house. As soon as he had the front door shut, he dropped Bart’s leash and maneuvered Sally back into her bedroom. He helped her lie down again, gave her another blanket to lie on, and then closed the door, leaving her alone. Bart stood in front of the door and whined. But Ethan wasn’t sure about leaving Bart with her. He didn’t want him to hurt her at this stage of her healing.
“You can see Sally in a little bit, buddy. When we go back in, I’ll make sure you get to come and visit too.”
Bart barked several times, then lay down in front of the closed door. He just wanted to be close. Ethan figured that was close enough.
Bella was out back. He fed her and gave her several moments of cuddles then brought Bart out to join her. The two appeared to be good friends. Bella had taken to his presence the easiest. He was still a long way from brushing her, but at least she was amiable to having a new owner.
And that was more than he could say for Boris. His name was written in the spikes around his collar. This was Ethan’s K9:01 dog. His real name was Sentry. Ethan quickly sent Badger a text, confirming he had found him.
Sentry still refused to eat. Even with the offer of food, he wouldn’t trust Ethan. Sentry didn’t bark or snarl when Ethan approached, but he did back up, and his tail poofed. That was enough warning for Ethan to realize he’d already crossed the line. If he wanted to keep his head intact, he needed to give Sentry lots of reach. He figured, by the time Sentry understood what was going on, he’d already have him where he wanted him. As long as he had the other three dogs’ cooperation, it wouldn’t take long for Sentry to fall into line. Sentry just had to know it was his idea first.
Ethan walked out to the backyard and stood on the deck, a cup of coffee in his hand as he pondered the night ahead. He hadn’t liked the idea of leaving Cinn alone. But he also had the dogs to look after. What he should have done was taken Bella there and left her to guard Cinn. But Ethan didn’t know Bella well enough to trust her yet. That she got along with everyone and appeared to listen to the commands as he gave them was one thing, but he couldn’t put her in a position where he had to trust her to do the right thing without him being there. He couldn’t test her in that way too soon.
Bella was still an animal. That was first and foremost. She’d also been extremely well trained and wasn’t as badly abused as the others. Sentry looked to have been systematically beaten into being an aggressive dog. He was the only one that worried Ethan. It could take a long time for him to come around.
As for Sally, well, she looked in pain right now, but Ethan hoped eventually she’d be just as grateful to be with her new clan, safe away from where she’d been.
Ethan checked his watch and found it had been an hour already. He’d planned to go by Cinn’s house every two hours. But, once at her place, Ethan figured he’d stick around, see if he noted any suspicious activity, maybe walk the place with the dogs, give them a good run in the dark, do some practice drills and see how they reacted.
As he contemplated the idea more and more, he grabbed Bella and Sentry, leaving the other two behind, putting his selected pair in the truck. Although Sentry was eager to get into the truck, every time Ethan approached, Sentry’s lips curled. He would certainly put Ethan to the test.
It was pitch-black outside. Ten minutes later he pulled onto the shoulder of the highway near the edge of Cinn’s driveway, just taking a quick look before approaching closer. Then he pulled halfway down her drive and parked. He opened the tailgate, letting both dogs out and hooked Bella up to a leash. Sentry just looked at him. There was almost a dare-you-to attitude in his gaze. Calling him to his side, Ethan closed up the tailgate and walked down the driveway. He surveyed the lack of security on the place and frowned. There wasn’t even a gate crossing her driveway. And sure, a gate wouldn’t keep the trash out. But it did keep a surprising number of people away.
No lights were on inside Cinn’s house. He could hear one of her dogs barking. He let out a gentle whistle to it in reassurance. He walked the perimeter of her yard, getting an idea of what passed for nightlife at her place. With his truck parked halfway up the driveway, he doubted anybody would approach.
He walked out the back gate, where Cinn had gone for her run, took Bella off her leash and told her to run. He picked up the pace, noting the faint path in front of him. The trail was treacherous, particularly when the ground was wet. But Bella appeared to be having a fun time racing ahead, back and forth, and finally Sentry even seemed to relax enough to jump and run around with her.
When Ethan whistled for them, they both came running. Only the look in Sentry’s eyes read What? I wasn’t coming because you asked me to.
Bella fell into step beside Ethan at his command. At that point he put her through several of his regular training paces to see what she knew and what she didn’t know. She understood so many commands that he wondered if she was a police dog—or military trained. How likely would that be?
Then Ethan turned to look at Sentry, who shot him another look, this one saying, Don’t even bother. Ethan ran to the tree line, coming up close to the spot where they’d found the body of the man who killed himself. There he slowed his steps and walked, enjoying the freedom of being out in the moonlight. The moon was high, and it cast a beautiful wide glow across the earth. It gave him a surprising amount of freedom to check out the lay of the land.
How had the shooter known she was out running? Were more drug-house guys watching Cinn’s house? Ethan walked out to the highway and turned to look at her house. It was easy to see it off in the distance. If they’d been tracking her, she would have been right there in the open, coming toward them. In fact, she probably ran right into this shooter’s range, so he could take her out. But he’d missed.
After Ethan watched for a few minutes, he sauntered back down onto the open fields, looking to see if it was just a lucky position or if this had been planned.
But that also implied forethought. As if the bad guys were hoping she’d come toward them, and the shooter was prepared on the off chance she did. The opportunity had presented itself. He’d have to find out from her if she ran this way on a regular basis. Routine made it much easier to pick off somebody.
He slowly walked back toward her house. As he did, he ran Bella through a few more tasks. She could jump; she was good at walking on her back legs, which really surprised him.
She knew all the basic commands. She knew go, stop, heel, sit, shake a paw. And guard was a good one because he really liked to see her snap into protective mode with her ears alert. What she had trouble with was relaxing her guard. She did seem to understand okay. The command should have
been relax guard, but Bella didn’t understand that command either.
During this testing of Bella’s training, Sentry sat and ignored the two of them. Whenever Ethan walked closer, Sentry curled up a lip, but he didn’t growl, and he didn’t attack. Ethan would take that as progress. He kept walking closer, backing away, and walking closer again, but in casual movements as he worked with Bella, who was all too eager to please. She enjoyed working. She enjoyed the challenges and the physicality of the training.
Ethan could get her to jump up on logs, jump over logs, run flat-out. He hadn’t worked on any of the attack signals because he wasn’t dressed for it. And he needed to be in a safe surrounding before she went kamikaze on him. She had the ability to take down a man in a heartbeat. He didn’t want to be the one who hit the ground with nobody there to help him. And he was a little concerned that Sentry might just jump on that attack bandwagon with a whole lot more glee. At the moment the male dog seemed content to be with them. Or maybe he was content to be with Bella. There was obviously affection between the two of them.
It was good to see that Sentry considered himself the alpha dog here, possibly only because Bart had been injured, but that was where the problem lay because Ethan needed Sentry to follow Ethan’s commands. Still, tonight showed progress. Both dogs responded to commands of come, and that was good. Bella responded to stay perfectly. Ethan had yet to try it on Sentry.
They sauntered back toward Cinn’s house. He knew she was sound asleep, and that was the best thing for her. He had already been out walking for two hours himself.
As he came through the garden and around to the front of the yard, the front door opened, and Cinn stepped out. In a longish T-shirt with some slippers on her feet, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she looked absolutely adorable. He took the steps to stand over her.
“I’m sorry if I woke you,” he apologized. But inside, he wasn’t terribly sorry. He was delighted to see the vision before him.
“I needed to get painkillers anyway,” she whispered. She looked down at Bella and smiled. “This is the one you had earlier, isn’t it?”
He snapped his fingers and brought Bella toward him. She came over, sat at his feet and looked up at Cinn.
Cinn asked, “May I touch her?”
“Put your hand out, so she can smell you.” And then he gave the command to Bella. “Friend.”
Bella didn’t seem to change her mannerism. But neither was she being difficult. She sniffed Cinn’s hand and then unconcerned, stretched out on the porch floor in front of them.
“Well, I guess that’s acceptance,” Cinn said with a chuckle. She glanced around her front yard. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been outside at this hour of the night.”
“It’s gorgeous,” he said. “We were just out running in the fields where you were shot.”
She spun to look at him, her eyebrows rising. “Yes, but I don’t have a regular route—nor even make a regular practice of it. I just love to run sometimes. Besides it’s good for the dogs. Why?”
He shrugged. “Looking for ways to put Bella through some exercises, and I wanted to keep an eye on the house for a bit, see if any traffic ran along here,” he said. “But there’s been nothing. It’s quieter than I expected, but that’s because you are below the highway, so the noise coasts over you.”
“That’s normal, particularly at this hour. It’s really a quiet area,” she said. “That’s partly why I like it.”
He could understand that.
She turned to look at him. “Do you want to come in and have a cup of tea?”
“You should go back to bed,” he said gently.
She wrinkled her face up at him and nodded. “I know. But you’re here.”
“No,” he said with a laugh, hopping down the front steps. “I was here. But I’m going home now. Go to bed.”
“Did you really come just to check on me? I thought you would drive past to make sure nobody parked there.”
He smiled. “Nobody has been here recently. And it’s already well past two in the morning. I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine for the rest of the night.”
She nodded. “I’m sure I will.” Her dogs swarmed around her ankles, wagging their tails and being generally friendly idiots. Sentry sat on the walkway, ignoring them. She motioned at him. “He doesn’t look very friendly.”
“He’s not,” Ethan said. “But that’s okay because he’s been forced to be a lot of things. Right now it’s all about him finding his own way.”
Surprised, she looked at Ethan. “I’ve heard of people putting all kinds of human attributes on dogs, but I haven’t heard any New Age metaphysical ones like you just spouted.”
He chuckled. “Hey, my methodologies are hardly New Age. It’s all about common sense.” He walked toward the truck parked halfway down the driveway, turning to wave at her. “Now go to bed.”
She beamed at him. “Thanks for stopping by.”
He motioned for Sentry to follow and gave a whistle. Bella came running to his side, and the three walked away.
Chapter 10
She watched as Ethan disappeared down the highway. When she had seen him walking around the yard earlier, happy and content, he seemed completely unconcerned about the time of night or where he was. Then why shouldn’t he be? He knew he was welcome here. Besides, he was part of the night.
Not that he was a predator. More that he was a hunter. And now he had two capable sidekicks to work with him. Although she wasn’t at all that sure about Sentry, who looked like he was a whole lot of untamed wolf. Kind of like Ethan. Loners, dangerous, keeping to themselves, and yet, likely to be there when you needed them. At least she hoped Sentry would be that for Ethan.
She slowly made her way back upstairs, grabbed two pain pills from inside the drawer at the side of her bed and swallowed them with water from the glass on the bedside table. On impulse, she got up and walked to the window to take a last look at the night. She wouldn’t put it past Ethan to sleep in the truck close by, in which case he might as well have slept on the couch. She had no compunction about keeping him close. He had the protective gene as bad as any male she knew.
That was nice to see in a guy. It had been a couple years since her last relationship. When Jason had walked out, it had been painful and difficult for both of them, but they knew they’d grown as far as they could together. It was time for a change.
She had girlfriends who complained about boyfriends who cheated, boyfriends who lied, and boyfriends who ditched them. It wasn’t like that with Jason. They’d sat down, taken a close look at where they were going, what each wanted from life and realized they wanted different things, and really they needed different lives. It had been hard and painful. When he’d walked, he’d walked permanently, and she’d closed the door on that part of her life.
For a while she’d dated, but her heart hadn’t been in it. She found that the longer she stayed at home with the dogs, the happier she was. She wasn’t antisocial, but neither was she an extrovert who needed people all the time.
As she turned to walk back toward her bed, lights shone into her window. She frowned and watched as a truck took up the same spot where Ethan’s truck had been. Instantly her heart hammered against her chest. Would that be Ethan again? Did he just do a circle around and then park again?
She dashed to her night table and grabbed her phone. She sent him a text, asking if that was him again at the top of the driveway.
When she didn’t get an immediate response, she walked back over to the window and realized the truck lights were out.
Her phone rang.
“What are you talking about?” he asked without preamble.
“Where are you?”
“Almost home.”
“Then you better get your ass back here,” she said boldly, “because now a truck is parked at the top of my driveway. And its lights are off.”
“Make sure those damn doors are locked,” he ordered, his voice terse. “I’ll be back in five.�
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Petrified now, she ran downstairs, holding her injured arm, and found she had indeed left the front door unlocked. She threw the bolt, raced to the back door in the kitchen, saw a chair there and frowned. He must have had a reason for doing that. The garage door was locked.
Nervous, her knees shaking, knowing that, injured as she was, she couldn’t fight as hard as she might need to, she made her way back upstairs, where she locked herself in the master bedroom with the dogs and stared out the window from the safety of the curtains, seeing if anybody approached.
She couldn’t see anybody, and that worried her too. While she’d been locking the doors, maybe they had made their way down the drive and were outside the house even now. It was an old house with lots of little funky levels and decks and porches. It’d be pretty easy to break in. “Why did I never secure any of that?”
But she answered herself. “Because it’s never been an issue before, idiot.”
She shook her head as she argued with herself. She had to be really scared to be doing that again. She had talked to herself as a child growing up, and usually only when she was really frustrated. This wasn’t frustration. This was something much worse.
Her shoulder throbbed. She wanted to sit down, but she didn’t dare leave the window and miss seeing anybody who might be walking toward her.
What she really wanted to witness was Ethan’s arrival, but she saw no sign of another truck approaching. She stood motionless for a good ten minutes, waiting. Nothing.
That’s when she heard somebody outside at her kitchen door. She raced to the other window, revealing the back of the house, but couldn’t see anything.
With her hand to her throat, her injured arm firmly pressed against her chest, she stood behind her master bedroom door and tried to work on deep breathing. When her phone buzzed in her hand, she opened it to see Ethan was calling. “Somebody’s downstairs.”
