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She needed the time to think. She was still unsettled by the meeting with Joshua Manning. Something slammed into her each time they met. She felt tongue-tied and unsure, and she hated that feeling. She certainly didn’t understand why she’d felt compelled to go into the diner when she’d seen Josh Manning inside.
Or why she’d lied when she went in.... She hadn’t meant to apologize at all, but she’d been drawn inside like metal to a magnet. And then she’d just uttered the first thing that came to her mind. Stupid.
She told herself it was just to prove to herself that the attraction in the morning was her imagination. Or something fleeting.
It hadn’t been, and that terrified her.
The sound of yelling interrupted her as kids poured through the school doors. Nick came running when he saw Miss Mollie—who could miss the old pickup?—and climbed in next to her.
“Got an A on my essay,” he said with a relieved grin. “That means a dollar, right?”
“That’s for an A on a report card,” she replied, suddenly cheery that the love of her life was here. It had been a long time—more than four years to be exact—since he had stood beside her as his father was buried.
She put her arm around him and kissed the top of his head. She wanted to do more. She wanted to hug him with all the strength she had, but she knew he wouldn’t like that. Not here.
She started the car and tried to relax. Just having Nick next to her made her feel better. Cleared her mind. He was everything that was important. And he was so like his father. Considerate, likable and always ready for a challenge.
She sighed, listening to Nick chatter about the essay. It had been about his father, and at first he had been reluctant to write it. But once he’d started he’d written like a whirlwind. He hadn’t let her read it, although she usually helped with homework.
“Can I read it when we get home?” she asked.
He went silent for a moment, then nodded.
“I know you didn’t want me to read it before you turned it in.”
“’Cause I was afraid it wasn’t good enough.”
“And your teacher said it was?”
He nodded again.
Her heart nearly burst with love for him, and regret that he’d lost the father he loved so much. It was so wrong. So unexpected. A tear slipped down her face and she rubbed it away, relieved that Nick was looking in the other direction.
They were home in a few moments. They lived two miles from the heart of town and one mile from the lake. She and Russ had saved during the first years of their marriage, then bought a five-acre piece of land inside the city limits. Russ and his buddies had built a ranch house and barn, and she still had the two horses they’d bought together. She also boarded Stephanie’s horse, which paid for her many vet bills.
A cacophony came from the house as Nick jumped out of the truck and waited impatiently as she unlocked the door. Nick opened it, and four dogs, barking madly, rushed out.
Braveheart, a mismatched pit-bull mix, hung back as usual. Badly scarred and terrified of people, he’d been found half-dead alongside the road. Nick had named him Braveheart because he thought the encouragement might help cure his fear.
Miss Marple—the part beagle and who knew what else—charged to the front. Eve couldn’t help but grin at Nick’s naming processes. Miss Marple was so named because she was always on the prowl for a misplaced sock. She, too, had been found along the road, but, unlike Braveheart, she didn’t lack self-confidence. Captain Hook, a three-legged Chihuahua mix, added her high, piercing voice. Fancy, who was anything but Fancy, was probably the plainest dog Eve had ever seen, but she was also the most loving. Inside was Dizzy, a coon cat that spent his time chasing his tail.
Nick had named them all after much thought, and it said much about him the way he turned their weaknesses into strengths. Her son had been boisterous and curious and active until his father died. Then he climbed inside himself, but now he seemed to be emerging again. She watched as he gave each dog a moment of attention, then ran to the barn, the troop of dogs following him.
Lord, but he filled her with joy. She ached with it. She wanted to hold him so tight nothing could ever harm him. She knew how fragile life was. Russell had been all strength one day, and the next...
It didn’t bear thinking about. Watching the dogs following Nick as if he was the Pied Piper reminded her that she hadn’t seen the dog at Joshua Manning’s home, the one that had Marilyn so upset. She suspected Marilyn used the dog only as an excuse to learn more about her neighbor. To tell the truth, once Josh Manning had mentioned voice control, she’d relaxed. She hadn’t seen an ill-treated dog on voice control. And, truth be told, as rude as Josh Manning had been, she hadn’t sensed meanness in him.
Who was he? If she was right about him being a soldier, it followed that he wouldn’t want to talk about his experiences. But he seemed to carry it to the extreme. Or maybe she was wrong. Maybe he’d met Dave Hannity somewhere else. Or, as Tom had surmised, maybe he was a relative.
She wished she could remember more about Dave Hannity. His family had spent summers at their cabin on the lake. She’d met him at the annual Fourth of July picnic and other summer events for several years. He’d been a swimmer and runner, and Russ had known him better than she.
Now David, too, was dead, apparently in the service of his country.
They had lost other young residents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Too many for a small town, but then the military attracted small-town kids. There weren’t many other opportunities.
As for Mr. Manning and Dave Hannity, maybe Tom would have some answers tomorrow, and she could reassure Manning’s neighbors.
His image sprung into her mind again. His face was hard, the angles stark. It was...more interesting than handsome. There was a presence about him, an I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude that perversely intrigued her.
“Mom, I’m hungry.” She hadn’t seen Nick approach from the back of the barn. Again he was followed by his four little tagalongs. She looked at him and hoped he would never have to go to war. She hugged him—hard—until he wriggled free. She didn’t want to let him go. She never wanted to let him go. She wanted to protect him against grief and loss and disappointments.
He’d already had too many.
And, she suspected, so had Joshua Manning.
CHAPTER FOUR
JOSH WOKE WITH a start. Sunlight was streaming though his windows.
He stretched and glanced at the clock. A little after 0700 hours. It was the first time in days that he’d slept more than four hours without the nightmare. Or night sweats.
But then he had worked late into the night, first replacing the rotten boards on the porch, then scraping paint from the walls of the main room. Work, it seemed, was the best sleeping aid.
He thought about the day ahead and the growing list of things to do. Not for the first time, he wondered why in the hell he didn’t just walk away.
He heard the soft snoring of Amos and knew why. Amos needed a safe place where he could learn to play. Learn to feel safe. Being dragged from one temporary place to another would not be helpful.
But, he admitted to himself, maybe part of him wanted to stay, too. A part hidden deep inside. He’d never belonged to anything but the army and his buddies, and that, he’d learned, had no permanence.
He needed a challenge, and the cabin was certainly a challenge. He hadn’t known what to expect, but he sure as hell hadn’t anticipated the amount of work needed. He welcomed it. Bringing order to chaos was something he knew.
And once this place was fixed, it wouldn’t be half-bad. He envisioned a large porch that overlooked the lake and the mountains beyond. But then what?
Josh turned to the edge of the bed and ran his hand over Amos’s back as he’d seen Dave do countless times. Amos would usually roll over and beg a belly rub. But Amos ignored the overture, merely looked at him with a gaze that held a sorrow and confusion that broke Josh’s heart.
He’d read and heard about dogs like Amos. Greyfriars Bobby for one, the little Scottish terrier who wouldn’t leave his master’s grave until he died, or more recently tales of other service dogs who’d mourned for their handlers.
“Aw, Amos,” he said. “One of these days you’ll offer your belly to me, too.”
He hoped. It was the least he could do for Dave—Dave, who’d had his own demons. Maybe that was why they’d bonded as much as two loners could.
Time to get up. The vet—Stephanie—was coming today. He needed to clean up as much as possible. He stood slowly, ignoring the pain that flared. He needed to do the exercises he’d neglected the past few days. But first Amos had to go outside.
“Come on, Amos. Latrine time.” Josh pulled on a pair of jeans and opened the door. Amos reluctantly left the safety of the cabin and did his business, then returned immediately to the door. No sniffing. Or playing or wriggling with delight.
“What am I, chopped liver?” he asked Amos as he opened the door. Amos didn’t bother to answer as he slunk inside.
Josh stayed outside and soaked in the cool breeze. The sun was a huge golden ball rising in the east, and the fresh, spicy scent of evergreens filled the air. He was beginning to understand the appeal of the cabin.
He needed his coffee. He brewed his in an old-fashioned percolator he had found in the general store. He’d had enough bad coffee to appreciate the good. He poured cereal into a bowl, got milk from the cooler and knew he had to do something about a fridge.
Josh spent the next thirty minutes on the exercises prescribed by his doctor and physical therapist. His leg would never be what it once was. New manufactured parts had taken the place of old ones, particularly in his ankle. There had been three operations, including two bone transplants and one to fuse his left foot where the main nerve had been severed. He would never have the old mobility, but he was grateful for what he did have. A lot of guys in the hospital had much, much less, and their courage was humbling.
He was sweating when he finished. He took a hot shower, then dressed in a clean pair of jeans and polo shirt before the vet arrived. The cabin was bad enough without his looking like a deadbeat. Amos could still be taken away from him if the army thought he wasn’t being treated properly.
Josh stared at his image in the mirror and thought about the visit from the mayor. He needed a haircut. Bad. There were touches of gray in his sandy hair although he was only in his mid-thirties. Lines had deepened around his eyes and tightened around his mouth. He looked tired and cynical. Face it. You look like hell. It hadn’t mattered for months but, for some reason, it did now.
His cell phone rang. He recognized the number immediately. His attorney. He’d called him yesterday about the deed.
“I got your message,” Laine Mabry said. “The deed was been received by the clerk’s office but not recorded. I raised hell and today it’s official. I faxed a copy to the mayor and I’m sending you a copy.”
“Thanks.”
“There’s something else,” the attorney said. “The police chief in Covenant Falls called me. We’re old friends. He wanted information about you.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That as far as I knew you were an upstanding citizen and anything else involved attorney/client privilege, as per your instructions.”
“The police chief, huh? What time would that have been?”
“About eleven yesterday.”
So the call was made after the mayor’s visit. He felt like he had been kicked in a tender region. Yeah, he had been a smart-ass, but he’d liked her and thought she felt the same. More than liked her. If she hadn’t been wearing a ring...
But then what would she want with a broken-down soldier with few prospects? “Thanks,” he said.
There was a pause. “It’s your business, but why not just satisfy curiosity? People in small towns are naturally curious.”
“There’s things I want to forget, that’s why,” he said. “I sure as hell don’t want anyone to thank me for my service, not when it killed my best friend and a bunch of other really good guys.”
“Understood,” his attorney said, and hung up.
Josh put the cell in his pocket and wondered who else the police chief had contacted.
Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. He’d gone out of his way to be rude and avoid people. Rudeness hadn’t worked with the mayor, and he’d found himself enjoying the verbal duel. And he was intrigued with her...even though she wasn’t his type at all.
He tried to brush away the attraction he’d felt for the mayor, tried to do the same with the arousal that had an irritating way of returning when he thought about her.
It was nothing but the fact he’d been too long without female company.
The list. Back to the list. He had finished scraping paint and filling in holes on the living room walls. He planned to prime it today, then paint it tomorrow.
There was also the Harley outside, but that was at the bottom of his list.
Other than giving it a brief inspection, he’d hadn’t had time to work on it since the bike had arrived from Georgia, along with his other belongings. It hadn’t been used since before his last deployment to Afghanistan.
He missed it. It was one of his few big purchases, and he’d ridden across the country on it while on his leaves. It had been his only vehicle until he’d bought the used Jeep Wrangler to pick up Amos.
He sipped a second cup of coffee as he looked around. He wondered how the property had looked when Dave’s family had owned it. Or why his friend had clung to it despite never coming back.
He finished his coffee and went into the smaller, second bedroom and searched through the cartons that had been shipped from Georgia. He hadn’t gone back to the base to do it, just asked a friend to pack everything except his uniforms. He’d wanted those left behind.
When the boxes arrived, he’d discovered his off-duty clothes had been way too big after months of hospital food, and now he lived in newly purchased jeans and T-shirts. The other boxes included his stereo and CDs, a small television and a couple of paintings he’d bought to brighten his rooms in the bachelor quarters for noncommissioned officers.
Then there were the six boxes of books, everything from biographies to history to novels. He’d opened one of the boxes and was currently reading a suspense novel when he couldn’t sleep.
Bookcase. He added that to the furniture list.
Then there was the box containing dog toys he’d purchased just before picking up Amos. Like other military dogs, Amos was trained with toy rewards rather than treat rewards, and he’d dearly loved his ball and rubber KONG toy that Dave had carried all over hell and back. But Amos hadn’t been interested in the new batch. Still, Josh placed several toys in each room, then went back to work priming the living room walls.
The vet arrived at noon.
Stephanie Phillips looked around as she stepped inside, her gaze going to the primed walls, the cans of paint, the ladder and the fireplace. “You’ve been busy.”
“Lots to do.”
“You’re going to stay, then.”
Josh shrugged. “It needs repairs whether I stay or not.”
“That’s not a very definitive answer,” she said.
“Maybe because I haven’t decided yet.”
“And it’s really none of my business.”
He let the silence answer for him.
“I hope you do. We need some new blood in town.”
“Or at least a new patient.” The ungracious words popped out before he could stop them. She’d agreed to make a house call, and he needed her. But the old protective wall had gone back up after discovering the mayor had had him investigated.
“Now, that’s cynical.” But her smile belied the cut of the words.
“And you don’t deserve it. I apologize.” He moved across the room to an open door. “Amos is in the bedroom.” He turned and gave her a wry look. “Neither of us bite. It’s safe.”
“Didn’t doubt it for a second,” she said.
He led the way into the bedroom and watched as she knelt beside Amos, who had crawled halfway under the bed after hearing the door open.
“Dr. Phillips...”
“Stephanie,” she corrected. She started talking to Amos in a voice so soft Josh could barely hear the words. Her fingers ran through his fur.
“You’re a fine fellow,” she said softly. “And you have nothing to fear from me. You just don’t know who to trust, but that’s okay. You’ll learn. You’ll like it here. Woods. Rabbits to chase.”
Amos had tensed when she first touched him, but now under her gentle hands and soft voice, the dog started to relax.
