Chapter Two

One week later

Emma rolled her windows down to enjoy the pine-scented summer breeze as she drove home from Kingston Animal Shelter. On the way, she passed the property she dreamed of owning to expand Heart to Heart Kennel. The gold and blue For Sale sign sat on the edge of the road as a daily reminder. Someday, she thought.

She parked in front of her seventies rancher after her morning shift where she’d accepted a Pomeranian that might be a good fit for the ESD program. Joy turned to apprehension as she realized that the barking from the kennel wasn’t the usual “welcome home” greeting from her dogs.

Emma raced for the chain link gate that separated the house from the converted dog kennel. Bandit’s deep growl, Princess’s high yip—and there—Pedro’s chest-rumbling woof. Something is definitely wrong. Emma hurried through the gate toward the closed door and pulled down on the silver padlock, her fingers slick with nervous perspiration. It was already undone.

She shouldered the door open and ducked inside the dark garage. Cool air shocked her summer-hot skin, and she flipped the light switch on with a shiver. Barks chorused in a painful cacophony as Emma blinked to bring the room into focus. She sensed she wasn’t alone.

Her fingers dropped to her pants pockets. No cell phone, no keys. In her rush, she’d left them in the SUV.

Her eyes finally adjusted to the interior light, and she made out a rust-colored shadow kneeling at the far end of the garage. The space between the lines of kennels was wide open, so there was nowhere for the person in camouflage to hide. The stranger tugged on the door of her newest rescue, a golden retriever mix named Romeo.

Emma’s legs refused to move. Was she interrupting a robbery? Someone trying to harm her dogs? In a commanding tone, she ordered, “Stop!”

The dogs quieted at her command. However, the slight, hunched-over figure with the knit ski mask ignored her and pulled at the handle of the crate. Romeo jumped up inside his crate, his tail wagging, his tongue to the side with excitement. Something glinted in the intruder’s gloved hand, and Emma was torn between running back to the house for help or hustling to Romeo’s aid.

The dog won.

The figure, rushing to get the crate open, dropped the object with a clank against the cement floor.

Emma sprinted by the dog kennels, and the pups barked once more, urging her forward. She neared the person dressed in army green and slowed. “Stop.” It occurred to her that she had no weapon, nothing with which to protect Romeo or herself. “Please.”

Emma reached the last kennel just as the thief yanked back on Romeo’s crate door. Romeo barreled out, happy to see her, trampling his abductor to leap up with his front paws on Emma’s chest. His wet tongue licked her cheek. Romeo was definitely a lover and not a fighter.

“Down,” she ordered firmly. “Sit.”

Romeo, ears at attention, sat. So did the would-be kidnapper.

Emma instinctively reached out and peeled back the knit ski mask, revealing the frightened face and eyes of a boy.

“Who are you?” Her voice hitched. “What are you doing here?”

The boy’s chin stuck out in silent mutiny. He looked familiar. Slight of build. Stubborn jaw. “Aren’t you a little young to be a criminal?”

The words came without thought. To be fair, their small town in Washington State, across the Puget Sound from Seattle, had its share of seedy elements. Then she remembered exactly where she’d seen him before and who his uncle was: Jackson Hardy. His mom, Livvie, had been hurt in some sort of an accident.

“What’s your name?” She kept her hand on Romeo’s soft head.

“Matty.”

Behind her, the dogs quieted. She bent down and picked up the metal piece she’d seen drop to the cement floor. It was the end of a wire hanger, sharpened to a point. Her stomach knotted. “Is this how you broke in?”

Why? Had he wanted to free the dogs? The army-green camouflage outfit was a costume, she saw now. A few years old, if the inches of visible ankle and wrist were anything to go by.

Matty averted his eyes, so she dropped to her knees, bringing them nose to nose. “Why did you do this?”

He didn’t talk. His nostrils flared as his breaths came faster. Now that she was calming down from her adrenaline rush, Emma found room for anger. “You had no right to break into my kennel and frighten my dogs. They were scared.”

“I didn’t mean to scare them.”

She held out one hand, palm up. “What did you want?”

Her heart, her wide-open, ridiculously empathetic heart, surged at the tremble of his lower lip. He was trying to keep it together, but obviously something was wrong. How could Livvie’s accident tie in to one of Emma’s dogs?

“You can tell me.”

He looked down, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Can’t.”

Emma sat back on her heels as Romeo broke her “stay” command and joined the boy, nudging the kid’s arm with his black nose. The retriever settled his muzzle on the boy’s lap and stretched his body between them.

“You know, you can’t just steal a dog because you want one.”

He brushed his cocoa-brown hair off his forehead, scowling and looking just like his uncle. “I know.” Matty gave her an indignant huff. “It’s not for me.” His slim shoulders shrugged, as if stealing for someone else made it okay.

And wasn’t I busted for shoplifting granola bars? She reburied the painful memory. “These dogs are trained to help people. They perform special duties for their owners. Did you want one for your mom?”

“No. She’s still in the hospital.” Matthew ran a black-gloved hand through Romeo’s fur and stuck out his lower lip. “It’s my uncle’s birthday.”

Counting back, Emma realized that Livvie had been in the hospital at least a week, if not longer. These days, that meant something serious. Emma splayed her fingers in the soft fur of Romeo’s neck. Jackson had joined the military right after graduation, so they hadn’t celebrated his nineteenth birthday together. Matthew’s sadness seemed tinged with fear.

“Uncle Jackson doesn’t sleep. He was in Afghanistan.” A single tear escaped Matthew’s eye. “You said that you train dogs to help with nightmares. My uncle wakes up thinking he’s under attack.” Matthew pet Romeo in quick, urgent strokes, his expression pleading as he finally met her waiting gaze. “Do you have a dog that can stop them? Can you help?”

Emma’s eyes welled, but she tamped down her emotions. Livvie in the hospital and Jackson with PTSD? She wanted to help, but how? “Matthew, I am so sorry about your uncle, and your mom. But you can’t steal an animal. It’s wrong, no matter how good your intention is.”

“I’ve got money.” He pulled a wadded twenty-dollar bill from his camouflage pants’ pocket. “I was going to put it in the kennel. Your brochure said that you accept donations.”

Not a thief—completely.

She had a standard spiel she gave the schools, but the program required personal training. “I help the owner choose the right dog for them. As I recall, your uncle didn’t seem interested in a dog.” Not even if it was free.

“I have to do it,” Matthew mumbled. “He says nothing is wrong, but I hear him yelling—every night.”

Emma had to call Jackson. It was the right thing to do. No matter how much she didn’t want to make that phone call, it had to be done. Maybe if Jackson understood that his nephew was concerned, he’d see that there was help available—but her hands were tied. And given their history, he might not want to accept anything from her, anyway. “That isn’t how the program works.”

Matthew sat cross-legged, his back against Romeo’s metal crate, Romeo by his side. “If I give him a dog as a present, he can’t say no. You can’t return a birthday gift.”

Not an option. “Can we call your mom?” Surely Livvie would remember her despite the passage of time.

He shook his head without meeting her eyes. “She’s in a coma. The hospital says kids can’t be in the ICU. I just want her to come home—we watch Wheel of Fortune and she always guesses the word.”

Could things be any worse for this kid? Was Livvie’s accident the reason Jackson was back in Kingston?

Emma put her hand on his arm. “Matthew, let’s call your uncle. Where is he?” She didn’t know where Livvie lived, but she assumed that Jackson was staying at their house. For how long?

Matthew shot upward, his small body tense. “No!” Romeo’s alert expression swiveled from her to Matty and back.

Emma reached for him as he edged away from the crate ready to make a run for it.

“Don’t do it, Matthew.” Desperate to think of a way to make him stay, she said, “If you run, I’ll be forced to call the police instead of your uncle.”

His stubborn chin jerked upward. “I’d rather go to jail. Uncle Jackson is going to kill me.”

…

Jackson was in his sister’s garage working on a kinked bicycle chain when the old green phone hanging on the wall rang.

He wiped his hands on a towel. Could be Livvie’s doctors, or the insurance company who seemed to think they knew better than the doctor what care his sister needed, the bureaucratic jerks. He’d had to jump through hoops to get basic medications approved.

He picked up the receiver. “Hardy residence.”

“Is this Jackson Hardy?” asked the voice of a young-sounding woman.

“Sure is.” Dogs barked in the background. His neck tingled and his body tensed. The way she said his name reminded him of Em. His old girlfriend had been on his mind ever since setting foot in Kingston…well, before then, if you counted his dreams.

“This is Emma Mercer. I have Matthew here with me.”

Jackson sat up as if pulled by a string. Emma—his Emma—had Matty? The kid was supposed to be in the house completing a book report. At eleven, Matthew insisted he didn’t need to be attached to Jackson’s side. But what did he know about kids?

Stretching the cord so that he could see through the garage window to the back door of Livvie’s house, he scanned the yard for Matty. The small deck, the table and chairs, the green lawn. No Matty.

He sank his hip against the old plywood countertop. Emma Mercer? He’d imagined her in some big city, working as a doctor or an attorney. She’d been so focused on higher education and giving back. “Is he okay? Give me the address—I can leave right now.”

“Don’t rush. We’re at Heart to Heart Dog Kennel.” She rattled off an address not too far down the road. Emma paused, the phone muffled as if she was listening to someone, possibly Matty, before getting back on the line. “We can talk when you get here. We’ll be in the yard.”

Jackson’s gut told him Matthew wasn’t in danger, which meant his nephew had disobeyed. A dog kennel? He hated to be too strict, because he didn’t know Livvie’s style of parenting. He knew the military, where you did as you were told or faced NJP, or worse. The Marines referred to non-judicial punishment as being ninja punched, as it could be the officer’s choice of reprimand.

Jackson stripped off his coveralls, grabbed the keys to his borrowed motorcycle, and locked the garage. His old high school buddy now owned the auto shop they used to work at, and he’d set Jackson up with loaner vehicles for as long as Jackson needed them.

Within five minutes he was driving down a gravel road. Washington pines lined the strip on either side, creating natural shade against the summer sun. He went slow enough to hear the buzz of the beetles and smell freshly mown grass from the quarter acre of lawn to his right as the line of trees ended.

The dirt lane led directly to a rambling house where a faded silver SUV was parked. A chain link fence surrounded the large yard and enclosed a single-story garage—the same pale yellow as the rancher. It hadn’t changed a bit. The only thing different was the light blue sign with black paws painted around the edges below the garage’s three ventilation windows reading: Heart to Heart Dog Kennel.

Eight dogs raced around the yard, ranging in size from a tiny yipper with designer fur to a giant wolfhound. Jackson parked his cycle next to the SUV as a woman left the garage with her hand on Matty’s shoulder.

It clicked into place, the feeling at the auditorium. Emma had been the dog trainer from the school. He hadn’t paid much attention to her at the time, too worried that Matty might fail English.

His belly knotted as the reality of Emma rocked the dream version aside. Thick auburn hair that used to fall over his face when she’d lean down to kiss him, freckles dusting her nose. Her lean physique had filled into just-right curves in her knee-length khaki shorts.

His gaze dropped to his nephew, who bravely lifted his face toward Jackson.

God, the kid looked so much like Livvie it hurt, and the reason he’d come back to Kingston rushed over him. Why was he dressed in camo? Matthew’s dark brown hair waved past his ears. He needed a haircut already—Jackson added it to his mental to-do list.

He walked to the fence, his stomach tight. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Emma smiled in cautious greeting. “How have you been, Jackson?”

He stuffed his hands into his pockets. Would she tell him to take Matty and get off her property? They hadn’t parted on the best of terms, and he swallowed as he remembered the tears in her eyes as they’d sat on their driftwood log overlooking the bay. He’d broken up with her for her own good—knowing that if they stayed together, neither one of them would have left Kingston.

And now, here they both were.

She watched him warily.

“Things could be better,” he said. “You remember Livvie?”

Emma’s chin hiked as if he’d insulted her. She’d been in foster care for a brief time before coming to live with her great aunt, and she knew that his parents had been killed in a mudslide off Snoqualmie Pass. Secrets they’d shared with nobody else their senior year in high school.

“I remember your sister.”

Matty watched him and Emma. “You guys know each other?”

Before Emma could call him out in front of Matty, Jackson said, “It was a long time ago.” He faced Emma. “I’m home on leave with Matty until Livvie gets out of the hospital.”

Compassion flickered across her face. “I’m really sorry.”

His eyes burned, and he turned away from her toward his nephew, on the other side of the fence with Emma and the dogs.

She opened the gate and let Jackson into the yard, her posture guarded. She didn’t offer her hand, and a hug would have been awkward. He looked at Matty. “What’s going on?”

Matthew’s face flushed, and he shifted from one sneaker to the next. “Uncle Jackson—”

“We’ve invited you here to pick out your birthday present,” Emma interjected, her hand resting between Matthew’s narrow shoulder blades.

Matthew seemed to get a burst of hope as he looked up at Emma.

As Jackson assimilated what Emma had said, he knew he had to draw the line. Livvie was not into pets, never had been. The last thing she’d need if—no, when—she came home from the hospital would be another responsibility.

Matty had been on him about a dog ever since school got out, and he figured the kid was trying to pull a fast one. “Matty, we talked about this yesterday. You are not getting a dog.”