*Chance was rattled. He could admit that much. He just wasn’t sure if it was what had happened with Tri, the totally unexpected change in him that was little short of a miracle, or that he’d been talking—hell, chattering—like a guy with no guardrails practically since this woman had arrived. Well, chattering for him, anyway, which as his mother often pointed out, meant saying more than three words at a time.
So now, with a conscious effort, he shut up. He simply watched, telling himself he was looking for any sign the dog’s newfound calm and peace was temporary. That in order to do that, he had to also watch the gorgeous redhead was just…what? A bonus? An annoyance?
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d noticed this much about a woman. Oh, he was male and breathing, so his mind registered when he encountered an attractive woman—not that he was out among people enough for that to happen often—but that was as far as it went. And it usually had no more effect on him than noticing a beautiful sunrise, or the soaring flight of a red-tail hawk. A moment of appreciation, and then back to the numbed day-to-day of his existence.
Oddly, he fixated on her hand, stroking the dog’s head. Slender, graceful, with long, elegant fingers. But no long nails or fancy manicure for her. Funny how he always noticed that, followed by thoughts of how nearly impossible it must be to do simple things without contorting your fingers and hands unnaturally. It had always seemed flashy and unnecessary to him, nails that long, until it had been pointed out to him that they could also function as a weapon.
By Dean, laughingly, he remembered suddenly.
I’m glad Red doesn’t go for that. Those things could take an eye out.
She has a temper?
Goes with the hair. But she gets over it quick. And the making up is spectacular.
The memory of that grin, that satisfied male grin as he’d spoken the last words, had made Chance laugh even as he admitted to a certain amount of envy. Larson was, another platoon member had said, the most married guy ever. And now, as the woman he’d been married to sat just a few feet away, he could see why.
He felt a twinge of that old envy again. Two years gone, and she still loved him. Dean had indeed been a lucky guy.
The irony of that thought was like a slap to the side of the head. He came home in a box. Why was he having to remind himself of that?
“How old were you?”
He snapped out of his uncharacteristic reverie. “What?”
“Your father. How old were you?”
He didn’t dare speak in the flat, cold voice an answer would have normally come out in, not when it might affect Tri at this crucial moment. He tried for a level tone, something he didn’t usually, after years of practice, have to strive for. It was more of an effort than it should have been to say evenly, “Sixteen.”
She studied him a moment before saying, very quietly, “What an awful age to have to confront the concept of gone forever.”
“Is there a good age?” he asked, and a little snap crept into his voice. Tri’s ears moved, and he clamped down hard on the biting edge that wanted to rise in him. He thought he’d blunted that long ago, permanently, and he didn’t like it or understand why it was surfacing now.
“Not good. But I’d think losing him when you were, say, seventy might be better.” Her expression and her tone of voice were so carefully neutral he knew it was a reaction to his snap.
Chance lowered his gaze, sucked in a long breath and let it out slowly. His mother would have chewed a piece out of his hide if she’d heard the way he’d spoken to this woman, who had done nothing but come here to help. A woman who was apparently succeeding with the creature he’d feared was lost.
And even at his age, he didn’t want the woman who had held the Raffertys together mad at him.
The problem was, he didn’t know how to fight this because he didn’t know what this was. Didn’t know why he was so edgy, why the leash on his usually numbed temper had snapped.
“My apologies,” he said. It came out rather formally, but better that than with that nasty edge.
“And mine. It’s none of my business.”
His gaze shot back to her face as she voiced the words he’d bitten back. He opened his mouth to speak, although he wasn’t sure to say what, but something in her expression—a touch of puzzlement or surprise—stopped him.
After a moment, brow furrowed, she murmured almost too quietly for him to hear, “And I’m not sure why I asked.”
I know the feeling.
He almost said it but managed not to. Right now it seemed the less he spoke, the better. Because when he did talk, he ended up saying things he never ordinarily would.
It’s Tri. Hope will screw you up big-time.
He made himself focus exclusively on the dog. The fierce war dog who had given a piece of his body and nearly his life to the work humans asked him to do. The dog who had lost that part of him trying to keep his handler safe, keep him away from the explosive device set by the very people they had been tracking.
The dog who at this moment, amazingly, looked like nothing more radical than a contented house pet.
Who wouldn’t be content, snuggled up to a woman like that?
The breath he sucked in then was audible. And the sound seemed to draw her gaze from Tri back to Chance’s face. He tried to cover it with a cough, before she could ask if he was all right.
Because at this moment, he didn’t know the answer to that question.
*
Ariel tried to remember the last time she’d actually been curious about someone. Things, yes—it would occur to her to wonder about new things she encountered—but people? Not for a long time. But apparently she was curious about Chance Rafferty. That it was only curiosity she was certain. She wasn’t capable of anything more. She hadn’t been for two years. It must be Tri. That’s why it mattered to figure this man out. Because when it came down to it, the dog was the only thing that stirred the slightest bit of life in her.
She’d been told Chance was very, very protective of the animals, and had more than once turned down people he didn’t think were equipped to handle a particular dog. She couldn’t let him decide she wasn’t equipped to handle Tri. And she’d do whatever it took to convince him otherwise.
“Tell me about Tri. Please.” He looked almost relieved at the shift to the reason she was here.
“What do you want to know?”
“I already know the basics, about his training and such. And I know…the details of what happened. But I don’t know anything about him, specifically. His personality, that kind of thing.”
“Neither do I.”
She blinked. Stared at him, nonplussed. “What?”
He shifted his gaze to the dog, and she saw his expression change yet again, become something gentler, softer. And if she had had any doubts that this man was doing this work because he truly cared about these animals, they would have vanished now.
“I don’t know his true personality. It’s buried somewhere underneath the fear and trauma and guilt.”
“Guilt?”
“He knew his main job was to keep Dean safe. He failed. And he knows it.”
She drew back slightly. “That’s a bit…”
“Think I’m projecting? Imputing human responses to an animal?”
“It does sound a bit that way.”
“With ordinary dogs you’d probably be right. But not these dogs. I’ve seen too many of them come through here that feel that way. Maybe it’s just instinctual responses, or whatever researchers claim. But the end result is, their emotions exist. Different than ours, but they exist.”
She had the feeling he’d explained this more than once. Wondered if that was why he suddenly seemed…not calmer, she doubted that was ever an issue for this veteran, but more back in familiar territory. He’d probably had to explain this before, often.
“But,” he added, looking back at Tri now, “I think for the first time some of his true self is showing.”
That made her smile, because the implication that it was because of her was clear. And for the first time since she’d latched on to this idea, since she’d begun this quest—for it was nothing less than that, for her—she was certain she would get it done.
She had to. It was the only thing left in the world she could do for the man she loved.