Big sky dog whisperer, p.14
Big Sky Dog Whisperer, page 14
“I came out here to see you. You sounded so sad, and that was before you were arrested.”
“Hard to believe that I spent twelve years defending our nation so that assholes like him could prey on women.” Not any longer. Whatever mental aberration had launched her down the road had at least taken out that one bad egg.
“I still can’t believe you broke a state policeman’s wrist.”
Jodie pulled up her knees and propped her chin on her hands. It wasn’t a question of having enough power to break his wrist. The challenge had been holding back her training enough to not shatter it completely, then crush his windpipe and leave him to choke to death.
A red-tailed hawk cried once. She squinted up at the blazing blue sky trying to spot it. There, in front of a puffy cumulus cloud in the shape of a bagel—complete with the hole. Hawk and cloud drifted across the sky, their distorted shadows danced across the prairie grass.
“So, what’s next?”
The hawk circled away, but Jodie continued watching the cloud and its shadow.
“Jodie?”
How in the hell was she supposed to know? She hadn’t had a chance to think about it. Up until this morning, every waking second had been about Brandy, not her. How many nights had Jodie slept outside her cage, first in Kabul, then Ramstein in Germany? Most of two months.
Davy flagged his hand in front of her eyes. “Hello? Anybody home?”
She slapped his hand away.
“Ow! Crap that hurts.” He tucked his hand under his arm and squeezed it against his chest.
“Sorry.” She was, but couldn’t seem to put any more energy behind her apology than she had behind the soft slap on his hand.
“I don’t get what’s up with you.”
Jodie couldn’t find the energy to explain even if she knew. She’d already exchanged more words with him than she did with her entire SEAL squad on a typical day. In that cage: unable to accept that of course she’d slept with her dog. On the way to breakfast, during, and after. On the walk up to the lake…
She knew more about Davy Golding, his law practice, and his divorce than she knew about herself.
What Jodie had wanted to do was relive Chelsea’s enveloping hug and whispered thanks that she was safe. She’d wanted to see Emily’s fleeting smile of acknowledging the hard transition back from the war zone.
And most of all she wanted sit with Ama. To apologize for running from herself. She’d set out to run from her dog—for Brandy’s sake. But waking up at the Arizona State Line, with no idea of how she’d gotten there, told her it went deeper than that. Somehow, Brandy wasn’t the key.
She half-listened to Davy expostulating theories about what she was feeling. The other half of her remembered Ama’s promise to hold onto her belief in Jodie’s strength until Jodie was ready to take it back.
So not.
The morning breeze had tired of playing with the ball in the deep water, and now left it merely bobbing out near the central diving float. Adrift with nowhere to go.
And if she kept thinking that way, she was on the road to nowhere.
She turned to Davy, cutting him off about some neighborhood gossip. “Seriously, Davy. Why did you come here?”
“I told you. You sounded sad.”
“You asked me what’s next. What do you think happens from here? Sex on the prairie? Me tucked into your Brooklyn condo bedroom? Happy ever after with one-point-three children and a PTSD-ridden dog? What?”
“Jesus, Jodz. It’s not like I have our future all mapped out.” Davy looked aghast. “Sure, all that sounds good. Except for your dog having PTSD, but you’re gonna fix that, right?”
Jodie had thought she was making a joke. Apparently her and Davy’s sense of humor had diverged wildly over the last dozen years.
“I’m not trying to jump the gun here, but we were really good together senior year. Is it so crazy to think that we could pick up where we left off?”
The bagel cloud had followed the hawk off to some distant land. Brandy had wearied of playing with the ball and emerged from the water to shake and then lie down next to Jodie. “Not much of a workout, girl. We’ll do more later, I promise.”
“I drop the question about our entire future and you talk to the dog? I don’t understand what’s happening here.” Even frustrated, he still kept that lawyerly calm as if they were talking about whether to get pastrami or corned beef on their shared Katz’s sandwich.
“Our entire future?”
“Okay, I shouldn’t have said that.” He dug his hand through his hair and she remembered how soft it had felt and how she’d enjoyed toying with it after they’d made love. Now it was too short to do that.
“A lawyer should know that once you’ve said something, there’s no backsies.”
“Crap. I’m sorry. I never should have… Crap!”
Somewhere along the way his sense of humor hadn’t changed, he’d lost it entirely. Sure, hers had been honed toward the ridiculous as a survival mechanism, but at least she still had one. If Davy was taking everything so seriously, he’d probably actually meant that he’d expected they could pick up where they left off.
In a strange way, she knew exactly who Davy was. He was the safe choice. He would provide for her and their family no matter what. He’d be a good man.
And she’d go insane inside of two years. Because while she might not know who she was anymore, she knew for certain that she wasn’t the woman Davy was so sure he loved.
“Davy.”
“Look, really. I’m sorry. Sure I’d like to have you back in my life and we could—”
She leaned over to place a finger on his lips to silence him. For old times’ sake, she replaced her finger with her lips and allowed herself to sink into his fantasy for just a moment. It was a good fantasy. He’d been a kind lover, if somewhat predictable. His kiss was as familiar as an old pair of boots.
When she eased back, his eyes had closed and he appeared to be barely breathing.
“Thanks for coming to my rescue, Davy. It’s probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“Of course. It was my—” She silenced him with her finger on his lips again.
Jodie waited until she saw the realization finally sink in that this was it. The sadness struck at him and she wished she could change her decision for his sake. She didn’t know the road ahead, but she did know the next step and it didn’t include anything except her and Brandy.
Finally he offered her a half smile. “I guess this means—” but the words choked out on him. He truly cared for her, as if there’d ever been a question.
“Say hi to my family for me. Okay?” Because there was no way that any of them would understand her turning down Davy Golding. She was fine with letting him take the first round of heat for that.
“Okay,” he looked sadder than an abandoned puppy.
She kissed the tip of his nose, which earned her half a smile.
Then she shed her boots and knife before turning toward the water and slapping her thigh. Brandy followed her in. Jodie made a point of swimming very slowly to the far side of the lake. The cool water washed away the remains of yesterday’s…lapse. She’d call it a lapse.
When she turned to come back, they were alone at the lake.
She could only pray that she’d done the right thing.
Stan and Bertram had crested the ridge to look down on the lake just as Jodie leaned in to kiss Davy Golding.
He froze. Only a quiet snap of his fingers kept Bertram from charging ahead.
The kiss lasted far too long to be casual. Or merely friendly.
He’d been wondering what they were to each other and now he had his answer.
Even after the kiss ended, they sat nose to nose far too long to leave any doubt.
Then as casually as could be, she shed her boots and walked away from Davy and straight into the lake like some mythic water sprite beckoning men to their doom beneath the waves. Jodie Jaffe in shorts had definitely given him problems this morning. How someone only five-six could have legs that long was an absolute mystery. And now, picturing the shorts and that tight t-shirt wet from a swim, all he could—
Stan turned away before he had to watch Davy strip down and follow her in.
Goddamn it to hell. She’d never once indicated that Stan was anything other than a reviled dog trainer. Actually, she had. There had been the moment she’d thanked him for carrying her dog. The moment after she’d raged against his chest. And last night in the truck, stopped under the Henderson’s Ranch sign, they’d had that…moment. He needed a goddamn thesaurus.
Davy had badgered him after they got out of the truck at the kennel building.
I’m a lawyer. I know there was a subtext there. What is it I’m not understanding? He wasn’t quite that blunt, but it was close. He’d thought his territory was under threat from Stan and was trying to piss as far and wide as he could to mark it. Now Stan knew why.
But it was so…wrong!
All of his training told him it was wrong. Davy didn’t understand a single thing about Jodie. Not her strength. Not her determination. Not even the passion with which she attacked life. Jodie Jaffe only had one mode: full-tilt. Sometimes she needed a GPS course correction, but she was more determined than most SEALs—even his former Team 6 mates. It was humbling…and awesome.
But whatever he’d thought, she’d just made it clear that she belonged to Davy Golding. She’d heal her dog and be gone back to Brooklyn faster than a A-10 Warthog jet on a close-fire strafing run.
Fine. He didn’t have time for her anyway.
Dog graduation.
Forty-eight hours.
What had he been thinking, coming up to the lake in the first place? He had just forty-eight hours until the dog handlers arrived to tell him if he’d just wasted three years of his time and a bunch of Mac’s money. Mac had taken a risk on a blown-up, one-armed vet on no more than Altman’s say so.
Now it was up to him to prove that the old man’s trust hadn’t been misplaced. It would kill him to let Mac down. He’d become a second father in so many ways—just as gruff and carelessly kind as Pa had been. Always glad to lend a hand, but just as happy to leave you to flounder a while if you wanted to figure it out yourself.
Stan hit his bunkroom and changed from boots into runners on his way out to the kennel.
“Ready to sweat a little today, team?” Stan called it out as he went down the row popping open the cages. Being young Malinois in top form, they bounded out of their cages and gathered around him.
“Trinken! Drink up, boys and girls.” Good advice. He grabbed a water bottle and knocked it back. As they doubled back to hit their water bowls, he went down the row snapping on vests. They were fabricated out of old horse blankets rather than Kevlar, but the shape and weight were close enough for training. Each one had the lifting loop on the top of the harness and he’d done what he could to simulate parachute drops, with them dangling by those loops. He desperately needed a jump tower. He slipped supplies into each of their pouches: med kits, foldable water bowl, a liter of water, and a packet of food.
He pulled on his own pack, with the special cutout so that it didn’t smash his harness into his back as he ran. What would it feel like to run without that? Without the harness, without the arm? To feel as if he was whole again?
It wouldn’t make any difference to Jodie, but someday it might make a difference to someone just as special. Except he didn’t have two arms and the red lines of his harness felt permanently marked into his skin. Branded: arm, face, and body.
At least he had his dogs.
“Let’s hurt a little!” Figuring he’d warmed up enough on the walk to the lake and back, he started out with the fast trot that any Spec Ops warrior with a full pack could maintain for half a day—a whole day if needed.
The dogs raced and galloped around him for the first few hundred meters. But they settled soon enough and strung out in a line tight behind him except for Bertram running in the point position. He clicked a long-long-short with his hooks—a G for Good boy. It made very little noise compared to their running as they began climbing the first ridge to the north. Only Bertram would understand the signal, and by the sudden swivel of his ears, he knew his dog had heard him.
Damn he was going to miss that dog.
Without Bertram, what the hell was he going to do?
Without Jodie—
Chapter Fourteen
“You’re all wet, girlfriend.” Chelsea met her at the top of the trail. Without even pausing for a breath, she turned to the line of ranch guests coming up the trail. “Here’s the lake I told you about, folks. As you can see, the water’s just fine.”
Standing still under the heat of the midday sun, Jodie couldn’t agree more. Brandy gave a nervous shake, spraying water over a group of children who screamed in delight. Brandy made sure to stay on the far side of Jodie after that as Chelsea managed to entice the kids toward the water. Once it was just the three of them, Brandy relaxed a little. Not much, but Jodie would take anything as a good sign.
“Yep. Wet through,” she squeezed water out of the hem of her t-shirt, which released even more water despite her having already done it twice. “Occupational hazard. Where my dog goes, I go.”
“Does that mean that you’re going to explain your solo road trip to Arizona any time soon?”
“No, and I didn’t go to Arizona. I stopped at the border.”
“Will you spill if I bribe you with brownies?”
“No, but I won’t turn down the brownies if you want to try.”
“Deal!” Chelsea declared with one of her electric smiles. “Provided that next time you do a road trip, you gotta take me. Actually, we’ll get Julie and Lauren. And we just gotta take Emily, too. I’m sure she needs a break. Besides, she’s a pilot. We can take the ranch helo, go dancing together, and mercilessly tease men in a Missoula cowboy bar. What do you say, is it a date?”
Another group of ranch guests came up the hill. Jodie would have to remember that afternoon was a good time to be nowhere near the lake. A number of the men looked her over and more than a few of them aimed inviting leers her way despite their families moving along close beside them.
“What’s their problem? It’s like they’ve never seen a woman before.”
Chelsea giggled. “Could be my lovely red hair and awesome ass.” Her back was toward their line of approach. “Or it could be how sheer your t-shirt is over what are clearly a truly superlative set of breasts.”
Jodie looked down and groaned. She stretched out the lower hem to make a tent out of the front of her t-shirt, but it was still age-worn and wet. She was really, really glad that Davy didn’t see her like this. She surveyed the ranch, which was spread out below them. No sign of the blue BMW. She hadn’t swum to cramping, but she and Brandy had both done well. Apparently long enough for Davy to be headed back to Brooklyn.
“What’s the sad look, girlfriend? You trying to destroy the chances of all the other women here? The wet look and the lonesome-puppy-dog look? That’s a lethal combination. Not a Y-chromosome within fifty miles could survive it.” Chelsea took one last glance toward the lake where the guests now all appeared to be enjoying themselves. They’d know that they could get back by just walking up the clear trail to get back to the ranch and didn’t need Chelsea anymore. Then she tucked her arm through Jodie’s and arm-in-arm they walked down the hill toward the ranch house.
It felt strange. The only people she’d walked arm-in-arm with during the last decade had been wounded civilians in need of support or a drunken SEAL in need of guidance back to his bunk. To walk along companionably was as foreign as…her being at a ranch in Montana. Except it didn’t feel foreign. In a weird way, it felt less foreign than her all too familiar childhood bedroom.
“Were you just thinking about Davy? The cutie in the zoot suit?” Chelsea leaned in to whisper her question confidentially even though they were the only ones on the trail back to the main ranch house.
“He wasn’t wearing a zoot suit. What is a zoot suit anyway?”
“Got me,” Chelsea shrugged. “But even if he wasn’t wearing it on the outside, he certainly was on the inside. It showed all over him. Total city boy. You two looked like Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. Or is it Ms. Jekyll and Dr. Hyde. I can never remember which is which. I like your hair better this way, can really see your face now. Either way he’s as un-country as you’re un-city.”
Chelsea continued to chatter happily as Jodie tried to digest that statement. She and Davy should have been a great fit. Sal’s Pizza, the corner bagel shop, the new gourmet ice cream outfit down by the Gowanus Canal—one of the original Superfund sites and still pretty much the most polluted water in the US. They were all things she’d been wanting to do. She’d been both born and bred in the best city in the world. But instead she was out in the middle of Nowhere, Montana.
If she’d chosen a different direction the night before last and headed for New York, would she have stopped? If she hadn’t, and had reached the city without running off the road from sleep deprivation, she might not have come back to Montana so easily. Or would she?
“Where did he go anyway?” Chelsea paused and managed to coax Brandy out of her hiding place on Jodie’s other side and give her a pat on the head. It gave Brandy a chance to rest, which she realized was exactly why Chelsea had stopped. Another reason to like her.
Somewhere she’d lost the thread of what Chelsea had been saying, “Who?”
“Mr. Zoot Suit.”
“Oh. Davy is headed back to Brooklyn.”
“Is he coming back anytime soon?” Chelsea’s sideways glance was filled with innuendo.
“One-way trip.” And she still hoped it was the right thing to do. “Where’s Stan?”
“Now you’re asking the right question, girlfriend!” Chelsea squeezed their arms together tightly to match her happy chirp.
