Big sky dog whisperer, p.5
Big Sky Dog Whisperer, page 5
After they rode off, with Rip trotting happily beside them, Stan was surprised by the tightness in his jaw. When was the last time a woman had tried to warp his mind like that? Long time. Last he could think of was that little Asian midshipman—Jasmine? Jana?—on the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman. She’d given him several lessons on just what could be done in a small shipboard cabin with sufficient agility and imagination. Different person. Different lifetime.
“You got a boyfriend, Brandy?”
The dog just looked up at him without even raising her head. She’d laid down the moment after she’d shaken off the lake water. Too tired to even startle at the arrival of the two horses, though they had been at least ten meters away. He’d have to test Brandy’s perceived threat perimeter. Another day.
“Come on, girl. I’m not going to carry you back.”
On the walk, she seemed to be doing better…until they spooked that damn cottontail again.
Jodie stumbled through the back door of the ranch house and ground to a halt. Impressions slammed in from a dozen directions.
Her family’s brownstone had been built two hundred years ago. Each of the four floors was one room wide and two rooms deep, and they weren’t big rooms. The windows were big enough to let in a cozy light but small enough to keep out the cold, back before they knew how to make double-paned glass.
Here she’d come into a commercial-grade kitchen that could probably feed an entire SEAL team all at once and it was in full swing. Streams of platters mounded with fried chicken, tureens of coleslaw, pitchers of iced tea and lemonade…all were being moved out through the swinging door to feed the ranch guests who were in some nearby dining room. The kitchen had lofty ceilings and big windows open to the climbing ridge behind the house. Even though it was on the back of the house, sunlight filled the space.
One side of the vast kitchen was a comfortable seating area of well-worn couches and armchairs surrounding a big river rock fireplace. To either side of it were tall bookcases. The lower shelves sported a wide assortment of games and toys down at kid level.
Close by the door was a Douglas fir table that could probably seat twenty. The people gathering there were clearly the ranch’s working hands—not a bit of Gucci leather or Donna Karan silk among them.
Even over the amount of happy noise they were generating, Chelsea’s cry was easily audible.
“There’s the love of my life!” And Chelsea rushed away, leaving Jodie awash at sea. Chelsea dodged through the crowd to race up to a rugged-looking cowboy, one of those guys that probably looked more handsome with time, but the first impression was all about skill and competence.
Chelsea snatched the baby from the man’s arms and made it clear that she’d been referring to the baby, not the man.
“Hey!” At the cowboy’s protest to her tease, Chelsea spun once more around with the newborn cradled in her arms before leaning over to kiss him. It wasn’t some passing idle peck either. There was heat and love in it. And no one took any notice.
Jodie’s own family was about as demonstrative as a, well, a SEAL team. She didn’t doubt that her parents loved each other, but they weren’t about steamy kisses in the kitchen either—not even without a crowd around.
She wondered what Stan thought of this scene. She could almost see him, sitting at one end of the table, just watching everybody with that scowl he wore as easily as a black t-shirt. Luckily for him he wasn’t here so she wouldn’t be splattering the slate flooring with his blood.
“Do we know you?” A tall woman with a dark, Native American complexion and aquiline nose stood before her. Her thick fall of straight black hair was tinged with steel gray. She was perhaps the most impressive woman Jodie had ever seen. There was a…peace about her. A steadiness that seemed to radiate in all directions. Yet somehow, it made Jodie feel even more off balance.
“No, you don’t, ma’am. I’m Jodie Jaffe. I—”
“Hey, Ama. She’s the one who brought that dog for Stan to work with,” Chelsea reappeared at her side with her child. “Neither she nor her dog are real happy at the moment. It’s kind of sad. You need to cheer up, kid.” And she was gone again. The fact that Chelsea was at least five years younger than Jodie made her hope that Chelsea had been addressing the last to the baby in her arms. Not likely, as the kid was happily suckling beneath a towel Chelsea wore over her shoulder.
Without another word, Ama guided her over to the table when all she wanted to do was escape and go find Brandy. Ama sat at one end, placing Jodie at her right. In moments she was crowded in with several other women: a tall blonde in her middle years, an immensely pregnant younger version of her that had to be her sister, and Chelsea.
Her need to escape redoubled, but she couldn’t bring herself to duck out under Ama’s watchful eye.
“Hey,” Chelsea’s rugged kissing cowboy called out. Doug the ranch manager? Maybe. “How come all the women are sitting down at one end of the table?”
The stretch of the table was on her deaf side. Chelsea could override it because she sat so close, but she had to guess at what others were saying. SEAL training had included basic lipreading, so she got along okay.
“Grab a clue, Doug.” A big guy wearing mirrored aviator shades dropped into a chair one down from the other end of the table. “New woman on the ranch. We poor men don’t even get her name.”
“Nope!” Chelsea replied cheerfully, then turned her back on them and spoke to Jodie pointing at the lovely blonde seated to Ama’s other side. “This is Emily. She says she’s from DC, but I think the Army just manufactured her when they needed somebody who’s way too perfect to be real. She and her husband—the guy in the shades—are ex-military. Helicopters. What were they called again?”
“The Night Stalkers,” the middle-aged blonde spoke softly.
“Right, that’s it.”
Before Jodie had a chance to be shocked at meeting a pair of Night Stalkers in Nowhere, Montana—especially a female one—Chelsea pointed to the younger version of Emily.
“Julie’s our token local.”
So, not sisters.
“She grew up on the cattle ranch across the road and is like this total champion horse racer and the best rider on the ranch. She’s also our local builder—she built that kennel for Stan.”
“Nice work,” Jodie managed to get a word in edgewise that earned her a radiant smile from the pregnant cowgirl.
“She married this lug,” Chelsea hooked a thumb at the man delivering two big platters of fried chicken to the table. It looked magazine-ad perfect and Jodie suddenly realized just how hungry she was. “Nathan was like a twenty-star chef before Julie kicked his feet out from under him.”
“No, it was two stars. Michelin only goes up to three, Chels. And I think the feet kicking was mutual.”
“Ignore him. A Michelin star is like, worth ten normal ones. Makes you twenty stars. Go away, Nathan.”
“Whatever you say, Chels,” and he headed back to the kitchen after planting a kiss on top of his Julie’s head.
“You think he’d have figured that out by now. Men can be so slow about some things. Anyway, Julie totally rocked it on the feet kicking front. You’ve met Ama. Her opposite number is Mark’s dad, Mac, up the other end of the table.”
Jodie didn’t get to do more than glance to see the older version of the man in aviator shades. White hair and lighter complexion, but just as broad-shouldered as his son. She’d already lost half the names, but that didn’t slow Chelsea down for a moment.
“All that’s missing is Lauren and her Patrick, I think they’re out trail riding somewhere—or busy celebrating their upcoming marriage in some luscious midday way—so tell us all about you.” And Chelsea grabbed two pieces of chicken and passed the plate, then grabbed the bowl of potato salad before Nathan even set it on the table.
In the sudden void that appeared at the end of Chelsea’s breathless introduction, Jodie didn’t even know where to begin. Opening with, “Does anyone know where Deadman Corman took my fucking dog?” didn’t seem appropriate.
“I’m Jodie. I’m from New York.”
“Patrick and Nathan are too,” Chelsea offered with her mouth full. Jodie glanced around the table as more ranch hands, both male and female, drifted into the kitchen and joined in at the table. Thankfully Chelsea didn’t feel some need to add more names for Jodie to forget. She remembered Ama. That one she knew. And she didn’t dare forget Emily.
Apparently the others were comfortable with Chelsea doing most of their talking for them. Or perhaps they just couldn’t stop her.
“That’s where Nathan’s restaurant was before Julie convinced him Montana was so much better.”
Julie was…the pregnant cowgirl who had come from… She gave up and just let the names flow around her.
“Lauren was from New York too. What is it with you people and big cities? I’ve traveled all over the place and just do not understand big cities at all. Give me the outdoors any day. You and me, kid,” she looked down at the baby now snoozing off his meal in the sling across her chest, “definitely going back to the Himalayas again. Awesome hiking. Just awesome!”
Over half of the people who’d been named were ex-military. What was this place?
Jodie decided that was a topic she didn’t want to explore any more than the Big Apple. Not with how badly she wanted to be sitting at Sal’s having pizza with her brother. And definitely not with how badly she wished she was already fifty miles down the road away from goddamn Stan Corman who had better not be scaring her dog again.
“I was a SEAL dog handler for three tours, conventional forces for three tours before that, until a mortar took Brandy—”
“That’s her dog,” Chelsea chimed in and served herself another piece of chicken. “I’m eating for two, you greedy little gullet,” again that soft smile down at her newborn.
“—took Brandy and me out of the action,” Jodie managed to squeeze in the words while she could. And tried not to feel as if her insides had just been shredded.
“Former SEAL, huh? That’s like Mac Senior—he’s actually Mark Senior which makes Mark, Mark Junior, but that would get confusing—and Stan, right? Lauren did dogs for Delta Force. That’s different from SEALs, right?” She turned her attention to the new arrival who must be Lauren as she strode in and sat down beside Julie the blonde cowgirl. Lauren was tall, lean, and very brunette.
“What are we up to?” Lauren started filling a plate.
“About five foot six,” Jodie offered in her driest tone.
Lauren barked out a laugh. “You must be the new gal Patrick was telling me about. Hi!” She leaned in to reach right across the table and Julie’s lap to shake hands.
“She’s Jodie. She ran dogs for one of those SEAL teams. I thought they were all about swimming, but Stan was a SEAL too, which shows what I know. Why are there so many SEALs in Montana.”
It was…Emily, the austere older blonde, who spoke next. “Now shut up, Chelsea. You’ve utterly steamrollered Jodie.”
“She’s the quiet type. Can’t seem to get more than five words at a time out of her, so I was just trying to be helpful.” But Chelsea didn’t look the least bit chagrined when told to be quiet.
“You came in yesterday. How long are you planning to stay?” Lauren waved a chicken leg at her.
Jodie shrugged. Twelve seconds after that asshole Corman returns with my dog, wasn’t something she could say to the people feeding her. Maybe they even liked Stan. Apparently her shrug didn’t hide as much as she would have liked.
“Ooo, Stan got under your skin, didn’t he?” Chelsea was practically bouncing with delight. “You know that means—”
“Be quiet now, Chelsea,” Ama’s steady voice silenced her instantly. Even the irrepressible redhead wasn’t up to arguing with Ama though she spoke far more softly than Emily had moments before.
Jodie hunched her shoulders, waiting for the probing questions that would be sure to follow anyway.
Instead, with an unexpected kindness of understanding, Emily turned the conversation to Julie’s pregnancy and Chelsea’s newborn.
It let Jodie focus on eating. The chicken was the best she’d ever had—not that New York was a known mecca for fried chicken. But SEAL Team 8’s base in Little Creek, Virginia, boasted plenty of utterly amazing fried chicken joints. But eating this didn’t make her nostalgic for a platter of BoBo’s fried with sweetened iced tea and her former squad crowded around the table. In the future, if she ever hit BoBo’s again, it would make her nostalgic for this.
“Ranch-raised chickens,” Ama said to her softly. “Nathan uses my recipe for the breading. I’m glad you like it.”
Jodie could only nod as she was busy chewing. “It’s incredible,” she finally managed.
“I’d say that you have to excuse Chelsea, but it’s who she is.” The rest of the conversation had turned to children and for the moment it was just her and Ama.
“Not a mean bone in her body,” Jodie agreed. That much was obvious. She could hear Chelsea’s “sage” advice to Julie about what was waiting her for during birth—being way too graphic for a lunch table conversation. Of course Jodie had heard a thousand times worse over meals with her squad and was immune to it. It didn’t appear to bother any of the women. But the men who sat just down the table were looking a little squeamish and Jodie could hear them struggling for a topic that would block the women’s images from their thoughts.
“There isn’t a mean bone in Stan’s either,” Ama’s voice remained so even and calm that it attracted no attention other than her own.
Jodie nearly choked on a flake of the crunchy crust. She could only look at Ama in disbelief. There was no way she was that transparent. And how could Ama be so wrong? He wasn’t just mean. That would be fine, as she’d served with many mean SEALs who’d made damn fine fighters. But Stan Corman also had a streak of cruel like a black mark upon his soul.
Ama’s ghost of a smile said that she was reading thoughts that Jodie would never admit to having, at least not in polite company. She wasn’t some Jewish princess bitch nor an asshole sailor. She was a dog handler who was worried sick about her animal.
Brandy! That’s where she should be, finding her dog and getting gone. But Ama’s calm spread like a warm blanket over her and made her reluctant to move.
Ama continued eating quietly. Her dark-eyed gaze didn’t feel as if it was imposing on Jodie, but neither was it easy to look away from. The sheer neutrality of it made it impossible to read what the woman was feeling. Compassion? Amusement? Understanding? Goddamn telepathy, reading all of her thoughts and feeling pity at the maelstrom she could see inside Jodie’s head?
Unable to stand it, Jodie broke the spell and pushed to her feet. “If you’ll excuse me? It was a pleasure meeting you.” Twelve years in the military hadn’t completely wiped out her civilian manners. For eighteen years her family had a sit-down dinner every night, and probably still did though she’d been gone. Please pass the salt. May I have another slice of roast beef? What interesting topic did you bring to the table tonight, dear? Manners that had devolved into the grunts and slagging among the SEALs. Shut your yap long enough to give me some salt. That ain’t a bad yarn, but didja hear the one ’bout the stripper and the raghead horde?
Ama’s nod agreed with her polite words. Whether or not she believed them, there was no way to tell.
Jodie used all of her skills to slip away unnoticed. Neither Chelsea nor the pregnant cowgirl were aware. But Emily, the ex-Night Stalker, tracked her easily. It made her feel like a blip on a tracking radar as she scuttled across the kitchen floor.
Out the door and not wanting to meet anybody, she took a sharp turn to the right around the back of the log ranch house onto the narrow walkway between the building and the low stone retaining wall of a kitchen garden.
Head down, she managed one hurried breath and ran square into Stan Corman.
Chapter Five
The impact was too solid.
Stan had no options except grabbing Jodie or going down hard on his ass. But her forward momentum was too much and all grabbing her with his good arm did was to take her down with him. Reaching back with his left, his hooks just skidded on the stone pathway. Then, because he hadn’t let go until she crashed down on top off him, he was slammed down doubly hard. Pain shot up his arm, not just from where his stump fitted in the socket, but from the elbow he no longer had. His nerves told him he’d just snapped his nonexistent wrist.
Then the pain really hit.
It felt as if he’d just dipped his nonexistent hand in a cauldron of fire—as hot as the day it had been blown apart.
“Goddamn it!” Jodie cursed and rolled off him.
He let her go.
He was past speech. Or caring.
All he could do was curl into a ball and clench his good arm around his missing one. His instincts didn’t care that he was holding onto a metal and wire armature, they just held on as he gritted his teeth to not scream at the pain firing up his nerve endings.
“What the hell, Corman? Where’s my dog?”
He could hear the words but couldn’t make any sense of them.
Pain. Blinding red behind his eyes. Flame. The Afghan boy exploding in a ball of light from the IED strapped between his legs. Lucy taking the brunt of it, seventy pounds of Malinois shredded in an instant. Her blast shadow protecting most of his body. Most—but not all.
“Breathe! Goddamn it, sailor. Breathe!”
He managed a gasp.
“Again!”
Another stuttering breath.
It was hard.
It hurt.
Like something had rammed him in the solar plexus.
Something had.
He managed to open one eye and see the blur of someone kneeling over him.
“No,” he barely got the word out. Not again. He hadn’t lost his arm. Not again. He’d been conscious after they killed Lucy. His team dead: two in the explosion, two more machine-gunned down.
