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- Herausgeber: Valley Publishing Ltd.
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Combining a trip to see his grandparents with hunting down a K9 dog sounds like a good excuse at the time to Greyson. Somehow the K9 had been accidentally flow halfway around the world in the wrong direction and then lost. Finding the dog wasn’t easy, but Greyson follows the trail of destruction the same as the K9 does … and finds the female shepherd protecting a mother and child… So not what he expected.
Jessica didn’t understand why the dog was always around, but the dog was plain scary. Although not as much as everything else going on in her life right now. Most things she blames on her ex-husband, but was he this mean? With her toddler son to protect, she knows she can’t make a mistake that will bring them harm.
As the events escalate, it doesn’t take long to decide who was on her side and who… wasn’t.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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GREYSON
The K9 Files, Book 9
Dale Mayer
Books in This Series:
Ethan, Book 1
Pierce, Book 2
Zane, Book 3
Blaze, Book 4
Lucas, Book 5
Parker, Book 6
Carter, Book 7
Weston, Book 8
Greyson, Book 9
Rowan, Book 10
Caleb, Book 11
Kurt, Book 12
Tucker, Book 13
Harley, Book 14
Kyron, Book 15
Jenner, Book 16
Rhys, Book 17
Landon, Book 18
Harper, Book 19
Kascius, Book 20
Declan, Book 21
The K9 Files, Books 1–2
The K9 Files, Books 3–4
The K9 Files, Books 5–6
The K9 Files, Books 7–8
The K9 Files, Books 9–10
The K9 Files, Books 11–12
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About This Book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
About Rowan
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
Welcome to the all new K9 Files series reconnecting readers with the unforgettable men from SEALs of Steel in a new series of action packed, page turning romantic suspense that fans have come to expect from USA TODAY Bestselling author Dale Mayer. Pssst… you’ll meet other favorite characters from SEALs of Honor and Heroes for Hire too!
Combining a trip to see his grandparents with hunting down a K9 dog sounds like a good excuse at the time to Greyson. Somehow the K9 had been accidentally flown halfway around the world in the wrong direction and then lost. Finding the dog wasn’t easy, but Greyson follows the trail of destruction the same as the K9 does … and finds the female shepherd protecting a mother and child … So not what he expected.
Jessica didn’t understand why the dog was always around, but the dog was plain scary. Although not as much as everything else going on in her life right now. Most things she blames on her ex-husband, but was he this mean? With her toddler son to protect, she knows she can’t make a mistake that will bring them harm.
As the events escalate, it doesn’t take long to decide who was on her side and who … wasn’t.
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Prologue
It was a new stage of life, this sitting around, doing what Greyson wanted, and helping out others, basically by choice instead of having such a regimented lifestyle. When he was in the military, as a Navy SEAL no less, his life had consisted of training, missions, more training, more fitness, and more missions. After the accident that ruined his back, damaged his shoulder, and took off part of his foot, his life had seemed like it was so much the same—and yet so different.
Because it was still all laid out for him. To therapy, to the doctors, more tests, more physical fitness, more of everything, with everything on a schedule. Since he’d been released, his back more or less as good as it would get, he just needed more strengthening. His shoulder was functional, not pretty, but who said that was even part of his life anymore?
He had learned to walk with just half of the one foot. It had been harder than he thought. Who knew? But still, he was better off than so many of the other guys.
He lifted his coffee mug and stretched out along the back of Geir’s house. They’d been working on building decks on a bunch of the guys’ places. And really, Greyson enjoyed nothing more than the camaraderie of being here, the sense of belonging, but without the pressure to do anything. He was living off his benefits at the moment, while he tried to assess what the hell he wanted to do with the rest of his life.
He had no easy answer. In fact, there were no easy answers. The only thing he really couldn’t do would be heavy construction labor, but not much else held him back. He’d been a trainer within the military, so management might be something he could do. But he didn’t really want anything to do with that kind of pressure, with all the stress.
He loved animals and had worked briefly with the K9s, but he had wanted a much more personal relationship with the animals than he’d been allowed to have. He’d seen various animal rescue nonprofits that interested him, but not a lot of money was to be made in that field. He didn’t need a lot to live on, and his job satisfaction—his sense of purpose—mattered more at this stage of his life.
When Geir walked out and sat down beside him, Greyson looked over and said, “It’s a nice deal you’ve got going here.”
Geir nodded slowly. “It was a long time coming,” he said. “Now we’ve got in reality what we created in theory, and I’m glad to see it happening day by day.”
Greyson didn’t say anything, just sipped his coffee.
“What do you want for your future?” Geir asked.
Greyson shrugged. “Something different than the military. Something more peaceful but still helping out, I guess. But without the stress, without the schedule, without the chaos.”
Geir nodded. “You know what? Not too many people would understand that.”
“Well, I sure as hell hope some would. After the military, I’m realizing just how much of my life was ordered around.” He shook his head. “I want to stop and smell the roses a little more.”
Geir grinned. “You just need a wife for that.”
“Is that what helped you?”
Geir thought about it, then nodded. “Having that other perspective, and having the guys too, as we decided what we wanted to do moving forward. As you know, all of us having physical disabilities, that made the world look at us differently.” He shook his head. “It does make you reassess.”
“It does,” Greyson said. “How do you feel about animals?”
“I love them,” he said with a smile.
“I was just thinking that it’s too bad I can’t set up a rescue, but they don’t make any money so—”
“What kind of rescue?”
He looked at Geir in surprise, hearing his tone of voice. “I don’t know. I’m particularly drawn to dogs, but I’m a cat guy too,” he said with a quirk of his lips.
“Interesting.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you have something going on in the back of your head?”
“We’ve been working on the K9 files,” he said. “We’ve had a really good success rate, but this next one? We don’t have a whole lot of information on it.”
“What are the K9 files?”
Greyson listened while Geir explained about the War Dog division shutting down part of the department, and a bunch of these dogs were lost in the system.
“Those dogs dedicated their lives to their training,” Greyson said. “They certainly gave the best years of their physical life, and they deserve to have a decent ending to it.”
“Which is why we agreed to help,” Geir said. “The one we need to work on now is Kona. A female Malinois-shepherd cross who was shipped to Denver but somehow ended up in Hawaii.”
“That doesn’t even compute,” Greyson said, staring at him in surprise.
“Right?” Geir shook his head. “Hard to understand in today’s digital tracking world.”
“So is she being shipped back to Denver?”
“No. She was picked up and supposed to go to a temporary shelter for a few nights, until we could arrange the return shipping, but somebody, and I’ll say somebody with a question mark here, somebody stole her from there.”
“Well, that could be a good thing,” Greyson said. “A lot of people don’t agree with shelters. Maybe they took her home to give her a safe place to be.”
“Well, this was a rescue. Kona had her own run, and she should have been just fine there,” Geir said. “What we can’t do is let it go. We need to know that whoever stole the dog is looking after her and that the dog will have the best life possible.”
“What about legalities in this one?”
“Somebody was lined up for adoption but out of Denver. We didn’t have anybody in Hawaii.”
“So, if I find the dog and confirm that she’s in a good home, am I supposed to rip her away and send her to Denver?”
Geir thought about that for a long moment as he studied his coffee cup. “No,” he said. “I think the baseline here is that we do whatever is in the best interests of the dog.”
“So, find the dog, track down whoever stole Kona, figure out what they’re doing with her, and if she will be okay?” Greyson looked around at the yard. He had spent the last few days working on a deck back here. “Hawaii could be good.”
Geir looked at him and smiled. “Any connection?”
“My grandparents actually,” he said immediately. “They used to live in New York, and then, one day, it’s like they snapped. They sold everything and moved to Hawaii.”
“Hey, I’m not sure that’s such a bad idea,” he said, “but honestly? If you end up in one of the big cities on the islands, I’m not sure there’s that much difference.”
“They’re on one of the outer islands, I believe,” he said. “It might be time to find out.”
“Exactly.”
“Where did the dog disappear from?”
“Well, it was flown in and delivered to the local shelter. That’s the last-known location we have.”
He nodded. “How long ago?”
“Three weeks. She had actually been with another adopted family first, but that relationship ended in an ugly mess within six weeks of her time with them. So Denver was Kona’s second home.”
“So, long enough to bond, but not enough to bond well, given her new life now too.”
“Depends on the circumstances, as you know,” Geir said. “Some situations create immediate bonding.”
“But those are usually the ugly situations,” Greyson said. “Danger, strife, violence, or something along that line.” Greyson chuckled. “I think I can handle this one.”
Geir looked at him, grinned, and said, “So is that a yes?”
Greyson nodded. “Mission accepted.”
Chapter 1
Greyson Morgenstein walked off the plane, taking a moment to sniff the air. There was just something about being in Hawaii. The climate was so warm and almost moist, humidity being at an all-time high this time of year. He had contacted his grandparents to say that he would be in the area and had received an immediate welcome, as expected. He would head there first. In fact, his grandfather would pick him up here.
As Greyson sauntered forward, he cast his gaze from the small airport out to the waiting crowd. He had no problem picking out his grandfather. Even though he’d shrunk with the years, his beaming smile was hard to miss. As soon as Greyson stepped forward, the two men embraced.
“Man, you’re looking good,” his grandfather said, looking him over. “For somebody who spent the last couple years recovering, you sure don’t seem like you’re in bad shape now.”
“I’m not,” he said, beaming. “It was pretty rough going there for a while, but I’m on the other side.”
“Your grandmother wanted to come and visit you,” he said, “but you told us to stay away, and reluctantly we honored that request.” His grandfather searched his face with an intent look, as if to see if they were welcome now.
Greyson reached out and squeezed his grandfather’s hand. “Only because I was in such tough shape,” he said. “I was in no condition to be friendly or to be nice to anybody.”
His grandfather nodded. “I understood, but your grandmother, well—”
“I’ll make it up to her now,” he said with a laugh.
“What is it that brought you all the way out here?” he asked. “And we’re not believing it’s us,” he said with a laugh.
“It’s a serendipitous meeting of work and family,” Greyson said.
“Work?” His grandfather turned to look at him in surprise. “You got a job now?”
“I’ve been mostly volunteering for the last few months,” he said, “with a group of ex-military who pulled together a big training program for a lot of us dealing with life after our injuries,” he said. “They’re doing a job for the War Dogs department, tracking down War Dogs that have somehow slipped through the cracks in their program.”
“War Dogs?” His grandfather shook his head as he pointed at a small truck in the parking area they were heading toward and said, “That’s ours. How the devil did you get involved with War Dogs?”
“Because they had these dozen or so files that they needed to follow up on, and one of them is here in Hawaii,” Greyson said.
His grandfather looked at him in astonishment.
Greyson laughed and nodded. “I know, right? So I figured it was time to come and to let you know that I’m alive and well. I survived all the surgeries and the physical therapy,” he said, his tone turning more serious. “And life is good again.”
“Well, that we definitely needed to hear. At least when you started talking to us and sending emails, we knew that you were still alive, but we worried.”
Greyson nodded. One of the first things he’d done when he woke up from surgery was lock down tight and push everyone away. It was his modus operandi. He wasn’t sure who and what he was facing, and he knew it would be a journey he had to go alone, so he just kept pushing others back in a way. It wasn’t everybody’s system, but it was his.
“Well, I should have contacted you earlier,” Greyson said. “It’s pretty hard, when you’re coming in and out of surgeries all the time and living in pain, to find anything pleasant to say to anybody. And the last thing you want to talk about is your injuries or your surgeries.”
“I don’t talk about that stuff much anyway,” his grandfather admitted. “Much easier to forget about it.”
“Exactly,” Greyson said with a laugh.
With the two of them in the front of the cab and his bags stowed safely in the back, his grandfather pulled out onto the main road, exiting the airport.
“You made quite a change yourself, moving from New York to Hawaii.”
“Across the ocean,” he said, with a nod. “Thought we were leaving behind big cities, population, taxes, and too much political atmosphere,” he said. “Instead we just got a smaller version of it all.”
“Which is to be expected,” Greyson said. “Regrets?”
“No,” his grandfather said instantly. “It’s still a climate that we do much better in, and it’s a much smaller population, at least where we live. And, when we want to go to the big city, we still can, but we don’t do it that often.”
“What about hospitals and health care?”
“We’re not that far away from the main center,” his grandfather said. “So it’s about a thirty-minute drive to the hospital.”
“Which sounds just fine,” Greyson said.
“So, this dog,” he changed the subject, “where is it?”
“Well, it was supposed to be flown to Denver and somehow ended up in Hawaii. But then it was picked up by a rescue for a few days, until the next leg of its journey could be arranged. Then apparently it disappeared from there. That was like three weeks ago.”
“Wow,” he said. “So how the hell are you supposed to find a dog that disappeared weeks ago?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I think this file was actually one recently added because a lot of the other dog cases have been on the list for much longer.”
“That’s pretty sad. These dogs give their lives for the military,” his grandfather said. “You’d like to think that they had a decent retirement package for their service too.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Greyson said with a laugh. “But it’s never that easy. You know that.”
“I know,” his grandfather said with a big roll of his eyes. “We’re doing nothing but retirement planning.”
“And here I thought you had already retired,” he teased.
“Well, I’m definitely retired, but that doesn’t mean that I planned it all that well. The high property prices in New York when we sold helped, and we definitely bought something a lot smaller here, so we’re just fine. But you know—now that you are on a pension too—there’s never that much to spare. And, depending on how our health goes, it could get ugly at the end.”
Greyson nodded. “That’s the one thing I do get covered,” he said. “Yet I feel like I’ve already done the ugly part, and now I’m looking at finding a second wave of life again.”
“You’ll find it,” his grandfather said. “Just have some trust.”
“Do you know anything about the local rescue center around here?”
“Nope. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it,” he said. “Do you know where it is?”
Greyson brought up his cell and checked his GPS app. “According to this, it’s only about fifteen minutes away.”
“Well, it’s in the same direction we’re headed. Just a side trip,” his grandfather said, as he glanced at the GPS map on Greyson’s screen. “Do you want to hit that before we head home?”
“That would be great, if you don’t mind,” he said. “I’ll need to pick up a rental, so I can travel around the island looking for this dog. But I figured it could wait until tomorrow.”
“No need to do that,” his grandfather said. “We have two vehicles.”
“No,” he said. “That’s not necessary. I can rent one.”
“That’s just insulting,” his grandfather stated adamantly. “We have two we’re hardly using anyway. I haven’t done much driving around at all. What’s the point? We have everything we want within walking distance. You can take one of our vehicles.” His voice was firm. “If you feel like you need to pay for it, you can take us out for a meal.”
“Well, that was a given anyway,” he said with a laugh. “Anybody got any luaus around here?”
“One of the local restaurants down on the beach around the corner from our place does a big one. Not sure if any are scheduled for this next week though.”
“We’ll find out,” Greyson said. “That would be an enjoyable dinner.”
“It’s always a good time,” his grandfather said. They drove in companionable silence, interspersed with talking about everything and nothing, when his grandfather pointed to a sign on the street. “I think that’s the exit we want, isn’t it?” Just then the GPS gave instructions to take that exit.
“You’re doing pretty good, Grandpa. You’re ahead of the GPS.”
“Stupid computer things,” his grandfather said with a shake of his head. “That’s why so many old people have dementia now. We stopped using our brain cells.”
Greyson laughed. “I don’t think your brain cells are in any danger of dying anytime soon.”
“I hope not,” he said. “I’m seventy-four now, and I’d love to see another ten, fifteen years.”
“In good health with enough money and your own home and a great climate, absolutely,” Greyson said. “I’d think that would be very doable.”
Taking the exit, they turned the corner into another small suburban area. After driving through that, they came out on the other side to what looked like much more of a countryside community, more spacious. Up ahead was a rescue center sign. His grandfather parked in front of the building. “I’m coming with you,” he said.
The two men hopped out of the truck, and Greyson walked in to talk to the woman across the counter. She appeared to be the only one on staff, and she was looking a little harried.
She looked up, frowned, and asked, “May I help you?”
“I’m here on behalf of the War Dogs department,” he said. “I believe you were holding the dog that had been accidently shipped here, until transport details could be arranged to ship her back to Denver.”
“Right,” she said, shaking her head. “We haven’t had a dog lost or stolen in all our years, and now we’ve got a high-profile animal that we’re trying to help out in a spot, and, sure enough, it goes missing.”
“Goes missing?” Greyson pounced. “So was it stolen, did it jump out, did somebody accidentally leave a gate open? What happened?” He held up his hand at the woman’s affronted look. “Believe me. I’m not accusing anybody,” he said. “I’m here to do my best to track down the dog and to make sure it’s okay.”
Some of the stiffness left the woman’s shoulders. She nodded. “We don’t have a clue,” she said. “Nobody saw what happened. We had one dog in that run and one dog in the next one. Only the one was taken.”
“Okay,” he said, “that’s good to know. But no sign of the missing one?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing at all. And that was pretty frustrating too. We’re not in the business of losing dogs.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “So what can you tell me,” he said, “from start to finish.”
“Let’s see. The dog came crated and was delivered at four o’clock in the afternoon. We took it out into a run, gave it some food, water, and a bit of exercise. We were here through six o’clock. All the security was checked at the time. No, we don’t have cameras. We don’t have anything other than a basic alarm, and, no, there’s no alarm on the dog runs.”
“Right.” He stopped, turned, and looked around, noting a sleepy-town atmosphere to the place. “Did anybody know? Was there any fanfare, like media coverage or anything like that?”
She shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. No.”
“How was the dog? Socially?”
She looked at him, clearly puzzled.
“Was he aggressive or cranky?”
“She,” the woman said with emphasis, “was calm, patient, and well-behaved. She drank some water but then went and laid down in the run.”
“You didn’t have any trouble with her? She wasn’t difficult to approach?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “And I can see that may have been part of the problem. It looks like, you know, if somebody wanted to, they could have come up and spoken to her and even potentially stolen her.”
“Now this was a Malinois-shepherd cross,” he said, “so it looks like a fairly intimidating dog.”
“That was my concern going in,” she said. “I don’t know why anybody would want a dog like that, unless they wanted it for a watchdog or a guard dog.”
“It’s possible,” he said. “Do you ever get any theft or crime around here? Have you had any other animals stolen?”
She shook her head. “We’ve never had a problem at all. People leave them here. They don’t steal them. There was an issue on the road that day, and I wondered if the dog had somehow got involved in that, but I don’t know how she would have.”
“What issue?”
“A car accident out front here. A couple bumpers banged up. I know the cops were here to talk to the people involved. The dog would have been visible from that run on the side, but there wasn’t any reason for the dog to have tried to get away.”
“Could I possibly see the run, so I have a good idea of what the dog was up against?”
She hesitated and then gave a clipped nod. “I’ll sure be glad when this is over with,” she said. “We don’t have any failures around here. And to know that it was a dog like this, with the government involved, it’ll probably never end,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a shame because it puts a smear on our spotless record.”
He waited with his grandfather beside him as she had to answer the phone, then dealt with a cat in a cage on her desk. When that was finally done, he’d had a chance to check out the very simple front reception area, realizing that, while not a whole lot of money was spent on the place, it appeared to be sound and well cared for.
She opened the double doors and led them into the back, past a bunch of cages with small animals inside and a lot of empty cages.
“Thankfully you don’t appear to have a full house right now,” he commented.
“We hate being full,” she said. “We’re constantly doing drives to raise money for looking after the animals, but, more than that, we’re always looking for people to take the animals home and to get them out of these cages. It’s not a good way for any of them to live.”
His grandfather looked at some of them and shook his head. “It doesn’t look like much fun for anybody,” he said sadly.
“If you see someone you want to join your family,” she said with a bright smile, “just let me know.”
He shook his head. “Not without the wife’s permission. That wouldn’t go well at all.”
“Bring her back with you then,” the woman encouraged.
As for Greyson, he let the conversation go back and forth. He doubted his grandfather wanted a pet to look after at this stage of his life, but Greyson had been wrong before. As his grandfather passed a basset hound lying all alone in a cage, his footsteps slowed. He crouched and reached out a few fingers toward him. The dog stretched forward and sniffed, then got the most woe-be-gone look in his eyes. Knowing that his grandfather was already getting quite hooked, Greyson turned to the woman, who was still walking away. “What’s the story with the basset hound?”
“His owner died,” she said, “and the family surrendered the animal.” She frowned. “He really needs a quiet home with somebody to love him because he not only needs a good home, but he’s grieving too.”
Greyson’s grandfather straightened up, shoved his hands in his pockets, and determinedly turned away, but his gaze kept going back to the dog behind them. The dog stared out at them as they walked away. The woman led them to the rear door. Greyson stepped through to a large gate and then went out to the dog run. A walkway was between two of the runs, and then another walkway between two other runs.
“She was on the outside run,” she said, pointing to the left.
“Any reason for that?”
She shook her head. “It was random. Completely random. Well, not really random, I guess. We put her in the largest of the runs. She was a big dog and had been cooped up in a crate on a plane for who knows how long. We just thought it would give her the best chance of easing up from a stressful day.”
That made sense to him, and he appreciated the thought. He crossed into the dog run and walked up and down, looking for any sign of anything. He stopped when he saw hair on the top of one of the wires. He pulled out his phone and quickly took an image of it.
“What are you looking at?” she asked suspiciously.
“Just hair,” he said, “caught on the top of the fence here.”
“That could have been there forever,” she protested.
He gave her a sideways look. “Maybe,” he said, “it also could be from the K9 dog.” She didn’t say anything more. He walked back a little bit and checked out the ground. “Thank you for letting me see this.” He took a few more photos of the area from inside the cage, realizing he could see a little bit of the street and a bit of the forested area nearby. And, with the receptionist at his side, he slowly walked back through the building toward the front of the place. They found his grandfather crouching in front of the basset hound again.
The woman stepped forward. “He really would appreciate a good home,” she said. “He’s really depressed.”
“How long has he been here?”
She hesitated. “Two weeks. Normally we can’t keep them past ten days.”
Grandfather looked at her in horror. Then at Greyson, as if asking what he should do.
“You could always call Grandma and see what she says.”
“Or …” and his grandfather fell silent.
But Greyson knew exactly what he’d started to say. “Or you could take him home, knowing she will fall in love with him, the same way you just did.”
Grandfather winced. “I do miss our dogs,” he said.
“I’m sure you do. Is there any place to walk?”
He nodded. “I walk the trails. Miles and miles of them every day,” he said. “And I’m always alone now.”
At that, the woman reached down and opened the cage, letting the dog out to say hi. And, sure enough, he headed right for Grandpa, the connection already forming. Grandpa gently rubbed the dog’s long ears. “How old is he?”
“The best we can tell is about five,” she said.
Grandfather nodded. “What is his name?”
“Leo.”
He chuckled at that. “Well, that makes a lot of sense to me,” he said. “What kind of fees are we talking about?”
She hesitated. Greyson looked at her, then at his grandfather, and said, “Why don’t you let me cover that for you? It will be a gift for letting me stay with you.”
Grandpa looked at him and smirked. “If you think your grandma will let you get away with that, you’re wrong, son.”
“We can hope though,” he said, laughing.
“Well, it might make things easier.”
