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- Herausgeber: Valley Publishing Ltd.
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Rhys doesn’t expect a trip to Cottage Grove, Oregon, to start with a house shot up with bullets. If it had stopped there, it would have been manageable—a drive-by shooting that the cops chase down. But nothing is easy in Rhys’s world. And this case goes to hell right from the beginning …
Taylor, an army vet herself, struggles to regain a normal life, after she was injured by friendly fire in Iraq. Taking on a War Dog appeals to Taylor, a connection that she relates to, but she first must pass an interview, before she can keep Tallahassee. An interview with someone with a prosthetic just like Taylor’s. Only he is far more capable than she is.
Still that lack of self-confidence is the least of Taylor’s worries, as things go from bad to worse, and she realizes these attacks were very personal—and very close to home …
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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RHYS
The K9 Files, Book 17
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
Epilogue
About Landon
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!
Rhys doesn’t expect a trip to Cottage Grove, Oregon, to start with a house shot up with bullets. If it had stopped there, it would have been manageable—a drive-by shooting that the cops chase down. But nothing is easy in Rhys’s world. And this case goes to hell right from the beginning …
Taylor, an army vet herself, struggles to regain a normal life, after she was injured by friendly fire in Iraq. Taking on a War Dog appeals to Taylor, a connection that she relates to, but she first must pass an interview, before she can keep Tallahassee. An interview with someone with a prosthetic just like Taylor’s. Only he is far more capable than she is.
Still that lack of self-confidence is the least of Taylor’s worries, as things go from bad to worse, and she realizes these attacks were very personal—and very close to home …
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Prologue
Badger looked over at Kat, as they sat in their living room, and asked, “How did you get to be so smart?”
“I didn’t get to be smart at all,” she said. “I just knew something was there about his ex-wife, but I had no idea that he just needed to make peace with her. I figured he needed to deal with something.”
“Well, not only did he make peace with her—in the sense that they have spoken and have agreed to ignore each other—but her much-older husband is also not so happy to have her younger ex-husband in town. So Silas is chomping at the bit over that.” Badger laughed. “Not to mention the squatter seemed to do this elsewhere. Jenner did the sheriff’s job and checked in nearby counties, so that guy is sitting in jail, and the sheriff’s not happy to be shown up by Jenner either. But better than that, Jim is home, and Jenner will stay in town to help him fix up the place for wheelchair access.”
“I think that’s a great idea.” Kat looked over at Badger. “Is there any spare money to help out with some supplies?” Badger rolled his eyes at her. She grinned and added, “Well, I’ll help out with the prosthetic. I just figured that maybe they needed some building supplies to handle the modifications.”
“Absolutely they do,” Badger agreed. “I’ll talk to the guys about it.”
She nodded. “You do that.”
Such a note of satisfaction filled her voice that he grinned at her. “You, my dear, are one very manipulative prosthetic genius.”
“Only when it counts.” She walked over and sat down on his lap, wrapped her arms around him, and said, “Besides, it’s a happy story all around. How can we not like that?”
“It’s perfect. Jim’ll keep both dogs at his revamped childhood home, and even Kellie is getting comfortable being around them. I don’t see Jenner being dogless for long.”
“No, and I think it’s a great idea that Jenner sets up a way to help veterans. I mean, it’ll take some time to coordinate, but he’ll be somebody else for us to send people to.”
“Ah.” Badger laughed. “You’ve got a soft heart, my dear.”
“I do, but the good thing is, it belongs to you.” She wrapped her arms tighter around him and kissed him. Then she twisted in his arms and asked, “What’s this?” She pointed to the end table beside them.
“The next file.”
“Wow. Have you got somebody for it?”
“Nope, not yet. Jager thought he might know somebody. One of his neighbors. I guess their son came home, looking a little worse for wear.”
“Right. It’s hard to imagine how many out there aren’t even on our radar.”
“Well, this guy came back from a mission over in Iraq, got blown up—a story we all know—and maybe he needs to talk to you. I’m not so sure yet, but apparently a dog over there died in the same accident and he’s really heartsick over it. They were moving the forward operating base, when they got blown up. So he’s looking to find something else in his life to find meaning.”
“Oh, I like this already. Where will we send him?”
“We?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Absolutely. This is a we job.”
He smiled and agreed. “It is, indeed.”
“And where’s the dog?”
“In Oregon.”
She frowned at that.
“Why, what’s wrong with Oregon?” he asked her.
“Oregon’s fine, but I hope it’s an okay scenario for our War Dog and our next man.”
“This is a different scenario. We haven’t had one of these before.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Apparently a woman picked up the dog, contacted the ASPCA, found it was tagged, came up as one of the War Dogs, and they want somebody to go check on it.”
“She wants to keep it? Because, if that’s the case, it would be a good thing. Right?”
“She does want to keep the dog but is concerned about its training. She hasn’t had much.”
“What about this guy you are sending? Has he any experience with K9s?”
“Well, he was a trainer, so, in a way, it’s a match made in heaven.”
She looked up at him, and a glint came into her eyes.
He nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t miss that reference. Apparently she’s also ex-military, and she’s got her own prosthetic. Although she’s struggling with it and was hoping this dog would be more of a therapy animal.”
Kat’s frown flashed again. “I don’t know that the War Dogs have that kind of temperament.”
“I don’t think she’s looking to get it registered, just more of a case of she’s alone and could use it for mental health purposes, like an emotional support dog.”
“In that case, you’re right. It sounds like a match made in heaven.”
“I hope so, but I’ve got to get a hold of this guy first.”
Just then came a knock on the open door, and Jager walked in and pointed. “This is actually him. Rhys.”
The man leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest.
“The one I was telling you about.”
“Right.” Badger nodded. He looked over at Kat and then at the closed file. He asked his wife, “What do you think?”
She studied Rhys and decided immediately. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 1
Rhys Gorman stepped from his truck, parked beside the gas pump, and waited for the attendant. He was here, wherever here was. He turned and looked around, studying the area. It was a quaint, very picturesque town, but not a place he’d ever been before.
Cottage Grove, Oregon, is what the sign stated. He’d seen elsewhere that this area was often compared to Parke County, Indiana, the Covered Bridge Capital of the US, which was something else he’d never really seen before. He wondered if it really was the stated capital of the US or just more about the western coast.
Often people made the mistake—wherever they lived—that the whole world revolved around them. Rhys almost smiled at that but was then reminded of his very smothering scenario back at home, so he had taken this chance to come here, confronting his fear of losing another dog.
Kat had been very persuasive, and she would help him get a prosthetic that fit and worked for him, which was huge. In the meantime he was stuck with his old one, while his leg healed and while she took measurements and worked on a prototype. She’d certainly seemed positive about it, and he hadn’t even realized this was the work that she did, until he’d looked her up after talking to his friend Jager. He’d known Jager for a while, and, if it weren’t for him, Rhys probably wouldn’t have stepped inside Kat’s office at all.
And maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t. Hell, maybe this whole thing would have been better if he’d just walked away and told Badger and Kat to find somebody else for this op. The last thing Rhys wanted to do was get emotionally involved with a dog. He could handle all kinds of stress and trauma, and yet, the minute a dog was involved, he went to pieces. And it was stupid. He’d been bugged about it plenty.
However, he’d also like to think that he hadn’t lost his humanity in all those years that he’d been in the navy. After a stint in the military, it was hard sometimes to remember that some humanity remained in the world. He’d gotten jaded and old and tired of dealing with the problems that he’d faced over and over again.
His injury had just about finished him. He wasn’t alone in that thinking; several others of his unit had gone down at the same time. They were all still trying to pick up the pieces of their world and to make something out of it. Something different than the rest. And, for that reason alone, Rhys rarely spoke about it and had pushed away his parents from even asking any questions because he didn’t want to be rude and tell them to stuff it. But he’d made it very clear to his father that Rhys would give no answer, so to stop asking, before he left town and before he chose to have nothing to do with them.
His father didn’t like his answer, but he’d given Rhys a single nod. “Fine. We weren’t happy when you went into the navy, and, you coming home in this shape, obviously we’re even unhappier,” he explained, “but this is your choice.”
“It is,” Rhys muttered. “It is my choice, and it’s the only thing I have left to live by, so honor it, or I’m out of here.”
His father had immediately agreed, and Rhys hadn’t been there for his father’s conversation with his mom, but Rhys was pretty sure that it was rough on both of them. Yet that’s just the way it needed to be if they kept hounding him because he just couldn’t handle speaking about his accident and the immediate fallout he had endured. It shouldn’t even have come to that. This break from his family would be good.
Rhys didn’t know if he would go back or not; going home after coming out of the hospital had been tough enough. He’d been there for three months in a room over the garage, while he sorted out his life and tried to get through the additional therapy he needed. The fact that he’d even had to go home had hurt. It wasn’t something anybody should have to do, particularly not in the shape that he was in. But it’s the only option he had left, so, whatever.
At the time he’d thought maybe it’d be nice to go home. However, his mother couldn’t stop the nagging, combined with the guilt trips, atop the constant pushing to eat—as if food solved every problem in the world. Then she resorted to the smothering repetitive questions, like, “Are you okay?” Hell no, I’m not okay. I’m far from okay.
So going home had stopped Rhys’s hopes that the situation would be nice, and it had turned into being emotionally painful. Rhys shouldn’t have gone home. It had been too much for his mom. She’d been heartbroken to see him, and that had just made it way worse, made him feel like he was some sort of a freak. Even though his father had tried hard to calm her down, she wasn’t the kind to calm down. She was all about hysteria. Whereas his dad was stoic.
And right now? The last thing Rhys needed was anybody making a caterwauling mess of his world.
He was also a private person, even more so since his surgeries.
Shaking that off, he thanked the gas attendant, walked inside and paid with his credit card, grabbed his receipt and got back into his truck. He punched in the address to double-check his directions and then pulled out onto the road. Taylor wasn’t far away, which was a good thing. He’d help her and Tallahassee, starting today. At the same time Rhys figured that a couple days might be enough to get him out of his emotional hell, long enough that he could get a break and could figure out what he would do with his life. And it seemed foolish at this age, at this stage, to even have to consider these things. But it was what it was.
Wondering at the fool’s errand he was on, Rhys headed down several small country roads, past a quaint little town center, and headed on through to the other side. When he got to the address, it was a small house, at least from the first pass he made, with a sidewalk leading to a picturesque front entrance and a long veranda, beautiful gardenias climbing up the side of the house. It was a large property, something he could really appreciate. He stared at it.
It seemed almost fairy tale-ish.
Something that he no longer believed in. Something that he didn’t think anybody should believe in, ever. The reality was what he experienced out in the world, and it was a bitch to come back from that. He didn’t want to park on her driveway just yet, not sure of his welcome. So he parked on the opposite shoulder of the road, turned off the engine, and, just as he went to open the driver’s side door, another truck drove by him very slowly and then slowed down more when it got to her place. The driver had a baseball cap pulled down low, and, even as Rhys watched, the driver lifted a handgun, pointed it through the passenger window and started firing at the woman’s house, before the gunman hit the gas and ripped off into the distance.
Rhys didn’t give it a second thought; he immediately turned his vehicle around and chased after the gunman.
Taylor Moore huddled in a corner of the dining room, between the kitchen and the living room, her arms wrapped around her chest, rocking in place, shuddering. The damn bullets. She didn’t even know if they were hitting the house, hitting her, hitting her car, hitting anything—even if they were bullets—but it just took her right back to the damn event that sent her tumbling and spiraling out of control, landing in the world that she currently lived in.
She didn’t even know what would set it off; sometimes it was just a vehicle backfiring, and, if that’s all it was, she almost hated herself for her constant overreaction. She understood the PTSD part of it; she understood that she would have to learn to deal with the trauma. She understood all that. But what she didn’t understand was how she was supposed to do any of it when she was constantly crippled by some of the simplest noises.
So much anger was inside her, so much that she couldn’t reconcile, so much that she couldn’t find peace with, and, of course, that’s what her psychologist wanted her to confront. Yet they didn’t give her the tools to do it. They gave her all this mumbo-jumbo about working on the problems. They wanted her to take drugs, so it would become something that was much easier to deal with.
She didn’t want to take drugs. She just wanted to find a way through this nightmarish maze to a world where she could function properly. She slowly lifted her head, hearing a harsh whine at the door and claws jumping up, trying to get in. She got up slowly, using the wall for support, and hobbled her way over, where she opened the door and looked out. There was her dog, outside the screen, whining at her, his tail going crazy. She opened the screen and reached out a hand. Immediately his soft nose shoved into it. “I’m fine,” she told him.
But he apparently didn’t believe her and kept nudging and nudging at her.
Finally she opened the door wider and murmured, “This isn’t a good idea.”
But she seemed helpless to stop it, as the dog raced inside. However, instead of coming to her for more cuddles, he took off and did a full search of the house. She leaned against the door, watching him. “I don’t know what it was,” she admitted. “Believe me. I don’t really want to do a postmortem on this either.”
But again he just ignored her, on his own path of some thought processes that she couldn’t seem to access. She wondered what he heard when she heard the same sounds. What the hell was going on that she was such a mess? She slowly walked over to the kitchen and put on the teakettle. After an episode like that, which just seemed to take apart everything in her world, she was always exhausted. Yet here she was, safe in her own home, and still didn’t have that sense of security that she was desperate for.
As the dog raced back into the kitchen, his nose still to the ground, she asked, only half joking, “What are you, part bloodhound?”
But his ears were calm, and his tail was wagging, as he stepped closer and gave her a woof and then shoved his big nose into her hand once more. She would have crouched down but her ankle joint didn’t work so well. She bent over instead and gave him a good cuddle. “I don’t know what that was which you just did, but thanks for keeping an eye out,” she muttered.
Of course, keeping an eye out was a whole different thing when you were a dog, but, hey, she’d take the fact that anybody cared, even a canine. With a hot cup of tea now in her hand, she put a leash on the dog and slowly made her way back out to the front of the house, where she sat down on the porch and stared. She didn’t even know why she was out here. Except maybe confronting the terror for her to be out here. She refused to let that become her world too. Seemed like everything had narrowed down to what she could handle and what she couldn’t, and 99 percent of it fell into that what she couldn’t handle department.
And it sucked. In a big way. She used to be sociable. Until everything in the military had blown up. She used to have friends, until they took one look at her now and saw the shape she was in, and they made polite excuses and ran.
She could hardly blame them. She wasn’t exactly anything to look at anymore, and she sure as hell wasn’t anything nice to be around. Not that it was her fault. It was nobody’s fault, including theirs. It’s just the way of it. And she was working at finding acceptance, but, in her heart of hearts, she knew that would take a lot longer.
This isn’t who she wanted to be. She wanted to be the person she had left behind, when she went into the military, the one full of hope, the one full of patriotism, the one who was doing this because it was the right thing to do. Not this broken-down beat-up person who, so embittered even before her accident, that even now she found it hard to find any way forward. She knew who was responsible for a lot of that pre-accident part of her army life, and none of it made any difference because he wouldn’t pay the price. She was the one paying the price.
And would continue to pay the price for a long time yet.
She wanted to be healthy and whole; she wanted to see her way through all this, and yet all she saw was more nightmares, more pain, more intolerances that she struggled with, and how the hell was she supposed to find anything that made her happy about that? If only there was another answer, if only … she hadn’t gone to the military police to turn him in.
Was it his fault where she was at now? Not likely. But he was ultimately the start of all this. And that was something that she found almost impossible to deal with. As she sat here on the porch, a truck pulled up to the front of the house. Immediately the dog stood up and studied the approaching vehicle. When it parked, and the engine turned off, she wondered idly which neighbor was visiting her.
When the man stepped out, making absolutely no attempt to hide the prosthetic on his leg, she stared. And then her heart sank.
“Better not be coming here,” she muttered to herself.
Almost immediately the dog beside her growled.
She looked over at him. “Is that because of me or because of him?” she muttered to the dog.
The dog didn’t say anything but watched with a hawk’s eyes. As the man approached the small gate and unlocked it, stepping forward, he looked around carefully, catching sight of her. And then, with a nod, he called out, “Good afternoon.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing good about it. I don’t know what you’re doing here or what business you think you have, but you’re not welcome.”
He stopped, stared, and then nodded. “And maybe that dog beside you has a different greeting for me.”
And, sure enough, she looked down to see the dog, his tail going like crazy, a whine starting to come out of the back of his throat.
The stranger entered the gate and slowly approached. “I mean you no harm.”
She looked from him to the dog, who was straining at his leash. Immediately the man held up his hand in some sort of a command, and the dog’s butt hit the porch floor, but it couldn’t stop wiggling with joy. And, with that reaction, she unhooked the leash. “Well, isn’t that just something?” Her heart sank, as she realized that this man had a claim to this dog that she could never hope to have.
The dog barreled toward him, jumping up on him, knocking him backward against the fence. Instead of being upset, the man just laughed, wrapped his arms around the dog, and held him close. At least as close as anybody could during such a wiggling embrace. When the dog finally got free again, he jumped down, doing zoomies all over the front yard.
She’d never seen him act like this before. Didn’t think it would ever happen again. It was such normal dog behavior that she was happy for him, but, at the same time, she was sad because she hadn’t given him that sense of confidence, that sense of freedom, to be who he needed to be. And yet here this stranger walked up, opened the gate, and there he was, giving her dog what he needed.
He looked at her slowly, took a couple steps forward, and asked, “May I come up?”
She stared at him resentfully and then shrugged. “You’re already in, so you might as well.”
He nodded and walked a few steps closer. “Thank you.”
“What for?” she asked suspiciously.
“For looking after Tallahassee here,” he replied.
“He’s your dog?” she asked.
Immediately he looked at her and shook his head. “No, but he was part of … a training unit that I worked with when I was in the navy.”
“Navy?” She frowned.
“I was part of a special unit that worked with dogs,” he added. “Tallahassee was one of them.”
“And how do you know his name? I’ve been calling him Fred.”
“Fred?” He shook his head, whistled, and called out, “Tallahassee, come.”
The dog immediately raced over and jumped up again.
At Rhys’s command, Tallahassee stopped jumping. Rhys turned toward her. “His name’s Tallahassee,” he repeated. “As you can see, he responds to it quite well.”
“Did you know he was here? Is that why you’ve come?” she asked suspiciously.
He immediately took a slow step back, as if realizing something in her world was flipping, and he understood that he was causing it.
She shook her head at the stranger’s retreat and his lack of an answer. “Why are you here?” she repeated, her heart in her throat at the thought of losing the dog. She could only take so many losses in life—although she’d been prepared to lose this dog if it didn’t work out for her, which was selfish on her part. She hadn’t in any way expected somebody else to show up with a prior claim. But, after what she’d seen, it was obvious this man definitely had a prior claim.
The man looked at her gently and said, “Before we discuss any of that, can you tell me if you’re okay?”
She looked at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“What I mean,” he stated, “is about whoever shot into your house. Did they hit anything? Are you hurt?”
She stared at him. “Shot?” Her voice was faint, her heart slamming against her chest.
The stranger’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded slowly. “You didn’t hear it?”
“I, … I did,” she confirmed, reaching a hand to her temple. She closed her eyes. “I just wasn’t sure if it was real or not.”
“You didn’t imagine it,” he declared, his voice harsh. “Somebody drove by and shot into your house multiple times.”
Chapter 2
Taylor didn’t even know what to say. Finally she gasped out, “Shots?”
He nodded. “He lifted a handgun, while I was parked across the street, and fired into the house. I’m not sure what he was firing or what his intentions were,” he noted calmly, studying her with a gaze that she found intensely unnerving. “But obviously something’s going on.”
“Maybe it was random,” she murmured. She felt that jump of hope at such a suggestion, but, even as soon as she mentioned it, she knew it was wrong. She gave a hard swallow and got up and bolted inside the house. He followed but stayed close to the front door. She stood in the living room. clenching her hands together.
“Do you want to tell me what kind of trouble you’re in?”
She immediately spun and looked at him. “Why are you here?” she asked bluntly.
He hesitated, then shrugged. “I came to check on Tallahassee,” he said.
Her gaze widened. “You came to check on the dog?”
He nodded. “It may sound ridiculous to you, but we do take these War Dogs seriously. They’ve given a lot of their lives to save others in military service,” he explained. “When the animals retire, we try hard to keep track of them and to ensure that they’re getting a decent home. This one slipped through the cracks, and somehow ended up in a situation where he came to you.”
She nodded. “Yes, at the shelter. I know somebody there, and they thought maybe I would be a good fit for the dog.”
“And are you?” he asked bluntly.
She stared at him. “A good fit for the dog’s one thing. However, like what I just saw, like how he was with you? That’s something I’ve never seen from Fred—Tallahassee—before,” she admitted. “So, if you are looking for those circumstances, then I can’t say that I am. Would I love to? Yes. Would I like to get more training? Yes. I did ask for that.”
“And we did hear that,” he confirmed. “But these dogs, although they’re not hard to look after, they do have some special needs. I looked up Tallahassee’s file, and, of course, he’s been through an awful lot of action. Has it bothered him?”
She stared at him. “Bothered him in what way?” she asked, her voice faint.
He shrugged. “What was he doing when the bullets hit the house?”
She shook her head. “I heard the bangs, but I didn’t hear anything hitting the house.”
His gaze narrowed. “I’ll be back.” And, with that, he stepped out the front door.
She sagged to the couch, wondering what had just happened to her world. It was bad enough what she thought she was going through. But to know that somebody had deliberately fired upon her house? That was beyond cruel. And that brought her thoughts all the way back around to who she knew most likely was behind it. And how much was that asshole behind it anyway?
