Rival Forces (2 page)

“Check up on Yardley Summers, my half sister.”

The answer made the hair on Kye's arms stiffen. “You screwing with me? Yard's your sister?”

“You know her?”

Kye's turn to pause. Everyone in U.S. K-9 law enforcement knew Yardley Summers as one of the top K-9 trainers in the country. He just wasn't prepared to admit exactly how well he'd once known her. But considering her brother's request, he didn't seem to have a choice.

“Your sister and I have a history.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Your sister and I have a history that's none of your goddamn business.”

“Then it's not relevant.”

Law was letting him off the hook. Kye wasn't sure he should be grateful. Law must have a hell of a job for him. “What's this about?”

“Yard's been seeing this guy for over a year but I only know the bare bones about him. His name is Dr. David Gunnar. He's with Doctors Without Borders. I wouldn't know that much except that he's disappeared, and Yard's convinced he's in some kind of trouble. She called me only because she's gotten nowhere through her usual contacts. My gut tells me if they won't help, something's not right.”

“Right.” Though they hadn't been in touch in years, Kye knew enough about Yardley's reputation to know her “contacts” included all levels of law enforcement up to and including the FBI. Even so. “Relationship issues sound like a job for big brother.”

“It will be if I find out he simply walked out on her. Right now I've got a situation here I can't get away from. Meanwhile, I need to know Yard's not going to go off on her own until I can find out what the deal is with the guy she thinks she wants to marry.”

Marry.
Kye would pay money to meet the man who thought he could handle Yardley Summers.
Wait.
That's what Law was offering him a chance to do, for free. He was now too curious to hang up.

“I can't get away until late tomorrow.”

“That'll work. You'll find her at Harmonie Kennels. Keep her there.”

“You're talking about Yard. She'll be doing pretty much what she wants.”

With the conversation over, Kye leaned back on his pillows and settled Lily on his chest. She poked her nose into his right armpit and settled in while he lay there thinking.

Yardley Summers. He hadn't allowed himself to dwell on thoughts of her in a dozen years. Sure, she popped up on his radar from time to time. But he'd avoided running into her. Because, hell, he supposed one never forgot a first love.

Kye sighed. He'd never in his life tangled with a woman the way he had with her. Young and beautiful, she had a way with dogs that bordered on spooky. She was also stubborn, defiant, and suspicious of everyone's motives. She had good reasons. That didn't keep him from falling for her harder and faster than anyone with a fully functional brain should.

For most guys first love happened early, at fifteen or sixteen, when they were 90 percent dick and 10 percent reason. He'd been twenty-four. Even so, meeting Yardley had been all about a sudden unexpected heat and wonder that had knocked him sideways.

Kye blew out a breath, feeling the heat of a long-ago craving race across his skin. The memory of Yard's volatile black eyes and feel of her rare dark-red hair sliding through his fingers as their lips clung together still stung like a scorpion.

For about a minute he'd thought he would be her hero, her knight in shining armor. Then reality landed on him like jackboots. At that point in his life, all he'd had was the army and a dog. He wasn't in a position to jeopardize either.

“Shit.”

Lily lifted her head and began licking his chin, an indication that she was reading the uptick in pheromones caused by his thoughts. He pulled his dog in more closely to reassure her he was okay.

There was no reason for him to feel sorry for Yard. She'd gotten her happily-ever-after. Her father, the old bastard, had left her Harmonie Kennels—despite what he'd threatened.

Time to put what might have been away. But the deep stirring caused by Law's call continued to swirl in his gut.

He rubbed his sleep-gritted eyes, regretting the lost dream of roasted pig. He should have said no to Law. In fact, he still could. His ticket to Hawaii was practically doing a hula on the bedside table. His mouth began to water with possibilities of
kalua pua‘a.
He would text Law. Say
Sorry, bro, my homeland calls.

But he wasn't going to. He wasn't an immature hothead rushing headlong to the rescue this time. He was a man with hard times and years of experience behind him. Yard was in trouble. So what if the very idea had those rusty trumpets in his head inconveniently blaring to life? He just hoped they weren't playing taps for his peace of mind.

 

CHAPTER TWO

“I see a head.” Taggart, Harmonie Kennels' senior trainer, sounded like a boy on Christmas Eve. “Here we go again!”

“Easy, girl. You're doing fine.” Yardley Summers leaned over the prone body of Loba, a black German shepherd. She gently stroked the thick brindled fur of the bitch in labor, evaluating the contractions through her skin. With five pups already delivered in her first litter, Loba was doing amazingly well.

Panting a little, Loba lifted her head to look back at where the action was going on. A wet glassy-looking knob of a dark head appeared behind her hind legs.

“Are you getting this? Be sure you're getting all of this.”

“I'm trying, Yard. But you're blocking the shots.” Georgiana Flynn leaned in over her friend's shoulder to get a better angle for her camera. “This isn't my usual fare, you know. Oh, look! It's another boy!”

Yardley didn't spare her friend a glance. Instead she watched intently as Loba nudged the pup out of its membrane and then began licking it vigorously.

“Don't let her hurt it,” Georgie said from behind her lens, never stopping the shots that made her camera whir softly.

“She's doing her job,” Taggart assured her. “Making the puppy breathe.”

“If you say so.” Georgie sounded less enthusiastic. That was because Loba was eating the embryonic sac.

Soon, the final puppy—six in all—was placed in a quilt-lined basket covering two hot-water bottles. Yardley bent over and kissed Loba on her dark snout. “Good girl. You're a real trouper, Mama. Your babies are beautiful. So proud of you.”

Loba made a nasal sound and licked Yardley's face.

“
Oooh.
Ick!” Georgie commented behind her camera.

Laughing, Yardley stood up and stretched. “Miracle of life, Georgie, in all its messy glory.”

When she had cleaned her hands, Yard reached automatically to check her cell phone. A shadow sailed across her expression as she realized she hadn't kicked the habit. She shoved her thoughts another way, to her penchant for meticulous record keeping. Dates and numbers came easily to her.

“That's six pups delivered in five hours and forty-nine minutes. Put that in the records, Taggart.”

“You got it, boss.” Doug Taggart was a dozen years older than her, having worked first for her father. But he had always treated her with respect, calling her boss even when he didn't need to.

She equaled his five-foot ten-inch frame. But Taggart was build like a Hummer, short legs balancing a massive chassis that made her seem willowy in comparison as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in identical gear of charcoal-gray cargo pants, long-sleeved polos, and windbreakers with the kennel name embroidered on the back.

Sensing that her ordeal was over, Loba rose and moved to nose about in the wiggly pile of her pups. They were climbing over one another and rooting around in the basket lining, making mewling noises.

Georgie moved in slowly to catch the mother-and-pups moment. “That's amazing. Newborn puppies sound just like newborn humans?”

“Even after seeing dozens of litters being born, it never gets old.” Taggart picked up the basket of pups. “I've got it from here, ladies. Happy New Year.”

Half an hour and a nearly empty bottle of champagne later, the two friends were huddled together on a pile of quilts before the wood-burning fireplace in the century-old farmhouse Yardley called home. “Here's the new headshot for your website.” Georgie held up her tablet, into which she'd downloaded her photos.

Yardley took one look at the photo of her sweaty face and goofy smile and feigned horror. “Oh no! Delete it now.”

“Not so fast.” Georgie jerked her tablet out of Yardley's grasp. “Let's see. What do I want in return for not releasing this photo?” She pretended to search her mind. “
Hm.
For now, I'll take the rest of the champagne.”

“Oh no, you don't.” Yardley grabbed the bottle out from under Georgie's reach. “You met Brad because of me. That's got to have earned me a break.”

“Won't argue that.” The expression on Georgie's face said it all. She was absolutely in love with sexy FBI operative Brad Lawson. Even if their affair had begun with Georgie at the center of an FBI bomb investigation after Brad's explosives-sniffing K-9, Zander, had implicated her. Now,
that
was attraction.

Yardley tried to hide a twinge of jealousy as she filled her own glass. “How is your hunk of wonderfulness?”

“Good, when last seen.” She made a motion for the champagne bottle. “He and Zander had full holiday bomb-squad duty in D.C. But he's off for ten days beginning tomorrow. He's been very mysterious about a trip he's planned for us. It better be somewhere tropical. All I've packed are bikinis, sarongs, and fifty-plus sunscreen.” The freckled redhead waggled the empty bottle before Yardley's nose. “The question is, why are you alone?”

“More bubbly coming up.” Yardley popped up and headed for the kitchen before she could be interrogated further.

When she reached the privacy of the kitchen, she took a deep breath, waiting for the anxiety to subside. She knew her sense of trouble brewing was bogus. She now knew the answer to why her phone would never again ring.

“Crap.” She grabbed a chilled bottle and hurried back to join Georgie. She wasn't going to let anything spoil this rare girlfriend sleepover.

“Tell me about your most recent shoot.” Yardley sat and handed over the bottle. “Anyone interesting?”

Georgie made a face. “Just A-list celebrities. The worst. Now you answer my question.” She loosened the wire holding the cork. “Why are you alone on New Year's Eve?”

“I'm not alone. There's you. And him.” Yardley pointed to the large metal kennel at the opposite end of the long room.

Her simple action was enough to alert the inhabitant. A midsized dog with a thick yellowish-gray coat, pointed snout, erect ears, and the white face mask of a wolf stood up and growled softly.

“That's my exchange student Oleg. He's a Czech wolfdog.”

“Wow. I didn't even know he was there. Why didn't he bark when we came in? Is he shy?”

“Far from it. He simply doesn't like to give his location away.”

Champagne abandoned, Georgie grabbed the camera that was always nearby and moved closer. “Look at those slanted yellow eyes. It's kind of unnerving how he seems to be sizing me up. Oh, but he's gorgeous.”

“And deadly.” Yardley smiled, always in her element when talking about K-9s.

“Silent and deadly?” Georgie's green eyes appeared above the top of her camera. “Are you training K-9 black ops?”

“Classified.” The security firm that had imported him wanted Oleg evaluated, but she was to keep her work and his skill set confidential.

Georgie came back to her place and set her camera down. “So, about your guy. You haven't mentioned him once.”

Yardley's mouth turned down. The
journalist
side of Georgie's photojournalist personality was tenacious. “That's because there's nothing to say. It was momentary madness. I'm over it.”

“You don't sound like you're over it.”

“That's because I don't like to lose. He ghosted me. And I don't know why.” Yardley heard the irritation level in her tone and reined it in. “Sorry. You know I don't do emotional intimacy well.”

Georgie nodded. “You're a private person. I respect that. But even if I never met him, I know David meant something to you. If only because you never told me about the other men you've dated.”

Yardley reached for the champagne. “There haven't been that many. And none of them were serious.”

“Until your doctor. You lit up like a Christmas tree when you told me about him.”

“My mistake.” Yardley bit her lip. She wouldn't, couldn't admit what she'd done when she'd still hoped that David wanted her. Georgie would think she was losing her shit. “It just hurt that he ghosted me without even a text good-bye.”

“Then he's an asshole. Forget him. You can so do better.”

Yardley smiled in gratitude for her best friend's support. “You're right. Whatever David and I had wasn't real. Not like you and Brad.”

She felt Georgie's inspection of her increase. “Don't you want what we have?”

Yardley hesitated. She'd said too much. But she couldn't, this once, keep from voicing the question that had haunted her for her whole life. “What if there's no one out there for me? What if I'm not the type of woman a man can love?”

Georgie chuckled. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? The men who come through Harmonie Kennels on a daily basis trip on their tongues when they catch sight of you. You could have your pick of sexy alpha males.”

Yardley shook her head. “I can't be all sexy come-on with a man one minute and the next expect him to appreciate me chewing his ass in public for a mistake on the training field.” She shrugged. “Besides, you know what the K-9 handlers call me.”