Rival Forces (3 page)

“The Citadel. Unconquerable.” Georgie couldn't tease her friend about that. Yard had fought too hard to gain and keep the respect of her male colleagues. Too bad. Every woman needed a man willing to storm her castle. “Screw Dr. Gunnar if he couldn't see what he was throwing away. Someone will come along who's worthy of you.”

Yardley smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “You're right. Some random guy will come along soon and I'll screw his brains out to take my mind off this.”

“No! You know that's not at all what I meant.” Georgie reached up and touched her friend's arm. “You deserve a man who can handle his business and be okay with you handling yours. Yet he'll be there, if you need him. Of course, he'll need an iron constitution and balls of steel. I've got it! I'll notify the cavalry, armored division.”

Yardley burst out laughing, feeling the sadness and doubts drift away as she raised her glass. “To the cavalry.”

After the toast Georgie looked around for something else to talk about and spied her gift under the tree. “We didn't open our presents. Open yours first.”

As Yardley reached for the brightly packaged box, something fell from the bottom. It was a red envelope with sticker wreaths decorating it. She picked it up.

“A card, too?” She faked surprise. “Oh, you shouldn't have.”

Georgie smiled. “I didn't. It was on the doorstep when I arrived earlier. I forgot to tell you. Maybe you have a secret admirer.”

When she opened it, Yardley's mouth turned down. “Not exactly an admirer.”

“What is it, Yard?”

Yardley hesitated, then offered it. “See for yourself.”

Georgie gasped softly. It was a cover from a porno magazine featuring bondage. The disturbing graphic picture was of a nude woman tied up in very painful ways. A photo of Yardley's head had been Photoshopped over the model's and her eyes blacked out. “That's disgusting. What are you going to do?”

“What I usually do.” Yardley took it from Georgie and tossed it toward the flames in the fireplace.

“Wait.” Georgie jumped up and snatched it out. “You might need this. As evidence.”

The image had shaken her, but Yardley stuffed down that feeling. “Your FBI boyfriend is rubbing off on you. I don't jump at every insult lobbed my way.”

“Have there have been others?”

“About once a year someone thinks it will make them feel better to threaten me with retaliation for my decision not to pass them as certified handlers.”

“And you get this?” Georgie held it up with two fingers.

Disgust shuddered through her. “No. Nothing like that.”

“You need to tell the authorities.”

“Where would I start? My clientele comes from around the world.”

“But this was delivered today. Without a stamp. This guy's local.”

Yardley rolled her eyes. “I hate having smart friends.”

“I hate it even worse when my smart friend doesn't act like one.”

“There's no one local I have a beef with. We did have to scrub a Georgia police officer trainee a few weeks back after he deliberately set his dog on another student.”

“Sounds like the kind of guy who'd do this.”

“Maybe. But I can't accuse anyone without proof.”

“Still, you should notify the sheriff. When will your staff be back?”

“First thing Monday morning.”

“That leaves you alone tomorrow and Sunday.” Georgiana reached for her phone. “I'll ask Brad to come out here when he gets off in the morning.”

“No. Don't!” Yardley wrapped her fingers around her friend's phone to prevent her from texting. “I won't be responsible for ruining your getaway. I'll call the sheriff in the morning. Okay?”

Georgie glanced at the front door. “It's not safe to be alone. Promise me Oleg will sleep in your room from now on.”

“Done deal.” Yardley felt suddenly teary for no good reason she could think of. Then she did something totally out of character. She reached out and hugged her friend, hard. “Thank you for caring. Now can I open my real gift?”

*   *   *

It was nearly eight a.m. but the sun had yet to climb the dark summit of hills to the east. At the moment the frigid gray sky was clear of the thunderstorms that were predicted to precede even colder weather by nightfall.

Yardley adjusted the headband covering her ears to shut out the wind swooping down the shoulders of the nearby mountains. The pink crocheted headband was part of her Christmas gift from Georgie. Otherwise she wouldn't have been seen dead in it. She suspected it was a gag gift because the box had also contained another gift, a beautiful sterling-silver heart necklace with a paw pendant.

She and Oleg had been for a brisk jog. They were still getting to know each other. But now, in the deep shadows on the side of the road, she felt the nagging fatigue of too much champagne and too little sleep. She paused and reached for the cell phone in her pocket.

Her heartbeat quickened as she stared at the blank screen. Only one person had the number. For the past three months, six days, and innumerable miserable hours, she'd carried it with her, as if it were as necessary to her heartbeat as a pacemaker.

She squeezed the phone until the pressure equaled the tightness around her heart. She hadn't expected to fall for David. Hadn't wanted a real entanglement. That's why she'd been so slow to recognize what was happening.

The last time they'd met, in late September, he'd been moody, worried even. He wouldn't say why. But as they were parting at the airport in Antigua, he'd suddenly asked her about the future. Their future. Did she think they could have one? If so, would she be willing to drop everything and just come with him on a moment's notice? No questions asked.

Coward.
She stared at the empty screen as if it had voiced that accusation.

She'd choked. Too afraid to say yes to anything bordering on commitment, she'd told him she needed to think about it. So he'd nodded, kissed her a little too hard, and then boarded his flight. She hadn't heard a word from him since.

Opposing emotions Ping-Ponged through her thoughts. For three months she'd worried that something bad was keeping David from her. She'd even called her half brother Law to get his advice, which was embarrassing to think about now. At this point, she realized that kind of worry had no basis in fact. Maybe the truth was that her fear of him being in trouble was easier to accept than the fact that she'd ruined her chances with David because she couldn't commit.

She felt something splash her cheek. Crap. She pushed the offending moisture away with the heel of her hand. She never cried. Ever. Certainly not over a man who had dumped her without so much as a good-bye. Her father would be ashamed of her.

That thought pushed even Dr. David Gunnar from her mind.

Being the daughter of the late Bronson Battise, one of the most famous trainers of military and police K-9s in the United States, had its perks. And drawbacks. The biggest one being that she'd been born female. Battise didn't think women were equal in any way to men. Harmonie Kennels wasn't meant to be hers.

Well, she had it, even if it was by default. Her half brother Law, whom she'd known only slightly at the time, had refused his father's legacy. He'd signed over the hundred pastoral and wooded acres bordering the Blue Ridge Mountains to her and walked away.

Even so, she'd fought harder than anyone would ever know to be worthy of this legacy. But it was a burden, too. This place, these acres, the business was an all-consuming life. Her trainers got to go home for the holidays to families and friends, parties and traditions. Harmonie Kennels was all she had in the world.

Don't feel sorry for yourself, Yard.

Too bad if she wanted more. She knew what it was to have so much less. Maybe wanting to be loved was asking for too much.

So she'd screwed up. She wasn't one of those women who needed a man to feel complete. She wasn't like Georgiana. She'd never known what it felt like to be so in love her brain stopped working because her feelings had taken control.

Liar.
She felt her face catch fire as her conscience called bullshit. She had been in love once before.
Kye McGarren.

Yardley did a mental head shake. Where had that thought come from? She must be more shook up than she thought. McGarren was her first romantic failure.

She wasn't good with people. She was good at being a boss. Everyone looked to her to be strong, make the hard decisions, make it work. She was respected and admired. The only ones who gazed at her with unguarded love and appreciation were her K-9s.

At the moment, Oleg was rotating his head back and forth between her and the road ahead, as if he needed to keep an eye on both. Unlike most of her K-9s, he preferred to keep his distance from his handler. He'd been bred for protection. His job, safety of the pack. She supposed they were a lot alike.

She reached out to brush a hand over Oleg's tall ears. That brought his attention back to her. In his gaze, which she knew better than to hold long, she saw that he accepted her as his alpha. But he didn't adore her, as every other dog she worked with did. “You're my male challenge of the moment, are you, big fella?”

Or maybe she was losing her touch.

Suddenly she was angrier than she could ever recall being. She hauled back and put everything she had into the toss that sent her phone arcing into the undergrowth on the hillside. On Monday she'd get a new phone with a new number. And go back to her life.

“Screw love!” And screw Kye McGarren, wherever he might be, and the memories of a time when she'd wanted more.

 

CHAPTER THREE

Kye swallowed the last of his extra-large Styrofoam cup of coffee. It was lukewarm, revealing the oily dregs from a convenience store pot that needed cleaning. The liquid hit his stomach and spread acid burn like napalm. Even so, he regretted that it was his last gulp. After a final working day on the slopes, he'd spent New Year's Eve on a red-eye flight from Salt Lake City to Washington, D.C.

Being a big man, flying coach middle seat wasn't his favorite way to travel. But he really couldn't have asked the six-year-old at the window to change with him. Not when she'd been face-glued to the miracle of darkness outside and offering a running monologue about its “awesomeness.” On the other side of him the girl's mother, with a three-month-old in her arms, needed the aisle. Lily, down in luggage, had more room in her crate.

No worries. He'd plugged in his headphones, turned up the volume, and tried to forget that he was wedged in like tuna in a sardine can.

All in all, an IV drip of Red Bull would be welcome about now.

Kye glanced over at Lily, who occupied the kennel beside him on the seat of the rental car. He reached between the bars with his fingers and scratched her snout. “I know this isn't our usual assignment. It's more Lucy and Ricky Ricardo than search and rescue. Your job. Be charming. I'll be comic relief. Oh, and don't get eaten by the locals.” The kennel would be full of alpha K-9s happy to assert their authority. “Think you can do that?”

Lily gave a series of high-pitched yips between finger licks, her thick tail beating the bars because it wasn't free to wag.

“That's my girl.”

He could do this. Get in good with Yardley Summers. Absolutely.

He was known as something of a goofball among his friends. The big guy with a decent face, he'd often been the target for a certain kind of male who seeks to prove his manhood by taking on the biggest alpha in the room. He was good in fights though he didn't like them, especially stupid pointless ones. In defense, he'd learned to use his sense of humor to defuse those moments.

If Yard didn't know what to make of him, he might get in the door before she blew up.

As he turned onto the gravel drive that led to Harmonie Kennels, he noticed the entry gates to the property stood wide open. The most innocent explanation was that Yard was up and out. But after the global up-all-night-to-have-fun celebration of New Year's Eve, who didn't sleep through the first half of the first day of the new year? Or at least until bowl games began?

He drove on through, checking for signs of life. There were no vehicles parked by the barracks where handlers stayed when they came to train. The only two vehicles he saw were parked close in, near the two-story farmhouse with a wide porch front. One was a well-used Jeep Wrangler. The other a Mazda Miata. Maybe Yard owned both vehicles. Or had she been celebrating the new year with company, after all?

“Aw damn.” Maybe her missing doc had made a house call last night in his lame-ass Mazda.

Kye rolled his eyes. If he had flown all this way, in the wrong direction, only to barge in on a love nest, he was going to take it out of Law's hide.

He came to a stop quietly, watching the front of the house for signs of life. No lights on the first floor. Windows were shuttered or draperies closed. The second floor was the same. What now? Knock on the door? Call Law?

The image of a woman and dog coming up the drive appeared in his rearview mirror. She wore a Gore-Tex jacket and leggings, black with flashes of deep pink along the seams, and a matching pink headband with a bow. Pink bow? Yardley?

He sat still, pretending he didn't see her. No point in giving her the advantage of recognizing him from afar. He wanted her in close so he could judge her initial reaction to him.
Shock and awe, baby.

He had forgotten how tall she was, five foot ten with long, lean legs that moved in an easy stride. A flash of memory of those legs wrapped around his waist surprised him. He shoved it aside.

Her hair was in a loose ponytail, unraveling in the wind behind her. He'd only seen it completely free once before. The memory sent the sensation of hair the color of Cherry Coke spilling over his bare shoulders. He shoved that one away, too.