by Traci Hall
And wasn’t I busted for shoplifting granola bars? She reburied the painful memory. “These dogs are trained to help people. They perform special duties for their owners. Did you want one for your mom?”
“No. She’s still in the hospital.” Matthew ran a black-gloved hand through Romeo’s fur and stuck out his lower lip. “It’s my uncle’s birthday.”
Counting back, Emma realized that Livvie had been in the hospital at least a week, if not longer. These days, that meant something serious. Emma splayed her fingers in the soft fur of Romeo’s neck. Jackson had joined the military right after graduation, so they hadn’t celebrated his nineteenth birthday together. Matthew’s sadness seemed tinged with fear.
“Uncle Jackson doesn’t sleep. He was in Afghanistan.” A single tear escaped Matthew’s eye. “You said that you train dogs to help with nightmares. My uncle wakes up thinking he’s under attack.” Matthew pet Romeo in quick, urgent strokes, his expression pleading as he finally met her waiting gaze. “Do you have a dog that can stop them? Can you help?”
Emma’s eyes welled, but she tamped down her emotions. Livvie in the hospital and Jackson with PTSD? She wanted to help, but how? “Matthew, I am so sorry about your uncle, and your mom. But you can’t steal an animal. It’s wrong, no matter how good your intention is.”
“I’ve got money.” He pulled a wadded twenty-dollar bill from his camouflage pants’ pocket. “I was going to put it in the kennel. Your brochure said that you accept donations.”
Not a thief—completely.
She had a standard spiel she gave the schools, but the program required personal training. “I help the owner choose the right dog for them. As I recall, your uncle didn’t seem interested in a dog.” Not even if it was free.
“I have to do it,” Matthew mumbled. “He says nothing is wrong, but I hear him yelling—every night.”
Emma had to call Jackson. It was the right thing to do. No matter how much she didn’t want to make that phone call, it had to be done. Maybe if Jackson understood that his nephew was concerned, he’d see that there was help available—but her hands were tied. And given their history, he might not want to accept anything from her, anyway. “That isn’t how the program works.”
Matthew sat cross-legged, his back against Romeo’s metal crate, Romeo by his side. “If I give him a dog as a present, he can’t say no. You can’t return a birthday gift.”
Not an option. “Can we call your mom?” Surely Livvie would remember her despite the passage of time.
He shook his head without meeting her eyes. “She’s in a coma. The hospital says kids can’t be in the ICU. I just want her to come home—we watch Wheel of Fortune and she always guesses the word.”
Could things be any worse for this kid? Was Livvie’s accident the reason Jackson was back in Kingston?
Emma put her hand on his arm. “Matthew, let’s call your uncle. Where is he?” She didn’t know where Livvie lived, but she assumed that Jackson was staying at their house. For how long?
Matthew shot upward, his small body tense. “No!” Romeo’s alert expression swiveled from her to Matty and back.
Emma reached for him as he edged away from the crate ready to make a run for it.
“Don’t do it, Matthew.” Desperate to think of a way to make him stay, she said, “If you run, I’ll be forced to call the police instead of your uncle.”
His stubborn chin jerked upward. “I’d rather go to jail. Uncle Jackson is going to kill me.”
…
Jackson was in his sister’s garage working on a kinked bicycle chain when the old green phone hanging on the wall rang.
He wiped his hands on a towel. Could be Livvie’s doctors, or the insurance company who seemed to think they knew better than the doctor what care his sister needed, the bureaucratic jerks. He’d had to jump through hoops to get basic medications approved.
He picked up the receiver. “Hardy residence.”
“Is this Jackson Hardy?” asked the voice of a young-sounding woman.
“Sure is.” Dogs barked in the background. His neck tingled and his body tensed. The way she said his name reminded him of Em. His old girlfriend had been on his mind ever since setting foot in Kingston…well, before then, if you counted his dreams.
“This is Emma Mercer. I have Matthew here with me.”
Jackson sat up as if pulled by a string. Emma—his Emma—had Matty? The kid was supposed to be in the house completing a book report. At eleven, Matthew insisted he didn’t need to be attached to Jackson’s side. But what did he know about kids?
Stretching the cord so that he could see through the garage window to the back door of Livvie’s house, he scanned the yard for Matty. The small deck, the table and chairs, the green lawn. No Matty.
He sank his hip against the old plywood countertop. Emma Mercer? He’d imagined her in some big city, working as a doctor or an attorney. She’d been so focused on higher education and giving back. “Is he okay? Give me the address—I can leave right now.”
“Don’t rush. We’re at Heart to Heart Dog Kennel.” She rattled off an address not too far down the road. Emma paused, the phone muffled as if she was listening to someone, possibly Matty, before getting back on the line. “We can talk when you get here. We’ll be in the yard.”
Jackson’s gut told him Matthew wasn’t in danger, which meant his nephew had disobeyed. A dog kennel? He hated to be too strict, because he didn’t know Livvie’s style of parenting. He knew the military, where you did as you were told or faced NJP, or worse. The Marines referred to non-judicial punishment as being ninja punched, as it could be the officer’s choice of reprimand.
Jackson stripped off his coveralls, grabbed the keys to his borrowed motorcycle, and locked the garage. His old high school buddy now owned the auto shop they used to work at, and he’d set Jackson up with loaner vehicles for as long as Jackson needed them.
Within five minutes he was driving down a gravel road. Washington pines lined the strip on either side, creating natural shade against the summer sun. He went slow enough to hear the buzz of the beetles and smell freshly mown grass from the quarter acre of lawn to his right as the line of trees ended.
The dirt lane led directly to a rambling house where a faded silver SUV was parked. A chain link fence surrounded the large yard and enclosed a single-story garage—the same pale yellow as the rancher. It hadn’t changed a bit. The only thing different was the light blue sign with black paws painted around the edges below the garage’s three ventilation windows reading: Heart to Heart Dog Kennel.
Eight dogs raced around the yard, ranging in size from a tiny yipper with designer fur to a giant wolfhound. Jackson parked his cycle next to the SUV as a woman left the garage with her hand on Matty’s shoulder.
It clicked into place, the feeling at the auditorium. Emma had been the dog trainer from the school. He hadn’t paid much attention to her at the time, too worried that Matty might fail English.
His belly knotted as the reality of Emma rocked the dream version aside. Thick auburn hair that used to fall over his face when she’d lean down to kiss him, freckles dusting her nose. Her lean physique had filled into just-right curves in her knee-length khaki shorts.
His gaze dropped to his nephew, who bravely lifted his face toward Jackson.
God, the kid looked so much like Livvie it hurt, and the reason he’d come back to Kingston rushed over him. Why was he dressed in camo? Matthew’s dark brown hair waved past his ears. He needed a haircut already—Jackson added it to his mental to-do list.
He walked to the fence, his stomach tight. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Emma smiled in cautious greeting. “How have you been, Jackson?”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets. Would she tell him to take Matty and get off her property? They hadn’t parted on the best of terms, and he swallowed as he remembered the tears in her eyes as they’d sat on their driftwood log overlooking the bay. He’d broken up with her for her own good—knowing that if
they stayed together, neither one of them would have left Kingston.
And now, here they both were.
She watched him warily.
“Things could be better,” he said. “You remember Livvie?”
Emma’s chin hiked as if he’d insulted her. She’d been in foster care for a brief time before coming to live with her great aunt, and she knew that his parents had been killed in a mudslide off Snoqualmie Pass. Secrets they’d shared with nobody else their senior year in high school.
“I remember your sister.”
Matty watched him and Emma. “You guys know each other?”
Before Emma could call him out in front of Matty, Jackson said, “It was a long time ago.” He faced Emma. “I’m home on leave with Matty until Livvie gets out of the hospital.”
Compassion flickered across her face. “I’m really sorry.”
His eyes burned, and he turned away from her toward his nephew, on the other side of the fence with Emma and the dogs.
She opened the gate and let Jackson into the yard, her posture guarded. She didn’t offer her hand, and a hug would have been awkward. He looked at Matty. “What’s going on?”
Matthew’s face flushed, and he shifted from one sneaker to the next. “Uncle Jackson—”
“We’ve invited you here to pick out your birthday present,” Emma interjected, her hand resting between Matthew’s narrow shoulder blades.
Matthew seemed to get a burst of hope as he looked up at Emma.
As Jackson assimilated what Emma had said, he knew he had to draw the line. Livvie was not into pets, never had been. The last thing she’d need if—no, when—she came home from the hospital would be another responsibility.
Matty had been on him about a dog ever since school got out, and he figured the kid was trying to pull a fast one. “Matty, we talked about this yesterday. You are not getting a dog.”
Chapter Three
Emma watched Jackson tuck his hands into the pockets of his classic button-up Levi’s, the denim following the muscles along his lean thighs, riding low on his unbelted hips. To avoid shaking hers in greeting? The snub hurt. They used to be so close, but as he’d just told Matty, that was a long time ago.
His black T-shirt was plain, his short light brown hair buzzed military style, his piercing green eyes softened by concern for his nephew.
“Emma has special dogs.” Matthew glanced at Romeo, lying down behind her. “They help with stuff.”
Jackson pulled sunglasses from his T-shirt pocket. “Stuff. You have to be specific with your word choices if you want me to understand.”
“War stuff.” Matthew studied the grass below his feet. Princess, a pretty Maltese with a pink bow, raced after the wire-haired terrier three times her size. Pedro’s tongue waggled as he circled the chain-link-fenced yard.
Jackson’s expression clouded. “I’m fine. We are fine.” He fixed his eyes on Emma and settled the black sunglasses on his head. “Sorry he wasted your time, Em, but we’ll be going.”
Emma stepped forward, catching Matthew by the shoulder so he wouldn’t leave. “It’s no problem, really. I can help—”
But he had turned, giving her his broad back, the T-shirt stretched tight across his muscles.
Matthew’s lower lip jutted out in a pout as he asked Jackson, “Will you just listen?”
“No. Dogs.” Jackson looked at him as if he might be hard of hearing. “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.” He pulled his hands free from his pockets, walking to where Matthew stood, head bowed. Jackson ruffled Matthew’s shaggy brown hair. “Right? I’m here only until Livvie gets better.”
The dogs she trained didn’t require a stable home life. Sometimes the dog was simply on loan for a short time until the need for the service animal was over. She knew he was in the military but not what branch. “On leave from where?”
“Marines.”
Matthew had said Afghanistan. What had Jackson seen? She cleared her throat. “Are you staying here in Kingston?”
“Yes.”
She realized that he was putting up a shield against her. Clipped and polite tones, not really looking at her. Fair or not, it made her angry. “Not far from here?”
“No.”
Well, no wonder Matthew was at his wit’s end. Talking to Jackson was like scraping the last of the peanut butter out of the jar with your finger.
“The dog doesn’t need to be permanent,” she said.
“No dog.” Jackson looked at her with impatience.
Emma realized there was a lot going on here that she didn’t understand or know about. However, if Jackson was indeed suffering from PTSD, then one of her dogs could help. Even on a temporary basis, if the man would just give her a chance to explain. He’d always been stubborn once he got an idea in his head.
Jackson scuffed his black motorcycle boot against the green lawn. “Matty. I’m trying, here.”
Matthew curled his hand into a fist, his cheeks rosy with anger. “I am too. You won’t listen!”
Jackson put his back to Emma, so he was facing Matthew. “I’m listening.”
Inhaling, Matthew studied his uncle as if to make sure. Unclenched his hand. “Emma trains dogs to help with bad dreams. I know that you are here only because Mom is in the hospital, but we are family, Uncle Jackson. Mom would want you to get better.”
“She’ll be home soon.” Jackson scowled.
“It’s been almost three weeks and she’s still not awake,” Matty said, his voice hitching.
“I know she’s in a coma, but what happened?” Emma looked from one Hardy to the other. It had to have been catastrophic.
“A very bad car accident.” Jackson answered her with contained anguish in each syllable, then turned his gaze on Matthew. “The doctor said this is best for her right now, and we need to stay positive. Your mom will come home.”
Rocked by this news, Emma looked out to the yard and her dogs. Romeo, the lover of the group, now cuddled with Lulu the beagle. Bandit, her retriever-shepherd mix, panted in the shade of a cherry tree with Sweetie, the golden Chihuahua, curled up next to him. Cinnamon the Pomeranian chased butterflies beneath the lilac bushes while Princess and Pedro did another lap around the yard. Zelda had found a forever home without completing the training. She returned to Matty and Jackson, feeling their pain in an awful situation.
These two could use the unconditional love her animals offered, even on loan. She’d get Jackson aside to ask about Livvie and to see what she could do.
“I’m sure they’re real special.” Jackson touched the wide gap of skin between the end of Matthew’s shirt sleeve and his wrist. “And real expensive.”
“I can help pay,” Matthew insisted.
“How, Matthew? I don’t think paper routes even exist anymore. And I can tell you right now that not getting your book report finished today will cost you.”
Matthew’s chin trembled. “The dog isn’t for me. It’s for you.”
“Stubborn kid.” He scratched at the light stubble along his jaw as if just now realizing what Matthew had on. “Is that an old Halloween costume?”
Emma cleared her throat, hoping Matthew would get the hint. He didn’t have to confess to breaking into her kennel.
“I was going to bring you a dog home as a surprise.” He pulled the crumpled twenty-dollar bill free from his pocket.
“Did you take that from your piggy bank?” Jackson’s voice was calm, but Emma noticed the way his jaw clenched.
“Yeah,” Matthew said. “You gave it to me for taking out the garbage all week.”
“I told you to keep that money for something special.” He put his arms behind his back, triceps flexing.
“Your birthday is special.”
“No way is twenty bucks enough for this kind of dog, which you had to know, considering all the research you put into it.” Jackson grimaced. “Did Emma know you were coming?”
Oh, no. Emma skirted around Jackson to stand next to Matthew. “I thi
nk I have a solution that might fit everybody.”
“I’m not sure I want to hear it.” Jackson folded his arms over his broad chest. “Seems to me that Matthew was planning on helping himself to a dog without your permission. Is that correct?”
Emma wished she could ease the situation. She understood there were reasons for boundaries and laws—she just felt there was a lot of room for gray in all the black and white of the world. Thankfully, her great aunt Pepita had believed the same.
“Yes, sir.” Matthew swallowed and bravely met his uncle’s gaze. “I was going to leave my money in the kennel.”
Jackson’s demeanor remained unyielding. “You could have left a million dollars and it would still be stealing—taking something without permission.”
“But—”
Emma coughed into her fist. “We were in the process of working out a deal when we called you.”
“What deal?” Jackson shifted toward her, drawing Romeo’s attention. Her retriever-mutt mix sat up with a chuffing noise, his head under her right hand.
“A trade.” Emma took the offered affection and returned it with a scratch behind the ears. “I know a lot about post-traumatic stress disorder,” she told Jackson.
“So?” He kept his expression neutral, his arms still crossed—shutting her out.
She swallowed. “PTSD.”
Jackson scrubbed his palm over the top bristles of his hair. “That’s a catchphrase used by two-bit shrinks who don’t know what else to do.”
“That is not exactly true. There have been many studies done—programs to help war veterans.” Two-bit shrink?
“What does that mean?” Matthew asked, looking from her to Jackson.
“Two-bits. Means a quarter. Twenty-five cents.” He didn’t stop looking at her as he explained that he felt the advice that came from therapists was worth only a quarter. “And with most of them, even that is too much,” he concluded.
“Hey!” Emma said. Lulu leaned against her left calf to stare up at Jackson with dark brown beagle eyes. “I have my master’s in psychology, and I am close to finishing my doctorate.”