by D. D. Ayres
Shay breathed in again, slower and steadier.
Today was Saturday. She’d have to go back to work on Monday. She couldn’t afford to lose her position in a job market that wasn’t exactly overflowing with prospects.
Get your act together, Shayla Lynn Appleton.
Shay exhaled, longer and easier this time. She could feel her heart begin to slow. She was going to be fine. She just needed to believe it. Or fake it until she could make it a reality.
A sharp, high-pitched bark made her open her eyes.
Prince had come into the kitchen and was watching her from the threshold.
As she walked over to him, his tail began wagging. Then his head swung toward the front door, head cocked as if to listen.
Shay’s heart skipped as she followed his gaze. Then she spied his leash hanging by the door. “Oh, you’re just trying to remind me it’s time for our morning walk.”
Prince shot forward with a yelp of excitement.
“Good boy.”
It was clear that her pet was better trained than she was. He was trying his best to show her what he needed, but she still often misunderstood. Yet he’d acted without her direction last night, knowing instinctively that she was afraid of whatever was out there in the dark. She really did need to get them both to the doggy-training class she’d looked into, and soon. But not a fancy place like that Harmonie Kennels in Virginia that Angie had suggested she call.
“He’s got the attitude of a professional canine. Maybe he’s, like, a drug dog that’s been retired,” Angie had said after meeting Prince.
Angie, her one real friend, was like that, always seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Even so, Angie could be very persuasive. She kept mentioning this kennel she’d read about, supposedly the top place in the mid-Atlantic states. So, after arriving at the lake, Shay had called just to find out how much the training would cost.
The woman who answered had been much too nosy for Shay’s liking, asking if her shelter dog had any distinguishing markings or ID tag. That’s when it hit her that the woman who had brought Prince to the shelter might not have been entirely honest. If something was amiss, she might lose him. So she had hung up quickly, sorry she’d made the call.
As Shay came up behind him, Prince began pawing at the door, making little excited whimpering sounds.
“Fine, but you’ll have to slow your pace this time.” She pulled back the dead bolts then reached for the doorknob with one hand and his leash with the other. “Yesterday you nearly— Oh!”
One moment she and Prince were alone. The next she was staring into the gaze of one very stern-looking man in camo.
CHAPTER TWO
“Excuse me, ma’am. I need to talk with you. Now.”
The man’s tone left no room for debate as his combat-booted foot moved to block any idea Shay might have about closing her door. “Step back into the room and leave your hands where I can see them.”
“What?” Shay stared stupidly at her assailant. She should be terrified but in some distant place the situation hadn’t caught up with her head. Not when Prince had rushed forward and was jumping and yipping and play-pawing her attacker’s arm as if this were some sort of game.
Finally, she said the only thing that came to mind. “Prince, down!”
To her surprise, the dog paused and looked at her. “Heel,” she commanded, and pointed at a spot on the floor beside her right leg.
Prince moved dutifully over to her side and sat down, heavy tail thumping out a staccato rhythm of high spirits. She gripped a handful of his fur, just behind the collar, feeling the warmth of the animal as proof they were okay. This was another of Eric’s sick campaigns to frighten her, she told herself. Like the night before. Only this time she’d had enough. Hiring a thug to scare her was one step too far, even for him.
All the anger of the night before came roaring back as she looked up into the scowling face of the man accosting her.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, scaring my dog like that?”
The man’s gaze flickered, as if taken aback by her language. But that surprise didn’t modulate his voice. “Move back into the room.”
Shay bit her lip, the delayed reaction of surprise beginning to pump up her heart rate. Advice from an article about self-defense popped into her thoughts. Never let an assailant take you to a secluded place. Her cabin was as secluded as it got.
Shay folded her arms across her chest, tucking her hands into the folds of her elbows so he couldn’t see that they were shaking. “This is my property and I haven’t invited you in. You’re trespassing.”
A smile spread beneath the shadow of his hat brim but it was nothing like friendly. “I wouldn’t be worried about my actions when yours are about to land you time in jail.”
Shay slowly lowered her arms as she felt surreptitiously for the cell phone she kept hooked in her waistband for easy access.
His smile vanished. “What are you doing?”
She stilled. “Trying to scratch an itch. You make me nervous.”
“Put your hands where I can see them and back up!” His voice had an edge that could cut stone. “Now!”
Though she was determined to hold her ground, when he produced a rifle and held it crosswise before him as if he might swing the butt of it at her head, Shay found herself propelled backward in spite of herself.
The man came through the door and slammed it shut with a kick of his boot.
Until this moment, she’d thought herself frightened. Now the sick wash of fear roiling up through her stomach gave her a sense of what true terror felt like.
A little hiccup of fear escaped as she bumped up against Prince, who had positioned himself behind her. What was the command for attack? Why didn’t she know it? Didn’t Prince realize what was happening? He hadn’t required any prodding to go after the trucker lurking in the woods the night before. She had to do something.
Her shoulders slumped forward, her arms tightening against her waist, as if her stomach hurt. Her voice was subdued when she spoke. “What do you want?”
All the fight seemed to go out of the woman before James. His gaze did a quick perimeter search of the room before it came back to her. She was standing with her eyes downcast.
He lowered his rifle. “I’m going to ask you a few questions. You better give me all the right answers. Do you understand me?”
The woman merely nodded. He took her by the chin and raised her face to his. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” It was a whisper of a reply. Terrified eyes gazed up at him, eyes as golden brown as the morning autumn forest he’d just stepped out of. He felt like a bully staring into them, but dammit, she deserved no pity. She had started this mess by kidnapping his dog.
He released her. “Is there anyone else here with you?”
She looked sideways, as if assessing her options, then shook her head.
“Good answer. It better be truthful. Are there other dogs on the premises?”
Suddenly, she pulled her hands from their tucked position and began yelling into her cell phone. “Help! Help! He’s got a gun!”
“Fuck!” He dropped his rifle and grabbed her from behind as she tried to get away. Bogart took this as his cue to once again join in the fray, and began jumping and barking in unbridled joy.
“Brouza Hund! Platz!” James’s drill-sergeant tone caused the dog to obey instantly. He moved several feet away from the pair and dropped into a submissive crouch. Too bad the woman in his arms wasn’t so easily mastered.
He had dropped a hand over her mouth to stop the shouting but she continued to kick and twist, rubbing her body against his in ways that made him register that she was young and in good shape, and smelled like the kind of fresh-brewed coffee he’d give his left nut to have a cup of right now.
For his peace of mind, and before she hurt herself, he overwhelmed her protest by scooping her up off the floor with an arm about her middle. “Settle down, dammit, or I’ll cuff your hands and
feet. Do you understand?”
She stilled but didn’t respond. But of course, he realized, she couldn’t speak with his hand over her mouth. He lifted it.
She sank her teeth into the meaty edge of his hand. As he released her, she twisted and lifted her knee in a quick jab to his groin.
If he hadn’t been a police officer she might have caught him off guard, but he was accustomed to dealing with suspects. The bite hurt but her knee bounced harmlessly off the thigh he lifted to deflect her jab. He did lose his hat as she swung a slap in his direction before dancing away.
The hellcat palmed her phone and began jabbing numbers into it.
“Shit! Give me that!” He jerked the phone from her hand.
Shay stumbled back out of his reach but lifted her chin in triumph. “Too late! I’ve already called 911 once. You’d better leave. The police will be here any minute.”
“Dammit, lady! I am the police!”
As his roar of rage died away, James glanced at her phone. Sure enough, she’d dialed the emergency number. He ended the call and tucked it in his pocket. He had to give her credit. She had balls.
He swiveled his head in her direction. For the first time she came into focus as a person, and it was a revelation. She was about five six, with a thick mahogany ponytail that had been skewed to one side by their struggle. Thick dark bangs framed her eyes, which appeared darker than before and were narrowed in calculation. But to be honest, he was more interested in the fact that her hoodie had come unzipped and it was spectacularly obvious that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
She followed his pointed gaze to where the vee of her jacket had widened to the waist and the globes of her breasts were trembling with the heated rise and fall of her breath.
“Pervert!” She jerked her zipper up, her cheeks coloring with emotion, anger, or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. The zipper didn’t budge. Cussing under her breath, she yanked again, and then a third time before it moved, locking the plastic teeth back together all the way up to her chin.
James stood staring at her a moment longer, wondering whether she’d yanked open her jacket to distract him or if it was just an accident. Either way, he was distracted. None of this had gone the way he’d expected.
He glanced over at his long-lost partner to help him regain his balance. Bogart sat up and gazed at him with a lolling-tongue expression that looked for all the world like a big fat grin.
James’s attention switched back to the woman. She had recovered her composure with surprising speed. But her expression caught him totally off guard. She wasn’t just angry; she was dead furious and ready to do battle.
He watched her judge the distance between herself and the door and then between herself and him, before she spoke. “You say you’re police? I want to see some ID. Now.”
He reached into his jacket for his badge and then held it out toward her. “Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, Special Operations Division.”
Shay glanced at the shiny badge and then up into his face. If she’d been asked before this moment what her attacker looked like, all she could have described was a very angry male in camouflage clothing with a rifle.
Now she needed a whole new vocabulary.
He was young, maybe not even thirty, and tall. And he was gorgeous. He had that old-fashioned handsomeness with a broad brow and strong jaw, baby blues, spiky short dark hair, and the kind of mouth that made bad boys so irresistible. Not that it made any difference. So what if his muscular shoulders and tapered hips gave him the look of an Abercrombie & Fitch model? He had attacked her. In her home.
Shay tore her gaze away. Stop staring. Where was her sanity?
She drew herself up and found a safe place halfway between his chin and his belt buckle to stare at. “Why the hell would you break in here like that?”
“You’re in possession of a canine belonging to Charlotte-Mecklenburg law enforcement.”
Shay’s gaze jerked up to his face. Even his scowl was, well, damn sexy, now that she didn’t feel her life was in danger. Then understanding dawned.
She moved quickly over to stand by her pet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is my dog, Prince.”
“The hell he is! That’s my dog, Bogart.”
Both turned to gaze at the dog who had been silently watching them. The K-9 barked twice, thumping his tale in good spirits, but didn’t move an inch.
They seemed to be at an impasse.
Which was just as well, because the siren wail of a law enforcement vehicle closing in fast was filling the morning with sound.
A minute later a sheriff’s vehicle rolled to a stop in her yard.
CHAPTER THREE
“Hello, Shay.” Chief Deputy Sheriff Elijah Ward stood wide-legged on the porch of Shay’s home, surveying her through the mirrored lenses of his shades. “You make a 911 call?”
“Yes!” The deputy was one of the local enforcement officers she’d known since she was a teen. He was a big man, twenty years her senior, with a polished-pecan complexion sprinkled with chocolate freckles across his broad nose and cheeks. “I’m glad you got here so fast.”
“I was just round the bend in the lake, checking on Malcolm’s house. Everything okay?”
“No.” Shay pushed her door wide and pointed inside to the man standing in shadow several feet behind her. “This man just forced his way into my house. I want you to arrest him.”
The deputy whipped off his shades with a crooked finger as he entered the room. The stranger in question stood at ease but slowly lifted both hands as the lawman approached. “Ms. Appleton says you forced your way in here against her will.” He squinted at the man dressed as a hunter. “What do you have to say about that?”
“It’s a misunderstanding, Deputy.” James turned his right hand palm out so that his badge was in view. “I’m on a case. My name’s James Cannon, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.”
“You got a driver’s license, son?”
James duly produced it.
The deputy examined the badge and license closely then nodded in seeming satisfaction. “What brings a Charlotte officer over to this part of the state?”
“The theft of a K-9.” James lowered his hands as relief flooded through him. The deputy could have made things hard for him if he had wanted to. “This young woman is in possession of a canine in service with my police department. I came to arrest her for dog-napping.”
Shay took a step toward James. “You lying son of a—”
The deputy cut her off with a raised hand. “Dog-napping.” He continued to stare at James. “Is that a real crime?”
“Yes, sir.” James reined in his annoyance. There were still people even in law enforcement who saw K-9s as little more than tools instead of valued partners. “My canine partner was kidnapped from a vehicle in Charlotte a month ago. I doubt you got a bulletin about it all the way up here. But I’ve been following leads for weeks. It led me here. I should probably have come to the sheriff’s office first, but when I saw Bogart in this yard last night—” He noted Shay’s jerk of surprise at his mention of the night before, and filed that reaction away for later. “You could say I lost perspective.”
“Over your pet.” The deputy’s tone was still skeptical.
“Bogart’s a highly trained and crucial member of the K-9 service.”
The deputy turned his gaze on the big-eared dog who sat happily panting away at Shay’s side. “What have you got to say about this, Ms. Appleton?”
“This is my dog. I adopted him from animal control last month.”
“The hell you did.”
Shay took an instinctive step back at James’s hard tone. His expression was neutral but the tension in his body could not be interpreted as anything other than coiled strength under stress.
Deputy Wood moved his considerable bulk between James and Shay. “Easy, Officer. Go on, Shay. Tell the man your story.”
Shay shot James a rude look. “I volunteer at one of the animal shelters in
Raleigh. I was at the desk when a woman came in with Prince.” She reached out to rest her hand territorially on her dog’s head.
Her accuser shifted his weight, as if uncomfortable. “What name did she give?”
“She didn’t.”
“Keep talking.”
Shay sucked in a breath of annoyance. She’d never done well with authority. His every word sounded like an interrogation. It was reminiscent of Eric in a bad mood. It worked her temper. “The woman said her dog had mauled a child’s pet. That’s why she had a muzzle on him. She said he was vicious and uncontrollable, and needed to be put down before he could hurt someone else.”
James swiped a hand over his mouth to block the vulgarity he couldn’t quite squelch as he gazed down at Bogart. The eager interest in his partner’s black eyes and happy thump of his tail highlighted the absurdity of the accusation. Bogart was too well trained to attack without cause. Yet his partner was capable of becoming a very dangerous adversary if commanded to be so. Had Bogart gotten frightened and attacked a child’s pet? He doubted that. Yet his heart tripled its beat. Everything he learned from now on could be crucial to protecting his partner’s future.
When James’s gaze rose to meet Shay’s again, it was the opaque, official stare of a lawman on duty. “She told you specifically to put him down?”
She nodded.
“Shit!”
Shay decided she couldn’t have worded her own response to the idea any better.
“Continue.”
“I told her our shelter doesn’t destroy an animal unless it’s so sick or injured that a vet recommends it. Or we have a formal complaint and court order. That’s when she got all huffy and said she didn’t have time for all that. If we wouldn’t destroy him, then she’d find a place that would.”
“Why didn’t you ask for verification of her accusation?”
Shay folded her arms protectively across her chest. “We aren’t the animal police. When a person walks in the door with a pet, shelters don’t ask them to prove ownership. We allow a person to surrender their pet without question. It’s better than trying to catch animals after they’ve been abandoned.”