As always, thanks for reading!
Best wishes,
Trish McCallan
About the Author
Trish McCallan was born in Eugene, Oregon, and grew up in Washington State, where she began crafting stories at an early age. Her first books were illustrated in crayon, bound with red yarn, and sold for a nickel at her lemonade stand.
Trish grew up to earn a bachelor’s degree in English literature with a concentration in creative writing from Western Washington University, taking jobs as a bookkeeper and human- resource specialist before finally quitting her day job to write full time.
Forged in Fire came about after a marathon reading session, and a bottle of Nyquil that sparked a vivid dream.
She lives today in eastern Washington.
An avid animal lover, she currently shares her home with three golden retrievers, a black lab mix and three cats.
Spirit Woods
Small town life isn't as peaceful as Logan Yates expected since taking a job with the Jamesville Police Department. He's witnessed several odd occurrences, some of which might border on the supernatural if he believed in that sort of thing. But his real problem lies in figuring out who's vandalizing his new home. He's almost certain Kaylea Armund, his antagonistic college sweetheart, knows, but judging by the shadows darkening her eyes, she has no intention of sharing her secrets.
A life-long resident of Jamesville, Washington, Kaylea Armund never bought into the legends and whispered tales about Spirit Woods, the primeval forest surrounding her hometown. Not once during her childhood did she see or hear anything strange from within the dark, shadowy depths of the forest. Growing up, she had worse things to deal with than mysterious lights and unexplained weather phenomena.
But things take a turn into the strange and unexpected when Logan Yates--an old flame--brings a stray golden retriever into Kaylea's clinic. She's stunned by the dog's resemblance to Max, her childhood companion. But when the golden recognizes her and knows all the tricks she'd taught her Max, a chilling question arises--if this dog really is the beloved family pet she'd buried beneath Spirit Woods' canopy seventeen years earlier, what else might be making its way home from the grave.
Sneak Peek: Spirit Woods
As her last client of the day—Keystone, an aging bulldog—waddled out of her exam room, Kaylea Armund sprayed the stainless steel exam table with disinfectant and ripped a handful of paper towels from the dispenser. Absently she listened to Keystone’s snorting, wheezing progress through the clinic and sent a prayer to Saint Francis that the Clavamox she’d prescribed would clear up his respiratory infection quickly.
The poor old guy was of an age where the simplest ailment could turn life threatening, and that was without prior breathing conditions clouding the issue. Unfortunately, Keystone’s file was bulging with his respiratory history. The stenotic nares alone when combined with the bronchial infection could prove fatal. It was too bad she’d never been able to convince his owners to send him to the specialist for the surgery necessary to widen the animal’s nostrils and give the poor guy more room for airflow.
Scrunching her nose against the acidic bite of the sanitizer, she wiped the counter down, a smile blooming as she ticked off her plans for the weekend.
Barring the odd emergency call, her weekend stretched out before her in lazy, unfettered glory. No appointments. No plans. No need for watches or clocks. She could sleep in as long as she wanted and then putter the day away in her garden. In fact, she might just leave the laundry in its hamper all weekend and spend the days simply relaxing.
“Lea,” Janine Campbell, her office assistant, said from the doorway. “Logan Yates is here. He needs to speak with you.”
Her hand freezing mid-swipe, Kaylea’s contentment vanished. She hadn’t heard that particular name in ten years. Scratch that; the man who claimed that name hadn’t spoken to her in ten years, but she’d been hearing his name far too often since he’d joined the Jamesville police department.
She’d even seen him a couple of times…a tall, lean, semi-stranger with a confident stride and the unwelcome ability to stir feelings better left buried.
There were thousands of police stations around the country. Why the heck did he have to pick her hometown to jump-start his new career?
“Tell him I’m gone for the day.” She briskly resumed wiping down the table. Since discovering he’d moved to Jamesville, she’d been wondering whether he’d seek her out for an uncomfortable rendition of “remember whens”…
Assuming, of course, he’d remembered where she’d been raised and had given any thought to whether she’d returned home after graduation.
“Lea,” Janine said, her voice soft—as though she were trying to hide the words from the clinic’s unwelcome visitor. “He’s a police officer.”
“Yeah? So?”
Kaylea knew exactly what he was.
If she’d known ten years ago that he would switch his major from prelaw to law enforcement, she could have saved herself an ocean of grief. She would have avoided him from the get-go instead of getting to know him enough to actually like the man, instead of finding herself insanely attracted to him.
If she’d known up front what kind of a man he was back in college, she would have never agreed to go out with him that first time. Let alone that fourth, fifth and sixth. And she certainly wouldn’t have slept with him.
Even though that colossal mistake had been one of the most memorable nights of her life.
“What she means,” a dry, irritatingly masculine voice said from the door, “is that I’m on official police business, not stalking you for reminiscence’s sake.”
His voice was familiar, yet not. He still spoke with that deliberate, cool calm. But his tone was deeper, raspier than it had been back then. Which made sense; he’d been on the cusp of manhood, but not quite there.
He’d been older than her, twenty-two back then, which would make him, what, thirty-two today? An adult.
Her reaction to his voice hadn’t diminished, unfortunately. It still lifted the hair on her arms and set her fingers to tingling. She would have known immediately who he was just by the heat pooling in her belly.
And then his words registered.
...here on police business?
Police business?
Kaylea’s hand froze again, the table suddenly a rigid, icy pressure beneath her hand. That same icy pressure pricked down her spine and dropped into her belly with a cold, hard splash.
He’s only been here six weeks. Nobody else has a clue what we did, and it happened seventeen years ago. There’s no way he could have found out in six weeks. No way. He must be talking about something else.
Forcing herself to breathe, she straightened and turned to face him.
He looked the same, yet not. She could see the face of that slow to smile, studious university boy buried beneath the chiseled jaw and stern mouth. His cheeks looked harder, his nose bumpier—like it had been broken one time too often since that impromptu football game her first weekend on campus, when her roommate had introduced them. His shoulders were easily twice as broad, blocking the sun spilling into the clinic’s lobby.
But his eyes…his eyes marked the real difference. They’d always been a deep, dark chocolate brown. But they hadn’t been shuttered. They hadn’t held hers with such distant watchfulness, with such brittle cynicism.
They hadn’t been cop eyes.
A sense of loss hit her, of deep mourning for the boy he’d been and the innocence he’d lost during his wanderings on the path he’d chosen. Of what they’d lost, because of his choices.
“Princess,” he said, with a subtle nod of his head in acknowledgement of their previous relationship, even if it had been antagonistic toward the end.
It wasn’t the nickname that drowned the swell of pity and loss—it was the subtle derisiveness that sharpened it. He’d always called her Princess. In the beginning it had been a tribute of sorts. It hadn’t turned derisive until that se
cond year, after they’d returned from summer break and he’d announced his career change.
“Logan.”
She caught the rounding of Janine’s eyes at her dismissive tone and fought to soften her voice.
“You’re here on police business?” she prompted when the silence dragged on uncomfortably long.
He was studying her as closely as she’d surveyed him. Had he noticed the same depth of changes in her as she had in him? It was doubtful. Her disillusionment had settled hard as concrete years before she’d headed off to college.
“Yeah.” He paused to rake his fingers through his hair.
The familiar gesture rocked her, and for a moment the college kid she’d known was transposed over this stranger’s stern face.
“A stray showed up at my place last night. Looks to be in good health, well taken care of. Thought you might know who it belonged to.”
“Dog or cat?”
It didn’t surprise her that he’d brought the animal to her clinic, rather than dumping it at animal control. He’d always liked animals. It was one of the things she’d found so attractive about him in the beginning.
She guessed some things hadn’t changed. His concern for animals, and his avoidance of her.
By the end of his final year at the University of Washington, they’d avoided each other stringently. It had been rather difficult, since her roommate had been dating his.
Avoiding her was obviously a tactic he intended to continue in Jamesville, which suited her just fine. He must have known she ran the clinic in town, because there’d been no surprise to find her behind the door—yet he’d made no attempt to contact her in the six weeks he’d been in town, either.
Until this animal in need.
“A golden retriever.” The words were clipped, distant—as were the dark eyes that held her own.
She acknowledged the pang of grief at the breed he mentioned, marveling that after seventeen years she could still miss Max so much. But, then again, maybe it wasn’t so surprising. If not for Max she’d be dead.
“Goldens are popular in Jamesville; quite a few clients have them. I should be able to put you in touch with its owner.”
“You’ll recognize him?”
“If he’s a client’s dog, I’ll know who he belongs to,” Kaylea assured him. She made a point of knowing her clients’ pets inside and out. And the town’s goldens…well, while she’d never owned another golden since Max—or any animal, for that matter—goldens still held a special place in her heart.
“He’s out in the car.” Logan turned and walked away.
Kaylea hesitated, a shaft of annoyance piercing her. She heard the sound of the front entrance’s bells, which indicated that he’d gone back outside. Did he expect her to follow him? Or was he bringing the dog to her?
After a second she straightened her shoulders and headed for the door herself. No way was she going to hide in the exam room. She owned this place. She was a capable, adult businesswoman.
Time to start acting like one.
The door chimes jingled again as she slipped behind the counter in the lobby. Well, at least her question had been answered; he was bringing the dog into the clinic.
“Oh, what a beautiful animal,” Janine said, her voice half cooing. “But he’s not one of ours.”
The front counter was high, so high she couldn’t see the animal. But she could hear him. The dog let loose with a rash of yips and whines, and then an excited yodeling yowl.
An eerie sense of déjà vu kicked in at the sound. Time and space spun for one crazy moment. Max had greeted her with that exact same enthusiastic howl every afternoon when she’d return from junior high school.
Shaking the memory aside, she leaned forward to get a better view.
“He seems to know you,” Logan said, a hint of warmth giving life to his voice. He smiled, but the expression was directed down, toward the dog.
Suddenly, a huge, pale gold body launched itself over the counter.
Kaylea caught a glimpse of a big, blocky head with large, almond-shaped eyes and floppy triangular ears sticking straight up in the air as the dog flew directly at her.
“Damn it.” Logan’s voice was grim as he vaulted the counter as well.
And then the animal clipped her knees, knocking her backward.
She fell in what felt like slow motion, her frozen, unbelieving gaze locked on the huge, blocky head with its soft as satin golden ears. Ears an entire shade darker than the fur on his face.
Max’s ears.
Max’s face.
Her head and shoulders hit the padded front of the computer desk chair, which blunted the impact of the fall. She slid down the chair, landing on the linoleum with a muted plop. The dog crawled right into her lap, his frantic cries echoing in her ringing ears. A pink tongue, liberally streaked with black, went to work licking her face.
Max’s tongue.
She looked into a pair of joyful, chocolate-brown eyes, and her chest went hot and cold, hot and cold, hot and cold, pulsing with the oddest mixture of disbelief, recognition and joy.
Max’s eyes.
Except they couldn’t be. They couldn’t. Max was dead. Gone seventeen years now.
“Son of a bitch.” Logan grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck and dragged it back, shaking it slightly when it struggled frantically against his hold. “Sit, damn it, sit.” When the pale gold butt plopped down, Logan squatted beside Kaylea. “You okay?”
She nodded, afraid to test her voice. Her gaze tunneled in on the big square head with its fluffy ears and milk chocolate, adoring gaze.
“You don’t look okay,” Logan replied after scanning her from head to shoes. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Which wasn’t far from the truth.
It’s not Max. It can’t be Max. Max is dead. Resemblance aside, reaction aside. This cannot be Max. You know that.
“I’m okay,” Kaylea assured both Logan and Janine, who was hovering over her with even more concern in her eyes than Logan had in his. She winced at the tremble in the words and strengthened her voice. “Seriously, I’m fine.” She reached out to ruffle the dog’s fluffy ears. “Where did you say you found him?”
“I didn’t. He found me.” Logan straightened, apparently taking her reassurance at face value. “I’m working the graveyard shift. He was waiting on the porch when I got home this morning. I figured he’d wander back home, so I left him outside when I went to bed, but he was still there when I woke up this afternoon.”
Logan had only been in town for six weeks. Maybe the dog belonged to whoever had lived in that house prior to Logan’s arrival.
“What’s your address?” Kaylea asked.
The golden let loose with a round of tail thumping and several gusty groans as she leaned forward to dig her fingers in behind his ears and massaged the slight hollow beneath the joint. Max had loved having that spot rubbed, too. In fact, he’d always reacted in exactly the same way. With tail thumping and deep, guttural groans.
Her heart jerked.
He couldn’t be Max. Couldn’t be.
She’d watched Max die. She’d buried him. It might have been seventeen years ago, but she remembered it like it had happened mere hours earlier.
“68 Willow Burrow,” Logan said. “The house came with the job.”
The address knocked Kaylea’s breath away and spawned a viper’s nest of memories.
Shrill childish screams echoed in her ears. “Stop it, Daddy. Stop it. Please, please, stop. You’re hurting her.”
“You know the place?” Logan asked, his gaze suddenly sharp and searching. Cop’s eyes.
“I knew someone who lived there.” She forced the admission past the knife in her throat. “But it was a long, long time ago.” Seventeen endless years ago.
Her gaze shifted to the dog. To the big, blocky, golden head identical to Max’s. To chocolate-brown eyes as expressive as Max’s.
Logan said he’d been waiting on the porch. On the porch
at 68 Willow Burrow. Exactly where Max had waited for the school bus, all those years ago.
Was it possible? But how?
Something niggled at her, but she was too frazzled to hunt the memory down.
Instead, she pushed the dog aside and braced her palms against the floor, trying to shove herself up. Logan caught her arm and pulled, holding onto her until she regained her balance before letting go, all without releasing his grip on the dog.
“You should see the doc; you’re still pretty white,” he said quietly, that earlier distance creeping in to cloak his eyes and voice again.
“I’m fine,” Kaylea said, brushing her shirt and slacks with hands that were shakier than she’d like. “You can let him go now.”
Instead of releasing the dog, Logan glanced at Janine. “Do you have a leash?”
The question shook the last of the haze from Kaylea’s mind. “I’m perfectly capable of controlling an unruly dog.”
Or an excited one. She glanced at the golden sitting in front of her. The liquid brown gaze was watching her with joyful adoration—focused completely and utterly on her, as though she was the only thing of importance in the world.
Exactly the way Max had always watched her.
And for the first time, she realized that the dog’s eyes, eyes identical to Max’s, were the exact same shade of brown as the eyes of the man holding him.
Was that why she’d had such an instant, blinding sense of trust in Logan back then? Had his eyes subconsciously reminded her of Max?
Yeah, it made sense. There hadn’t been a trusting bone in her body by then, yet somehow she’d fallen into Logan’s snare with nary a whisper of warning.
Janine handed Logan a kennel lead, and he slipped the noose over the dog’s head. As he straightened, the golden bounced up, his gaze still focused on Kaylea’s face, his whole body vibrating.
His eyebrows snapping together, Logan tightened the lead.
“Max,” Kaylea said, testing the name to see the dog’s reaction. The feathery golden tail wagged wildly.
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