by Sheila Kell
With a thoughtful look, Jesse held out his hands to count on his fingers. “I can spare Ken, Danny, Steve, and Neftali.” He held up four fingers on his right hand. “They can fly in today and be ready for when you return. That should be enough.”
“I’m coming, too,” Brad interjected as he bound into the room. “No way would I leave Matt out there without me at his back. No telling what the fuck would happen to him.”
Even at the stab to his manhood, relief slipped into his bloodstream. Brad may be cynical and try to piss him off from time to time, but he was still the best friend Matt had. While he’d be happy for any of his brothers to have his back, he’d prefer Brad beside him in danger.
Danger. God, he hoped there wouldn’t be any danger.
Luke Ripley hadn’t extracted Caitlyn’s address from her father during the torture session. But bringing her back here worried the hell out of him. While Adam’s attacker could be in hiding since he had to know that Adam identified him, he could be sitting and waiting. Maybe Matt could convince Caitlyn not to visit. He groaned. Who the hell was he kidding? Even though he hadn’t met the woman she was today, he knew without a doubt that she would still want to visit her father. The two had been close. Hell, she was closer to her father than he was with his old man. He and his father had a good relationship, but nothing like Caitlyn and Adam.
“Where do you want them?” Jesse’s words interrupted his thoughts. He really had to start paying more attention and not allowing his mind to run away on that broken train track it kept finding.
Great question. He thought for a moment before responding. “I think here, protecting Adam to start. Ripley doesn’t know where Caitlyn lives, so I can travel up and collect her without him knowing. Hopefully I can convince her to stay home, and then we can bring half the team there to help.”
Jesse snorted. “Unless she turned into one cold-hearted bitch—which I wholeheartedly doubt—she’s coming to visit her dad in his condition. I just don’t see her staying away. No matter how long it’s been.”
Matt nodded. “That’s why I want them waiting here. Plus I don’t want Adam attacked again.”
“I can get a second team here in a few days,” Jesse added thoughtfully, “so take a team with you when you take her home. If that bastard has any sense, he’s in hiding far away from here. But if he’s watching for her to come here, we can nail his ass to the wall.”
“Good.” Matt’s emphatic response left no room for confusion of his position.
“What did the deputies have to say?” Jesse asked.
Shaking his head in disgust at the sheriff’s department in Adam’s hometown, Matt responded dryly, “They’ve knocked on a few doors and have an APB out on him but aren’t holding their collective breaths that they’ll find him.”
“I still can’t believe Luke would try this now. This isn’t Travis’s first parole hearing,” Brad stated.
“I overheard two deputies talking. After they’d finished, I asked for confirmation, and they reluctantly gave it to me. They talked to Travis Ripley’s son who was paroled after ten years in prison. While incarcerated, the kid bragged that when he was released he’d get his dad out of prison. Don’t get excited; he has an alibi for when the incident occurred. He must’ve hit up the uncle since he had no resources and he’s playing his parole cool.” Caitlyn wouldn’t be expecting anyone to be after her. She wouldn’t be prepared for danger, for a possible attack. Hell, Luke had already shot her father. He might try to do what his brother promised when he’d raped her, and kill her.
“Jesse, I’d like a team trying to track him down,” Matt requested. “Adam thought someone else was in his home, so the son and brother could be working together.” Knowing resources were limited due to the scheduled workload, the worse that could happen was his older brother said no.
Jesse slowly shook his head. “I wish we could, but we can’t do it. Too many assignments. I’m already bare-bonesing them to give you two teams, and they’re only short-term.”
Matt started to shake his head in disagreement.
“Don’t shake your head. You’ll need two teams until he’s captured. Now, what we can do is put Devon on it. If he finds something, then we’ll reevaluate. The uncle might slip up. For groundwork, we may send one person from Adam’s security detail now to investigate, but we won’t pull the entire team from either Adam or Caitlyn until Luke Ripley is captured and we’re sure the son is clean in this.”
Warmth flooded him at the love Jesse was demonstrating with his actions. He didn’t use the words, but making sure Matt and those he loved were protected said it all. They’d had to do this so many times in the past two years with women the men fell in love with. He could only hope he had the same happy ending they did.
Dammit, he’d had her heart once and he’d have it again. In no way would he stop until he was certain it couldn’t happen. This time, he wouldn’t allow their current circumstance to stand in his way. He was a big boy and needed to act it when they were reunited.
Remembering Jesse had spoken to him, he nodded. “Okay. Thanks.” What else was there to say? He had what he needed. Sure, he wished they had a team tracking the bastard down since he doubted the sheriff was putting his limited manpower on just Luke Ripley, but Jesse was right; it was best to be in place to protect Caitlyn and Adam. Who knew? The asshole might come back to them, and HIS could capture him.
Matt could only hope.
“I’d best get on the road. I’m driving since, by the time I connect flights, it’ll take nearly as long with security and transfers and then renting a car. Plus, I don’t want to deal with the hassle of transporting a weapon—even in pieces in my luggage—and I won’t have her with me without them. So, I’ve got about seven or eight hours to drive.”
“Christ, you’ll get there in the middle of the night and freak the shit out of her,” Brad stated unnecessarily.
“I plan to get a hotel close by and see her in the morning when she’s awake.” When he wouldn’t have the possibility of getting shot as an intruder. Growing up where Caitlyn did, he could almost guarantee she had a weapon at her home. Hell, she could shoot him if she was still pissed at him, but he’d gamble on her not being—that the years had made her wiser. He expected her to still hold some resentment, but shooting him? He didn’t think so, but he could never understand a woman’s mind.
“Smart move.” Jesse nodded.
“Listen, say goodbye to everyone for me.” Matt’s statement held a question in it for his brother’s acceptance of the task.
“I’ll do it,” Brad piped up.
Matt shook his head with vigorous force. “Oh hell no. You’d just as soon punch everyone in the mouth.”
“Fuck you,” Brad retorted. “I love this family. It’s the rest of the world who can kiss my fucking ass.”
Matt internally shook his head. That about summed up his identical twin. One day they’d work to overcome his problem. But not today. Today, Matt had his own issues to tackle.
Safe in the rental car that had been delivered to him, he cranked up the air conditioner, inhaled the new car smell it still had, and drove. Once he merged onto MS-7, his mind took its own route of times when he and Caitlyn had been planning their wedding. She’d been so excited about having it in the garden at the Hamilton Oxford house, like his father had just done.
Caitlyn had even picked out her dress and had refused to allow him to see it. She’d said it would be bad luck if he saw it, so he hadn’t pushed, even though he didn’t believe in that tradition or supposed consequence for breaking it. They’d only been three short weeks away from their wedding. Sure, she’d still be a college student, but he’d have graduated the week before they married and started his new job in Oxford. They hadn’t cared about being so young. They’d only wanted to be together.
He passed a home with dozens of pink azalea bushes lining the front yard near the road. Pink. Not bright pink, but closer to a pastel pink. That’d been the color she’d wanted for he
r bridesmaids’ dresses, flowers, men’s cummerbunds, and bowties for the men’s tuxedos. Brad and Matt’s friends had grumbled but agreed, because they’d had a look at the bridesmaids and couldn’t wait to meet them, spurred on by the thought of hooking up.
When blue lights flashed behind him, his mind returned to the present, and his pulse raced. Shit! He didn’t have a permit to carry his weapon in Mississippi. Since Devon, one of his older brothers, always handled administrative things, like clearance to carry weapons, Matt had never learned the rules associated with what states required extra paperwork. With the exception of rescuing Elizabeth, they hadn’t had the need for their weapons down South until today. He’d have to call Devon and find out if he was good. Something he probably should’ve done before this moment. The question was whether he was good if he got pulled over by this state trooper.
A whistle of remembrance blew through him at his answer to his own question. Mississippi, Kentucky, and Maryland did have reciprocity laws, but he’d rather not test his theory. If Matt got caught and had needed something other than his Maryland permit, he could pull his father into the situation, but he wouldn’t do that to his father’s stellar reputation. He slammed his hands on the steering wheel and slowed, easing the car to the shoulder of the road. Fuck. He’d just see how it played out.
Relief whooshed through him as the cop sped by, leaving Matt alone. After calming his breathing, he pulled back on the road. He had to pay attention to his driving. This time his thoughts were of nothing but getting to Caitlyn without a stop by a state trooper or, heaven forbid, arrested. He’d do neither of them any good if his butt was in jail.
“Caitlyn,” he said out loud, “I’m coming, whether you like it or not.”
“HOW CAN THIS be possible?” Caitlyn Robinson murmured. Sitting at the scarred, secondhand break room table at Helping Paws, the service-dog training organization she’d founded, she reviewed the financial statement laid out before her. Taking a sip of her lukewarm coffee, she grimaced, looked at it, and then stood. Putting her free hand on her lower back, she arched her spine and stretched before moving to dump the coffee into the sink and refill her cup from the fresh pot.
After adding a teaspoon of sugar and cream, she stirred the coffee while her mind whirled. Where had the money gone? Had they really spent so much? Damn. She’d thought donations were steady. What would the board of directors think? More importantly, what would they do? The thought of them asking her to step down for her failing flitted through her mind. The idea of a disappointing performance pushed courage through her veins in an effort to combat that possibility. The organization was still good for a long while, just not where she thought they’d be at this time.
Helping Paws, as a nonprofit charity, relied on donations to stay afloat. She’d done more than enough begging—her term when she asked for money—and thought she’d pulled enough to last them for much longer than the projections she’d just reviewed showed.
Maybe Rick had it wrong. When she’d hired Rick Marsh a few years ago to help train the dogs, she’d been impressed with his accounting background. With her inability to make heads or tails from accounting worksheets—her worst subject while earning her degree in business through an online university—she convinced him to take over the finances. She’d even convinced the board of directors to give him the lofty title of Financial Officer and paid him a higher salary than they could really afford.
He’d simplified the statements for her so she could see what kind of trouble they would soon be in if she didn’t pull in more money. And that was her main job—keeping them in enough money to operate. While the consensus of this type of organization was that it cost nearly $25,000 a year to train a dog—and they could take up to two years to train—she’d lowered their cost per dog to $21,000 per year. Her goal was to slide it down to $17,000 per year, per dog, like the organization she’d trained with before she began this leg of her journey in life.
She took a sip of coffee and allowed the warmth of the beverage to seep into her system. She didn’t relish doing another fundraiser or going door-to-door to collect funds. Hell, the reality was despite a fundraiser taking money to arrange, they drew the right people, who were able to donate, plus the payoff was incredible. If you had the right people ripe for the picking. She grinned at that saying. Her Aunt Liz had said it often enough.
She could make this happen. First, what she needed was a grant writer to take on her cause. While she’d muddled through small grants, like the Wal-Mart Community Grant, she’d pulled in quite a number of donations. But they were small potatoes. The Wal-Mart grant was $2,500. She needed complicated federal grants and had never pursued that avenue before, because she knew it would take a professional grant writer to get them through it. Besides, the money had always been there. Second, there were a group of devoted supporters who sent monthly checks like clockwork. She’d check on if they fulfilled their commitments.
Rick poked his head in to the room.
“Are these accurate?” She gestured to the papers now strewn across the table in no discernible order.
He fully entered the break room and closed the door behind him. “I’m afraid they are.”
“It just seems we should have more there. Even the monthly donations appear to be down.”
“Converting that space to a new set of pens for the dogs ran over budget, and so did the roof repair.” He shifted. “Maybe you should stop paying me extra. I’d help for free. Besides, you’ve been picking up the more complicated financial analysis sheets better than before.”
If it were only that simple that getting rid of his salary would make the difference, she’d consider it for the sake of the organization, but only for a moment, because she couldn’t do that to an employee, no matter their situation. She shook her head. “No. You earn that money. I won’t have you volunteer for financial services, but I appreciate the offer.” Deciding upon her best course of action, she asked Rick for copies of the monthly donations lists and then added reluctantly, “Have Tonya come see me. I’m adding searching for a grant writer to my too long to-do list, but in the meantime, we need another fundraiser.”
Tonya Beck, her only other full-time dog trainer, had majored in marketing and PR and knew her way around creating events that drew people to donate their money. Her payment was a small percentage of the overall take, which probably worked out better financially for Tonya, and not carrying another increased salary like Rick worked well on a daily basis for the organization.
Caitlyn had lucked out with those two employees. Not that she discounted the volunteers who’d arrive sporadically, but Rick and Tonya were more invested in the success of Helping Paws.
He nodded. “I can do that. Anything else?”
Taking another sip of coffee, she told herself to focus on the now. She’d take care of the finances later. She’d research the donation list. Someone had to have forgotten to send money like they’d promised. Trying to change her train of thought, she asked, “How’s the training coming with Cooper, Bella, Sadie, and Gabe? I saw most of their future handlers here quite a bit last week.”
The veterans who were scheduled to receive a dog were encouraged to visit and work with some of the pups after they’d returned from their six-month foster care, where the pups received basic socialization skills before their official training could begin. This allowed Helping Paws to pair the best match of dog and future handler. Once they’d been chosen, the veteran was then encouraged to work with the trainer and the dog so they were all more comfortable with each other. It also strengthened the bond between the veteran and dog before they were on their own. It wasn’t a requirement, and some vets lived too far away to come in on a regular basis, but the majority of the future handlers found a way.
While she managed the overall training, she’d allowed her two employees to take the lead on these four dogs, because they were closest to being ready. It had almost killed her to step back. She trusted them to do a good job, but she also missed wo
rking with the dogs at that level herself. Because she couldn’t completely step away from to training the dogs, she’d already started working with the younger ones that were still in the early stages of their development.
“We need a few more days to make sure they’re good and ready. Then the new handlers can do their formal instruction with them.”
By formal, it was a ten days block where the trainer made sure the handler could manage the dog, and the dog would respond properly. It didn’t matter if they’d been working with their dog all along, Caitlyn had required this final schooling since it provided the final evaluation of ownership.
Their dogs received instruction on working with veterans who had PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and a host of other disabling injuries. Some had lost limbs; some had lost their hearing or their sight. There were just so many, and it broke her heart each time she had to deny someone because they didn’t have enough dogs ready or enough money to train them. It’s why she’d only focused on one group—veterans—for her dogs. Her chances of delivering were better than if she dealt with a broad group who needed service dogs. Of course she always referred them elsewhere, to a larger organization so they might get the help they required. If only she could snag a whale of a donor, she could then expand and help close the gap of need to availability.
A girl could dream. And this girl always did.
After her rape, she’d been adrift, not sure what she’d wanted to do with her life. Being a fashion designer no longer appealed to her. She didn’t like being around a bunch of people she didn’t know, and trust became an issue. A shiver snaked up her spine at the thought.
In the beginning of her life post-rape, many times she’d thought about ending her life. Then she’d met Brent Timms in a group meeting for people suffering from PTSD. The war vet had raved on how his service dog—who’d been lying quietly at his feet—saved his life. The more he spoke, the more she realized what she’d wanted to do… what she needed to do.