Rival Forces

by D. D. Ayres

  Law moved to hitch a hip on the edge of the sofa because it was the closest seat to hers. “I’ve quit the state police.”

  Before she could stop herself, her gaze dipped to his left pant leg. A casual observer might not have noticed the way it sagged. That’s because behind it lay a state-of-the-art prosthesis. The best available. But it wasn’t the same as the leg Law had left with when he went to Afghanistan a little more than four years ago.

  She tried to read something in his expression but his sludge-gold gaze gave nothing away. He’d lost more than a leg in the war. He’d lost himself. He had come pretty close to the status of off-the-grid crazed loner holed up in the backwoods of northwest Arkansas when she had barged in on him a year earlier, demanding that he seek help for his PTSD issues.

  Getting back on the payroll with the Arkansas State Police had been the only thing that had kept him sane. He’d even passed the Arkansas State Police physical in order to go back on full duty in February. What had changed in two months?

  “Does Jori know?”

  “Haven’t discussed it with her yet. Figured I needed to get my act together first.”

  “I see.” The bottom fell out of Yardley’s stomach. Jori was the main reason Law had been doing so well. She and his dog.

  Yardley’s gaze flickered to the rusty-red goldendoodle standing watch by Law’s side. Sam held a world of knowledge in her gentle gaze. Too bad she couldn’t share it.

  Law stood up, running a hand impatiently through his unruly black hair. “The truth is I need to think about my future. That’s not something I’ve often done. But if I want Jori in my life, I need something to show for it beside a willingness to get shot at.”

  He’s talking about the future. His and Jori’s. Yardley almost smiled but she knew better than to be obvious. “Law enforcement is an honorable profession.”

  “The best. I’ll always be Blue. But I’ve stopped running. I used to think that it was best not to owe anything to anyone and for them not to need to depend on me. But that’s stupid and juvenile.”

  He turned back to her. “Of all the people I’ve hurt, I’ve hurt you the most. And that’s unforgivable because you’re blood.”

  Yardley swallowed back emotion. “You never heard me complain.”

  “No. You’re a Battise, which means you’re too stubborn and too proud for your own good. We’ll take the heat for something we didn’t do just to prove to ourselves that other people’s opinions of us don’t matter. Especially when we aren’t even sure that’s what we really want.”

  Her eyes widened in alarm. “Don’t tell me you’ve been converted into some sort of touchy-feely cult?”

  He laughed. “No to-the-hell not. What I’m saying is, I want to start making things up to you.”

  “You’re making me very nervous. Just what do you have in mind?”

  “First, I apologize for leaving you to deal with this.” He indicated the room. “I was so busy trying to kick a dead man that I simply walked out on you and left a hell of a mess.”

  “You mean your inheritance? But I wanted Harmonie Kennels.”

  He shook his head. “I heard how you almost went under the first year. How law enforcement and the feds didn’t think a woman could cut it.”

  “You knew about all the hell I went through?”

  “I did. And I didn’t care. Honest to God, I think I hoped you’d fail. Ruin everything Bronson Battise had built.”

  “You rat bastard.” Yardley jumped to her feet, feeling tears prick up behind her eyes. “You knew and you did nothing.” She gasped, searching for words that she couldn’t find.

  He looked equally injured by his admission. “I know. I’ve been a selfish prick, Yard. I was going through my own hell, and I was so angry at Battise for all the times he hadn’t been there when I needed him as a kid. I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t need anything from him when he was gone. I had nothing left to give you. It was a dick move. But I’ve learned a few things since then. Had to crawl my way back to being a decent human being. Hell, you’re responsible for a lot of it. You, and Jori, and Sam. I don’t deserve it. But I’m asking. Forgive me?” He reached out an arm toward her. It was all the apology she was going to get.

  Yardley didn’t need more. She moved into his embrace and pushed her face against his shoulder as he closed his arms around her.

  After a moment, Law tugged her hair and she swatted his shoulder, and the balance in the world returned.

  “So, what now, little brother?”

  “We get to work on you. Aside from housekeeping, you have some emotional cleanup to do.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “What, in your opinion, would this consist of?”

  “You need to straighten things out with Kye.”

  “Not your damn business.”

  “You made it my business when you slept with him.”

  She gasped and too late saw the trap. “Damn you. How did you guess?”

  “Let’s just say it seemed inevitable. I was never sure about the doc. But I knew how Kye felt. That’s why I sent him here.”

  “Now you’re lying. Kye told me he didn’t even know we were related until you called him.”

  “True. But he talked about you before that. A lot. While we were stationed together. Afghanistan was a place of interminable boredom interspersed with moments of high drama and/or terror. In between there was nothing else to do but argue, play sports, watch TV, and talk. Kye’s the talkiest guy I ever met.”

  Yardley nodded. “He talked about me? To you?”

  “Like you said. He didn’t know who we were to each other. He was just a lonely man in a dangerous place with the sense that maybe his life might not have a future. So he talked about the past. And this girl he’d met when he was first starting out as a dog man. At first he just talked about the woman who got away. Most men have that story. Finally, one time, he mentioned Harmonie Kennels and I knew it was you that got away.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything to him? To me?”

  He just stared at her.

  “Right.” She and Law shared a love of privacy that bordered on paranoia. “It wouldn’t have mattered. I know now he was married.”

  “There was that, too. I thought he was just trying to make sense of his life’s choices. Roads not traveled and all.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Jori. Finding her. Being with her. I finally saw a relationship from a woman’s point of view. She made me deal with my emotions. Love is not interchangeable. It’s not easy. And when it comes, it leaves its mark on a person. Sometimes you carry it to the grave. Some of the boneheaded things I said and did were because I wasn’t ready. Sometimes a man isn’t ready. Even when the right woman comes along.”

  This was all too much, coming from her brother. Deep thoughts on love and emotional trauma and love and genuine emotion and … love.

  She had to turn it off before she drowned. “Are you going to go all proselytizing reformed man on me? Because I don’t think I can stand this new Doctor-Phil Law.”

  “Don’t worry, Sis. I still prefer boobs and beer to Masterpiece Theatre. But what I’m trying to say is, Kye wasn’t ready back then. I can’t say that about you.”

  “I loved him. He broke my heart.”

  Law shrugged. “I heard about how Bronson threatened him. I think Kye didn’t have any options. Neither did we, back in those days.”

  Yard’s face screwed up. “I think he broke us, Law. Bronson broke us.”

  “He tried. But you did better than I did. You stood your ground and fought your way through. I never stopped moving long enough for anything to stick until something literally cut the legs out from under me.” He tapped his prosthesis. “I don’t want you to wait for your IED moment. You might not be as lucky as I was.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do? I can’t just walk away from this and go find my bliss.” She waved her arms around.

  “Why not?”

  “Because
there are people here depending on me. A dozen or more livelihoods are at stake if Harmonie Kennels closes.”

  He sat down and looked his her, his head cocked to one side. “Is that really all that keeps you here?”

  “Honestly? Yes.” She took a deep breath. “I’m tired, Law. I’ve given Harmonie Kennels all my adult life. I’m—” She wouldn’t say scared. “I’m missing my life.”

  He grinned. “Funny. I think I’ve just found mine. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  She folded her arms.

  “I’m out of a job. I’m looking for something permanent. Something with a solid future and a place to raise a family. Maybe. Sometime. If I can get a certain woman to think about it after we’ve been together a year. I figure that’s about how long it’ll take me to determine if I can be the decent sort of person I want to be for Jori. She needs an all-time man. What I’m saying is, I’d like to try my hand at running Harmonie Kennels. Of course, you’ll still be the owner.”

  Yardley opened her mouth and shut it three times before words would form. “We could split it fifty–fifty.”

  He wagged his head. “I lost my right to anything but a salary from this place.”

  “Fifty–fifty, dammit, or you can go find another job.”

  She came at him, right up into his face. “You think you can do the job but then stick me with one hundred percent of the headaches around here? Think again, little brother.”

  He gazed at her in wonder. “Are you sure about that? You’ll be fifty percent poorer?”

  “Only if you screw up.”

  With his head tilted to one side, he looked as puzzled as a K-9 given an unfamiliar command. “Honest to God, you’d do that for me? After everything?”

  “I’ll call my lawyer today.”

  “What will you do?”

  Her turn to shake her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to think about something else.”

  “You should stay in the K-9 business.”

  She gave him a sour face.

  “Not here. And not training. Take your skills on the road. There isn’t a business involving K-9s anywhere in the world that wouldn’t jump at the chance to hire Yardley Summers. You’ve spent your life preparing other K-9 teams for their jobs. Go out and practice what you’ve been preaching.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Start with a vacation. I hear Hawaii’s nice this time of year.”

  She gave him a half smile. “Don’t you dare make any calls. If I think you’ve so much as breathed in Kye’s direction, I’ll head for Russia instead.”

  He held her gaze with a slight smile. “Don’t be a hard-ass, Yard. Go get your man.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Kye pored over the spreadsheet on the monitor before him. It was April, tax time. “Bad news. We had our best year so far. Going to have to pay our taxes quarterly from now on.”

  “Ta. Cheery thought. The wankers!”

  Oliver hated taxes. He hated government and regulation and laws and anything else that interfered with “my God-given right to go to bloody hell any way I like.” He said it was every Aussie’s duty to hate regulation. But he did it in such a cheerful fashion, it never became an issue. They had a you-pay-while-I-play arrangement.

  Oliver was in Hawaii soaking up some rays while he and Kye planned the next business quarter. But mostly he was running through the local population of beautiful women. Right now he was slumped in a wicker chair on Kye’s parents’ patio, drinking his protein-shake breakfast at half past noon.

  “Up for some fun with the Sheilas? Met a couple, maybe it was three, in a bar last night. Said I’d catch them beachside. Too many for me. Come with?”

  Kye gave his partner a sour look. “Taxes?”

  Oliver grinned. “Do a sickie. Do you a world of good.”

  Kye didn’t doubt his friend was serious about the women waiting for him. Oliver was a ripped, six-foot-four of hard body with shoulder-length sun-streaked hair that was, at the moment, pulled back in a messy man-bun. The look wouldn’t have worked on a man an ounce less masculine. But the dude was blessed with Chris Hemsworth baby blues and a scruff of red-blond beard scrupulously maintained to keep his look this side of sexiest homeless man alive.

  Kye shook his head. Hawaiian women might never be the same.

  “Oh yeah. I forgot.”

  Kye looked up again over his computer. Oliver never forgot anything.

  “We’ve got a new recruit coming in today.” Oliver sat up. “Stateside female. Has some experience with dogs. Trainer.”

  Kye’s mouth thinned. “Do we need another trainer?”

  “A good one, yeah. You might like this one. I hear she’s got legs for days. And she’s a ginger.”

  “A redhead?”

  “I know you’re partial to gingers. Pick her up at the airport. Do you good to get your head out of the numbers.”

  “Pass. I’m off redheads.”

  “That’s your problem. You come off a bad experience, you need to replace it with good ones.”

  “It wasn’t a bad experience. It was a favor for a friend.”

  “That lost you the girl and got your nose flattened for the effort.”

  Kye reached up automatically to touch his healed nose.

  “Vain, that’s what you are. It healed so perfectly you can’t even show off your manly scars. Surgery for an owee. What’s this world coming to?”

  “I couldn’t breathe right.”

  “You lost the woman, mate. Time to find another. Your trouble is, you want the whole package. Now me, I’m a connoisseur. A pretty face. A gorgeous ass. A nice pair of tits. They don’t all have to come on the same chassis. I enjoy each wherever I find it.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. I get it. You’re a man whore.”

  “Jealous. That’s what you are. Go pick up the Sheila.”

  Kye sighed. He was enjoying having his partner in Honolulu for a few days. He just wished he hadn’t chosen tax week. Or his grandmother’s birthday week. “We’ve got a luau tonight that I have to help prepare for.”

  “Roasting a pig for your granny? Saw the beast go in the ground this morning. Admit it. You have no excuse.”

  Kye ignored him.

  “You’re ruining my holiday with all this business. Makes Oliver a sour boy. And no one likes a sour Oliver. Say, that would make a good name for a beach drink. The Sour Oliver.”

  Kye glared from beneath his brows. “Out. Now.”

  Oliver stood up. “No worries. See you at the luau. Unless the ginger develops a thing for me on the way in.”

  “If she does I won’t hire her.”

  “I’m a partner. I can hire her.”

  “We settled that four years ago. If you did the hiring our SAR teams would look like Miss World runner-ups with dogs as accessories.”

  Laughing good-naturedly, Oliver strolled out.

  Kye waited until he heard the front door close before he abandoned his computer and went to stand at the edge of the patio. Lily, who’d been dozing peacefully under the desk at his feet, stretched slowly then rose to follow him. She watched him for a moment then followed his gaze, though she didn’t understand his fascination with the view.

  The vista from this house was of the clear blue water and sandy shoreline of Pukoo Beach, breathtaking each and every time he came here. The human spirit couldn’t grow accustomed to so much beauty. That’s what kept visitors coming to these islands again and again, to make certain their senses had not overhyped their memories.

  His parents owned a home in Honolulu but kept this place on Molokai as a connection to their Hawaiian ancestors. It was where his father’s mother still lived. It was her birthday today and it would be celebrated on the beach with a traditional foods and music and dance.

  He’d wanted to bring Yardley here. Wanted her to see the place he called home, as precious to him as Harmonie Kennels was to her. Even if he only lived here part-time, it was the place he dreamed of when he closed h
is eyes. But this time, something was missing. He didn’t feel all here.

  Kye wiped both hands down his face. Oliver was right. He was mourning. Stupid. Useless. Waste of time. The fucking thing was, he’d known going in that she was in love with another man. Nothing had changed once she realized David Gunnar was alive.

  So why couldn’t he get his last image of Yardley out of his mind?

  She’d been bending over David, kissing him. He had been coming to tell her Oleg had been located and saved by the vet doctor. As he arrived at the door of that hospital room, David had pulled her across him into his bed.

  That sight was like a boot kick in the gut. He hadn’t been able to catch his breath. He hadn’t even bothered to try to gloss over the blow and knock at the door and pretend the sight wasn’t killing him. Instead he’d backpedaled out of there. But Yardley had seen him. She caught up with him in the unsterile noisy hospital corridor.

  He didn’t remember what they said. He knew he didn’t look her in the eye, afraid she’d see his pain. Or that he would completely lose his shit in front of her. It was a lose–lose proposition. He just remembered the need to get the hell out of Dodge.

  He found a bar and drank enough beer to make him sleepy.

  He hadn’t realized until he woke an hour later, with a sympathetic waitress shaking him, that it had been more than three days since he’d had more than a couple of hours of shut-eye. No wonder his emotions were surfacing through his laid-back pose. Because all he had wanted to do for the next month was break something. Hurt something. Destroy something the way the kiss had devastated him.

  Kye thumped a palm on the post holding up the lanai. Lily pushed in against him, a reminder that he wasn’t paying enough attention. He bent and picked her up, absently petting her as his thoughts continued in train.

  After the surgery to repair his broken nose, he’d taken the first SAR job that came up. Wildfires had broken out early in the Pacific Northwest. It was the kind of mission that required full attention all the time. Good for his mental health. While he and Lily worked, alerting residents of the need to evacuate and searching for those who hadn’t been heard from, he couldn’t think about anything or anyone else. He’d left there and gone to Central America. And from there to Chile. For three months he’d been a moving target for his emotions.