by Meryl Sawyer
“I should call Holly’s mother—”
“Don’t contact anyone until the SEALs are out of here. Technically, they’re not supposed to be involved in civilian operations. That chopper was flying low, looking for us. Sheriff Prichett must have had second thoughts and is hedging his bets. We don’t want him to spot the SEALs.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a Navy helicopter? They’re always out on maneuvers up and down the keys.”
“Trust me. Military choppers make a different sound.”
Strangely, she did trust him. No matter that he had let her down in the past. Kyle was a highly trained professional now. What was she? A nitwit who’d shot her own dog.
“You don’t want to deal with the sheriff right now,” he said, his tone surprisingly gentle.
“You’re right. I need to return Holly to her mother and take Sadie to a vet.”
“To her mother and father,” Kyle corrected her.
“Where’s Mommy?” Holly asked.
The little girl was just beyond the rim of light cast by the flashlight, but Jennifer could see enough of her face to realize the novelty of the situation had worn off. The child was tired and hungry and she wanted her mother.
“We’re taking you right to your mommy,” she promised. “Then we’re going to get Sadie to a veterinarian. Do you know what a veterinarian is?”
She distracted Holly by encouraging the child to tell them all about her dog, Redd, and the time they took him to the vet for his shots. For a moment, Kyle watched in silence, his expression impossible to decipher. No doubt he thought she was an idiot for shooting Sadie, but nothing he said or thought could make her feel any worse than she already did.
Kyle stood up and unzipped the Kevlar jumpsuit. Under it, he was all taut skin and firm muscle. He’d taken off the T-shirt he’d had on this morning. His low-riding cut-off jeans were soaked the way hers were.
He spread out the jumpsuit on the ground, then went to lift Sadie.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“The Thermalscan should stabilize her body temperature and help with shock.”
He gently picked up the dog and put her in the center of the suit. There was something tender in the way he secured the jumpsuit around Sadie, leaving just a small opening for her nose.
“Great idea,” she said, unzipping her jumpsuit. “Holly’s going to be eaten alive by bugs and mosquitoes. I’m putting her in my jumpsuit.” She turned to the little girl whose pink romper was caked with mud and ripped in places. “Come on, sweetie, let’s get you into this.”
Kyle watched her change Holly, a strange expression on his face. She wondered if he suspected how important rescuing this child was to her. She knew she’d let her emotions show more than she should have. Sometimes she couldn’t quite keep the past where it belonged.
Cocking his head, he told her, “Here comes the chopper.”
She didn’t hear a thing, but trusted him enough to tell Holly, “Hands on our ears. Here comes a really big bird out of the sky.”
Holly giggled and did what Jennifer did. Within seconds of putting her hands on her ears, Jennifer heard the low drone of a helicopter. Kyle was right. This engine had a deeper sound, and even without seeing it, she could tell it was larger than the other helicopter.
Kyle waded out toward the middle of the channel, but it was too dark to see if the alligator was still floating there. He stopped in water up to his chest and waited. The chopper was closer now, the sound nearly deafening. She saw the little girl’s mouth had dropped open, so she put her arm around her.
“Isn’t this fun?” Jennifer asked, but Holly sat there, wide-eyed.
Evidently, the instruments on the helicopter had picked up the Brietling’s signal. The chopper hovered above the trees arching over the channel. The wind created by the huge rotor blades whipped the branches aside and gave them a good view.
She pointed to the big black underbelly, saying, “Holly, the big bird will drop a boat to us. We’ll take that boat to your mommy.”
The chopper’s door slid open and out flew something black and about the size of a small television. The second it was out the door, the chopper zoomed away. The package hit the channel with a splash a few feet from Kyle, who grabbed it, then headed toward shore.
“That’s the boat?” she cried.
“What don’t you understand about inflatable?”
For Holly’s sake, she kept her tone calm. “You blow it up. But it’ll take forever. We might as well walk out.”
“We don’t have a choice.” Kyle had reached the bank and was opening the package. “We could contact the sheriff, but I’m not sure how he’d find us.”
She knew this was their only choice, but it would take up precious time. Time Sadie didn’t have. A suffocating sensation tightened her throat as she gazed at Sadie’s nose peeking out of the jumpsuit.
“Are you going to watch, or are you going to help?” Kyle asked.
“Holly, you keep your eye on the doggie. If she moves, call me. Okay?”
She hurried to where Kyle had spread out the inflatable. It had been packed so that it was folded around a motor and collapsible oars. He set the motor and oars aside.
“Start blowing,” he told her, pointing to a nozzle on one side of the small rubber boat.
She blew and blew and blew until her lungs burned, then caught fire. She stopped to catch her breath. Her side was about one-third inflated. Kyle’s was fully inflated. She was thankful the flashlight was too far away to see his expression when he walked to her side. Without commenting, he bent down and blew hard to inflate her side of the boat.
His powerful torso expanded as he drew a deep, deep breath, then blew hard. Even in the dim light, she could see moisture pebbled across the back of his shoulders and running down his spine. Wet, dark hair clung to his temples in clumps.
The high-tech Thermalscan had kept her amazingly cool. Despite night having fallen, this was the subtropics. The air around them was like a hot, wet blanket. In seconds, perspiration gushed from every inch of her body, running into her eyes and bringing with it the sting of the salt on her skin and blurring her vision.
He knew exactly what he was doing, moving around the inflatable, snapping the oars together, and preparing the boat without using a flashlight. She imagined him halfway around the world on some hostile shore doing the same thing in pitch dark.
“Thanks for blowing up my side,” she said when he turned and caught her watching him.
“I’ll put on the engine. You get Holly.”
He lifted the engine onto the back of the rubber boat, and she called to Holly, “Come here. We’re ready to take you to your mommy.”
Holly toddled across the few feet to where she was standing at the water’s edge. “The doggie dinna wake up.”
Jennifer prayed Sadie was still alive. She lifted Holly into her arms, then waded out the short distance to where Kyle had the boat ready to go, its motor idling.
“Put her up front and get her in a life jacket. You put on one, too.”
As quickly as she could, she did what she’d been told. Before she could put on her own life jacket, Kyle carried Sadie up to the boat and placed her on the floor at the back.
“Is Sadie still breathing?” she asked.
“Yes.” Kyle swung one long leg over the side into the boat, then the other. He reached back and put the motor into gear.
“How do you know where you’re going without the computer?”
“It’s in my head.” One hand on the tiller, he pulled a pair of what she assumed were the latest in night-vision goggles out of a pouch. They looked like ordinary wraparound sunglasses. “We’re going to circle this key, then motor up to the campground. I’ll leave you off at the back. You take Holly to her mother while I take Sadie to Paws N Claws.”
“I’m staying with Sadie.” She put her hand down and touched the dog’s nose. It was alarmingly warm. “You take Holly.”
“You want to carry Sadie
the four blocks from the water to the vet’s?”
She’d only been to the veterinary hospital once to check in with them just in case she needed a vet. Jennifer had come by car and didn’t realize it was so far from where this boat would dock.
“You’re right. I could barely carry her to the channel,” she reluctantly conceded. “I’ll get Holly to her parents, then meet you at the vet’s.”
They glided through the dark water in silence. Little Holly fell asleep, lulled by the gentle rocking of the boat, her head in Kyle’s lap. Jennifer sat on the floor in the back and kept her hand on Sadie’s chest. The dog was still breathing, but her breath was much shallower now, her lungs barely functioning.
“Come on, girl, be strong,” she whispered. “Don’t give up.”
In her mind, Jennifer went over the countless searches, some of them real, some training exercises. Once the choke chain was on—her signal to search—Sadie would pull so hard, Jennifer’s arm would have popped out of the socket if she hadn’t restrained her with a leash.
Oh, how Sadie loved to search. Even better, she lived to find her quarry and reward herself with a round of lusty baying worthy of a pack of bloodhounds, not just one. Sadie was a strong, proud dog who loved her work.
Please, please, don’t let her die. She could help so many people the way she had helped Holly Block.
“Don’t let me be responsible for killing my best friend,” she whispered to herself.
She tried to imagine life without Sadie. And couldn’t.
Jennifer had picked Sadie out of her stepfather’s last litter. Her stepfather, Hiram Whitmore, had been on his deathbed with lung cancer, and Jennifer had come home to take care of him. Low on money, she’d been forced to sell the other puppies as well as the bitch.
She’d kept Sadie and trained her during those final months of her stepfather’s life. They’d been close, and Hiram had given her a home and kept her even after the woman he loved killed herself over another man. While Jennifer struggled to keep up a dying man’s spirits, Sadie buoyed hers.
Sadie had been incredibly smart and easy to train. Even her stepfather, who’d raised dozens of bloodhounds during his lifetime, claimed he’d never seen one with a better nose than Sadie’s.
“I could buy another dog,” she whispered to Sadie, “but it would never be the same without you.”
Lights and the sound of voices brought her head up. Somehow Kyle had found his way through the group of keys too small to have a name and was pulling close to the back of the Big Pine Campground where Holly’s mother was waiting. And father, she corrected herself. This time there was a father involved.
He lifted the motor out of the water so it wouldn’t bang into a rock and be damaged; then he used the oars to paddle to shore.
No one was nearby to help them. Kyle jumped out and beached the boat in the soft sand. Holly was awake, but disoriented, yawning and rubbing her eyes, the Kevlar jumpsuit wrapped around her like a blanket. Kyle lifted her out and set her on the shore.
Jennifer bent down to Sadie and lifted one long, soft ear. “Listen to me. If something happens and you don’t make it, please know how much I love you. You’re my best friend, you know.
“If God calls you, wait for me on the Rainbow Bridge. Someday, he’ll send for me, too, and I’ll meet you on the bridge. You can bay for all you’re worth when you see me. We’ll both be so happy to be together again.”
Kyle touched her back, a gentle brush of his fingertips. “The sooner I get her to the vet’s …”
“I know.” She hopped out of the boat. “Take good care of Sadie. She’s all I have.”
He cupped her chin with his big hand. “Don’t blame yourself.”
But she did blame herself. She hated herself so much she could hardly listen to Kyle’s instructions.
And his stern warning.
She nodded when he finished telling her what to do, then took one final look at the dog she loved. “God bless you and keep you, Sadie.”
Chapter 12
Kyle didn’t waste a second watching Jennifer carry Holly off the beach. He shoved the boat back into the water, and jumped in and quickly shoved off. He gunned the engine, and the boat shot across the sea.
He hadn’t dared go this fast with Holly and Jennifer aboard. The SEAL boat was combat-ready, which meant it was fast as hell, but it had no running lights. Why announce to the enemy you’re coming?
Such precautions were essential to the undercover SEAL operations, allowing them to slip onto shore undetected for missions like Desert Storm. But these weren’t foreign waters. This was Key West, where he ran a damn good chance of being struck by another boater who didn’t see him because the inflatable didn’t have running lights. The moon, half hidden by brushstroke clouds, harrowed the water with threads of light, but it wasn’t enough to see properly.
“We’ll take our chances, okay, Sadie?”
He reached back. She was still breathing, but she was in bad shape. He pulled his cell phone off his belt and contacted Paws N Claws. They were closed, but the service said the on-call vet lived two blocks away, and she would make sure someone met them at the clinic.
“Tell the vet a very special Search and Rescue bloodhound is being brought in badly wounded. I think the dog will need a transfusion. Understand?”
As near as Kyle could tell, the bullet had passed through the loose flesh hanging from Sadie’s neck, but the loss of blood indicated the bullet had struck a vein. He pressed the End button and almost replaced the phone in its pouch. He decided to call the SEAL command center and tell them where to pick up the boat, then he put the phone away.
Ahead, he saw the lights of Stock Island and beyond it, Key West. “We’re not far now,” he told Sadie.
She was deathly still, and he touched her side again. Nothing. Finally, she inhaled and her chest rose a fraction of an inch.
“Don’t die on me.”
He honestly didn’t know what he would say to Jennifer if Sadie didn’t make it. In all his life, he’d never seen anyone so upset as she’d been when she’d accidentally shot her own dog. He was dead certain he could have taken out the ’gator with a single shot, but he’d been trapped on shore struggling with Holly.
It had taken the entire round of ammo to get the alligator, but Jennifer had managed. In a way, she’d performed better than he had under similar circumstances. His gut cramped again just thinking about the way he’d waffled like some green recruit when he’d been forced to fire at the coral snake dangling inches from Jennifer.
Years of training had thrown him into what SEALs called “the zone,” that state of mind where you don’t think. Instead, you react the way you were trained. He’d blown off the snake’s head with a single bullet. But not without the agonizing realization he might kill the one person he … He what? Swear to God, he was afraid to think the word.
He couldn’t possibly love her, could he?
They’d only recently met again after so many years. He didn’t know the “new” Jennifer well enough to have such strong feelings. It wasn’t love. Hell, no. He wanted to save her from the likes of Chad Roberts. That skank was just using Jennifer.
He wanted to help her for old time’s sake. That’s all.
He forced her from his mind, and inspected the shoreline ahead. Even in the dark, he homed in on Higg’s Beach, the sandy shore where he would land the rubber boat. He motored in at full speed, then killed the engine before the prop ground into the soft sand. The beach, crowded by day, was deserted and lonely when he jumped into the surf and towed the boat to shore.
“Sadie, girl,” he whispered as he leaned into the boat and picked up the dog. “We’re here.”
Her long ears fell forward, shielding her muzzle. Her long tongue fell out from between slack jaws. Lifting her, Kyle decided Sadie seemed almost boneless and heavier than usual. A dead weight.
The nearby streetlight shone down on glistening fur the color of rich chestnut. Healthy fur. But she wasn’t healthy.
Blood had soaked through the bandage and stained the Kevlar wrapped around her.
“You didn’t know what hit you, did you?” he said.
At first, he’d thought Sadie was a goofy dog—all long droopy ears and loose, wrinkled skin. He’d been touched, though, when she’d taken to following him around. On some level her death would be a personal loss, he realized with a start. During his youth, he’d wanted a dog, but his father wouldn’t allow it. “We move too much,” he’d told Kyle over and over.
Later, when Kyle had been sent to a foster home, life became a struggle to survive. A pet, even a pet rock, would have been abused by his foster parents.
He envied Jennifer’s special bond with Sadie. It had been years since he’d felt close to anyone.
He hurried up the beach, the dog in his arms. The wind was blowing his way, from the west, bringing with it sounds of Duval Street. The heart of Key West’s tourist area was blasting music to the heavens. He was blocks away from Duval, but a mélange of music—reggae, hard rock, rap, blues—drifted on the breeze along with the loamy scent of a balmy tropical night.
He raced down the street, turned right, then left, ignoring the people staring at him as he ran by them carrying a dog wrapped in Kevlar. Ahead, he saw the lights were on in Paws N Claws. He ran up and kicked at the door with his foot, and a woman greeted him.
“I’m Dr. Onzo—”
“Am I too late?” He showed her Sadie’s limp body.
Trying not to worry about Kyle getting Sadie to the vet in time to save her, Jennifer carried Holly toward the campground lights and the gathering of people. “Your mommy is right over there.”
“Obba there?” Sleep slurred the little girl’s voice.
Jennifer nodded, listening to a man she couldn’t see for the crowd. Sheriff Prichett. Evidently, he was addressing the media.
“We found the car the witness described. There wuz a little girl in it.” The beefy sheriff paused dramatically. “But she belonged to that family. They’d let her off at the side of the road for a … a comfort stop. The witness musta seen her getting back into the car and mistakenly thought the child was being kidnapped.”