Excerpts

Julie Miller

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SPECIAL FORCES K-9

Protectors at K-9 Ranch #3

Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Enterprises

Excerpt

A former soldier and his dog are about to come to her rescue...

This was a bad idea.

“Mr. Hunter?”

Ben Hunter dragged his attention away from the indefinable noises that were reverberating inside his head and focused on the fiftyish woman who ran the dog-training business where he was interviewing for a job. If he thought about it, he could identify the noises—children playing, dogs barking, a man talking on the phone, someone rapping along with a song in the barn behind him. Not the footstep of an enemy sneaking up behind him, nor the babble of a foreign language threatening him with words he barely understood. Not the click of a land mine being triggered, nor the screaming agony of his teammates dying in a barrage of gunfire. Sometimes, too much of any kind of noise was a headache-inducing time bomb that could flash him back to the nightmare he could never truly wake up from.

He probably wasn’t making a good impression on his potential new boss with his distracted thoughts. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Could you say that again?”

Jessica Caldwell offered him a friendly smile as if this wasn’t the first time she’d had to repeat a question to a prospective employee. Or a man. Or a stitched-together soldier like him, trying to make a new life for himself now that the Army couldn’t use him. Not with his PTSD or his scars or… his missing hand. “I asked if you had any experience milking a goat.”

“Goats? Uh, yeah.” Ben shook his head and tried to smile. But friendly wasn’t a look he was much good at pulling off these days. “When I was a kid, we’d visit my aunt and uncle on their farm in the Ozarks, down near Carthage. We’d help with chores, including moving hay, feeding the animals, mucking stalls, driving the tractor and milking their cow and goat.” He instinctively looked down at the prosthesis sticking out from the end of his left sleeve. “I suppose I could still manage it with one hand.”

She crossed her arms over the insulated vest she wore on top of her flannel shirt and studied his labored attempts to engage in casual conversation. “Sounds like a fun experience for a kid growing up.”

“Yep.” Oh, so eloquent, Hunter, he silently chided himself.

The idea of getting a job where he had to interact with people like this nice lady was about as bad as breaching that rebel encampment in the middle of a Central American jungle when every instinct inside Ben’s head had told him he and his team were heading into a trap, that their intel was flawed, that their mission to rescue a kidnapped diplomat and his family was about to go sideways. Even his K-9 partner, Smitty, had barked furiously, warning them to stand down, that he sensed a danger they could not see.

But Ben had been a soldier who followed orders. When the captain had ordered his team to go in hot, they had. Then all hell broke loose, and Sergeant Ben Hunter’s life had changed forever.

Ben curled his right fist against his thigh, tapping it several times in an effort to slow his breathing and keep himself in the moment. To pay attention to what the woman walking beside him was saying. “We’ve recently expanded and are almost to capacity with our kennels and barn stalls,” Jessica Caldwell explained. “I have a teenager who comes in part-time to help. But my husband and I have recently adopted our two children, and motherhood happily demands more of my time. I’m looking for someone to live on the property and work full-time, to take over some of the appointments and duties I’ve done on my own for a few years now. I’m assuming the salary and furnished apartment I mentioned sound like fair compensation?”

Easing the grip of his fingers, Ben nodded his understanding, even though he hadn’t heard the first few words she’d said. Maybe it was the noisy dog in the last kennel at the end of the run, barking his fool head off, that was mentally sending him back to that botched mission. Smitty had raised a ruckus just like that on that fateful morning.

But there were no guns here, no enemy combatants. He wasn’t even in uniform anymore, save for the long camo Army jacket he wore to ward off the cool autumn breeze and to hide the prosthetic hand strapped onto his left elbow and shoulder. His jeans, work boots and beard that was neatly trimmed, but several inches past regulation length, should have helped him feel like a civilian. He was just a man looking for a job, walking through a neat, sophisticated setup of barn, kennels and out-buildings with a polite, but uncomfortably perceptive businesswoman who was interviewing him for a position at K-9 Ranch—a rescue and training center for dogs just outside of Kansas City, Missouri.

His counselor said he was ready for this. Sure, he could live on his Army pension. But he needed to find a reason to get up every morning—a purpose he could focus on that would distract him from the memories of his best friends and a call to duty that morphed into nightmares or angry outbursts of frustration. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt his psyche to get out of that plain, functional hotel room where he’d been living for the past year, and to breathe in fresh country air and enjoy the golds, reds and oranges of the changing deciduous trees and harvested fields of Jackson County.

This was a different kind of apprehensive feeling.

His brownish blond hair, still cut military short, stood at attention on the back of his neck. It was too noisy here. There was too much chaotic activity. He thought the rural setting would help him relax, that living outside the city limits would offer the peace his mind craved.

But there was no peace here.

Kids played in the back yard. Puppies trailed after a skinny Poodle mix who was heavy with milk. They yipped at the surly teenager who’d gone inside the barn to feed their mother. A big galoot of a black Lab insisted on pushing his cold nose into Ben’s good hand and making friends with him as they walked through the working part of the property. Plus, there was that dog down in the last kennel on the left barking loudly and viciously enough to alert the neighboring farms on either side of K-9 Ranch, if not the entire county.

Damn, if that didn’t sound like a warning. One he should acknowledge and react to. But this was a job interview, not a Delta Force mission. And that noisy, angry dog who needed to learn a few manners wasn’t Smitty.

Mrs. Caldwell must have read the tension in his posture, or maybe she heard his steadying huff of breath. “I don’t suppose you have any experience in dealing with devil dogs?” the older woman asked. Jessica Caldwell tossed her long blonde braid behind her back and shooed the friendly Lab out of the kennel area. “Toby.” She held up one finger and the dog automatically sat. This woman was a skilled trainer. No wonder her ranch was gaining a reputation as the place to adopt and train rescue dogs for a variety of skills—from a family pet to a detection dog for seizures and other chronic medical or psychological issues to a guard dog. “Find Nate. Go.” Obeying her hand signal and verbal command, the dog got up, gathered speed, and ran off to tackle the shaggy-haired boy playing in the back yard.

“Tobes!” the boy shouted.

Mrs. Caldwell shook her head as boy and dog wrestled in the dirt and grass together. “Toby is one of the smartest dogs I have. But he’s too friendly to be much of a guard dog.”

Ben nodded, understanding that she was trying to put him at ease. Part of this interview, he supposed, was seeing if he could interact with people as well as the nearly twenty dogs and three goats on the property. “Bet he’d protect your kids, though.”

Jessie smiled and waved to the little girl who seemed to be having a tea party with the Australian Shepherd that was stretched out on a blanket beside her. “He would. He has. Toby is devoted to my son, and the feeling is mutual. Abby Caldwell!” The woman chided, and the little girl with a matching blonde braid down her back whipped her face around to her adoptive mother. “Don’t feed Charlie any of those cookies! Dog treats only.”

“Yes, Mama.” The little girl popped the entire cookie into her mouth and pulled a more appropriate snack from her pocket to feed to the dog beside her.

Feeling uncomfortable with the sudden urge to grin at the sweet girl’s antics, Ben tugged on the sleeve of his desert camo jacket, making sure the titanium hook at the end of his arm was covered before he tucked his good hand into the front pocket of his jeans. He didn’t want to scare Mrs. Caldwell’s daughter if she happened to see his robotic-looking appendage. He’d been up front about his injury when he’d applied for the position, and had assured his potential new employer that he was otherwise a fit, healthy man, and that he’d been going through extensive physical and occupational therapy to adapt to the prosthetic device—from using the hook at the end like a set of pliers to grab things to maintaining the strength in his upper arm so that he could safely drive his truck, manhandle a dog, lift a hay bale, or manage the physical tasks necessary to train the dogs and handle their care.

Ben beat back another urge to smile that inevitably came when he thought of his time at veterans’ clinic where he’d come a long way from an angry, self-pitying man with a stump below his elbow to the functioning member of society he was now. At least he was able to take care of himself. With a slight modification to the steering wheel, he could drive his own truck, dress himself and even tie his own boots. He’d made some friends at the PT/OT center who seemed to understand the particular challenges of working with a veteran.

And then there was Sweetcheeks. Aka Maeve Phillips, the shy, sometimes skittish occupational therapist who rarely looked him in the eye when she spoke to him, but who’d filled more than a few of his daydreams with her curly dark hair, plump, naturally rosy cheeks and unique eyes. He had an ongoing silent research project to determine exactly what color her eyes were. Hazel was the generic term, he supposed. But he’d seen gold centers rimmed with a grayish green, green flecked with gold and silver specks, and a beautifully cool shade of smoky gray in her gaze, depending on the color of scrubs or sweater she wore.

It also depended on her mood. The cooler colors dominated when she was her usual, serene self. But when her temper flared—often at him because her soft words and shy looks and gentle touches seemed to get under his skin—he’d react to the discomfort with some crass, brash, belligerent comment to deflect his attraction to her and remind himself that she looked on him as a patient, not a man. Then the gold in her pretty eyes flashed a warning signal that he was being a dumbass, and that she rightly wasn’t going to put up with his attitude. He’d want to apologize or avoid her altogether so that he wouldn’t offend her with his surly attitude or worse, frighten her.

Ben’s smile faded, and he got back to the business at hand. He had no business thinking about Maeve or any other woman. Piecing his life back together after losing so much was a long, painful process. Getting involved with a woman was a long way down the recovery road—if building a relationship with someone should even be on his to-do list at all. Certainly not until he got his PTSD under control and found something meaningful to do with his life now that his career in special forces had been taken from him.

“You mentioned devil dogs? I assume you’re talking about the loudmouth at the end, and not a Marine?”

Mrs. Caldwell chuckled, although he hadn’t meant it as a joke. “That would be Rocky. He used to be a Marine, in fact. He’s a hard luck case who has only been here a couple of days. Sad story. His partner was killed in a training accident, and he didn’t take to being reassigned to another Marine very well. They can’t muster him out to a family because he’s… unpredictable. And I hate the idea of having to put him down after he’s already served his country.”

Yeah. That was the joke he’d told himself that first morning in the hospital, knowing his hand had been shot away and he was being medically discharged from the job he’d loved. The doctors should have just put him down. What else was he good for besides being a soldier?

The dog snarled, and he got a glimpse of a coal black snout pushing through the chain link gate at the front of his kennel.

Counseling was keeping Ben sane, and months of physical and occupational therapy were making him a human being again. But what did the military do for a dog who could no longer serve? A dog who wasn’t fit for civilian life any more than he was?

“Miss Jessie?” The teenager who’d trudged into the barn trudged back out. He wore a Kansas City Chiefs ball cap backward on top of his long, reddish-brown hair. He spoke a little loudly because he still had his ear buds in and had the music turned up loud enough for Ben to hear the thumping bass notes. “I got ‘em all fed. Except for him.” He pointed his thumb toward the black Shepherd. “Do I have to feed Killer?”

The moment the teen’s thumb got too close to the gate, Rocky lunged at him. The boy pulled his hand to his chest and jumped back.

“Stand down,” Ben snapped. He met the dog’s dark eyes before the ranch owner could intervene. He held his hand up in a fist the same way he would have ordered his platoon to halt.

Rocky sank back onto his haunches and sat, recognizing the command. Maybe responding to the camo uniform or the authority in his tone. Or maybe the muscular black Shepherd sensed a fellow veteran dealing with emotional issues and was smart enough to be cautious around him.

“Good boy.” Ben praised the dog and opened his hand, silently telling the dog he was off duty. The black dog walked forward on his paws and lay down. His red tongue lolled out of the side of his muzzle, and he panted heavily, as though relieved to understand he was off duty.

“Whoa, dude.” The teenager pulled the buds from his ears and gaped at Ben. “He’s never done that for me before. How’d you do that?”

“We’ll take care of feeding him, Soren.” The blonde woman put her hand on the sleeve of the teen’s denim jacket. “This is Ben Hunter. Soren Hauck. His family lives on the farm next to my place. He works a few afternoons a week and Saturday mornings for me. His grandfather used to work for me. But Hugo suffered a stroke and needs to take it easy for a while.” She gave the young man a sharp look, urging him to hold out his hand.

Ben extended his good hand to shake the boy’s. “Good to meet you.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Mrs. Caldwell chucked the teen lightly on the soldier, urging him to come up with a more polite response. “Ben is going to be your supervisor now that your grandfather is out of commission.”

“He is?”

“I am?” Ben answered at the same time, both of them looking at her in surprise.

But she was cool as a cucumber with that soft smile that reminded him too much of Maeve. “Grab my keys and go to the storage room. A delivery of new supplies came this morning. I need you to open the boxes and put everything away on the shelves.”

“Yes, ma’am.” When the boy gaped at the hook on Ben’s left arm, Ben pulled it farther into the sleeve of his jacket. But then the teen was pulling out his cellphone and jogging back to the barn, probably texting his buddies about the gimp he’d just met. Or maybe he was pulling his music back up and tuning out the adults.

“You’re hiring me?” Ben didn’t know whether to be put off by her presumptuous statement or relieved that somebody wanted him for a job. “I’d have to work with the kid?”

She laughed, nodding toward the barn where Soren had gone. “Typical moody teenager. Doesn’t always make the best choices, but I think he’s a good kid at heart. His grandfather had taken him under wing. I think he misses his guidance.”

“Look, ma’am, dogs I can handle.” He had to be honest with her. “But I’m not great with people.”

“We don’t get crowds here,” she assured him. “And you just impressed Soren, which is hard to do. We get some veterans and former police officers here, looking for dogs. I bet you could get along with them, that you’d speak the same language.”

He nodded. “Probably.”

She glanced back at the man in a sheriff’s department uniform standing at the railing on the back deck, talking on his cell phone, and gave him a thumbs-up. Without interrupting his phone call, the man responded with an answering thumbs-up and smiled.

Ben had been briefly introduced to Jessica Caldwell’s husband, Garrett, when he’d first arrived for this afternoon’s interview. Now the man was keeping an eye on the children, and Ben and his wife, while she walked him around the property. Ben approved of that kind of vigilance. Not that he was any kind of threat to the Caldwell family or their animals. But the Army had trained him to be a threat to the enemy, to have his teammates’ backs, and to be alert to any potential threat that might come at them. Deputy Garrett Caldwell didn’t make him feel ill at ease. Quite the opposite. It felt good—normal—to have another warrior on the premises since Ben had neither his teammates, a weapon nor his service dog to rely on for protection anymore.

But Jessica Caldwell wasn’t asking for her husband’s permission with her hiring decision. “Look, as far as I’m concerned, you just worked a miracle getting Rocky to mind you.” She pointed to the athletically built black Shepherd, and he growled in response. Ben snapped his fingers and pointed to the dog, who instantly fell silent and tilted his nearly black eyes up to Ben. Mrs. Caldwell was smiling when Ben faced her again. “One of your jobs will be to train Rocky so we can hopefully get him well-behaved and predictable enough that it’ll be safe to adopt him out.”

“He lost his partner?” Ben asked, trying not to think of dragging Smitty’s broken body back to the evac chopper that had rescued the survivors that day in the jungle.

“Yes.” She shrugged. “I’m sure he’s grieving and lost without the job and surroundings he’s familiar with. But he’s a weaponized dog, Ben. He’s too dangerous to be uncontrollable. K-9 Ranch is his last stop before it’s determined he can’t be rehabilitated, and he has to be put down.”

“You’re not putting him down!” Ben growled, perhaps a little too harshly for a man looking for a job here. Apparently, Rocky was as much of a head case as he was. But if Sergeant Ben Hunter could acclimate to civilian life, then he’d bet money that, with the right support and emotional healing, Rocky could find a new, meaningful role to play outside of Army life, too. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’d like him to have a decent chance at a normal life.”

“He won’t be put down,” Mrs. Caldwell reassured him, her voice calm. “Not if you do as good a job training him as I think you can.”

“You’ve got that much faith in me?”

“I have good instincts about dogs.” He could see the woman believed what she was saying, and he had to respect that. “I’m pretty good at matching the right dog to the person he or she needs. I think you and Rocky speak the same language. I don’t trust him around my children yet. Clearly, Soren’s afraid of him. And he and my Anatolian got into it the first day he was here, trying to decide who was top dog on my ranch.”

“Your dog okay?” he asked, hoping Rocky hadn’t seriously injured the big dog.

Her smile widened. “Rex isn’t a very social dog. But he guards this place like the champion he is. He made it clear to Mr. Grumpy Butt there that he was the big boss.”

Ben’s beard almost shifted with a smile. “Rocky needs boundaries. He needs a mission. Once he understands who the enemy is, who’s an ally, and what his purpose is, he’ll mind his manners.”

“Unfortunately, he seems to see enemies everywhere.”

Didn’t that sound familiar? Hell, he and that dog had too much in common.

“Until me.”

“Until you.” She extended her hand. “Want the job?”

Saving Rocky? Training dogs? Doing a little ranch work? Was that enough reason for him to get up in the morning? He reached out his hand to shake hers. “Yes.”

She held his hand a moment longer, challenging him to be sure about his decision. “I haven’t even shown you the apartment above the barn yet.”

“I don’t need much, and I travel light,” he assured her. “You said the bed is new and the appliances all work?”

“It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a new addition we had built over the barn these past few months, so yes, everything’s new.”

Ben nodded, then looked back at the black Shepherd who was still watching him through the gate, as if waiting for his next command. “Then I’m your man.”

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