“Yes, and no,” he said. “His back end is hurt, but we’re moving because we have to. We both know that, so no discussion is required.”

  “I love that,” she said, “how that’s not an option in your world.”

  “It isn’t,” he said, “but it is a little harder to talk at the same time.’”

  “I’ll hang up.”

  “No,” he said, “it’s good to hear from you.”

  “Well, it’s good to hear from you too because I’m worried about you,” she said. “At the same time, I don’t know where to go and meet you.”

  “And I don’t want you going home if I’m not there,” he said. “Depends if they know who you are.”

  “No reason for them to,” she said.

  “Maybe, but you know they’re smarter than we like to give them credit for.”

  “They’re also assholes,” she said, “and believe me. As soon as I get home, I’ll be grabbing that rifle of mine.”

  “And keep it close,” he murmured. “Make sure you keep it close.”

  Putting his phone away, Caleb kept moving, feeling the miles eat away at his endurance. When he finally came to another creek, he immediately soaked his face deep in the water. The back of his head was in the water, as Beowulf moved into the creek beside him, lapping up and drinking to his heart content. “Not too much, boy. When we get moving again, it’ll be hard to run with full bellies.”

  The dog looked at him but continued to drink.

  Caleb knew how Beowulf felt. As Caleb oriented himself in his new location, he realized there was a good chance he’d already crossed the border. Moving out at a slower pace, he headed toward the closest highway.

  He used the GPS on his phone and sent several messages to Badger, looking for directions, depending on where he was going. When he heard a vehicle, he stopped, hiding himself and Beowulf for a moment, and headed in the direction of the vehicle. What he needed to do was find out where he was and ensure it was safe for her to come get him here.

  As they came upon one of the main highways, a gas station and a big pullout was up ahead. He moved cautiously forward, even as he dialed her. When there was no answer, he frowned, hung up, and then tried again.

  Almost immediately she answered this time.

  “There you are,” he said. “When you didn’t answer, I got worried.”

  “I’m here,” she said. “Where are you?”

  “There’s a gas station, but I’m not exactly sure what road I’m on,” he said. “I’ll talk to somebody to see where I am, but I have a general idea. I think I’m heading into town but about ten miles out.”

  “Could you have traveled that far?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’ve done at least twelve miles, if not fifteen. I don’t want to push the dog too much more.”

  “How is Beowulf?”

  “Hurt but game,” he said. “That’s all that I care about right now.”

  “Right,” she said. “Well, I can head in your direction, so at least I’ll be close enough whenever you can figure it out.”

  “I’ll see if Badger can track my phone,” he said. “Then I’ll give you better directions.”

  “No problem,” she said.

  When they hung up, he moved cautiously toward the gas station up ahead. It was a big one, and he looked down at the dog, already hesitant about going forward. He reached out and gently stroked the dog on the head. “It’ll be fine. Honest. We’ll make sure that you’re not in any trouble this time.”

  And it wasn’t the dog’s fault last time; Caleb still didn’t know what had happened. When he got to the side of the gas station, he picked a shady spot off one corner and sat down, his hands gently smoothing the dog’s head, trying to calm him down. He had his hackles up, as he stared at the people moving around him.

  “Not everybody is like that,” he murmured to the dog. The dog leaned against his hand, pushing his body weight against him. Emboldened by that, Caleb gently ran his hands over the dog, giving him orders to lift his paws, so that he could check them. Some of the pads were bleeding from the rough run. “You’ve been out of training, haven’t you?”

  The dog looked at him, then rubbed his head against Caleb’s chin. Taking just a few minutes to relax and to bond, he ran his hands over the dog, until he got to the dog’s back end, where the dog immediately growled.

  “I hear you,” he said, “but we’ll have to get that checked out.” He then ordered the dog to stand still, and the dog immediately complied, and he ran his hands gently over him to see what was going on. The leg wasn’t broken, but, if he wasn’t mistaken, it looked like a huge bullet burn ran along the dog’s back. It was deep and angry looking, if not infected. He sighed. “Did he already try to shoot you, buddy? That’s one asshole who needs some of his own medicine, if that’s how he thinks to treat a dog.”

  After checking all four feet, making sure there were no other injuries, Caleb came back to give that wound a closer look. It needed stitching, if it were even possible to stitch at this point. It looked like the bullet had torn some muscle and done a fair bit of damage. Caleb came back around, gently stroking the dog on the head and the nose. “It’s okay,” he said. “You will heal. You might not be as pretty as you were before, but it’s okay because you’ll make it now.”

  Beowulf leaned into him. There was no sign of a big aggressive dog at this point. But there shouldn’t be at any time with a military dog, unless he was on command for attack. In this case, the dog was just looking for a chance to get back to a normal life. To some human interaction. Whatever that would mean for him. He had to be shocked and scared by all that had changed.

  Now rested, Caleb assessed several other people coming in and out of the gas station. An older man walked a small dachshund over to the trees. Stashing the weapon in the bushes and keeping Beowulf close to his side, knowing he didn’t have a leash but holding him on orders to stay, Caleb approached the older man.

  The man looked at him in surprise and looked at the dog. “Wow, that’s a good-size animal,” he said. “Old pudgy here, he would not be anything but a tiny morsel for him.”

  “Well, the good news is,” Caleb said, “Beowulf doesn’t eat morsels like that.”

  The old man nodded, and a little bit of relief passed over his face. “I’m sure he needs to lift the leg just as much as mine does.”

  “That he does,” he said. “We’re a little bit lost too.”

  “Oh, well, you’re only about ten miles out of El Paso,” he said. “The city limits are probably only about eight miles from here.” He pointed at the highway. “Just drive on down there, and you can’t miss it, biggest damn city around,” he muttered. “My wife, she insisted on coming here and living close to her relatives, whereas I’d rather be a long way off,” he said, shaking his head.

  From the far corner, somebody, a woman, yelled, “Henry!”

  He rolled his eyes and said, “Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t be a long way away from her too.” But tugging his little dog, he moved in the direction of his wife.

  With that information, Caleb quickly sent a message to Laysha, telling her where he was. He barely sent off those text messages when Badger called him. “Are you at the gas station just outside El Paso?” he asked. “We’ve got your phone at that location.”

  “Yes, I’m sitting in the parking lot now,” he said. “I just sent Laysha a message to come my way.”

  “How’s the dog?”

  “He’s holding. Needs to see a vet. It looks like he’s been shot along the back, starting at his haunch. It’s a deep gouge, and it’s ugly. I don’t know if it’s too late for stitches or not,” he said, “but I’ll get him to a vet here pretty quick. Under the circumstances …” Caleb filled in Badger with the ugly details. “I’m pretty damn sure they murdered the guy and then fed him to the dogs.”

  “Oh, God,” Badger said. “I wonder how often that happens on that property.”

  “Probably often. The dogs are all so badly treated,” he said, “but not as bad as anybody who works for this asshole.”

  “So we’ll have to take a look at that too,” he said. “We can’t just rescue the one dog and leave the rest.”

  “I’m not sure if they’ll be salvageable or not,” he warned.

  “No, I hear you,” he said. “It’s one of the things that we’ll have to figure out. But I’ve got calls into the cops now,” he said. “I’ll follow-up right now with that information.”

  “Good enough.” As he hung up, Caleb heard a honk, and he looked over to see Laysha driving toward him in the rental. He lifted a hand, realizing he’d never seen anything quite so nice as the smile on her face when she caught sight of him.

  Life was damn good. He could only hope now that maybe there was some hope of a future for them both. Because he didn’t want to lose any of what he just now had finally gained. His brother be damned. Jackson could have Caleb’s ex-wife. Laysha was on Caleb’s horizon. And she was worth waiting for.

  Chapter 14

  Laysha drove straight toward him, overwhelmed to see him safe and sound. She studied the dog as she drove into the parking lot. He looked like he’d been through a rough couple months. But she also saw something so majestic within him that her heart broke when she thought about what he must have gone through at the hands of that asshole.

  She pulled in to the side and parked. She let the dogs out, hoping that was okay, managing to clip the leash on her three rather excited ones, whereas Graynor was always well behaved. Graynor walked up wearily to the side of Caleb, studying the other dog lying at Caleb’s side.

  Beowulf’s ears were up, and he studied Graynor with interest. Obviously recognizing a kindred soul of some kind. When Graynor arrived with the three yappy things, Beowulf seemed to accept that they were part of the pack. Graynor walked over, and the two big dogs sniffed. No animosity, no anger. As if one old soldier recognized a wounded one. Laysha walked over, and Caleb stood and opened his arms. She raced into them, and, when they closed around her, she whispered, “I was so scared for you.”

  “For me?” he said. “How do you think I felt, knowing some asshole followed you?”

  She smiled. “I got rid of him though,” she said, “but it took the cops and the other guys to do it.”

  “I’m just sorry it had to happen that way at all,” he said gruffly. “Not very good on my part.”

  “Why do you figure?” She looked up at him carefully. “You can’t protect everyone all the time.”

  He squeezed her and tugged her back into his arms. “Maybe not,” he said, “but I sure as hell don’t want to see you going through that again.”

  “Hey, I’m right with you there on that one,” she said. She stopped, crouched in front of the War Dog, and gently offered the back of her hand for the dog to staff. He sniffed, and his tail wagged ever-so-slightly. “How’s he been?”

  “Well, he’s sore. He’s tired. He needs a vet to make sure that that hindquarter will be okay. I think it’s infected. Maybe a bullet burned through the muscle,” he said. “I’ve checked it out as much as I can, but it needs a good wash. We might have to sedate him for that.”

  “Poor thing,” she murmured. “You sure it’s him?”

  “Yes, while I was sitting here, I sent images of the tattoos to Badger, and it’s Beowulf. The vet should check the microchip on him, but, as far as I’m concerned, this is Beowulf.”

  The dog lifted his head in their direction at his name.

  “Even his markings are fairly identifiable,” she said, studying the irregular brown-black pattern on his ears. “I feel so bad for him,” she murmured. “And for the other dogs.”

  “I know,” he said. He stared at Beowulf. “Do you have a vet?”

  She nodded. “And he does house calls.”

  Caleb frowned at that and said, “I don’t know if we can knock him out and do whatever is needed on a house call, can we?”

  “Let’s phone and ask,” she said. She pulled out her phone and phoned her favorite vet. When Sandy the receptionist answered, Laysha explained what the problem was.

  “As long as it’s not major surgery, then the vet can come fully equipped, yes,” she said, “but, if we’ve got to give him general anesthesia and knock him out, then we need to keep him here.”

  “Maybe it’d be better to run him down there right now,” she said, “if you guys have time to take a look at him.”

  “That would probably be best. Let me check the schedule.” She came back and said, “We can squeeze you in at the end of the day.”

  “Which is only what? Half an hour?” she said in a note of humor.

  “Make it an hour,” Sandy said.

  “Good enough,” she said, putting away her phone, as she relayed the message to Caleb.

  He nodded and said, “That’s not bad. We’re maybe twenty minutes from there anyway?”

  “Given the rush-hour traffic now, if we went straight there, we’d be lucky to make it,” she said with a wry twist. “El Paso is not exactly a small town anymore.”

  “Not sure it ever was,” he said. “Let’s head over and see if we can get all the dogs into the truck as it is.”

  She nodded. “You drive. I’ll take the three little ones upfront. Do you think Graynor and Beowulf would be all right to take over the back seat?”

  “I think so,” he said. “You put Graynor in first.”

  She walked around to the side and opened up the far passenger door, ordering Graynor up. The huge German wirehaired pointer hopped up lightly and settled on the cushion. She closed the door, loaded the three little ones into her front passenger area, two on their feet with Fancy in her arms, while Caleb slowly ordered Beowulf into the back. The dog had no trouble getting to the bottom footwell but struggled to get up on the seat. Gently giving him a hand, Caleb raised him onto the seat, lay the rifle on the floor and closed the door. He came around to the driver’s side, hopped in, and said, “Well, we got a houseful.”

  “A ready-made family,” she said lightly.

  “This kind I can handle,” he said with a grin.

  She smiled at that and settled in for the drive.

  She was right. The traffic was pretty rough. There was not only construction but also an accident. She wondered if she should phone and say they were coming, but she had been held up tending to the dogs, and then they pulled in just a minute late. As they slowly unpacked all the dogs, Laysha walked up to the front door, and Sandy saw her, now unlocking the door to bring her in.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t make it,” she said.

  “So were we. The construction, the traffic, and then an accident caused quite a snarl,” she said.

  The receptionist nodded. “It seems like there’s always something on the road these days.”

  “I know. I’m just grateful I wasn’t part of the accident,” she said.

  “It’s always that way, isn’t it? You get angry and frustrated at the beginning, and then immediately common sense kicks in and says, Hey, at least it wasn’t you out there.”

  “And then you wonder if one day it’ll be you,” she said. She held open the door as Beowulf walked in slowly, dragging that back leg a bit.

  Sandy looked at him and said, “Wow, he looks exhausted.”

  “He’s run over twelve miles with me today,” Caleb said.

  She looked at him sharply. “Why would you do that to an injured dog?”

  “To save the dog’s life,” he said briefly.

  Once again Laysha realized how little he expected or intended to explain himself. He did when he felt it was necessary, and, if she—or others—didn’t like it, that was just too bad. Laysha looked at Sandy, seeing the doubt on her face, and Laysha nodded. “Trust me. The dog was in a really ugly position. We were trying to save him before he was shot and fed to other dogs.”

  The shock on the woman’s face helped to diffuse her initial anger a little bit. She immediately headed to the back room to let the vet know. Charlie came out on her heels, smiling that big affable smile that Laysha had become so accustomed to. He looked at her and grinned. “Brought me another one, did you? Keeping this one too?”

  She chuckled. “Not sure I’m allowed to.” She stepped back, after introducing Charlie to Caleb.

  Caleb quickly explained about the War Dog.

  At that, the vet crouched in front of the dog with interest. “Haven’t seen one of these guys before,” he said. “I heard a couple of my cohorts have. How I always wanted to meet one too, though he looks like he’s been run through the mill and back.”

  “Exactly,” Caleb said, “we also had to do a twelve-mile run cross-country to get away from bullets.”

  “It’s never easy, is it?” he said. “Come on. Let’s get him into the back.”

  And, with that, Caleb and Beowulf disappeared with Charlie. Sandy looked over at Laysha. “Seriously that dog ran twelve miles?”

  “They’re both veterans,” she said with a sideways look at her. “Caleb has been medically discharged from the military. I believe that the twelve-mile run would have hit both of them pretty hard.”

  “Jeez,” she said. She walked around to the front desk. “I have no idea what something like this will cost,” she said apologetically, “and I’ve pretty well shut down the system for the day.”

  “Not a problem.” Then she added, “You know I’m good for it.”

  “You do take good care of all those other dogs,” she said, “and I can’t believe Graynor is still doing as well as he is.”

  “I hope I never lose him,” she said. “He’s very special to me.”

  “I hear you, but at that one point in time …”

  “I know. Everybody keeps saying that, but he keeps surprising me.”

  “He could go another couple years,” she said.

  “I hope so. He’s been a huge part of my life.”

  “I hear that,” she said. “We have so many dogs through here, and we’re having to put down so many lately. It’s very distressing.”

  “Do you give them to rescues?”

  “We try to find a rescue that can take them. Believe me. Nothing breaks my heart more than to put down a healthy dog. So we work hard to place them,” she said. “But sometimes there’s just nothing we can do.”